Prisoners of the script

I loved Amelia the moment I met her…

She is a beautiful young woman who was recently promoted to regional manager over a large territory with many people and tremendous responsibility. She is warm, genuine and effervescent in her one-on-one conversations and very well loved within the organization.

Amelia came to the Transformative Presentation Skills workshop because she wanted to learn how to communicate effectively to larger groups now that she has to address a bigger audience.

Her presentation slides were artistically well designed. Her presentation had an excellent key message and was very well organized, systematic and logical.

It was also very corporate, especially in how she delivered it.  Amelia came across scripted, professional and well-rehearsed, but drained of personality. I observed the audience. They were polite but disengaged.

To handle how nervous she was talking in front of people, Amelia had rehearsed and rehearsed before the workshop so her mind would not go blank when she stood in front of them.

Her slides provided her with a script she felt she couldn’t deviate from. Her slides, even though a beautiful work of art, along with her script and over-rehearsing, were totally getting in her way.

I coached her on being in the moment and letting go of her script. At first she was petrified. She was terrified of being up there and not knowing what to say.

In reality, if you want to be really good, “in the moment” is the ONLY way to be. When you are in the moment, you don’t know what you’re going to say next.  You’re not supposed to.  You’re in THIS moment, not the next one. 

To focus on what you’re saying NOW, you must be willing to not know what you’re going to say next.  You have to trust it will come to you.  And, if you are fully connected with the audience, it will.

It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about financial numbers, an engineering design, a quarterly update or giving a sales presentation. If you want to be considered a great presenter, you have to create an emotional impact on the audience. The more powerful your emotional impact, the more effective you will be.

The truth is, you can’t do that with a script.  It has to come straight out of you and be inspired directly from the connection you are making with the audience in that exact moment in time.

You simply cannot plan it.  Or rehearse it.

As you create an emotional impact, the audience will change in front of you and you need to be sufficiently in the moment to respond to that change and then take them even higher.

I helped Amelia to be free of tension and anxiety so she would feel comfortable letting go of her script. Then she was able to fully face the audience, connect with each of them and observe them individually as she spoke.

She wasn’t thinking about the past, she wasn’t thinking about the future, she wasn’t even thinking about where she was going. She was simply 100% in the moment, fully with the people in front of her, creating the message as if it was the very first time and crafting it brilliantly. The audience was moved to tears as I saw many of them dabbing at their eyes.

Amelia revealed the brilliance hiding within her by letting go of the script.

Once you are able to do that for yourself, you’ll discover just how much the world is waiting to hear what you have to share…

Be the cause!

Ingrid

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ALL thinking kills your executive presence

Ethan is 28 years old and works with billionaires.

He presents to SVP’s of Fortune 500 organizations and helps broker deals worth millions and even billions of dollars. Last week I spent a couple of days coaching him on his executive presence.

One of Ethan’s biggest problems was non-stop thinking.

Most people believe that thinking is good.

People in large corporations do way too much of it.  

During coaching they often tell me, “I know I’m overthinking this.”

I find that ALL thinking is overthinking.

Power is in observing, knowing, deciding and acting.

These happen fast.

And then you start to think about them.  Not only does that slow everything down, it completely obstructs your ability to be causative.

Ethan was so “in his head”, that as you were talking, he was simultaneously busily churning over what you were saying in his mind.  It gave him a terribly worried look.

And as he was talking, he was carefully considering every point he was making. That made eye contact difficult.  It made him look unsure of what he was saying.  It killed his ability to communicate with real intention.

Because of his job, everything Ethan does is high stakes. This gave him a constant sense of anxiety. This made him think more and more.

He was afraid to stop thinking and to just LOOK.  He was afraid it would make him stupid. Words would fail him, he wouldn’t know how to respond, he would look inexperienced.

He was afraid to just KNOW. He invalidated his ability to know because of his age.  Actually, people that age often know more truth than people twice their age.  They haven’t yet been taught how to compromise on what they see in front of them, to distort their vision to what others say they should see, or to lie to themselves.

He was also afraid to DECIDE.  The word decision comes from the Latin de which means off and caedere which means to cut.  When you decide, you cut off every other option, only one way forward. 

And he was terrified to ACT.

He replaced all these with thinking.  But the only thing that thinking accomplished was to take him around in circles.  Into more thinking.

At the beginning of Causative Communication you do two exercises designed to get you out of your head. These very unique exercises get you to operate completely in the moment and to LOOK, to aim all your attention outward, to keenly observe the person in front of you, to SEE.

The noise in your head is gone.  You are comfortable and full of well-being. Time seems to slow down.  You are in control.

This is the very foundation of presence. And superior communication.  

It’s also vital for forming a full connection with another person. You’ll never do it in your head.

Ethan developed a powerful presence. His age no longer mattered. He forgot about it and you forget about it too.

He also developed the ability to fully connect while he is talking with someone, anyone.  This is the foundation of a powerful relationship.

This is what Ethan told me after he took his new skills for a test drive in the real world:

My experience of people is so much better. It’s a complete shift in how I am.  It’s not only working in my negotiations, it snowballs into more and more parts of your life.

If you’re communicating effectively this is what it looks like.  If you want gravitas, this is what it looks like. I will never, ever forget what I look like in those two videos [his “before” and “after” videos], the one where I was thinking and the other where I was being, looking and connecting.”

This is presence.

This is one of many things we teach.  We taught Ethan and we can teach you.

The same applies when you are talking to a group or giving a presentation.  This is where thinking and being in your head can easily go into hyper drive and destroy your impact. 

In our Transformative Presentation Skills you learn how to stop all that and fully be in the moment. 

You gain a presence so strong, so true, so compelling, that your audience is forever changed by the connection they feel to the REAL YOU.

Give it a try yourself. The ability to do it is native within you. It’s one of your greatest abilities.  You develop it by using it.  Feel free to let me know what happens.  And let me know if you’d like any help with it.

Be the cause!

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The dark secret about why audiences multitask

The only reason audiences multitask during presentations is because the presenter is not good enough to captive and keep their attention.

No one likes to hear this, especially presenters!

People like to think there’s something wrong with the audience. They blame it on bad manners. They blame it on shrinking attention spans. They blame it on corporate culture. They blame it on how busy people are that they need to do multiple things at one time.

In other words, they blame it on the audience.

This line of reasoning might hold water except for the preponderance of proof showing it’s wrong. The fact is, there are presenters in this world who are good enough to make it impossible for an audience to multitask. 

It’s never the audience.  It’s always the presenter.

One time I was asked to give a one-hour presentation at a brown bag lunch in a major Silicon Valley corporation.  150 people came, 150 laptops were opened along with lunches.  When I started to speak, no more than five people were making eye contact with me. The others were somewhat listening along, doing email and munching.

I didn’t view it as their problem.  I viewed it as a test of my skill. 

Within 10 minutes, without my ever saying anything about it, 149 laptops were closed.

I really connected with the audience.  One person at a time.

I made a very strong visual connection with them.  It was all about presence. And I delivered what I was saying with very strong intention. Not passion or effort…INTENTION.  I made it look effortless.

I didn’t wait for them to connect with me.  That’s not their job. It’s mine.

There was one guy in the back who didn’t stop multitasking.  A couple minutes into my presentation he looked up and gave me a very dirty look, like he was seriously annoyed with me.  A couple minutes later, another dirty look.  Then a couple more. 

Finally, he looked at me with complete irritation, stood up, picked up his computer and left the room.

After the presentation I found him working outside the conference room. Curious about what was so upsetting that it made him leave, I went over to him and said, “I’m sorry you didn’t like the presentation. It looked like what I was saying was really not to your liking, I apologize.”

He said, “That’s not what happened, it’s actually the opposite. I’m on a deadline to get this report out right now. I was hoping I could work on it and listen to you at the same time. But it was impossible to work on the report, I kept finding myself pulled into what you were saying. The only way I could concentrate on the report was to leave the room. So I was pissed off that I couldn’t stay and hear you.”

This isn’t some gift I was born with. It’s a skill. What’s great about that is it means it’s something you can master.

I hear from my students all the time that they used to have audiences that multitask and now their audiences are completely engaged.

This is one example of many from one of my students:

“The entire room was in complete silence and so engaged during the entire hour that you could practically feel the energy from their eyes and minds. If you have ever sat in a meeting with the senior leadership team, you know how unusual that is. Normally it is a multi-tasking fest!”

The longer you think it’s something about the audience that makes them multitask, the farther away you are from this skill. The sooner you decide to be a presenter who makes it impossible for your audience to multitask, the closer you are to mastering this ability and making it happen.

There’s little more gratifying than having an audience on the edge of their seats, utterly captivated. Can you handle that kind of power?

Come and discover how to do this at an upcoming Transforming Your Presentation Skills

I guarantee you won’t be multi-tasking while you’re there!

Be the cause!

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The person one wants to be

When someone asks me to critique their presentation, I spend much of my time watching the audience as I listen to them present.  I can evaluate an entire presentation simply observing the audience.  The faces in the audience, especially their eyes, as they listen, tell the truth. I can see exactly what they’re thinking.

What is supposed to happen when you’re talking to a group is there should be a mutual interchange of energy and understanding.  

What I mean is that you’re supposed to feel something powerful coming BACK to you, and this energy from the audience should be changing and evolving as you speak.

You should FEEL it. Everyone can SEE it.

If you don’t feel something coming back to you from the audience as you’re speaking, if you don’t feel them changing, they're not fully engaged.  If you can’t tell if they’re engaged or not, they are not, because an engaged audience is impossible to miss.

This back-and-forth energy and understandings between you and the group creates great spontaneity. In you, in them.  

It goes beyond anything verbal. It supersedes logic. 

Their eyes are full of expression, they’re nodding, they’re laughing, they’re leaning forward. You can feel their collective energy flowing toward you.

When you react to that positive energy right in the moment, the audience makes you laugh, inspires you, they bring out the best in you. You find yourself saying brilliant things. You’re the person you’ve always wanted to be.

The skill that enables you to do this is your ability to connect with the audience in a way that taps into the core of you.

Your ability to connect is WAY more important than the content you’re presenting.

When you do make that connection at the core, how you will feel and the response you’ll get in return will astound you, regardless of your content.

I can’t express the joy I feel when I see my students achieve this breakthrough. I just received this email from one of my students who experienced it for the first time:

“I want to write to share that I attained a new career achievement today, thanks to the workshop I took with you. I just presented to executives at a major conference in Silicon Valley. It was a gathering of serious intellectual heavyweights, including technology fellows, international policy-makers, and thought leaders from Google and Accenture. 

"It is a little silly, but I feel like a rock star walking around the conference now with so many people approaching me to meet and to start conversations. I’ve already been asked to speak at 2 more events and I just got off the podium a couple of hours ago.

“This is the person I wanted to be when I signed up for your classes, and I am forever grateful to you.”

The person you want to be is within you, patiently waiting for the day you fully tap in.

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How to disagree

Many people in my workshops tell me they want to learn how to disagree. Especially with their boss, or other people that are higher up.

It’s easy.  

Just say, “I disagree.”

I’m obviously joking.  You can see learning how to disagree is not actually what they want.

What they want to learn is how to get the other person to agree with them. That’s a whole different thing.

Last week I had an extremely competent woman in my workshop.  No one does her type of work better than she does.  She was very soft-spoken and very respectful of others.  She avoided unpleasant situations and frequently held back saying which she was thinking.  In a group she was especially subdued.

She was at manager level, but despite many attempts, never moved higher in the organization. She had almost given up making it to Director.

Everyone loves her.  She was frustrated.

It was especially tough for her when she disagrees.

The difficulty most people have when they disagree, is maintaining a deep human connection and a feeling of rapport with the other person.

If you lose these 2 things in a disagreement, you’re going to fight (and lose) a battle.

These 2 are the foundation for every great conversation and every great outcome you’ll ever have.

The mistake people make is they start disagreeing when there’s no real connection between them and the other person. I see this all the time in my workshops.  They’re so focused on disagreeing, they’re not focused on staying connected.  Do that and you lose.  Period.

They think the problem is that they’re disagreeing. 

Not true.

The problem isn’t that you’re disagreeing. The problem is that you’ve lost that strong connection with the other person.  If you never had it to begin with, it’s even worse.

Without the connection, you have no power. 

I have been receiving a series of emails from this woman in my workshop saying that learning these skills has had a profound impact on her life. She’s speaking up. She disagreed with her boss and swung him to her point of view. She tells me how exhilarating it is to have these skills and how strong, how powerful she feels.  She is dancing through life.

I predict she will be a Director soon, and then not long after, she’ll be a VP.

Build that deep human connection.

Then talk about anything you want.

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Gravitas

Angela reports directly to the CEO of a large organization and has global responsibility for thousands of people. She interacts directly with the entire leadership team.  It's a high intensity position.  The leadership team is composed of strong, stubborn, driven personalities.

She came for 1-on-1 coaching. Her goal was to develop gravitas and increase her ability to persuade and influence at the leadership team level. 

Gravitas is often expected in a VP or Senior VP position.

The problem most people have developing gravitas is a confusion about what it is and no sense of how to get there.

In the dictionary gravitas is defined as a serious, solemn, dignified manner.  

Serious is defined as sincere and earnest, solemn, no laughing.  Solemn is defined as not cheerful or smiling.  Dignified is defined as elevated self-respect, a feeling of being worthy.

Dignity sounds great, but gravitas sounds rather stern and grim. This is going to be rather difficult for people to sustain.

What if it doesn't match their personality?  Which in Angela’s case it didn't.

In other words, there's a lot of confusion around this word, imprecise definitions, confusion about what it is.  

Having said that, I understand what she was looking for and how to get there. I’ve helped many people develop what others would call gravitas. 

There are 4 key elements

Note – you can’t fake any of these. They’re skills that you have to develop by doing the hard work it takes to make them real.

The first is being there comfortably.  Most people who come to my workshops or for coaching are agitated. They're a little bit stressed, a little bit anxious. This strips you of any dignity. It strips you of gravitas. You have to be in the moment, calm and comfortable. When you are, it makes you dignified, makes everyone around you relax, get calm and take you more seriously.  Anxiety is a dignity-killer. It's hard to take someone who is anxious seriously because they don't create the impression they're in control.

Second you need to make a deep, strong connection with the other person. If you don't have that connection, that rapport, your words just bounce off.  When you have that connection your words penetrate and create a completely different effect. Clients tell me all the time, “I said the exact same words, but this time they listened.”

Third, you need to communicate with intention. Most people have never been coached on intention and they substitute effort, force and energy. All these strip you of gravitas.  Intention has everything to do with certainty and nothing to do with being forceful. What you see when someone has executive presence, when you see a powerful leader, is not in intensity of energy, it's an intensity of intention. The energy is incidental. Many very powerful leaders speak softly but with unmistakable intention. When you speak with intention, it gives you great dignity.

Fourth is your affinity.  Many people think that in order to have gravitas you have to assume a demeanor that is almost cold.  This will only work to make everyone cold toward you.  That’s not what you want. The warmer you are, the warmer they will be toward you and the more they will trust you.  Affinity is how much you like them.  It must be genuine. It's not something you project.  It's something you feel and it must be real.  Many people feel they can't afford to have affinity because they won't be taken seriously. The problem is never too much affinity. The problem, if there is one, is insufficient intention. Both affinity and intention have to be high.

It is magical that when you put these all together, you have what people call gravitas, you have respect, you have credibility. When you speak, people listen.

I haven't covered building a relationship, listening and other components that are vital to complete the picture and pull the whole thing off, those are for another blog.

My Lead Trainer coached Angela on these points, one at a time, using our unique coaching methodology. When Angela saw her final video, she cried. This is not a woman who cries easily.  

What she saw in the video: Her eyes were sparkling, she was completely comfortable, completely in the moment, dignified, worthy, she made a strong powerful connection, she wasn't forceful but her intention was penetrating, she was loaded with warmth and affinity and she was compelling. You would have followed her in a heartbeat. She was beautiful and powerful.  

She said, “I had no idea I could ever look like that.”  

We cried too.

This is inside of everyone. It's inside of you.

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The secret metric of a really great presentation

After you're done speaking, count the number of seconds before someone says something. The more impactful you are, the longer it will take.

If they speak the very second you finish, that means they weren't really with you, they were waiting for you to finish, their minds were already on what they were going to say next.

If it takes them 5 to 20 seconds before they speak, it means what you said had a profound impact and they’re absorbed in it.  It's taking them a little time to gather their thoughts.  

This is high praise for you.

The longer it takes, the more impactful your presentation. I've seen it take up to 5 minutes. And the audience still didn't know what to say. They were so moved.

What do you have to do to create this effect?

Many people think it has to do with WHAT you're talking about. It really doesn't.  I don’t know how many thousands of presentations I’ve seen over my decades as a presentation coach.  I’ve seen presentations on just about every topic you can imagine, most of them corporate.

I've had people tell me, This is a boring topic or This is an exciting topic.

There's really no such thing. I've seen seemingly boring topics made riveting and I've seen exciting topics made dull.

I've seen immovable audiences greatly moved. 

It has nothing to do with your status, your experience, or your topic. 

It has very little to do with what you say. 

It’s all purely about you.

It has to do with your ability to make a deep human connection with the people listening to you and to deliver your communication with great clarity and intention.

I had a student who worked in a semiconductor factory who gave new employee orientation training sessions.  In his “before” video, which was only 2 minutes long, he bored the audience out of their minds.

At the end of the workshop he gave the same presentation for his final video.  It was on fire extinguishers.  When he was done, the audience couldn't speak, and when they did, they asked me could he continue and tell them more?  Everyone was sorry it was over.

What he was talking about didn't change. How he connected with the audience and how he delivered it did.

He wasn’t more passionate. He was more connected. 

Big difference.

It has more to do with your heart than your mind.

One of my clients recently sent me a video of one of their senior leaders giving a talk at an industry conference for my feedback. Watching it, I saw a senior leader who did not stand out from the crowd. He looks like every other corporate senior leader giving a presentation. Interesting for the first couple minutes, then time for the mind to wander. This is what I saw:

• He comes across as totally sincere and very brilliant, but weak

• He has tremendous untapped charisma that doesn’t emerge during his talk – you can tell it’s there within him, but it doesn’t come out

• He’d benefit greatly by learning how to make a deep connection with the audience vs how he is now, coming across disengaged – once he makes this deep connection, the audience will be totally blown away by him

• He communicates very powerful ideas, but they bounce off rather than impinge – his message doesn’t penetrate as profoundly as it should

In point of fact, his presentation wasn’t nearly as interesting as the one on fire extinguishers. 

This senior leader, like so many others, has tremendous potential to win the hearts and minds of his audience once he learns this most basic of lessons:

• You have to make a deep human connection. You’ll never do that with WHAT you say. It’s not about how passionate you are. It has to do with your ability to penetrate all the artificial barriers inherent in corporate presentations and to connect to other human beings.

Connect means to unite. 

People spend WAY too much time practicing WHAT to say. They don't spend any time practicing how to make a deep human connection.

But once you master that, you can talk about anything.

And when you're done, you'll count many seconds of silence, each of which is more potent than applause. 

Try it. Experience the magic you’re capable of creating.

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Why Only Genuine Connections Work

Every amazing outcome is built on the foundation of a deep, profound and calming human connection.  Despite what you’ve been told, you can build this connection in a matter of minutes if you know how, whether it’s one-on-one, in a meeting or when you’re in front of a group.

I’ve studied so many books and videos on persuasion, influence, leadership, power, all about how to get other people to do what you want.   And I always ask myself, “Would I want the other person to know I'm using a technique on them?  What would they think if they knew what I'm doing came out of this book?”

Techniques, for me, take the honesty out of the relationship, and then I don't feel like I'm there with all of my integrity.  So I refuse to teach “techniques”.

I believe only genuine connections work.  The true source of powerful communication is trust, affinity, and above all, it's willingness. When you have the other person's full willingness, there's nothing they won't do for you. 

Inside each person is an incredible source of generosity. Most communications aren't good enough to tap into it. True communication does.

There’s this philosophical aspect to it, and then there’s the science behind “how to make it happen”.

Last week I delivered an intensive 3-day coaching workshop on Causative Communication. As occasionally happens, all the participants were men.  No particular reason for this, it's random who registers for our open enrollment sessions.

One of the first things we cover in the workshop is how vital making a deep human connection is if you want to have meaningful communication. This strong connection on a personal level transforms ALL conversations, whether they’re intensely difficult negotiations or personal.

We paired the guys up to do the exercise immediately following this lecture and discussion. The exercise is intended to give them the practice and coaching needed to make this skill real, so they learn how to make a strong connection with anyone, and make it happen immediately. 

All the guys in the workshop were already successful in life.  I’m going to tell you about 2 of them.  They're both extremely competent men. One is in sales and closed a $100 million deal during lunch on the 2nd day. The other is a senior director slated for VP who directly influences 150 locations around the world in an $18 billion corporation. 

As they were doing the exercise, something neither of them expected happened.  First with one and then the other, their eyes filled with tears.  I always have a box of Kleenex in the room because this wasn't the first time.

Although it happened in the first 2 minutes of the exercise, it seemed to happen slowly.  I was watching their faces and noticed their eyes were slowly welling up and then overflowed.

The senior director said, “I've talk to people my whole life, but I've never actually connected with them, not like this.  I just realized how much emotion I have inside me.  I just realized how much affinity I have.  I’ve been pushing it all down.”

He looked at the man he was paired with and said, “You were a complete stranger when I walked in this morning and now I love you.” 

The way he said it was as natural and normal as saying, “I’m glad you’re on the team.” 

What they both were feeling was a deep personal connection.  This kind of connection, unfortunately, is not common today.  I personally want it to be, which is why I teach how to create it.

The amazing thing about this connection is that it's made without words, it's BEYOND words, it's a level of being able to reach people that's way beyond words.  It has nothing to do with what you say.

All the guys learned how to make this powerful connection within the first minutes of a conversation.  They learned this by lunch on the first day.  Then they learned how to use the connection as a launching pad for powerful, meaningful communication.

The guys had so much fun the first evening of the workshop.  After they left for the day, they made strong connections with all the people they encountered.  They amazed and happily stunned everyone they talked to, including business meetings and a variety of people they’d only met for the first time.

The outcomes of their all conversations were extraordinary, including getting “this never, ever happened before incredibly good” results and cooperation in discussions with their boss. 

We celebrated their outcomes the morning of the 2nd day.  They were exhilarated.  Each success sparked a good bit of laughter and spontaneous applause.

Does everyone who comes to this workshop cry?  No.  But they’re all deeply moved, deeply touched by the difference having this beautiful connection makes in ALL their interactions, especially in the big important conversations where the outcomes really matter.

The ability to make this connection is a skill, it’s an ability, it’s not a personality trait, any personality type can learn it. 

It’s so worth making that connection before talking about anything.  Everything just goes so much better.

I know from my own life and from working with thousands of clients, I know outstanding communication gives you a life of ecstasy, exhilaration, joy, a life that is thrilling.   Most people would not call their day-to-day life thrilling.  But it can be.   Making that connection is a big part of that.

I am dedicated to empowering others. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create that kind of connection, I invite you to a webinar I’ll deliver next week on how to make what you want happen.  It starts with making a deep human connection and I’ll be covering how to do that. 

Wishing you many meaningful connections in all your upcoming conversations!

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