How to “predict” your own future in challenging times

I received an email you might consider highly unusual for this week.  It said:

“I feel with this pandemic situation my life will change for the better.”

I’ve been receiving numerous communications with this theme.  My job is to help people be causative in a world that isn’t.  It’s working.  Let me tell you what’s making this person feel good.

Whatever you put your attention on, whatever you pour your energy into, will create your present reality as well as your future.

99% of the world doesn’t realize it yet.

When you were a little kid, you were very clear about where you wanted to put your attention.  Your attention was free.  You daydreamed.  You imagined. 

From the time you went to school, the world has been trying to direct your attention.

You had to sit in one spot and fixate your attention on the person in the front of the room.  For hours.  Whether they were a good teacher, whether they were even interesting, or not.  Whether you wanted to or not.  You were little.  It wasn’t up to you.

If your attention strayed, you were reprimanded, punished, labeled.  You were rewarded for paying attention to one source only - the person in front. This person had “authority”.  You did not.

This is not about obeying authority.  I think authority is good, when it’s deserved.

What this is about is what happens to many people.  And that is not listening to the truest authority of all – that authority inside yourself.

Fixating attention on one person, whether they deserved your attention or not, signaled the end of daydreaming, the end of imagination, the end of being the source of your own creative realities and even your decision power. And for many, the end of being truly causative, being as powerful as you really are.

It became a, “I’m waiting to see what authority tells me to do next.”

When the world goes into a frenzy, this fixation of attention can happen again.

It’s fine to grant authority to others.  But to be causative, you need to do it while still preserving the finest authority for you – which is yourself.

You should be aware of the reality of the world around you, but you should stay in control of your own perceptions, in command of where you put your attention, your dreams and your own reality.  And most importantly, instead of just copying and agreeing with the reality around you (especially if it’s crazy), focus on creating the reality and future you want.

The more your attention goes on the positive, the more positive your reality will be. The more energy you pour into creating a beautiful future, the more future you will have.

You can predict your own future. Because you create it.  And seeing a beautiful future ahead for you makes you feel good.

So how do you create this?

By focusing on your own personal development.  Nothing beats feeling powerful.  You get there by developing knowledge and skills that enable you to be so positive in your thinking, so causative, so able to communicate well and make everyone around you feel good, so competent in handling anything life can throw at you, that you no longer worry about it, you just handle it and create the present and future reality you want.  For yourself and for others too.

I look at my own abilities and those of the people I and my team are helping today. The world can shake, scream and yell, thunder can roll, our abilities stand up in a hurricane. Why? Because we’ve invested so much energy in developing them. We’ve done the work. And continue to do it.

It pays off.  Our clients achieve spectacular outcomes in a world that has yet to see that such success can be totally under your control.

The rest of the email I received went on to say:

“The pandemic has created a higher necessity level that I have to rise up to.  So, I’ve been dedicating serious time every day to my own self-development.  As I do, I clearly see what motivates me the most and I’m shifting the focus of my career to be able to do more of that.  Other activities don’t give me as much passion and interest like that. And the more I learn new skills (like I’m doing quite intensively now) the more I get passionate about it.  I’m gaining such excellent knowledge!”

I love working with people in person. I’m one of those people that likes to hug people after we’ve gotten to know each other (often after one day of training).

But I’ve learned these past two weeks that I’m just as able to help people virtually. The incredibly wonderful online technology that we have today is enabling me and my team to sail through this storm and help even more people than before.  It’s really opened our eyes to all the possibilities.  We’re helping a lot of people.  And that feels good.

To respond to all the people who want our help and can’t show up in person, I have developed a menu of online training and coaching (and more is coming), each of which will enable you to be causative in a world that isn’t.

There are a series of free webinars you can take advantage of too.  Info is below.

What happens today is up to you. And so is tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow.

Maybe when you were little it wasn’t up to you.  But it’s up to you now.

Being causative means you’re not just waiting around for it to show up. You’re actually creating what shows up.

It all hinges on what you put your attention on and what you pour energy into. 

Whichever way you can, pour energy right now into increasing your skills, your power, and your morale will be super high today, and your future will be more beautiful than you’ve ever dreamed.  Please see below for ways we can help you.

Be the cause!

Upcoming Online Services

1.  Virtual Presentations Skill-Building Summit:  6 hours intensive skill building over the course of 3 days (Registration closed - Click on the link below and put your name on the waitlist to be notified of the next one)

March 24 – 26

11:00 – 1:00 PST each day

Click here for information and to register.

2.      FREE Webinar:  Building a Foundation for Causative Communications

March 31, 2020

11:00 – 12:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

3.      FREE Webinar:  Mastering Virtual Presentations (This session is full – Click on the link below and put your name on the waitlist to be notified of the next one)

April 1, 2020

11:00 – 12:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

4.      FREE Webinar:  For Graduates of Effective Communications and Causative Communication and one-on-one Coaching

April 2, 2020

10:00 – 11:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

5.      FREE Webinar:  For Graduates of Advanced Presentation Skills and Transformative Presentation Skills and one-on-one Coaching

April 2, 2020

12:00 – 1:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

6.      Live Group Webinars for Teams or Employees to Keep Morale High

Click here for information and to schedule.

7.      One-on-one Virtual Coaching to Build Life-Changing Skills

Click here for information and to schedule.

Upcoming Open Enrollment In-Person Workshops

Causative Communication Live!

• April 29 – May 1, 2020

Click here for Information. Click here to register.

Transformative Presentation Skills

• April 23 - 24, 2020

Click here for Information. Click here to register.

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How Jesse blew away the Founder, CEO and CMO in a single presentation

Jesse, one of our clients, just sent me a video of his virtual presentation to VIP customers and senior execs after his coaching.  It was SOOOO good, it blew me away.  (Not just me, but his CEO and everyone else in the meeting.)

I was swept off my feet by how calm he is.  

Jesse is dynamic and charismatic … and calm.  It’s a powerful mix.  The one adjective NEVER used to describe successful professionals in corporate America is CALM.  And yet, that is the #1 barometer of real confidence. 

He is looking right into the camera, his presence is STRONG and it feels like he’s talking right to you. He also makes you feel you’re the only person he’s talking to, and that really gets your attention.

He takes his sweet time and makes sure that the quality of his communication is extraordinary.  He’s not trying to cram a whole lot of words into a short period of time (which always makes you look frantic).

His slides are in the background enhancing his presentation, but making a personal connection with you is his main focus.

Jesse has several key messages and takes his time getting them across, so you not only GET them, you’re impressed by them and you remember them.

The outstanding characteristics of his presentation are his comfort and clarity.  He is completely comfortable and his presence is nice and strong.  His pace is spot-on, he is extremely clear, and his slides now enhance that clarity.

And his great affinity and warmth for the people he’s talking to is evident in his tone, in all of his body language, facial expression and, especially, in his eyes.

All of Jesse’s effectiveness is entirely due to the fabulous connection he’s making by talking so directly to his audience, to you, via the camera.  That is what is underlying all this other goodness.

It’s a rare kind of presentation.  It’s personal.  It’s real.  It has personality.  It creates rapport.  It’s inspiring.  You believe him.  You want him in your life.

Jesse is normally very hard on himself.  That’s all gone.  This is what he emailed:

“My presentation was outstanding, even though it was virtual! It was one of my best presentations that I have ever made and I felt in the zone. As soon as it kicked off, I just felt comfortable and was able to flow with it. Your coaching prior to the session was career changing, literally. The CEO immediately sent me a note congratulating me and the head of Marketing sent a note to the execs in the company saying I “killed it!”... the Board member who founded the company also recognized what I did.”

Jesse ended his email by writing he feels like there’s still a lot for him to learn.

He’s right.  There is.

But it's the difference between positive and negative gain.  Negative gain is when the presenter is doing a lot of things that are negative.  They detract from making a powerful impact.  For example, experiencing anxiety, self-doubt, saying, “Uhm …”, being unable to connect with the audience, losing the audience’s interest, talking too fast, etc.

Jesse’s not doing that.  He’s lost all the negatives and entered a new rank of presenters.

Positive gain is when you reach a new dimension of extraordinary communication and continue to build on the positives.  You keep going higher and higher.  This is where your communication becomes good enough for you to become a great world leader (or whatever your highest goal is). 

You too can operate in this high class of presenters.  As you achieve higher levels of ‘outstanding’ with your communication skills, your abilities develop into powers and you begin to feel you’re operating at your true potential.  You’ve left the negatives behind.  A worthy and exhilarating goal.

Helping others achieve this is our mission.  It’s what we do here. So, consider this your direct invitation to join us in the upcoming Virtual Presentation Skill-Building Summit.  I’ll open enrollment for this session on Friday, March 13, 2020.  Feel free to contact us if you want me to put you on the list to pre-register.

Be the cause!

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The incredible power of acknowledgements

I live on the West Coast. My sister lives on the East in Philadelphia. Every year we take turns visiting for Christmas. This year it’s my turn to go to Philadelphia.  I’m keen to see my family there.

I was on the phone with her over the weekend planning the details. In the middle of our conversation she got into an argument with her 19-year-old son, Gabriel. I could hear all of it.

It was a heated, passionate argument, but there was something about it that blew me away.

What blew me away was that I could hear love in both their voices as they argued.  And they were soon laughing.  And as the argument went on, they were laughing more and more.

It was very easy to see the reason for that. Even though they were arguing, and they were actually pretty mad at each other, they acknowledged each other.

They were completely disagreeing, but they were actually listening to each other and they would say things like, “I understand…”  and, “Yeah, I get what you’re saying …”  before they said what they thought.

It all happened super-fast.  The acknowledgments were quick, just like the responses were.  It happened at the speed of most arguments. But I could see that with every acknowledgment, there was a burst of love and laughter from the one being acknowledged.

The argument took less than five minutes to resolve and ended on a high note.  It was actually really fun to listen to.  I enjoyed it.

I told my sister about the power of acknowledgments years ago. She’s been doing it ever since. And Gabriel has learned to always acknowledge what she says before he responds.  Even when they’re really mad.

They have a normal amount of arguments, but they’re over so fast and they’re warm and affectionate and loving.

My sister even says the dreaded word “but” (which you’re never supposed to say after an acknowledgement), like, “I understand but …” And it still works!

It made me realize that you really CAN listen to and acknowledge another person, even in the heat of an argument. Most people think you can’t or that it’s difficult.  Not true.

You just have to DECIDE to do it.

It also made me realize that it doesn’t have to be a heavy or serious thing. It can happen fast and be light, and even happen at the speed of light.

For me the most important thing about these holidays and this season is the deep love, that I get to give and receive in abundance. To me that love is sacred.

I love knowing that there’s a way to protect and preserve it, even in a heated, passionate family like mine.

You don’t have to wait for an argument to acknowledge others.  Good acknowledgements will make even the best relationship soar.  And they belong in every conversation.

May you be filled with all that makes your soul sing during the holidays!  Wishing you a joyous time with your good friends and family.

Be the cause!

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Shifting out of automatic

John is charming and lovable. But when you put him in front of a prospect, all that drains away and he turns into a “sales guy”. The second he starts talking, it’s like you pushed “play” and he shifts into automatic.

Joan’s affinity automatically drops from warm to hard and cold if you say something she doesn’t like.

Jeff automatically becomes stiff and “corporate” in any conversation where he feels he’s on stage or senses there might be push back.

None of them knew they were doing this until they saw themselves on video during the Causative Communication Workshop.

The problem with shifting into “automatic” is that YOU are not there. It’s like something else has taken over and is talking for you. That something else is a machine, it’s not you.

That machine has no alternative but to do exactly what it’s programmed to do.

You, on the other hand, are the most creative, inventive and intelligent force in your life.

You don’t need to see yourself on video to start becoming aware of times when you shift into automatic. It happens to everyone, so don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself doing it.

Shifting out of automatic and into spontaneous action is liberating.  It restores your power. And it’s the only way for you to be causative.

I wish you could have seen the final videos from John, Joan and Jeff. You’d be blown away. You’d be instantly attracted to them. What they say in those videos is compelling, in an authentic, deeply heartfelt way that draws you into their world.

You are the most causative agent in your life. When you notice yourself shifting into automatic, make sure you bring the real YOU back as quickly as possible.

Be the cause!

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How to sabotage your own promotion

Chris, a highly successful and well-loved Director with solid business results, was a great guy with a lot of bottled up frustration.  He rightly felt he was due for a promotion to VP, but it wasn’t happening.  He saw other Directors around him getting promoted which added to his dismay.

During a one-on-one with his boss, Chris let him know he would like to be promoted to VP. He said: “I think I’ve been doing a really good job for a long time as Director and I’m ready for the next step which would be a VP role.”

The boss agreed Chris had been doing stellar work and could at some point be promoted to VP. But the timing wasn’t right, the organization was going through another re-org, they should let the dust settle before initiating anything, etc., etc., etc.  

That particular re-org led to another, and to another and it was eight months later that Chris asked his boss again when the timing would be right. The boss said he, “hoped it would be soon but not right now.”

Chris was now looking outside the organization because he didn’t feel there were opportunities internally.  He was pretty unhappy being stuck in a role he had mastered with a boss he felt didn’t support his career development.

But Chris’s boss wasn’t the one stopping the promotion, Chris was.

The funny thing is that no one actually TOLD Chris to stop communicating.  He had been told to stop so many times in the past, that now he stopped himself.  He didn’t need to be told.

Chris was suffering from too much obedience.

Obeying this self-imposed injunction severely restricted his boss’s ability to understand what was really happening with Chris.  If your viewpoint is not understood, the chances of the other person doing what you want are severely limited.

Unfortunately, Chris is not alone.  People in large corporations obey unwritten laws about what they can say, how much to say and to whom.

They shut down too fast.

This communication obedience training starts way back in school.  I never did well with it. We were threatened with trouble if we talked to other students or voiced our opinions to teachers.  I always talked to other students and let teachers know what I was thinking.  Teachers tried to make me stop, but they didn’t get anywhere with me.  

The problem with obedience is it takes away your freedom.  And when you give away your freedom, you give away your choices.

I taught Chris how to speak up to his boss about his promotion to VP.  Not in a disobedient fashion, but politely, in a way that would be interesting and valuable to his boss.  Initially Chris had a million reasons why he shouldn’t bring up the subject again, but once he learned how, he did it with confidence.

In the next one-on-one with his boss, Chris spoke up and filled the vacuum of missing information the boss had about why and how much Chris deserved the promotion, what it meant to him and how it would benefit the organization.  The boss was leaning forward in his chair the whole time.  His reaction was, “Wow! We should really get on this! I don’t think we should wait any longer. We need to get that promotion now.”

Chris spoke up to several more key individuals and suddenly he had team of champions doing the work of getting him promoted.

And now he’s enjoying his VP role.

Your career is never up to “them”.  It is always and only up to you.

Never allow someone else to stop you from communicating.  You need to speak up to be understood.  The question is never whether or not to speak up, the question is how to do it so you are truly heard.

Where have you stopped your own forward progress? Are you ready to do something about it?

Be the cause!

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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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Giving presence for Thanksgiving

Last week I delivered a Causative Communication workshop to a small group of wonderful professionals ranging from a reliability engineer to several senior directors. 

Every single one of them, in their final video, is radiant. There’s no other word for it. They are about to be confronted with a difficult situation.  And they are radiant.

As a matter of fact, even before they’ve said a word, they have won you over.  Any resistance you have, has completely melted away. You are already smiling and completely drawn to them.  You can’t help it. 

Their radiance steers the difficult situation they’re facing solidly on track towards a positive outcome.

It’s an almost overwhelming radiance. You might call it charisma, but charisma is a shabby word compared to this.  What you’re seeing is much more powerful.

Where does this radiance come from?  Two things.

In their first video, the “before” video, they were all thinking. This happens to pretty much everyone, no matter how successful they are.  They’re thinking about what they’re going to say, about the outcome, about how difficult the situation is, lots of things. This thinking introverts their attention.

They’re not really being there, not in the moment, fully present and so therefore, they don’t have presence.  Without presence, there is no radiance.

Secondly, in their first video, they don’t have much affinity for the other person. There’s no reason for them to have any because the other person is being difficult, so they don’t.

However, in their final video, they have stopped thinking. They have graduated to looking and knowing. They are completely in the moment, they are completely there, you feel them totally with you.  Their presence is strong.

Additionally, they are FULL of affinity.  For no reason, except that they are.  Their great affinity makes you smile back before you even have time to think about it.  It supersedes logic.

Radiant means to shine beams of light from a center.

That center is YOU.  The light that shines is directly from you.  

And when you are fully present, with your attention fully extroverted onto the other person, and when you are full of affinity, you are radiant.

You are also beautiful and handsome. We talked about how politically incorrect it was to mention it, but it just is that way.  Their unique personalities were shining and they were beautiful and handsome.

That brings us to our special holiday tomorrow.  In addition to being about fabulous food, Thanksgiving is about love. And connecting with the people we love most.  We choose carefully who we spend Thanksgiving with.  These are the people who really count deepest in our hearts.

You are what they are most thankful for.

A powerful connection is born when you connect directly from you, from your center, from your core. You connect by really being present with the people you’re with and by being full of affinity or even love for them.

Affinity is one of the highest nutrient-rich foods you can ever serve to your soul.  It’s the only substance in the world that if you start giving away in the morning, but the end of the day you have way more than you started with.

As for me, I feel very grateful our paths have crossed - I have been truly enriched by it and am grateful we are part of a community dedicated to making the world a better place with our causative communication.

I’m wishing you a beautiful Thanksgiving full of love!  May this special holiday abundantly fill your soul and emotional heart too.

Be the cause!                                                                                                                                                                  

Ingrid

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How to transform a crusty senior executive

Don is a crusty senior executive in a large corporation. And although the metrics inarguably prove he’s successful in producing stellar business results, Don as a person is blunt and crude. People have been trying to get the message through to him for years that he needs to be more diplomatic.

Steve, a peer of Don’s who made it to CEO, recommended my coaching to Don to help him with his “interpersonal skills”.  Don was less than enthusiastic, but called me and asked if we could meet in person.

When we did, he managed to insult me twice before we even got to the conference room to start our meeting. These things don’t bother me, I just notice where someone needs to improve and start figuring out how to help them.

Turns out EVERYONE had been telling Don he needs to be more diplomatic: his boss, HR, his peers, his wife.  And they had been telling him for YEARS. He had even alienated one of his two daughters who was no longer talking to him.  

I’m not given a lot of time to create major change in these situations.  I have to help clients create a meaningful transformation - sometimes in a matter of hours.

While assuring me of his profound skepticism, Don agreed to a four-hour coaching program with me.

At the end of four hours, Don was still direct and incisive. He lost none of that. But he was also sensitive and considerate, even warm.

The effect this had on others was profound.

Whereas before they had followed his orders, now they did it with much greater enthusiasm and investment of their full selves.

Most importantly, they did it without fear.

Don approached his alienated daughter who found herself surprisingly willing to engage in a conversation. By the end of it, his daughter hugged him and cried. They both did. Their conversations became the kind of father-daughter conversations that live in your heart, that you remember, forever.

Don’s wife stopped in the middle of doing dishes to look at him and tell him how much she loved him and how he was very much the man she wanted to marry.

So how did I get through to Don when others had failed?

Words.  Normal words used in a very special way.

Your words mean something to you. You have a very specific, very particular meaning in mind when you speak them.

The problem you encounter is that when you say something, your words can mean something completely different to the people hearing them.

When that happens, your words are powerless.

That’s what was happening in Don‘s case. Everyone could talk and talk to him endlessly about his needing to change, but their words meant nothing to Don.

In these situations, most people make the mistake of using more and MORE words that have no meaning.  Then everyone gets tired of the subject.

What I did differently was this:

I pretty much used the same words everyone else was using.  But, and this is a COLOSSAL difference, I caused my words to have the same meaning for Don that they did to me.

I never told him he needed to be diplomatic.  I never told him he needed to be sensitive, kind or considerate.

But I got him to have full conceptual understanding of each of these principles.  Then I stood back.

I never, ever tell people how to behave. School and corporate life have done too much of that and robbed them of their character and unique identity.  My job is to bring it all back.

The change in Don came from within.  He looked at me and said, “I feel different.” I looked back at him and said, “We’re done.”

Talking about the results this change in him produced during our follow-up session a month later had us both simultaneously grinning and crying a little, especially when it came to his daughter.

Don had never experienced so much love and warmth from others, especially from the people below him in the organization. 

Your words give physical expression, give body, physical presence, to your imaginations, realities and your desires.

If your words lose their meaning when others hear them, you lose your power.

The key is to create the exact meaning you intend.

Then others respond to you the way you intend.  And then you are able to enlighten them, reach them, influence them, persuade them, move them.

How quickly you can do that defines your success.

I have a workshop coming up in December where you will learn all about the power and secret of words.

I have a precise method I use that I will teach you.  And I mean LASER precise, which is what allowed me to reach Don in 4 hours when others hadn’t gotten the door to Don to open even a crack in 4 years.

You’ll learn how to create powerful meaning and impact with everyone who hears or reads your words.

How prized is this ability?

It’s the one defining factor that makes a successful senior executive. It’s the one defining factor that gets people promoted to senior executive ranks. It’s the one defining factor that enables them to be successful.

Let me give you some examples.

• A Senior Vice President was unsuccessful trying to get the concept of respect across to his CEO and his peers.  When he used this approach, they all closed their laptops and started listening to him. The culture within the senior leadership team changed in one meeting.

• Another Senior VP had changed organizations and was overwhelmed in his new role. The learning curve in the new organization was killing the rapid success he was expected to produce. When he used this approach, that all changed in 2 hours. He was back in control, gained immediate traction, creating organizational success at a greatly accelerated pace.

It’s not just for senior executives.

• An Executive Assistant’s daughter threatened to commit suicide because she was flunking out of nursing school, wrecking what she believed was her last hope for success. Using what she learned, the mother turned the situation around with her daughter in one Saturday and the daughter graduated nursing school in the “top three” of her class.

• A sales professional in the semiconductor industry was given an unpromising territory because she was new to the role. Using what she learned, she took business away from competitors.  Despite the obstacles she faced, she rapidly became one of the top sales people in her organization. What was truly unique about her was she didn’t “sell” in the traditional sense.  She simply got her true meanings across to her prospects.

Words.  Powerful stuff.  When you know how to use words, you can do anything.  Change their minds. Change a culture. Change lives. And you can even change yourself too if you’d like.

I personally get really excited delivering this workshop. My biggest problem is not waking up at 3:00 in the morning the night before because I’m so looking forward to it. I don’t know when I’ll be offering the workshop again because it’s truly a unique offering. So make time in your December schedule or request an on-site version of it if this resonates with you.

In the meantime, understand that, in every aspect of your life, your words are key to your success. 

Be the cause!

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Giving up “normal”

Ordinary and normal don’t do it for me, not in any conversation.

Over the weekend I stopped into the pet food store to pick up cat food for my three cats. There was a new guy there. I told him I had placed an order and asked if he could find it in the back. As he was helping me, I applied everything I know about extraordinary communication to a very mundane conversation about cat food. When he was finished helping me with my order, he hugged me and asked me to come back.  He went so far as to ask me how long it would take for my cats to eat all the cans I was getting (I buy a lot at one time) and happily calculated I would be back in 6 weeks.

Why did he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.

At my farmer’s market on Sunday, the farmer where I buy broccoli every week, a guy who normally looks very sullen and disinterested, started grinning when he saw me walking toward his stand.

Why did he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.

A senior executive in a major corporation whose staff complains he never makes time to meet with them told me to always stop by his office to talk with him when I’m in the building.  Our five minute impromptu meetings stretch to 30 or even 45 minutes.

Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.

A Vice President known for never answering his emails always answers mine the same day.

Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.

Those are just my results. I haven’t even begun to tell you the results my clients get. They get equally spectacular results when they apply what they learned.

Being causative means the ability to make what you want happen.  And the only hope of that in any situation, especially in difficult or challenging ones, or with difficult people, is exceptional communication and your ability to make it happen.

Just because you’re talking, just because you’re listening, does not automatically mean you’re communicating.

Real communication leaves you feeling really good.  If you’re not feeling incredibly good, what just happened isn’t communication.

There are different grades of communication, just as there are different levels of ability in any activity.  And at the highest level, what you want, happens.

Many people think what happens, the outcome, depends on the other person.  

The outcome is out of your hands if your communication skills aren’t up to creatively constructing new realities that capture the imagination of others.

The purpose of communication is to create powerfully good relationships and gain commitment for what you want so it really happens. And happens fast.

Another purpose of communication, not much talked about, is to create joy, for there is great joy in deeply satisfying communications.

Your level of skill determines whether these things happen, how often and how fast.

Most people, even successful ones, have a level of skill that gets them by. They may be good communicators, but they’re not extraordinary.

I noticed this very early in life and, believing there’s nothing more rewarding, I dedicated myself to developing extraordinary communication skills and helping others get there also.

That’s what my writing, my training workshops, my coaching is about. To take your skills to such an extraordinary level that you are able to navigate all of the different personalities and realities you interact with to get spectacular outcomes. Not good ones, but spectacular.

That’s how I measure communication competence. Not just by well how you speak or how well you listen. But by the quality of the outcome and relationships you create, and the length of time it takes you to get there.

Does it take you a year to get to where you want? Three months? Three days? Or do you see it start to materialize in three minutes? 

This is so much more than talking, I can’t even fit it into the same universe. If it was just about talking, it would be easy to be successful every time.  But you can talk and talk and talk, and walk away feeling less than complete and even frustrated.

Or you can communicate at an exceptional level, see a radical transformation in the other person and experience a spectacular outcome.

So it really comes down to one fundamental goal of being able to make anything you want to happen through exceptional and causative communication.

When you are effortlessly extraordinary, you go on to lead an extraordinary life, both at work and at home. 

You are in charge of choosing the standard you live by.

Be the cause!

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Melting Jack Frost: the difficult senior exec

Sophia had been a shining star as a Director. When she was promoted to VP and given a much larger zone of visibility and responsibility, she also took on real risk of failure.

In her new role, Sophia now attended weekly senior leadership meetings, which is where she ran into Jack every Wednesday.

Jack had the ear of the CEO.  Sophia didn’t.  Jack dominated every meeting he was in. In this Silicon Valley corporation, he was the most technically proficient person in the room. He presented his ideas forcefully. Jack liked winning and believed in intimidation.  There was nothing warm about him, kind of like “Jack Frost” himself. He shut you down if you expressed a dissenting opinion. Most people never dared.  Even the CEO deferred to Jack.

Sophia had been successful as a “backrooms influencer.” She preferred to hash out diverging views away from an audience or public scrutiny, and then bring a consensus, neatly and politely resolved, back to the larger group.  She found conflict unpleasant and shied away from it.

Suddenly Jack was taking her on center stage, and despite her vision and passion, she became subdued and ineffective.

Sophia’s goal when she arrived to learn Causative Communication was to navigate these difficult situations while successfully getting her ideas implemented.  Her goal was to get Jack to listen.  Her goal was to transform Jack so they could collaborate effectively.

Sophia values being warm and graceful under pressure.  But she found herself agitated and frenzied at these meetings.  She wanted to preserve a calm elegance and genuine friendliness while under intense fire.

This takes a lot of skill.

I taught Sophia the formula for communication that works in every situation. We spent a lot of time applying it to the difficult conversations and meetings which were now routine in her VP life. With practice and coaching, real transformation emerged.

The first transformation was in herself.  Sophia gained the ability to comfortably face severely uncomfortable conversations. She also gained the ability to be very direct, yet very warm and friendly and still be powerful, deliberate and intentional, even under fire.

The next transformation was in Jack. Jack didn’t come to our workshop, of course. Sophia did. But her new skills now allowed her to transform OTHER people…even people as difficult as Jack.

The next meeting she attended, she put forth an innovative idea and Jack instantly dismissed it.  Usually that would be the end of it.

This time, Sophia held Jack’s gaze and let him know she fully understood his point of view. When he looked at her, all Jack saw was real understanding, powerful intention, and genuine friendliness.  Sophia let her acknowledgment sink in.  She wasn’t in a rush.  Jack was quiet, waiting to see what Sophia was going to say next.

Not forcefully, but powerfully with very strong intention, and still with great warmth, Sophia said, “Let me explain why I think this is a good idea.”

She directed her comments to Jack, but also included the other leaders. Jack was listening and so was everyone else.  She had their full attention.

Sophia was clear.  She was concise. She said a lot in a few words. She was deliberate. She was purposeful. She was elegant.  She wasn’t rushed.  She wasn’t pressured or pressuring.  She was compelling.

The look in Jack’s eyes changed. To respect.

With a new, very pleasant tone of voice, Jack asked her a couple questions, then paused, and agreed her proposal was worth trying.

The next transformation was in the senior leadership team.  With her new skills, Sophia had completely changed the dynamics of the group.

Once that happens, there is no putting that toothpaste back into that tube. Suddenly the dynamic wasn’t, “We have to do what Jack says.”   The new dynamic was to have polite, in-depth conversations, allow input from everyone and make the best decision.

The final transformation was in the organization. When a senior leadership team starts working together this effectively, the organization can’t help but transform as well.

Sophia is an example of the power of a single individual.

Yes, you could say she was in a VP role and so was in a position to generate the transformation.  But I have worked with individuals at every level, down to low level individual contributors with no one reporting to them.

It doesn’t matter where you are in the organization. When you make that first transformation - with your own self - when you become a world-class communicator, there is no limit to the impact you can have in this world.  No limit at all.

The most difficult part of this entire journey is making the decision to begin.

You might think that the obstacles keeping you from getting where you want to go have little to do with your communication skills.

But that’s only because people have been taught to believe they AREN’T as powerful as they actually are.  Don’t fall for it.

You have the power to transform your entire world just like Sophia did.

If she can do it with Mr. Jack “Frost,” you can do it too.

This is the purpose of our Causative Communication Live! Workshop. This is where you learn the formula for communication that ALWAYS works.  Then you seriously upgrade your ability to communicate effectively, enabling you to rapidly achieve your vision.

Be the cause!

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