Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The real cause of stage fright

When you Google, “How to handle stage fright”, you’ll find many strange suggestions, some  from very prestigious sources. I saw a video posted by a respected MBA program where the solution presented is finding a friendly face and only talking to them.  Audiences hate that. Another impressive source posted a video demonstrating “Power Poses” where you have one hand on your hip and another on a chair. Looks ridiculous when you actually do it. Another respected source recommended drinking orange juice. Makes me wonder if he has investments in the orange juice industry.

No mention of a root cause.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The CEO dilemma of self vs mask

I’ve been asked to coach the CEO of a major global corporation.  Google his name and an abundance of videos pop up.  I’m watching portions of many of them to assess where I can help him.

This is a man who has been given so much advice on “how you need to come across”, it overwhelmed and finally drowned his soul.  Unfortunately, he listened to it. It led him into crafting this artificial persona. The persona he’s been told Wall Street and a faceless group of investors demands.

I’m seeing the superficial performance of a well-scripted theatrical role: “the successful CEO you should invest in.”

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
When you need them to change

It all began when a re-organization thrust Olivia into a new department. She felt like a failure almost immediately.  

The people on the new team were openly hostile, smug, superior, stubborn, cold, uninviting, and often mean.

Olivia very badly wanted to blame them. 

But Olivia did something that most people don’t do when faced with a situation like this.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The secret to everything

It was a virtual workshop on Causative Communication. On my screen were five beautiful faces. Each one of them representing a wonderful person in different countries across Europe.

Julien had just finished practicing presenting a proposal to sell the government of his country a new high-tech product. The others were watching.

Julien knew something was really different about the way he was communicating. He reached the end. Long pause and then he said, “That was Amazing! I never felt that before.”

4 heads nodded. They never had either.

Julien: “What was that?”

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The first step for crafting a compelling ...

When Jeffrey started his coaching three months ago, he knew something was off in the way that he was presenting. He said to me, “If I could be 10% of what my boss is as a presenter, I would feel like I achieved a big goal.”

The problem Jeffrey was having was a “There’s so much to say about this” problem.

When you feel like there’s so much to say, it’s easy to fall into the trap of talking too much. The audience completely disengages.

My vision of the future

vision of the future

I teach something that’s totally different.  Something you never learn in school.  I teach people how to be causative.

Being causative means that’s how you operate. You make something happen.

From the outside, it looks like magic, even though it’s not.

Being causative means you continuously direct the course of your conversations to make life turn out the way you want.

The people who say that’s not possible are the ones who don’t know how. There are many of them.  Don’t listen to them.  What they say won’t help you.

The truth is that there are very natural formulas for being causative that always work.

The reason people like what I teach, why they like these formulas, is they like things that are natural and always work.

What’s amazing is that even one component of these formulas is enough to create miracles.

I got an email this week from a graduate of Building a Foundation for Causative Communications that said:

“I want to tell you that participating in the class has really helped me.  Confession: I've been slacking off in the way I communicate, especially with my wife.  I have started putting my FULL 100% attention on her when we are talking. Wow!  What a HUGE difference!  You have saved me from going down that dark road of unhappy marriages.  I'm real excited about keeping this part of the formula in play ALL the time!”

I teach many people every week.  My inbox is flooded with their success stories.

I use money to put gas in my car and buy fresh vegetables at the farmers’ market.  But my real pay comes in the form of these success stories, talking to my students long after the class is over and hearing the happiness in their voices.

My message to the world is that there is something called REAL communication. It does NOT include all talking.

How you know it’s REAL communication is that real communication, whether you’re asking for a promotion, negotiating a deal, navigating a difficult conversation or talking to your 17-year-old, always produces these results:

  • Understanding

  • A great feeling of affinity between you (warmth, liking, even love)

  • Positive outcome you’re really happy with (and they are too)

It takes SKILL to be causative in all conversations, to always create these outcomes. 

It doesn't take any skill to create unpleasant conversations, disagreement, a fear of speaking up, conflict, or unsatisfying relationships. 

Being causative takes real skill.  Real skill takes work.  No one won the Olympic gold on talent alone.  Or just with a positive attitude.

I have a vision of a much, much happier world, filled with people who can make things happen simply by communicating extremely well.  In their personal lives, at work, and in society. A world filled with happy people creating REAL communication in every area of their lives.

My graduates demonstrate it can be done.  Every day we are closer.  Don’t settle for less.

Be the cause!

How to “recharge your batteries” with a full day of meetings!

recharge batteries

Melissa’s days are one virtual meeting after another.  They make her tired.  By the end of many hours spent in front of her computer screen, she’s depleted.  Giving presentations is the most draining.

She’s not alone.  I’ve heard this from a good number of people. 

Melissa, like many, made the mistake of thinking that being virtual caused her energy drain.  Her exact words were, “Being virtual all day long is exhausting.”

If this is happening to you, I can assure you, it’s not because you’re virtual.

It’s not that you shouldn’t get outside, because you should.


But what makes a person tired or energized, whether virtual or in-person, has everything to do with the quality of communication that you experience throughout your day.

See if this isn’t true:

Even a one-hour unsatisfying or frustrating meeting will leave you de-energized.  Trying to pay attention to 30 minutes of uninspired boredom will sap the life out of you.  A lousy conversation will leave you feeling wasted.  A meaningless conversation will leave you feeling empty.  Giving a presentation with no response from the audience can leave you feeling dead. 

Just a couple of these in one day can make you need to lie down at 5 pm.

You’re putting energy out, but no energy is coming back and you get depleted.  It affects you physically.

Real human connections and great conversations don’t do that. 

Real human connections and great conversations are energizing.

They breathe life into you.

Think about it.

Melissa’s problem, like for many people, was not knowing how to create real human connections, how to make really great interactions and presentations happen when she’s virtual.

The most common thing I hear is, “But I can’t see them!  I can’t see their reactions! I can’t create a human connection if I can’t see them!”

When someone says this, it tells me they don’t understand what real human connection is all about.

If it were true that you have to see people to connect with them, blind people would never be able to make deep human connections.  And this is far from the truth.

Take three amazing blind men:  Stevie Wonder, Andrea Bocelli and Ray Charles.  

They never saw anyone.  Yet they each created, and continue to create, timeless and deep human connections with tens of millions of people around the world.

The human connections these three blind men create are pure magic.  Everyone who’s talked to them in person speaks of it too.

You might say, “Sure I could do that, if I could sing like they can.”

But you actually CAN do it with words, with the ability to create REAL communication, REAL interchange with another person, REAL rapport with many people at one time when you’re giving a presentation.

Creating a deep human connection goes WAY beyond in-person visual perception. 

Whether you’re speaking, writing, emailing, singing, painting or using sign language … and whether you have sight or are blind … the following IS true.

Real human connections are created by the ability to SEE and FEEL people with OTHER senses besides your eyes, by the QUALITY of how you express yourself, by your ability to REACH others with powerful understanding, real meaning, unrestrained, overwhelming affinity and a commanding intention.

These are all ABILITIES you can master and use to create a powerful, and even emotional, impact, REGARDLESS of whether or not your eyes ever see the other person.

I know you can do it because I teach people how to do it every day.

Melissa dedicated herself to learning how and now her days are powered with the skills she developed during both Causative Communications and Mastering Virtual Presentations. 

She now leaves meetings satisfied, leaves her presentations energized, flying high.

But, in her own mind, what’s best of all, is that she’s energizing everyone she talks to.  After a challenging presentation she emailed me:

“I could not see the people, but I felt their energy, and there was no stopping me.  Lots of positive feedback including from my boss.  Afterward some told me they even got goose bumps.”

And everyone wants her in their meetings.  Of course they do!  She wipes out their tiredness and makes them feel refreshed, new again.

Being able to make this happen is energizing.  It gives you the BEST kind of energy.

You’re capable of creating that kind of magic in your own life.

If you’re tired at the end of the day, RAISE the QUALITY of your communication and your relationships.

I’m not trying to get you to do my training as much as I’m trying to tell you that you are fully capable of it, that this is all inside you, waiting to come out.   

Of course, if you’d like a guide to get you there fast, that’s what I love to do and I’m here for you.

Be the cause!

What I’m hearing now more than ever

iStock-1221858916.jpg

I have coached almost 1,000 people since this all began. from individual contributors to CEOs.

The phrase I’m hearing more than any other, and more than I’ve ever heard in the past, is the expression, making a deep human connection.

People are longing for this connection. Eager to know how to create it, despite the big chunks of metal sitting in front of them, and the many miles separating the other person.

They’re wishing for this connection from you. In this article I’ll tell you how.

I was coaching a group of executives last week on this very building block of Causative Communications. They had an important message to communicate.

But they came across as disconnected, distant and, quite frankly, like uncaring corporate robots.

This isn’t who they really are.

They’re people just like you and me. They’re intimidated by being alone in a room, feeling like they have to perform, feeling like they’re being judged and talking to a camera that is dead, dead, dead.

And that’s how they came across. Dead, dead, dead.

What makes me a really good coach is that I clearly perceive and discern the difference between how a person is being and who they really are.

For a variety of reasons, reasons that I won’t get into in this article, people are not being who they really are. Too many times they don’t even know who they really are.

Who they’re being is who they think they’re supposed to be, except that they’re often very confused about even about who that is.

When you work in a large corporation, you think you’re supposed to be corporate and professional. And most people don’t fully understand what that is either.

When you’re dealing with communication, who you’re supposed to be is someone who makes a REAL human connection and communicates effectively.

It has nothing to do with your hand gestures. It comes from deep within you.

My job is to help people (like you) find this part of themselves (it’s actually easy because I know where to look).

And then help them express themselves and handle whatever comes back to them so as to build outstanding relationships, incredible understandings and positive outcomes. The three outcomes that always accompany REAL communication.

This results in joy.

I know you’re stuck at home and everyone you’re talking to is on the other side of your computer screen.

If you want to experience deep human connections, you have to create them. You’ll want to do what the group of execs I was coaching are doing.

Make the technology between you and the other person disappear. Create the feeling that you are right there with them and that they are right there with you inches from your face.

Create that deeply personal eye contact that happens in the best relationships.

Talk with them like you’re having an intimate conversation and no one‘s listening.

That’s what brings out the best in you. That’s what brings out the best in them. That’s what creates a deep human connection.

These executives, when they did this, were absolutely amazing.

In reality, we were all over the world. I was sitting at my dining room table.

But I felt like each of them was sitting around the table with me. And we were having a very real, very warm, very intimate, very caring, personal conversation.

I was swept away. The technology had melted away. I fell in love with each of them.

A couple of hours before, they had been strangers. They had been “corporate and professional”. Formal. Lips were smiling, surface was pleasant. But they were emotionally chilly. And kind of scary.

By the end of the coaching, we all just wanted to hang out. I felt so connected, I knew I was going to miss each one of them dreadfully as soon as the call was over.

They left me with a lingering good feeling. I got off the live meeting and was still smiling for hours after. I have no doubt each one of them was too.

It’s not so important that they created this impact on me. Or on each other. What’s important is that they now are able to create this impact on EVERYONE they talk with. Virtually and in person.

This is true power.

The world is longing for a deep human connection from you. The best thing you can do right now is to reach out to them, make the technology and distance disappear, and create it.

That is the work I do. Let me know when this journey (and its great, great rewards) calls to you.

Be the cause!

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Demanding better and making it happen

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Demanding better

Last week, Mark came out of his virtual meetings feeling drained. This week he’s leaving each meeting exhilarated.

For the past several months, a new management team struggled with (in their words) lack of trust and suspicion. This week, they’re filled with great affinity for each other and are finding great pleasure in working together.

Last week, Andy and his wife were getting on each other’s nerves after being confined to their house for so long. This week, they’re enjoying being together and having the best conversations ever, so happy they found each other again.

Last week, Lisa, a millennial, felt disrespected and dismissed by the people she worked with, and resented them deeply for it. This week, they’re coming to her for her opinions and she loves them all.

What happened to these people?

A transformation happened. A transformation facilitated by an increase in their abilities.

It all happened with only TWO steps.   Here’s how to take them:

  • Step 1 (the only step that starts you down this road):   Your decision that existing reality is not as good as you demand it to be in order for you to be happy.

  • Step 2:  Learning.  The only way of gaining the ability to transform existing reality into that dream within you that will make you happy.

It’s easy to move furniture around to change a scene. But we live in a world of people. And transforming our lives ultimately means transforming these relationships.  People aren’t furniture.  They don’t like being moved around.  They talk back.  And they refuse to move.

That’s why the most important ability is communication. The ability to be fully understood and to respond to what comes back to you in a way that creates a shift in reality.

Create enough shifts, and you’ve changed your life.

How long does it take?  One conversation, if you’re good at it.

I’ve seen too many people learn to live with dissatisfaction and explain it away as a necessary part of life. I don’t know how many times people have said to me, “You can’t always be happy.”

Yes you can.

The one psychologist I ever went to see in my life during my first (and last) visit said, “The problem with you, Ingrid, is that you expect to be happy ALL the time.”

I thought to myself, “Absolutely! Isn’t that what this is all about?”

And I decided if he thought that was a problem, I could help him a whole lot more than he could help me. He wasn’t asking me for help, so I chit-chatted with him a bit and left with a warm and friendly (but final) goodbye.

I am pretty much happy all the time.  Do you know why? Because I spent my life learning how to communicate and I can do it.  Because gaining this key ability makes you causative.  Because being happy is what being causative does.

I very much want others (you) to be happy all the time too.  All the time.   And what makes me happiest is teaching and seeing people (you) increase their communication abilities, feel better about themselves and about the world.

Nothing helped me become causative more than the skills I now teach to others.  These abilities enable me to navigate the trickiest, the most complex and challenging conversations (and people) to create outstanding relationships and outcomes worth celebration.  Every day.

Just like the students I wrote about at the start of this article.  They’re happy.  And they’ll be happy tomorrow.

Keep increasing your abilities. There is no ceiling to stop their growth. The more you have, the happier you will be. Take those two steps.  Decide.  Learn.  Be nice to the people who tell you that you can’t be happy all the time, do the work and go ahead and be really happy anyway.

If you want someone to get you to that goal fast, then acquire the abilities I help you develop in Building a Foundation for Causative Communications and let’s get going.

Be the cause!

Ingrid

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“Passionate” speaking and other signs you’re a communication novice

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passionate presentation

The Executive VP of a large Silicon Valley organization has asked me to coach his VPs on their virtual presentation skills.

Their global “All Hands” presentations are now critical.

The current situation has gone on too long with no end in sight.  Employees are getting restless, morale is starting to sag.

The words of inspiration that worked in the beginning are falling flat. There’s nothing to look forward to.  Their weeks have turned into drudgery, tinged with suppressed despair.

The VPs can’t keep promising the same old things.  No one believes it. No matter how you paint it, tomorrow doesn’t look any different than today.

Everyone’s working longer hours, relentlessly tied to their computer screens, coping with the home scene, surrounded by mountains of work.  The future just looks like more of the same.

No breakthrough in sight.

With that as a background, yesterday I coached Martin, a VP who, in addition to everything happening above, is one of the world’s most monotonous presenters.

His “All Hands” presentations are 45 minutes of unendingly dry monotone followed by 15 minutes of uninspired Q&A…all delivered virtually to a global audience.

Martin hates being virtual.  His exact words were, “I hate talking to a camera.”

And that’s how he comes across. Like he is talking to a piece of furniture.

Even as I was listening to the first video Martin sent me so I could make an assessment of his skills, by the time I got to the end, I couldn’t remember what he’d said.

Martin was so tuned out to his presentation, there was no way I could tune in.

That was two months ago. Since then, I’ve been coaching him two hours a week.

Martin’s had many coaches before me. They all told him to be more dynamic. They all told him he needs to smile. He kept trying to tell them, “That’s not me.” They wouldn’t listen, they kept pushing him. Martin decided he really didn’t like coaches. He was prepared to dislike me.

My first order of business was to tiptoe around the mine field called, “It’s not me.”   I agree with Martin that being yourself is sacred.  No matter what, it’s VERY important always that you are YOU.  

I wanted Martin to become even MORE himself because, for all of us, that’s where our real power lies.

I’m very good at drawing a map “from here to there”. I can accurately assess where a person is and help them navigate the route to the charisma buried inside them. I help them cross that bridge to find their gold.

Once I have that map (and for each person it’s different), I’m extremely systematic in my coaching. I don’t make the mistake that many coaches make:   coaching too many things at one time.

I start with fundamentals and build a very solid foundation.  I work on one thing at a time until the person really gets it and owns it.  And only then do we work on the next thing.  In the beginning it looks like we’re going slow, but this is truly the way to make rapid progress.

It’s how I snuck up on Martin. In the beginning we spent several sessions working only on developing his eye contact and creating a powerful connection with a virtual audience.

He did it a little at a time.  I had him do a little bit more, then a little bit more, until it was full blast.

Now, when he looks into the camera, you feel a STRONG executive presence.  You also feel like he is sitting right in front of you in person. Martin captivates you. His eyes are alive.

When you think you’re talking to a camera, your eyes are dead. Your eyes only come to life when you’re talking to a person. It’s a skill to talk to a camera and bring your eyes to life.

Yesterday we worked on being compelling.  Then on being inspiring.  I gave Martin real time coaching as he practiced, helping him tease out that vital carrier wave called intention. People mistake passion for intention, and try to be passionate. Passion is hollow and ineffective compared to intention.  

Intention is what you want.  Passion is what YOU’RE feeling.  Intention determines how you’ll make THEM feel.

The message Martin has to deliver in his next “All Hands” is a difficult one. He has to tell them that, for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be a lot of work and little immediate reward.  That’s what we practiced.The change in Martin in the course of two hours was startling.  By the end of our coaching session, he was one of the most amazing speakers I’ve ever seen in my life.  

Martin didn’t sugar coat the situation.  He explained the mountain of work facing the workforce needed to reach a worthwhile future, but did it in a way that evokes an intensity of genuine purpose that will organically and naturally (no hype) inspire everyone to rise to the challenge, join forces and do it with an intensity of energy.

You see, it’s not about how passionate the speaker is.  It’s about how passionate the audience is when the speaker is finished.

Martin will ignite passion.

I have no doubt that his “All Hands” next week will be met with inspired enthusiasm.  If Martin were live and in-person, I have no doubt they would rise and give him a standing ovation.

In our current world, where virtual communication is more important than ever, your ability to develop and use these skills like Martin is doing will create your future success.

You literally get to choose how far you go.

High skills will lead to high levels of success.

Mediocre skills will lead to invisibility.

If you want these skills, you can get them. Check out Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills and Building a Foundation for Causative Communications.

Be the cause!

When Interns present better than SVPs

Intern presentation

I’m always so happy to see my students winning.  I’m delighted that my inbox is always full of their successes and wins.  And I’m always thrilled when I hear that their ability to communicate deeply touches and moves others.

Recently I received a request to train 16 highly successful mid-level engineering professionals as part of their challenging leadership development program.

I laughed with joy when I heard the reason for the request. 

Last year, the same corporation asked me to train 40 very bright college students who intern at this huge Silicon Valley company in the summertime. Many of them get hired full-time after they graduate.

The interns work in teams on ambitious projects designed to produce financial ROI. At the end of the summer, each team presents their project results to a panel of senior executives. It is fiercely competitive, with senior execs selecting the top 3 teams, and special prizes going to each.

I was hired to give these 40 interns presentation skills training the day before their big presentation so they would come across exceedingly well to the executives.

You can imagine being in college and having to present to the senior executives of a major Silicon Valley corporation. They were nervous!  So this training was a very good idea and very generous on the corporation’s part.

These young college students did extremely well in the training and the feedback they received from the execs after their presentations was fabulous.

The panel of executives, however, were faced with a dilemma.  They couldn’t decide which team to choose as #1 because they all presented their results so well. They were heard asking each other, “What is WITH these interns?! They’re better at presenting than many of the executives around here!”

What really blew the execs away, was that there weren’t just one or two good presenters in the group of 40. They were ALL strong.

These summer college interns blew the senior execs away so thoroughly, the organization asked me to train their high potential leaders so they too would develop the same skills.  This time their presentations were virtual, even more challenging.

This training also went well, with one of them emailing me the next day:

“It felt so great to know I was connecting and engaging the panel of execs, even though I couldn’t see them.  I could FEEL it!  At the end of my presentation, the top exec said, ‘Wow!  I have no words!  That was AMAZING!’.”

I am so proud of them, as I am all my students.

I’m especially proud of the college students.  They are walking tall.  And so thrilled that they gained these impressive and powerful abilities early in their career.  

The ability to communicate is THE most important ability to have, because with this ability comes the ability to open every door in your life.  That’s my goal and my purpose.  For you to experience that freedom.

Don’t let being virtual stop you from being powerful.  If you want these skills, you can get them. Check out Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills and Building a Foundation for Causative Communications.

Be the cause!

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Perfect Understanding

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father and son

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!

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Crossing the bridge into the land of your dreams

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bridge

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!

The history of kindness

history of kindness.jpg

Kind in the dictionary is defined as, “sympathetic, friendly, gentle, tenderhearted, and generous” as in, “He was a strong leader, yet kind.”  Kind people are easy to love.

The word also means, “type of” as in, “What kind of pizza is that?” or “Humankind” (the type of living being that is human).

What’s interesting is the derivation, the history, of the word kind.  It has the same derivation as the word kin, which means “family.”  And it has the same derivation as kindred, which in addition to meaning “family,” also means, “sharing the same beliefs” as in, “We’re kindred spirits.”

Humankind originally came from two words put together.  The first meant “one who has intelligence” plus cynn which meant “family”.  Humankind defined as a family, brothers and sisters, who have intelligence.

The word kind is deeply rooted in the idea of family, with the additional meaning of people like us, meaning, our kind.  

And it’s to these people (our kind of people) we are most sympathetic, tenderhearted and generous.  In other words, our kindness flows more easily or naturally toward people who are similar to us, people who share our history, our views, people who feel like “our family”.

The more we see similarity between ourselves and others, and especially our similarity with all humankind, the more kindness we have in the world.

I’ve been studying ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt.  When I compare how much kindness was shown “outsiders” in their time (not much) to what I see today, despite an unrelentingly pessimistic media, I see that we never halt our pursuit of understanding, compassion, kindness and kinship with others.  We never stop talking.  We never stop trying to be understood.

Yes, we have a long way to go.   And seeing our similarities amidst any differences surely helps.  Our only tool is communication, as that is all that leads to understanding.  Causative communication.

I have faith we’ll arrive.

Be the cause!

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The journey towards 100% certainty

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Inspire Looking Child

I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard or read the words, “We are living in a time of uncertainty.” 

I’ve been around for a while and I can’t EVER recall living in what anyone would call “a time of certainty.”  As a student of history, I can’t name any past civilization that I’d characterize as “a time of certainty”, including the Golden Age of Greece in the time of Pericles which was considered one of the best.

Persons today writing or saying that this is “a time of uncertainty” may be describing their OWN world view (and they’re likely to be having quite an awful day as a result), but it certainly doesn’t need to define your reality.

The word certainty means freedom from doubt. It also means unfailing and always producing the intended effect.

Imagine being free of doubt.  Imagine being unfailing and always producing your intended effect.  That’s what certainty is.

Certainty came from the Latin word certanus which meant full of confidence in one’s knowledge or judgment.

Doubt is the opposite of certainty. Freedom from doubt is powerful. A good dictionary will tell you that doubt means:

  • to waver or fluctuate

  • to hesitate

  • to be in suspense

  • to be missing confidence

  • to believe truth or fact to be undetermined

  • to fear, be apprehensive, to suspect

  • to be in an unsettled state

Doubt came from the Latin duo which meant undecided between two things.

Clearly, a feeling of certainty is one of the most important feelings you can have.  A feeling of certainty is both desirable and VITAL for a happy life.  Having a feeling of certainty about yourself feels GREAT.

It’s not a feeling you want to have go away.  You want to feel certain … all the time.

But how do you achieve that?

The question that shines a light on this path is this one:  Do you derive your certainty from WITHIN?  Or from outside?

Your answer defines the degree of certainty AND happiness you can look forward to.

When certainty comes from the outside (what other people, economic conditions, news media, etc. are doing or going to do), you can all too easily get blown by the wind, and who knows which way the wind will blow?  You’ll NEVER have enduring certainty and any certainty you THINK you have, will blow away one day.

When your certainty is from within, it’s ALWAYS a time of certainty.

Let tell you some real examples from the hundreds I have heard from the professionals and execs who recently completed our online courses on Building a Foundation for Causative Communications and Mastering Virtual Presentations.

I’ll give you three examples of what increased certainty does.

A manager was leading a team meeting and, unexpectedly, politics flared up.  The conversation suddenly became an inferno of miscommunication, became very tense and people got upset.  Using all the skills she gained, she guided the conversation into and through the tough issues to a positive outcome where everyone felt happy and satisfied.  She especially made sure EVERYONE felt heard and acknowledged.  She turned it into a meaningful, emotionally impactful conversation that had a profound impact on all of them.  It brought the team together in a powerful way.  Afterward she was flooded with “Thank you” notes.

A client wrote me, “I am transformed.  I really needed the skills this week.  I turned every negative situation into a positive.  I pumped affinity and real understanding into every situation.  My week is now absolutely fabulous!  I just kept thinking, 'Is this really happening?'  I walked away so charged up, I was ready to take over the world!”

An engineering professional who had been extremely nervous presenting to senior execs (especially virtually) wrote me after a very important presentation: “It felt so great to know I was connecting and engaging the panel of execs, even though I couldn’t see them.  I could FEEL it!  At the end of my presentation, the top exec said, ‘Wow!  I have no words!  That was AMAZING!’.”

I’m receiving email after email from many other students sharing their extraordinary wins.

What does this have to do with certainty?  And with you?

When you take your communication skills to an extremely high level, your impact on the world around you is powerful, inevitable.  Your doubts about yourself, about the future, the world around you vanish.  You have great certainty.

In today’s world, especially because we’re virtual, it takes EVERYTHING I’ve been writing about in these articles to create it – but MORE of everything than before!  It takes MORE imagination, MORE being fully present, MORE really connecting with the other person or persons, MORE focused attention, MORE full affinity, MORE speaking with powerful intent, MORE listening, and MORE total acknowledgements so the other person feels truly heard.  These are all things you want to SPLURGE on right now!

I live my life with certainty.  And I’m dedicated to helping you live yours with certainty too, with extraordinary communication and presentation abilities that always work for you, with freedom from doubt.

I love certainty.

I am certain these three people I’ve written about will hit it out of the park again, that their success is just beginning.

I have 40 clients I’m working with this week.  I am certain I’m going to love them and make some lifelong friends. I am certain they will have extraordinary realizations about their communications and relationships.  I am certain they’ll experience enduring life-changing wins and that they’ll gain abilities that make them stand out.  I’m certain they will have a positive impact on the world around them.  And at home too.

I’m certain we will laugh.  A lot.

Do I know when I’ll be able to walk into a store without a mask? No.  But is that running my life? Not at all.

I have WAY more things on the list of things I’m certain of – and all the IMPORTANT things are on that list.

Certainty comes from being able to cause the outcomes you want. It comes from self-confidence.  And that comes from competence.  

And attitude. An attitude that says you look within for what you want.  An attitude that you can create anything you want. 

Attitude alone WITHOUT skills gets defeated.

The people who have abilities plus attitude are the ones who are going to change the world.  People like YOU!

I’m certain that good things are created on an individual level first, that individuals begin to impact other individuals around them, and that begins to impact a group and a wider and an expanding sphere of life.

I’m certain if good people (like you) are filled with their own inner certainty, that we can have a golden age ahead.

I’m certain you are unique.  I am certain you are important.  I will bet that you are a stabilizing force for the world around you.   The world needs you.

Live in a world of certainty! 

If I can help you do that, email me.  I am committed to helping you in your journey towards 100% certainty.

Be the cause!

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How to speak with your eyes…

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Inspire Looking Child

Do you have a favorite photo of you? 

If you’re like most people, you have many photos of you that you’re not crazy about, and a small handful you like.  That photo you do like captures for forever something wonderful about you.  It’s the one photo of you that makes even you smile.

A really good photographer knows how to bring that out in you.  That’s what I do in teaching people virtual presentation skills.  Bring it out.  In this article I want to help you see WHY you like that photo of you and not others.

This will help you create more photos you like, but the reason I’m focusing on this is that the same principle applies to creating powerful communication virtually, especially when you’re giving virtual presentations.

I’m going to use Marc as an example.  Marc is a senior executive I coached this week, helping him prepare for a presentation he’ll be making with thousands watching.  The two reasons people are listening to Marc are interest in his content and his position in the organization.

As a technical leader, Marc is extremely knowledgeable and has great technical content.  Marc also has a great strategy, and he’s innovative.  None of these come across. 

It comes across dry.  Fine for the first 3 minutes, then disappointingly uninspiring.  He can’t wait for it to be over, and neither can you.

How do you bring out the charisma of someone like this?

Let me bridge back to you and talk about how do you bring it out of yourself?

Well first let me tell you how NOT to do it.

You know when someone’s taking your picture and they tell you to smile? What are you feeling at that moment?  Pretty awful, right? Like you’re forcing yourself to smile when you’re not feeling it.  You’re FORCING that smile.  You hold it until the camera clicks.  And then you drop it.

When you do that, your smile looks fake. It doesn’t match the look in your eyes.

The look in your eyes is THE most powerful, THE most important, aspect of your body language there is. 

People ask me all the time if body language is important.  My answer is an unqualified YES!  But we have to look at WHERE it comes from.

If you work on the superficial, your body language will be terrible because it’s fake, like you see in the bad photo which captures your fake body language and freezes it in time for you.

Let me repeat this.  The look in your eyes is THE most powerful, THE most important, aspect of your body.

Whether you are in person and even MORE so when you’re virtual!

When your smile doesn’t MATCH your eyes, whether in a photo, an in-person conversation or a presentation, you DON’T look good. I don’t even need to see you to tell you I’m 100% certain of that.

The other thing that happens when someone tells you to smile for the camera, is that you get self-conscious.

Self-conscious literally means too conscious or aware of yourself.  It means you’re putting your attention on yourself.

Having attention on yourself VIOLATES every principle of powerful and effective communication. 

Imagine watching your arm while you play tennis. How well will you play?

If you look back at that photo of yourself that you really like, what was your attention on?

What were you thinking?

Most importantly, what were you feeling?

I have no doubt you had no attention on yourself and you were filled with a powerful feeling.  Right?

And it showed in your EYES.

An empty smile will NEVER create the effect we’re looking for.

It’s not in your mouth. It’s in your eyes.

You want your eyes to speak.

Film stars in silent movies knew this very well. They didn’t have sound to carry them.  They spoke with their eyes.

How you do that is by what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling.

Let me make a point here.  Your eyes speak whether you want them to or not.  If you’re feeling any anxiety, if you’re even a little bit self-conscious, believe me your eyes are speaking that out to the world.

I have a photo of me I really like.  I’m in India with 225 students. They’re each doing individual exercises. I’m wearing a beautiful Indian salwar (gorgeous silk tunic over fabulously elegant pants).  I’m holding a clipboard loosely in my right arm and my left hand is on my hip.  I’m closely observing a young student as he works on his assignment.  I’m utterly absorbed in him and the look of pure love on my face floods the photo.  This photo captures timeless beauty.

Genuine and great affinity for the person or persons you’re talking to is what puts that beautiful look in your eyes and makes you look good, makes you beautiful or handsome.  And, very importantly, makes others respond.

I coach many senior executives. Only a small percent of them have sufficient affinity to be called charismatic.

I’m like the photographer who can draw the charisma out.  I draw their affinity out.

I do this by coaching them on what’s in their core.  Not superficial facial expressions or hand gestures, but their core, which is the true fountain, the true source, of charisma.

Going back to Marc, he looks like two different people in his “before” and “after” videos.

In his “before” video, Marc’s eyes are dead.  They’re not cold, just lifeless.  He smiles occasionally, but his eyes have no life.

In his “after” video, Marc’s eyes are filled with great warmth, they’re smiling, twinkling even.  The look in his eyes fills you with great warmth for him.

This can ONLY happen with genuine feelings of affinity.  You will never be successful faking it or forcing it.  It has to be REALLY happening inside you.

It comes from inside you, moves to your eyes and then to your smile. 

Marrying Marc’s incredible content with charisma created a leader whose communication is inspiring.  I guarantee if you see him talk, you’ll find yourself smiling without even realizing you’re doing it, a smile that starts before you even have time to think about it.  It starts the moment he starts speaking.

Which brings me to another point.

Many people have momentary bursts of affinity in their presentations.  A small burst at the beginning, one or max two brief bursts in the middle and occasionally a tiny burst when they’re leaving.  They’re all momentary and over in a flash.

Very few maintain powerful affinity throughout their entire talk. You can see it in their eyes.  No life in the eyes throughout most of their presentation.

The key is to start STRONG and CONTINUE that affinity throughout your entire presentation.  Of course that feeling will still have very natural peaks and valleys, but in a much HIGHER range of feeling that brings out the BEST in you.

My inbox is full of emails from students I coached last week, telling me that already this week they’re getting incredible results and the feedback they’re receiving is that they’re now “Amazing!”

Nothing makes me happier than helping someone who wants to reach others with their ideas achieve their goal.  Nothing makes me happier than filling the world with great communicators.  Nothing makes me happier than helping people be amazing.  If we do this enough, we’ll have an amazing world.

Be the cause!

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KNOWING without looking…

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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!

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The magic of the weird…

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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!

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How to lead the invisible

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set up

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!

The power of choice and what I predict is going to happen

rocks into rainbows

It was a beautiful early Spring day in March, mid-afternoon, my assistant and I were in the office, heads together working on my schedule for the rest of the month. Out of the corner of my eye, as I glanced at my computer, I noticed an unnrgent email saying that beginning at midnight we all had to work from home.

My staff and I mobilized quickly.  Within three hours we had a plan and a new life.

For over 30 years we have delivered training and coaching largely in person, only very occasionally and sporadically delivering online webinars.

What we did that week and in the last two months is build a brand new business entirely from scratch overnight. Online training and coaching.

In less than two months about 500 people have completed our training programs, way more than we ever reached in person given that amount of time.  We’ve added over 20 corporations newly to our list.  The success stories and the wins flooding my inbox completely blow me away.

But this blog isn’t about that.  It’s about our country and even the world.

The word crisis is older than our civilization and many others civilizations that came before us.

Following its trail to present time …. by the 1400’s crisis had come to mean a decisive point in the progress of a disease.  But it also meant a vitally important or decisive state of things, point at which change must come, for better or worse.

It arrived in English by way of Latin, which acquired it from the even earlier Greek word krisis which meant turning point in a disease, that change which indicates recovery or death. 

It also meant judgment, the result of a trial, selection and had arisen from the even earlier word krinein which meant to separate, decide, judge.

The actual root of it all was a spoken word that earliest humanity was using before they could even write or draw on cave walls.  This was the word krei which meant to discriminate, distinguish.

Distinguish means the ability to see the difference.  Often between the false and the true.  Between what’s right and what isn’t.

In short, crisis is that vitally important, critically decisive turning point where recovery happens.  Or doesn’t.

When it comes to the recovery, or even renaissance, of a society, it depends on our ability to distinguish the false from the true.  To judge.  To decide.  And make choices.

I’m watching the politics of the situation, and especially the politicians, very closely. On a local, state, country and international level.

Usually words, words and more words obscure their actions, many of which are hidden from our view.

Today their actions have no cover, you can see them clearly.

This creates a turning point.

I think our world will respond the way one of my neighbors did. This is what she chose. She put a little red bucket outside by the street with a note that said if you give her rocks, she will paint rainbows on them for you.

Neighbors have been pouring rocks in on her daily.  You see her results in the photo at the top of the article.  Throughout the neighborhood you can see these rocks sitting prettily on mailboxes.

The politicians right now are not giving us choices.  How we deal with that is a choice.  A big one.

I believe we have been given rocks. What we do with them is our choice.

I believe in all of our ability to transform society’s current reality into something beautiful.

It’s something we have to do well as individuals. Only then can we come together as a group.

I believe we can.  I believe we will.

Be the cause!

Unlocking the door to the moment

key to success

Yesterday morning I kicked-off a new Causative Communication Skill-Building Summit

with 10 extremely intelligent, competent professionals. They want to sharpen their communication skills because their lives are full of challenges.

One of them wants to redirect the marketing strategy for a product, another wants to get promoted, a couple of them need other teams to commit resources.  

All of them have to deal with people who are stubborn, pressed for time and have their own priorities.  All of them are experiencing push-back.

I start the Summit by role-playing the exact situations they want to handle.  I want to see how they manage these situations with what they know. Each one of them got into a debate with me.  None of them got the outcome they wanted.  

I wasn’t being particularly difficult.  They simply didn’t have the skills to handle me.

I realized any situation looks difficult if you don’t have the skills to handle it. 

One the first things I coached all of them on was the skill of being in the moment and putting all of their attention on me, being very aware of me.  In other words, the skill of getting totally rid of the “noise” in their heads.

I pointed out, and they realized, they were all mentally focusing on the outcome they wanted. In other words, they had more attention on the outcome they wanted than on me.  That put them slightly into the future, not in the moment.

Concentrating their attention on the outcome also made them all look stressed and uncomfortable.  When you look stressed, uncomfortable or tense, it makes the other person defensive.

As I showed them how to develop the skill of staying in the moment, and they became competent comfortably keeping their attention in the present and on me, their faces changed completely.  They relaxed.  Each one of them developed an executive presence that was very comfortable and powerful.

They said the same words that they had said the first time, but this time their meaning came across very differently. With no other skills except these, they were already persuasive.

Now they have a good foundation for building the other set of complex skills they need for tough situations.  I’m looking forward to working with them again today.

How powerful is being in the moment?

I recently got two emails from people I coached referring just to this small skill set.

One of them has been looking for a job for eight months and had gotten increasingly frustrated and worried. She emailed me that she had two job interviews immediately after the training.

She had realized during the training that during her previous unsuccessful interviews she was concentrated primarily on the outcome she so desperately wanted.  During the training she realized this was messing with her mind, and keeping her from being her irresistible best during the interview.

In these next two interviews, she made herself comfortable and kept her focus on staying in the moment and keeping her attention and awareness fully directed on the interviewer. I am sure she came across as competent, poised, and compelling.  I am sure she came across as relaxed and wonderful to work with. 

She heard back quickly and got job offers for both jobs, chose the best one and started her new job with a truly fabulous company on Monday. 

Keep in mind, everyone I’m working with is doing all of these things virtually right now. With a camera instead of a real face.  Now that’s a real skill.

The other person wrote me:

“I am on a stressful assignment that is focused on my organization’s response to COVID-19. I started my workday doing the ‘being there’ exercise. It gave me focus, better mental clarity, and calm.”

What a great way to be!

I’m writing this to remind you that being comfortable, really comfortable, being in the moment and directing your attention and awareness fully on the other person opens the door to magic.

It’s impossible to feel stressed, worried, anxious or self-conscious when you are comfortable, in the moment and your attention is fully on the other person.

Yes, it’s a skill. And it feels great.

Your life and work will change the moment you put this skill to work for you.

We have the tools to make it possible.  You’re the one who has to take the first step.

Be the cause!

A Leader Alone in The Room

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I’ve had an exhilarating five weeks. Delivering live online training has proved to be thrilling, for me, for my team, for everyone attending. What people are writing on their evaluations is profound, some of it even makes me cry, and I wake up each morning to an inbox flooded with wins and successes from all over the country, and even the world.

We’ve trained hundreds of people, WAY more than we would’ve ever reached in person in five weeks. The live online training has been so successful, we have corporate clients now booking them for their organizations into October already.

Just as an example, this was from a 6-hour coaching summit with 5 leaders. This is after the first day, applying their “homework” and what they reported back the morning of the second day after only three hours of coaching:

  • After a virtual meeting with senior executives, a number of them texted this VP that she was highly effective, straightforward and sincere – they were blown away. She said she was comfortable presenting to them for the first time.

  • A VP has a direct report who, for the past year and a half, didn’t respect her the way she’d respected the VP’s predecessor that she’d worked for for many years. The afternoon of the Summit they had an hour-long conversation. It was the first time the VP felt she received the same high level of respect this person had given her predecessor, and it felt great.

  • A Director scheduled a virtual meeting with a person she was struggling with. She had talked with her the day previous to the Summit. The conversation ended badly after going around in circles for 2 hours. The afternoon after the coaching she created a completely different virtual conversation and said the relationship “completely changed for the better. We built solid trust for the first time.” It happened in less than 5 minutes.

Our large group live webinars have also resulted in tremendous wins, but what I want to talk about today a particular observation I’ve made coaching leaders. What do they run into after they gain the skills?

It’s the communication skills of the people around you.

You don’t want to be alone in the room.

Communication skills are not something that only one leader should have. For an organization to do well, every leader needs them.

But even that is not good enough. It’s not good enough for only the leaders to have outstanding communication skills.

If only the leaders have outstanding communication skills, they will be continuously frustrated. I know because I’ve been contacted by MANY continuously frustrated leaders wanting help.

It’s when everyone in the organization has outstanding communication skills that frustration with each other ceases and a high-performance team goes to work.

It doesn’t matter if the team is 10 people, 10,000 or more. Here’s an example from a VP talking about what happened when all the senior leaders in his organization gained real communication skills:

“The following Monday I saw a change. The tone of our meetings changed. For the first time it was a meeting where respect for each other enabled us to make terrific progress on the task.”

Causative communication skills are crazy powerful on an individual level. You can see that from the wins above.

When it’s on a team level, it’s the best team you’ve ever worked on.

When it’s on an organizational level, you, your team, and your organization are invincible.

So, if you’re a leader reading this…

The question is:

Are you alone in the room?

How great do you want your team to be? Because while greatness is directed by leaders, it is executed by everyone below them.

Here’s the good news about building up everyone around you:

As people learn how to communicate and see they can achieve great results, they start taking more and more responsibility for helping others win. They stop being so threatened about their own survival and they start really assisting the world around them.

You can be the cause of your own success. You can be the cause of your team’s success. You can even be the cause of your organization success.

Ensure your communication skills are up to the job. And then ensure everyone else’s are also.

If you want more information about our current online offerings for groups, please reply to this email and let me know.

Be the cause!

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Virtual is REAL

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I woke up this morning to an email from a recent student.  She just got promoted and could not be more excited.  She’s a Millennial.  It’s her first promotion.  She’s flying high.  Another student was promoted to SVP of a major Silicon Valley multinational corporation.  Someone took a screen shot of the joy in her face when she was told the news during a virtual staff meeting and this beautiful photo has been shared a thousand times.

My inbox is full of good news.  Some days I can’t even keep up with it.

I’ve been wanting to create online training for years.  My staff will tell you it’s been on my “goals for the year” for a loooong time.  I never had the time.  We were always so swamped with in-person clients, there wasn’t a moment to sit down and design training for a whole new medium.

And then “now” happened.  When I pulled the staff together and asked them what they thought about the situation, they didn’t even have to think.  They said, “Great opportunity to do what we’ve been wanting to do for years.”

And so we are. 

In the last several weeks we’ve built an online business overnight.  Everyone working overtime.  It’s going better than even we expected.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the client demand for this training.  It turns out we have people all over the country and the world who have been wanting to do our services, but weren’t able to travel or have us come there. 

We’ve trained hundreds of people in the last several weeks, WAY more than we were ever able to do in person, and the wins are pouring into my inbox more than ever.  I was delighted to discover that the amazing wins our clients have always had working with us in person also happen when they work with us virtually.  I can’t tell you how relieved I am!  I was worried the client wins would be less.  Not so!  Whew!

We were able to offer free webinars for several weeks.  But we’re now being asked to do so many sessions for individual corporations, we simply don’t have time to continue them at the moment. 

There’s one exception.  A number of organizations asked me to put something together specifically for engineers.  We have so many of them around us.  So you’ll see a free webinar just for them below (or for you if you are one!).

I’ve learned so much in the last several weeks.  Some I already knew, but it really came home to me seeing so many people win in such a short period of time:

When you have the ability to engage any audience or any individual and create a powerful impact when you’re virtual, there’s no one in the world you can’t reach. 

Despite what most people think, the word virtual does NOT mean, “Not there.” It means, “MAKE IT REAL.” The word virtual literally means, “Having the power of being real.” Even though it’s not actual, it is AS POWERFUL as if it were real.

That means your virtual presence should be as strong, powerful and real as if you were in the same room. It means your communication should be as strong, powerful and real as if you were right in front of their face. It means your impact needs to be REAL. That’s what the word “virtual” means.

When you can do that, no one tunes you out. No one multi-tasks. They listen. They get it. They respect you. They’re inspired. They buy-in. And, if you’re really good, they admire you.

That takes some serious skills.  They’re easy to learn. 

When it comes to communicating effectively, even very capable people are operating at less than 10% of their potential.  Bring out the other 90% of yourself.  It’s there waiting for you.  There’s nothing more thrilling.  You’ll fly high.

Don’t listen to feedback that’s not helpful. The only feedback you should listen to is feedback that gets you excited and makes you feel your true power is being released.

Find a good source to work with.  If you didn’t invent Jedi, you’ll need a Jedi Master to help you become Jedi.  You won’t figure Jedi out on your own.  Work with a Jedi Master and you’ll achieve extraordinary results so fast it’s exhilarating.

We’ve had many organizations have their folks do live group online training together.  It’s crazy awesome fun.  I’ve never seen groups have such a good time!  Learn new skills together and support each other and keep the skills alive when the training is over.

Possibly the most important thing I learned is that ALWAYS is a good time to develop your skills.  It’s always a good time.  You are alive and have goals that matter to you today.  Don’t back-burner your happiness.    

You are important to the world.  We need you.  We need to hear your voice.  We need you to win at the game of life.  Whatever way you do it, gain the communication skills you need so life is not directing you, but you are causing it to go the way you know it should.  We will all be happier because of it.

Be the cause!

Upcoming Online Services

NOTE:  Please check with your company’s Learning & Development department to see if our programs are in their catalogue.  If they are, that’s the best way for you to sign up.  The free webinar for engineers is not in catalogues yet.

1.       FREE Webinar: Virtual Communication Skills for Engineers

April 28, 2020

11:00 – 12:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

7 minutes on the road to mastery

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I was blown away by how many hundreds of people attended our webinars in the last several weeks. My email is flooded with success stories and I’m delighted so many people found them valuable.

Every single volunteer I coached made an almost unbelievable improvement. And, remarkably, each one only received an average of seven minutes of coaching from me. 

After learning and practicing several key skills, each volunteer was overwhelmed with genuine admiration from the many others in the webinar, probably more positive feedback from more people in an hour and a half than they’ve gotten in the last two years.

This is why:

  • Most people are operating at less than 10% of their potential.  I know they’re capable of much, much more and how to bring it out fast.

  • People learn incredibly fast when they’re given good, solid, true principles that work every time. Most of the time they’re stumbling in the dark trying to figure things out, they don’t have a good source that can tell them, and even more important, show them how communication really works and what it takes to make their own communication powerful. They’re missing data. Once they know, the change is immediate and they start winning.

  • People have blind spots.  They don’t know what they’re doing wrong.  They don’t know why what they’re doing isn’t working. They can’t see it.

  • People are given terrible feedback. The quality of feedback they’ve gotten is awful. It’s not helpful. When they’re given powerfully correct feedback in the form of laser-precise accurate coaching tailored precisely to them, they’re capable of dramatic improvement in split seconds.  I very rarely meet anyone who’s had an expert communication coach work directly with them directly.

  • They’re not given the opportunity to practice enough times with a coach who very rapidly guides them around their blind spots to true mastery. If they’re given this, they’re capable of extraordinary things so fast it leaves you breathless.

The comments that I got over and over and over again in the past couple of weeks is that no one‘s ever seen coaching like what they saw in these webinars. I believe them.

Even the people who didn’t receive the coaching were blown away by how much they learned.  My chat was LOADED with people telling me how helpful it was.

And I got emails from many participants the next day saying they were applying what they learned and seeing a BIG difference.

I believe so many hundreds of people are signing up for our online services for two reasons:

People really want to get better.  They want to be causative and powerful.  They hate feeling like they’re coming up short.  They want to be the best. 

It’s hard for many of them to come to Emeryville, CA where we’re located, and now that we have the time to offer so many services online, they’re grabbing this opportunity.  My incredible team and I are usually swamped with in-person workshops and clients.  Now people all over the world have easy access to us.

It’s made me realize how much the world needs a path to mastery.

How do you make the journey to become a world-class causative communicator?

  1. You have to learn what you don’t know.

  2. You have to learn the right way to do it and why it’s right, not just what to do but the principles behind it.  It’s best if someone SHOWS you, both modeling/demonstrating it for you and showing and guiding you to do it yourself.

  3. You have to perfect the many skills it takes.

Even step #1 is powerful, as our webinars have been demonstrating.

How fast you achieve true mastery depends on the source of learning you choose.

If you find someone who’s already expert and a great teacher and coach, you’ll learn fast.

If you’re spending a lot of time on Google, YouTube and Ted talks, it will take you a lot longer. 

I believe people are capable of so much more than what they’re currently doing, I don’t want to see them take a long time to discover the power within.

I’m in the process of creating an online path to mastery because I see how badly the world who can’t come to our office wants this.  Based on the results I’ve seen in the last several weeks, what I and my team have built so far is exceedingly powerful.

If you work for a corporation, please check with your Learning & Development department to see if our programs are already in their catalogue as that will be the best way for you to sign up.

We have one more free webinar on Building the Foundation for Causative Communications that I’ll be delivering April 14. Everyone says this webinar is eye-opening and many say it’s life-changing.  It starts you on the path to #1 above:  learning what you don’t know.

If you’re ready to do the work to develop powerful communication skills that less than 10% of the world has, I have an online 6-hour intense skill-building session scheduled for April 15-16. I limit the size of the group so I can personally coach you.  If 7 minutes of coaching can create such dramatic change, imagine your life after 6 hours of intense instruction and coaching. Right now I’m offering it to you with a significant 70% discount. It’s normally $997 but with this promo code it will only be $495 (it’s a special for you during this time).  This summit puts you firmly on the path to #2 and #3 above to perfect the many skills it takes to achieve mastery.

April 23 I have a paid 90-minute webinar on Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills that will enable you to have a very strong presence and be compelling in all your virtual presentations.   

We are also being asked to deliver online training and coaching sessions for corporations and groups and we’re happy to talk to you about scheduling one of those if you would like a session just for your group.

And senior executives and people who are preparing for big presentations have been requesting virtual one-on-one coaching, so we have that also.

There is a path to mastery. I know it because I traveled it myself. I’m like the Sherpa that’s gone up and down the mountain many times and knows how to get you to the top. I personally think that’s where you belong.

Whatever path you choose, I encouraged you to be relentless in your pursuit of your own excellence. It’s there waiting for you to discover it.  And there’s nothing more exhilarating than finding it.

Be the cause!

Upcoming Online Services

1.      FREE Webinar:  Building a Foundation for Causative Communications

April 14, 2020

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM PST

Click here for information and to register.

2.      Webinar:  Mastering Virtual Presentations

April 23, 2020

11:00 AM – 1 PM PST

Click here for information and to register.

4.   Causative Communications Skill-Building Summit: 6 hours intensive skill building over the course of 2 days

April 15 – 16, 2020

9:30 AM – 12:30 PM PST each day

Link for information and to register

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

Confronting the CHOICE

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One of my clients, Sharma, is a lower level manager in a huge organization with over 50,000 employees.  She has only 17 people reporting to her and many levels between her and the top.  She wanted to introduce a completely new company-wide initiative that would impact over 20,000 employees. 

This would have seemed impossible to most people.  The sheer number of people she needed to get on board, and the fact that she needed the SVP many levels above her to sign off on it would have stopped the average person from even trying.  The challenge of just getting everyone’s attention in this crazy busy high-tech organization would have discouraged the average person.

Everything surrounding her said, “No way.”

Being causative means making what you want happen.  It means being able to cause the outcome you want at will. 

When you are causative, it doesn’t matter what the environment around you is doing, you are the source and the cause of what happens.  You are able to cause what you want.

The environment could be your boss, co-workers, your family, or the pandemic. It’s anything outside of yourself. When you are causative, you can stay causative no matter what is happening.

Instead of relying on the environment, you’re able to rely on yourself to make what you want come true.

The catch is that it takes skills to be able to accomplish this. Not just knowledge… SKILLS.

The difference between knowledge and skills is that knowledge is in your head, skills are what you are able to DO. This varies greatly from person to person.

You could have knowledge in your head and know what you’re supposed to do.  For example, you know you’re supposed to speak up, or you know you’re supposed to give a great presentation, or have confidence, or you know you’re supposed to get them to buy-in, give you budget or a promotion, to cooperate or do what you’re asking.

Skills are when you can actually do it.

Highly skilled is when you do it extremely well, even in adverse conditions (like if the other person isn’t listening, they strongly disagree, they’re not interested or they’re way higher than you in the organization).

Mastery is when you can do it even when most people can’t, and you can do it in a big way others really notice and admire.

You can never look to other people to see how much ability you should demonstrate. To determine where you want to be on this spectrum, you have to look inside yourself to find the truth of the level of Jedi, Samurai, skill you want to possess.

What happens to many people, unfortunately, (but hopefully not to you), is that they shrink the outcomes they want, and the outcomes they go for, to fit the skill level they have.  They don’t possess the skills to make something really awesome happen, so they stop dreaming big. 

They start to have goals that sound like, “I just want to survive this year”.  Sometimes it’s, “I just want to survive this month.”  It becomes, “I just want to deal with what’s right in front of me right now.”

As your dreams get smaller and smaller, so do you.  And no one I know really likes being small. 

It may seem “safe”, but it isn’t.  The smaller you are, the more the world can eat you up.  And it will.

The reason I teach communication skills is because I believe (and I see every day with my clients) that, while you can do many things extremely well, these are the skills that matter the most in life.  These are the skills that shape your life.  These are the skills that define who you are, what you do, what you have.

These are the skills that shape your self-confidence, your self-esteem, your self-respect, your self-pride.

These are the skills the shape your relationship with the world around you.

These are the skills that define your life.

This is what I’ve learned over and over in working with tens of thousands of clients:

You CHOOSE the level you want to be at.

And then you take action to make it so.

That’s the responsibility each of us has. To choose.  To develop the skill to act.  When we have the skill, nothing stops us from acting.  It’s only lack of skill that stops us.

The fact is, there is no limit to how good you can get with your communication.  And the better you get, the more causative you are and the more you can make what you want happen, and that enables you to dream bigger and bigger dreams and make them happen.

Sharma just emailed that she is getting unprecedented interest and support for her initiative and that a pilot is currently in progress with everyone enthusiastically predicting it will be rolled out company-wide.  She’s doing the happy dance in her home office.

She also said that:

“Without my learning how to communicate causatively, none of this would have happened.”

I believe her.  I know how hard it is to get people to listen.  Especially now.

And speaking of now, whichever way you do it, now is the perfect time for you to work on your own personal-development and increase your skill level to the level you WANT to be.

Don’t shrink your dreams to match your skills.  Increase your skills to match your dreams.

We created the free virtual offerings below to teach you what you need to know to improve your communication.

We created the upcoming Skill Building Summits to transform your knowledge of WHAT to do into real SKILLS.  These Summits are normally $997, but to help you build powerful skills during this time, I’m giving you a Promo Code that will reduce the price for you to $297.  The Promo Code expires after these Summits.  Please use this Promo Code when you register:  m6k5sh

Our Skill Building Summits are also available as Live Group Webinars for Teams and Corporations to bring out their true power.

You can have One-on-One Virtual Coaching if you choose to achieve mastery.

Choose the option that matches the level at which you want to operate.

There’s nothing you can’t create, there’s nothing you can’t cause.

It’s an ideal time to become more of your best self.

Be the cause!

Upcoming Online Services

1.  Virtual Presentations Skill-Building Summit:  6 hours intensive skill building over the course of 2 days

April 8 – 9, 2020

9:30 AM – 12:30 PM PST each day

Click here for information and to register.

2.      FREE Webinar:  Building a Foundation for Causative Communications

April 14, 2020

11:00 – 12:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

3.      FREE Webinar:  Mastering Virtual Presentations

April 7, 2020

11:00 – 12:30 PST

Click here for information and to register.

4.   Causative Communications Skill-Building Summit: 6 hours intensive skill building over the course of 2 days

April 15 – 16, 2020

9:30 AM – 12:30 PM PST each day

Link for information and to register

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

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

Click here for information and to schedule.

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