Helping Create Success
Simplify, Simplify
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he other day I wanted to hear my friend guesting on a podcast, but the host was such a gas-bag that I had to stop without getting to hear her. He seemed to think he was the Charles Dickens of podcasts, getting paid by the word.
After five long and boring minutes of him talking about himself, and no way to skip ahead in the recording, I gave up. This is what I call “audience abuse” and it should be illegal.
One of the cardinal rules when speaking, whether in person, on camera or other platform, is to get to the point as soon as possible. It will make life much more pleasant for all concerned.
This is definitely something I’ve noticed a lot more since we’ve all been forced onto Zoom in this past year. Some people seem to think that because we have nowhere to go that we must also have all day. Not so! Preamble that rambles is not the way to build momentum, and waiting through several minutes of filler to hopefully get to the meat of the matter is tiring and vexing.
If you’re fortunate enough to have an audience, take care of them. Be forthright, succinct and show them you respect their time.
Be Yourself; Everyone Else Is Already Taken!
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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken!” Oscar Wilde
It’s pretty easy to spot the guys who are doing their best Gary V impressions… I get light-headed waiting for them to breathe. And while it’s worked well for Gary, everyone else comes across as a wannabe Gary.
The beauty of originality is its singularity. Everyone has their unique fingerprint and voice print and personality. You’re far better served to understand more about what makes you interesting than trying to copy anyone else. Because no one does you like you do you.
Pick It Up (a Notch)
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his week’s homework in my Client Communications class was the cause of much wincing and discomfort. The dreaded assignment was to record themselves leaving three different voice messages to potential clients, colleagues etc. You’d have thought I asked them to recite their most painful memories.
Many said that they don’t like the sound of their voice, which is common, and if you Google it you’ll learn the science behind this. But the fact is, phone skills are still vital to conducting business…texting and emailing alone won’t get the job done. You have to be able to speak with confidence and conviction when you’re having business conversations.
Young people are growing up digitally and not learning the basics of talking on the phone. Oh, the irony…when I was growing up parents everywhere complained about how much time their children spent on the phone. For my sixteenth birthday I was given my own phone line and number, and spent hours on it.
If your own phone skills are weak or non-existent, I have one piece of advice for you: start slow and easy by making a few phone calls. Low-stakes calls at first, to help ease you in to the practice. And if you don’t have a headset, they make a huge difference in comfort while you’re on the call so think about getting one. When I’m on a coaching call, I have the freedom to walk around or sit and take notes and I don’t lose any energy trying to manage the phone itself.
Once you start, you will certainly experience the benefits of a call…you get a lot more information when you hear not just what the other person is saying, but the all-important how they’re saying it is what really informs.
Enough With Slap-Happy Webinar Hosts and Guests
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y husband wonders why I watch so many webinars, often to complain about them later. I watch to try to learn new stuff, but the tone of many makes them irritatingly unwatchable.
When was it decided that when you’re on/camera, you have to present a hyped-up, big-smiling, wildly excited persona? We’re not selling used cars here, yet mute the sound and it sure looks like it. How many times can we hear “Awesome!!!” “Amazing!” “Great question!” “I’m so excited about this webinar!” without running out of the room in despair?
It can be exhausting just trying to figure out what they’re actually talking about, which too often is precious little. After all that fuss.
Please take a moment to consider who you really are and how to project that on/camera, rather than copying what you see others doing. One Gary V is enough. A few tips on being authentic on/camera:
- Be prepared. If you’re working with scripted material, rehearse it until you’re comfortable and know the flow of it.
- If it’s improvised content, know who’s involved and what the overall plan or goals are.
- Cool it on the caffeine. When we’re “on” we naturally get a spike in adrenaline, so we don’t need to add too much caffeine into the mix. Try herbal tea instead.
In the past week I’ve watched maybe eight webinars and of them, only one got it right. Three women shared the content seamlessly, all were well-spoken and prepared and none felt the need to gasp about how happy they were.
The result? An excellent listening experience for me, on the subject of mind set and how to manage it. Informative, uplifting and thank you to Judy Goss of What Women Want for hosting it.
Five Confidence Killers
Lately I’ve been running workshops, interviewing people, giving quizzes, and lecturing on public speaking, which is not new. What is new is the nearly unanimous desire people are expressing for feeling more confident being themselves in public.
Contrast that with the ubiquitous presence of cameras in our lives, and I can see why so many people feel the need for some reassurance that what they have to say matters, and is worthy of attention and respect. We’re being judged left, right and center on social media and judging others in return.
Boomers, GenXers & Millennials—we’re all up against it here, with some of us faring better than others. Here are some tips for what NOT to do:
1. Comparing yourself to other people- oh, this is ever so easy to fall into, and is an utter waste of time and energy. No one else can be you, but you, so make the most of it. If you’re not yet sure who you are, start exploring on your own.
2. Believing your own PR- again, way too easy to do, and harmful to who you believe yourself to be. If you are living and dying by the numbers (of likes, clicks, open rates, stars etc.) then you are worshiping a false god. The numbers don’t add up to self-esteem.
3. Poor styling choices- how you look and sound to others matters to them, even if it might not to you. You’re judged on your appearance, and giving scant attention to it can leave you feeling uncomfortable if you’re standing out because of it.
4. Judging other people unkindly-when you succumb to this type of behavior, it will come back to bite you. You will look at the world negatively and expect to get that in return. And guess what? You will.
5. Too much: junk food, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, drugs- what do these have to do with confidence, you may ask? They keep your body out-of-balance, and that will affect your judgment, communication & the impression you make on people, and it won’t be a positive one.
Five Confidence Boosts
Last month I presented a workshop to Millennials, and got the chance to ask them what qualities they most wanted for themselves, when speaking in public. They all said “I want to feel confident.” Many of them labeled themselves as “introverts” and I finally had to ask why so many of them were doing so. That’s when they told me about the book Quiet, and where this trend comes from. So I made a note of it, and just finished the book. Here’s what I think:
My heart goes out to the many souls who find themselves expected to be “on” when they’d rather blend in. With ubiquitous recording devices (we were right-Big Brother is watching!) it can be unnerving to try to intuit how to simply “be.” To feel free of self-consciousness is a gift everyone deserves to have. It makes life much easier, not to mention much more pleasant.
Confidence can be created, nurtured and grown. I know this from personal experience, as well as professional observation. There are many tips for this, and here are my top five for today:
1) Speak well of yourself, to yourself. “Self-talk” is incredibly influential on our mood and energies. Negative inner thoughts will play out, as will positive ones. The key is to tune in to them and pay attention. Sometimes it can be way too easy to jump on a train wreck of mental images of what we don’t want to happen. The law of attraction doesn’t care what images and ideas we have…so if we can’t protect ourselves from toxic thoughts, no one else can. Be kind and supportive to yourself, first.
2) Give yourself enough time to arrive on time. Feeling rushed is a confidence killer; it throws you off your game and puts you in a reactive mode, instead of proactive. The control you’ll experience each time you arrive somewhere on time (or early) will help stabilize your inner energy and feed your sense of self.
3) Stand up straight, pull your shoulders back. Too much screen time has given many of us a hunch in our posture. When we stand up and unfurl ourselves, we open up the rib cage and give our lungs more room to breathe. Deep, diaphragmatic breaths are an effective way to ground the whole body and feel calm.
4) Unplug yourself before going to events. It’s better to begin to gather a sense of yourself, physically and mentally, well before you arrive at the door of your next event. Too often, we use the final minutes just before a meeting or a networking event to cram in one more email or text. Real time requires your attention and presence, where the online tasks can often wait. Give yourself the best support you can, so you’ll be able to make the most of your face time with people.
5) Eat whole foods that keep your blood-sugar even. It might not seem related, but how well-nourished we are or are not plays a big part in how we feel and how we come across. If we haven’t eaten well, we might get light-headed, lethargic and dull-feeling. That energy will send a certain message, that can only get in the way of feeling steady and stable. And always drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Is Your Self-talk Toxic or Strategic?
Our inner monologues never seem to take a break. We have a running commentary on our existence, 24/7. I don’t know what the current statistics are, but the percentage of negative or disparaging thoughts that any one of us might have in a short period of time can be shockingly high. We’d never tolerate someone else speaking to us the way we talk to ourselves
The fix for this is two-part. The first is to catch yourself having the negative thought in the moment you’re having it. This can be tricky if you’re so used to having toxic thoughts that you no longer notice when you’re having them. You can’t adjust what you can’t perceive, so tuning into your thoughts is the only way you’ll be able to do that.
Find Your Mantra
Once you do realize that you’re focusing on upsetting outcomes, interrupt the thought at once and pop in its opposite. Tell yourself what you want to do (which is an action) instead of thinking about what you want to avoid (the less dynamic reaction.) Here some suggestions for you:
- Soaring arrow…
- Fly high, land soft!
- Grace and gratitude are mine.
- I am sleek, smart and strong.
- No limits…I am unstoppable.
- Blast it out of the park!
Now, you might have snickered in the past at those motivational business posters, like the one with the mountain climber triumphantly conquering the summit with the words “Reach your peak!” But really, which is better? Saying to yourself, “I’m going to blow it,” or latching onto more inspirational thoughts?
These short bursts of moral self-support and healthy psychic re-alignment are called mantras, self-cues, slogans, or my favorite, shibboleths. Always use them in the present tense: “I am” instead of “One day I will be….” This makes their energy immediate and real rather than postponing their potency for some later time.
The psychology of using self-talk solely for a positive outcome is smart and useful for keeping a productive frame of mind. The brain doesn’t know or care which path we take, positive or negative. It’s an equal-opportunity conveyor of thoughts. As Hamlet knows, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
As long as we have a choice in the matter of how to think (and if we don’t control our thoughts, who does?), we should always choose in favor of ourselves.
Answering that loaded question: “What do you do?”
Depending on where you live, asking someone you’ve just met ‘what they do’ can be taken a few different ways. Here in NYC, it’s perfectly acceptable but in Pittsburgh or Atlanta, you’d want to work your way through other topics first.
Last week I went to a sparkly reception, and since it was New York, that was the first thing everyone wanted to know. I noticed a number of people answering with “Well, I do _______, but I also do _____.” You can plug in any job or profession; what they were unwittingly saying was “I’m trying to succeed with a business I care about but in the meantime I pay my bills doing something else.”
If you should find yourself in a similar position, talk about what you love, and find out what the others love. It’s more interesting and more compelling conversation. You’ll be remembered for who you really are, and not what your business card says you are.
My mentor, Alan Sklar, always says: “People like to do business with people!”