Writing Stimulates Critical Thinking: Jim Rowe

Critical Thinking and Communication Skills are Linked

How effective communication skills can save time and money

Jim Rowe has 45 years in marketing both on the client side and the agency side.

Episode 107 ( Jim is based on Long Island, New York)

In this conversation with Jim Rowe we explore:

• The skills gap and why we should change STEM learning to STEAM
• The skills gap in problem solving and writing skills
• Why writing is essential to critical thinking
• Why writing skills have suffered and what can we do
• Why people don't know what they don't know
• How communication challenges wastes executives' time
• The importance of getting messages down to one page

About Jim Rowe:

Jim served as Brand Manager with Coke, VP Marketing with Cutty Sark and President of two small Satchi divisions. Currently leading Jim Rowe Marketing. Jim published a 2-book series, Get Your Ducks in a Rowe. It's a fable that helps executives address the skills gap of their new employees.

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Excerpts from this conversation with Jim Rowe

To write is to think

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ADAPTER

Analyze - Deduce - Author - Preform - Tackle - Evaluate - Refine

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03:38

What has happened is that the we are not really teaching our young executives and young people in school, we're not teaching them to be disciplined thinkers in order to communicate better.

And I think what happens is, you know, if you say to somebody, do you know how to write and you know how to think, and you know, how to communicate, everybody's gonna say, yes, because we do it all day long on social media.

However, there is so little training as it relates to writing and that to me, my fundamental premise, here is five words - to write is to think.

And I think we do so little writing that doesn't fit we don't, and students in general, and a lot of executives, if we don't spend our time writing, we're not training ourselves to think clearly. And I think that's really a big part of the problem.

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34:06

And Jim, I think I heard a message in there is that investing in improving the communication skills, saves money.

34:14

Well, yeah, it saves money. And because what is the big phrase that we've heard all of our lives "Time is money".

And think about the senior executive, his most precious personal resource is time. And wouldn't you know, when I walk into a meeting, and everybody's not sure nobody had an agenda,

I have a very good friend who was just hired away from a big company to go be the account person at another huge company. We know all the names. And in the interview, because he read the book, and he loved it, and he and he said to me, You know what, one of the questions they said and the point they made, it would be great if you could just get here and get everybody to have an agenda for the meeting.

Isn't that incredible? Isn't that incredible than an enormous organization is concerned that nobody is pulling the team together.

I have another friend who's in a small company read the book Love that. He said, I'm thinking of using this for everybody because our zoom meetings because they're all over the country, they're chaotic and people are talking.

Just go through the simple 10 step process. You know when you're setting up for a golf swing, there's about six steps you got to do and trying to keep them on your mind is one thing.

The same goes true for communication and thinking, follow the format and everything is going to be a little bit easier for you.

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Embrace Your Servant’s Heart: Jim Hardwick

Giving will reward you more than taking

Yes, you can build your business and life with the intention to serve

Jim Hardwick is a Fractional VP Sales who has started leading a C suite executive retreat to Kenya. 

Episode 106 (Jim is based in Phoenix, Arizona)

In this conversation with Jim Hardwick we explore:

• What does it mean to embrace your servant's heart?
• How can you get more success by giving instead of taking?
• What if people take advantage of your generosity?
• Why did you start leading dental expeditions to Kenya?
• What benefit does a fractional VP Sales bring to a corporation?

About Jim Hardwick:

Jim is president of Aspire Sales. He has over 25 years experience as a VP Sales and offers his service as a fractional VP sales for corporations.

He and his wife, Jody lead a dental team to Kenya each year.

In 2023 Jim will lead a safari experience to Kenya for C suite executives with an emphasis on how to embrace your servant's heart.

Jim welcomes your questions about sales. Enjoy a no-charge conversation with him. 

Call him - 623-451-1080

Email - jhardwick@salesxceleration.com

Jim Hardwick on Linkedin

Excerpts from this conversation with Jim Hardwick

Don't serve to say, "I served". It's not a checkbox

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But if you don't have that passion, then serving becomes a chore. And when it's a chore, then it's not your heart that's serving.  .You're serving because you feel  obligated to serve. Once you find that passion like we found in Kenya, the place we never wanted to go, It's amazing what transpires.

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I give away free advice. If you have sales pain, if you need a question about sales, call me. I'm here, call me.

When I do that. George, I get calls. I talked to a CEO of a health care company, I was in healthcare for 36 years. And he knows software, unbelievable. He's got a great program, but he's still trying to learn about health care, I spent an hour with the gentleman. I didn't bill them for my time, because if I can help him elevate his business, guess what, we all win, because that's going to come back to me someday.

And that's, that's the way I live my life. I don't worry about where my next clients gonna come from.

26:59

I would say be real, be vulnerable with your employees build trust, when you can gain that trust, and the employees know that you're there to help them be successful.

And they sincerely feel that your business is going to take off. It's just taking that extra two minutes, sometimes just to praise somebody when they've done a good job with recognition.

And you've acknowledged them. I've seen it a lot where in this is not necessarily the case in small business owners, but for large corporations, when the CEO walks in walks in, you can tell a joke and it might not be funny, but everybody laughs right, because that's the right thing to do.

The important thing for those folks, is it down on the level of your employees understand what their issues are. Don't surround yourself with all the Yes Men.

We'll be out in the field, talk to your customers, your customers that are buying from you. If they're not buying from you better darn well figure out why because ultimately, it's your responsibility.

So it's not hard. The people make it hard. It's that trust. It's that vulnerability, and then lead with passion and lead with that servant's heart.

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Communicate in the Hybrid the Workplace: Brenden Kumarasamy

How to communicate in the changing workplace

Build smarter relationships with the people around you

Brenden Kumarasamy publishes instructional videos on his YouTube channel, MasterTalk with over 25,000 subscribers.

Episode 105 (Brenden is based in Montreal, Canada)

In this conversation with Brenden we explore:

• The challenges of communicating well in a hybrid workplace
• How to build stronger relationships by managing your energy
• How questions can improve your communication and hence relationships
• Why a phone call or video message can make a big difference
• How to rate your relationships on value
• Why treating people fairly doesn't mean treating them all the same
• Three exercises to boost your communication skills
• Why you need to care better for your best relationships

About Brenden Kumarasamy:

Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, he coaches ambitious executives & entrepreneurs to become top 1% communicators in their industry.

He also has a popular YouTube channel called MasterTalk, with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.

For free resources on how to improve your communication skills, visit 

RockStarCommunicator.com

Excerpts from this conversation with Brenden Kumarasamy

If you communicate 20% better, not 200% better, not 200,000% better. If you communicate 20% better than your competition, you will stand out 100% of the time.

02:21

So the way that I think about this, George is communication is so much more than giving a presentation at work or doing a job interview.

It's every interaction we'll have with every human being will meet for the rest of our lives. It's the way we talk to our families. It's the way we order food at a restaurant, and we talk to the waiter. It's the way that we travel.

When we meet strangers, we don't know we have to speak their language and figure out how to talk to them. So we can have a good time communication.

Once we realize George is not just about increasing the bottom line, but leading a fulfilling life. That's when we start to take it more seriously.

And the question to think about as we get this conversation started, George is how would your life change?

If you are an exceptional communicator, a lot of us dream about our vacations, we dream about the expensive things we want to buy.

But we don't dream hard enough about a world in which we're a great communicator in it.

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28:13

And And now, what does that mean to people when they go back into the workplace? If they had a set of rules for Okay, when I'm in a online meeting versus an in person meeting? What should I do differently?

28:28

100%. So there's three key differences.

The first one is eye contact. So in their virtual George, your eyes generally just stay in one direction, which is the camera lens, whether you're speaking to one person or 10,000.

But in person, meaning let's assume 16 People for the purposes of this podcast, you have to move your eyes across, because there's just looking at one direction, most of you gonna be like, oh, did this person care about me does this person and human beings start to invent stories in their mind around while you're not looking at them.

Human beings are fascinating creatures. So that's the first thing is I would start there.

The second difference between online and in person is there's the less friction to get feedback. So in an virtual meeting, if you want to get feedback on how it went, things we could do differently. You have to really sit them down one on one, get a zoom call, it's a lot more formal.

In person, you'll say Okay, guys, how did that go? What can we do next time it's a lot more. It's not the right term is but it's a lot more vivacious. It's more live, it's more like it's within the energy, it's in the flow of the group.

Whereas in virtual, it's not as it's not as cool. It's not as interesting. That's probably the second key difference.

And then the third difference is the follow up. So the follow up means if you're in a meeting with somebody in person, I mean, you guys can hang out after the meeting. Right? You can get some dinner after it's a lot easier.

It's much harder, virtually. So my best bet now I gave different advice at the height of the pandemic but I'll So my advice now is if you're having too many virtual meetings with your team, try to find a way to meet them in person, if you can, if you can, if not do the virtual social hour if you want.

But ideally, you want to try and get those things back in person. And one special tip I'll give, that a lot of leaders I coach don't really do enough, is if you all have a fully remote team, write down everyone's location, so that when people join the company, introducing the people in their own city so that at least they can meet in many groups, I'm so surprised at the fact that nobody really takes that extra step.

And it really makes a difference.

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So at Rockstar communicator.com, you'll find access to a ton of free trainings that we do on communication, we have a zoom call that I do every few week.

I facilitate it. So for those of you who are interested, feel free to register for it. And it's completely free. And it's fun, and it's interactive. And I hope to see you there.

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Talk to the Media: Ed Barks

Why and how to talk to the media?

Talk to the media to convey your corporate messages with personal flavor

Ed Barks has 25 years experience as a specialist in media communications.

Episode 104 (Ed is based in Washington DC)

In this conversation with Ed Barks we explore:

• Why business leaders should develop positive relations with the media
• How to approach the media to help spread your message
• How to prepare for media interviews
• How to answer questions that you don't want to address
• Why you should never say "No comment"
• When the office sceptic becomes an asset
• How to develop your soundbites

About Ed Barks:

Ed is president of Barks Communications with 25 years experience working with communication and government relations executives to help their companies reach long-term business and public policy goals. 

He is the author of four books. The most recent is "Insider Strategies for the Confident Communicator: How to Master Meetings, Presentations, Interviews and Advocacy.

PS: You can download a free copy of this book from his website. 

https://barkscomm.com/eds-books/

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Excerpts from this conversation with Ed Barks

Internalize your message so you can verbalize your message.

02:57

I'm going to kind of flip that a little bit George, if you don't mind and talk about the positives of it.

And when you look at how you're interacting with the media, you need a number of things. And let me focus on two right at the top.

First is your message, you need a magnetic message or George as you refer to it your intended message. So it's a matter of knowing what you're going to say it's developing that message ahead of time, and it's being able to stick to it during the course of your interview.

No matter what questions come up, and what questions the reporter may toss out, you need to keep coming back to that message. Now the second key that I'll mention is the notion of sustained professional development.

You can't just do one interview and think you've got it nailed. Or certainly you can't go into your first ever interview without any preparation in any planning. So what that indicates is that you need to over the long haul, sharpen your communications edge.

And that involves starting off perhaps with low risk situations, maybe you're talking to a local shop or a kind of newspaper or a trade journal that doesn't get a whole lot of circulation. And then you build upon that until maybe one day you're ready for CNN or the New York Times. So those are a couple of things that are key right off the top.

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18:22

And when when one is being interviewed by a reporter, is it is the rule that you must answer every question.

18:34

Well, you have to answer every question. Sure. But on your terms, and what I mean by that we talked we spoke a few moments ago about some techniques for dealing with Q&A.

And so you need to look at how you can manage those questions and build a bridge from that question to your intended answer your intended message.

So look at how you can take the question and build upon it and you don't want to be accused of spin.

You know, we've all heard these, Sunday morning talk shows where the host says to the senator, well, gee, isn't this a beautiful day outdoors, and the senator says, Well, yes, my favorite color is red.

You can't be talking on on two distinct planes like this, you have to find a way to meet in the middle. So that's where those techniques for Q&A come into play. And I go into those in depth in both Reporters Don't Hate You and in the most recent book, Insider Strategies for the Confident Communicator.

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Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking: Natasha Bazilevych

How can you handle the fear of public speaking?

How can you become a more confident public speaker?

Natasha Bazilevych has been teaching presentation skills for about 15 years.

Episode 103 (Natasha is based in Delaware)

In this conversation with Natasha Bazilevych we explore:

• How to channel anxiety as energy
• How to use exposure therapy to overcome your fears
• Why you need to focus on the audience instead of yourself
• How to build your speaking skills like any other skill set
• Why your past does not determine your future

About Natasha Bazilevych:

Natasha is a public speaking coach and trainer. As president of ChangeView Academy she helps entrepreneurs develop[ their business skills do they can create a successful business and life.

Learn more about ChangeView here.

She has run 7 marathons and 11 half-marathons. She hosts the podcast, Speak with Power Podcast. 

To learn more about Natasha and her services visit the website

www.NatashaBazilevych.com

When you are there you can sign up for the free Public Speaking 101 video course.

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Excerpts from this conversation with Natasha Bazilevych

03:03

When I present, I experience a little bit of nervousness at the beginning, which I love. And that's another rush. And then I turn those emotions, that nervousness into energy and excitement.

So for me when I speak, it's a very similar experience when I love it. That's why I actually love it when I use this excitement and this adrenaline because it's normal to be nervous to be a little bit afraid, we would say but even say that that's just nervousness not necessarily fear.

And when you have this little bit of, of these kind of emotions at the beginning, then you can understand, okay, hey, this is not really nervousness, necessarily, it's excitement. And then you can turn it into passion and deliver a great message.

Because that's what it helps me make other people also passionate about my topic is because I use this nervous energy, turn it into excitement, and then show it through passion so that people love the message and enjoy it as much as I do.

So it is very similar to when we just start so this is not even about finishing a marathon. It's more like starting a marathon or studying some kind of event like this.

When so much excitement in the air and also nervousness because you're studying you don't know what time will you run with Will you be able to finish? It's still unknown. And so it's this this whole adrenaline energy that you use to keep going.

And then of course when you finish it's the feeling of victory.

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10:17

Yes. So this particular client, she also had a fear of public speaking. And what's interesting, we could dig out the moment that created this fear for her. So it wasn't just all the time, all her life, it wasn't psyche, cardio, or anything connected with her health.

But it was in her mind. It wasn't even physical necessarily. But in her mind, she kept remembering one moment, that was a failure for her, she gave a presentation, and people in the audience mocked her.

So she felt like a loser like a failure plus that some of those people were really respected by her. So that created this negative memory in her mind, that kept being a block for her to go and present again. And so anytime she needed to present afterwards, she had to, she just had public speaking fear, she had all that anxiety because of this block because of that memory.

So what we needed to do is to go back, use visualization. And remember the moments when she was very successful in her presentations before that, and even after, and anchor the feeling of that success.

And just remember how good she was then plus also, we needed to go back into the moment of when she was not successful. And when she failed, and we had to recreate reframe that experience of hers, so that she could see the positive of that negative experience so that you could see that it doesn't really matter to her what those people are thinking.

And then it was easier for her to look at it differently. Because this is actually a very deep work. When you go into your mindset. And you have to reframe, recreate, delete those old beliefs, and then seeing it differently, because that is what's blocking.

So the first thing we did with this client was to go into the memory and retrieve the moments of success, retrieve the moments of failure, and start reframing them emotionally.

12:25

And what I'm hearing there, Natasha is when we retrieve that moment of failure, for example, we can we can reframe it, we can say, Yeah, I wasn't as good as I intended to be. But I wasn't as bad as they said, I could have been a lot worse.

And so that's the beginning. And I suppose we can all also look back and say, Well, you know what? That was just, that was just practice, I can get better.

So we need to say that, hey, it was a it didn't go well. But it doesn't make me a failure.

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Get Your Good News Story in the News: Malika Dudley

How can you get in the news with a good news story?

How do you catch the attention of the media and how do you show up?

Malika Dudley has studied the science of communication and is a TV reporter. 

Episode 102 (Malika is based in Hawaii)

In this conversation with Malika Dudley we explore:

• How to get your good news story noticed by the media
• How to make your offer irresistible
• How to communicate with the media
• Why one "No" doesn't really mean "No"
• How to build ongoing positive relationships with the media
• How to talk on television in studio or on Zoom

About Malika Dudley:

Malika is a TV reporter based in Hawaii.

She is a multi-award winning journalist with 2 Emmy nominations, a Murrow and multiple SPJ (Society for Professional Journalists) awards.

She is host of The Communification Podcast - a podcast that will help you unlock your communication potential and feel less alone in your communication struggles.

Visit the podcast here or click image below

https://www.communificationpodcast.com/

This is Malika's second appearance on Your Intended Message. You can listen to her first appearance in episode 82.

Here's an example of a good news story done well. Malika interviews community volunteer, Kaimana Brummel, talking about "Kaukau 4 Keiki" a food share program for children when they are not in school.

Notice how well Kaimana conveys her message.

https://www.kitv.com/news/local/urgent-need-for-volunteer-delivery-drivers-to-feed-maui-countys-hungry/article_422fc328-60fe-11ec-a0c3-cf510670aeab.html

Excerpts from this conversation with Malika Dudley

02:48

Probably the newscast that you're going to identify and try to get on would be the morning show, instead of the evening show. Morning shows are longer. Number one, they are more fluid. And they allow for that good news to kind of work its way into the forecast. Every newscast wants to also have good news.

03:13

If you're trying to get into an evening newscast, you're trying to get in the kicker, probably. So that's the last little tidbit that gets shown right before they say goodbye.

And usually it's something light and fun to kind of wrap up the show and not leave people with that bad taste in their mouth of the everything is doom and gloom.

It's the universe, the kids from the University of Hawaii, that won in Las Vegas with their driverless remote control car.

So it's something that is intriguing, but not necessarily a new story, but can be fun.  Oh, that's cool. You kind of want to be in that category of, Oh, that's cool.

If you're going for the evening newscasts, it would be something small like that. So there are several different things that you can do. One thing is make it easy for us.

How do you make it easy for the reporter or the producer or the anchor to have you on the show? One way is to offer up your party's as something that you can link this to current events. So what's going on right now?

And how can you help someone to solve that problem? And this is something that you've thought about a lot. All business leaders do. So you probably already know the answer to that question.

So let's say that you're a Life Consultant, and it happens to be January. Send out your press release and explain the things that you would be able to say on the air.

Now keep in mind that you're probably going to get, at most three minutes of time. So a three minute interview.

So you don't want to overwhelm the press release with all the things, you know, you want to give them bullet points.

So get good at writing press releases. Here's a paragraph about what I do. Here's what I can tell you on the newscast. Bullet points. Here is a little bit about me and my background, and, and then provide assets.

Media assets, like video, headshots, just whatever you think they might be able to use on the newscast, we definitely need visuals.

If you're talking about, so let's let's go with that life coach analogy. Here are the five things that you can do to have a great year this year.

And you have B roll of one of your coaching clients exercising, right, and that's number one is exercise. So you send them a 15 second clip of you know, someone exercising, sure, we could go through our files and find the B roll video of exercise.

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12:37

So if you can get your friends to email the news at whatever the news station email is because that email goes to everybody in the news organization, if you can get your people to email in and say, hey, wow, thank you so much for that segment by data data that this morning, I learned data data data, I would so love to see more of that.

It doesn't go on deaf ears. I mean, I can't tell you, if you guys didn't listen to the last podcast that we did, that I did with George, where we talked about 20% of the people love you 20% of the people hate you. And then the ones in the middle are indifferent.

The indifferent ones never email the news. The haters do. And the lovers Oh, I wish they did more.

And so when we get one of those emails, the news director legit will send that out to everyone and say, Look, guys, we did such a great job. And just know that when you're doing your job, people like Eddie, appreciate it.

And so I can't tell you how much that could actually influence whether or not you as this expert.

Hopefully you're really good at what you're doing. Right and you are good on camera and it's something that definitely helps right I mean, if you if this is in your wheelhouse and you can talk in sound bites, you've got a really great pitch. I don't see why they wouldn't say yes to something like that. And when you have your peeps your squad, you know emailing in to say hey, that was great.

That could help so get your your friends your fans to to vouch for you. Because because the media notices when people right, the media probably gets enough nasty messages and not enough encouraging messages.

When they do get encouraging messages, hey, we're doing something good. Maybe we should do more of that. Yeah, and don't overwhelm them though, right? I mean, you don't want to ask, like don't put it on social media, and then they get 50 emails.

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Capitalize on Your Uniqueness: Jamie Greenberg

Are you generic or unique? First discover that uniqueness, then leverage it.

The market craves and rewards uniqueness

Jamie Greenberg is know as "The Imaginologist" igniting sparks of imagination and inspiration in others and then turning that inspiration into business.

Episode 101 (Jamie is based in New Jersey, New York)

In this conversation with Jamie Greenberg we explore:

• How entrepreneurs struggle with finding and sending their intended message
• Why discovering and interpreting your uniqueness is critical to success
• The gorgeous chaos of random creativity
• Finding and leveraging the divine downloads
• The systematic process that must follow the creativity

Jamie Greenberg dramatically increases experts' reach and income by helping them "Capitalize on their mission and uniqueness" with a differentiator that earns them money they are really worth.

You can arrange a complementary 30-minute business Development Evaluation call here

https://jamiegreenberg.as.me/meetandgreet

Get your free copy of the mini E-book, The Four Steps to Stand Out So Your High-Ticket Clients can Find You!

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Excerpts from this conversation with Jamie Greenberg

You can't worry about the how, and the creative at the same, it's like having your foot on the brake in the gas at the same time, you have to give yourself permission to have that creative process.

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09:00

Jamie, the divine downloads, clarify for us, please. These are thoughtful insights we have or these are crazy ideas or these are these are just chaotic thoughts in our mind that may or may not fit together?

09:21

This is a great question. And if it fits into the title of your show, beautiful because when you create an intention, you know, I really want to be an entrepreneur, I want to be an exit strategist, entrepreneur. I'm coming from corporate for, you know, 2030 years I really want to get into consulting and consulting or coaching.

There's something burning inside me I have this passion. And I don't know exactly what it is. But my intention is to move out of this miserable space that I'm in that I'm putting up with and experience myself in a completely different way and learn the entrepreneurial way of life where Creating an intention.

So we put that out into the universe. You know, we've where we're sort of designing inadvertently, we we do this every second of our lives. So when we put it out in the universe, now you're giving the universe something to grab onto.

And that big manager in the sky starts to conjure up the things that you're asking for, I know, it sounds a little magical. And we've heard the term law of attraction.

But the law of attraction is as much as the law as gravity. We don't question gravity. But because, you know, the law of attraction is a little harder to touch. But it's just as real.

So those intentions come out. The universe gets it, they start to, it pulls that which is likened to itself is drawn. And things start showing up, don't they for you? Have you ever had that kind of experience?

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33:14

Jamie, if people want to find out more about about how you can help, I believe you offer a 30 minute consultation, no charge, no sales pitch, just a consultation? How do they take advantage of that?

33:30

Well, we have a link that we're going to put at the bottom of the podcast in the description. It's a free business development, evaluation of whether you're emerging or whether you want to scale your business, we just take a bird's eye view a 360 view of where you are here.

And then I'm going to help you with some strategies and put together a little roadmap to see if we can get some clarity around the next step on how to scale where you want to go next.

And also, for everybody on the podcast, we're gonna give away a free little mini ebook that talks about our whole signature system platform from which they can then start putting in their divine downloads, putting in their pop out themes and take their first shot at it.

And then they can also bring that to the core. And we can start the process right on that core of codifying and organizing their uniqueness. Right on they're in a very process dependent way to see what methodology can arise from this so they can use that to design their offers and their price ladder from that.

They'll get they're essentially generators like their webinars, seminar and keynotes and all those modules We create which there's about 22 of them in the signature platform is their get video visible, social selling marketing plan.

And that's how they're going to become the inspirational face for their business.

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Self Leadership: Andrew Bryant

Mastering Self is True Strength

The practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions towards your objectives

Andrew Bryant is passionate about waking people up to their best possible selves, whether that is the C-Suite of a company or disadvantaged teenagers.

Episode 100 (Andrew is living in Portugal. He has ties to England, Australia, Singapore and Brazil)

In this conversation with Andrew Bryant we explore:

• The three pillars of self leadership
• The enduring significance of Aristotle's Logos, Pathos and Ethos
• The difference between who you are and what you do
• The underpinning of self esteem to self confidence
• The importance of self validation
• The value of experiencing failure and crisis

 Andrew Bryant is author of four books, including Self Leadership and his latest, The New Leadership Playbook, Being Human Whist Delivering Accelerated Results.

Learn more about this book and his offers at www.TheNewLeadershipPlaybook.com

Learn more about Andrew's programs on developing Self Leadership at

www.SelfLeadership.com 

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Excerpts from this conversation with Andrew Bryant

The three pillars of self leadership:

1. Self awareness

2. Self regulation

3. Self learning

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07:15

That's curious, sometimes labelling the activity is enough to provide the insight to fix it. 

07:29

Can be. I love the metaphor of dragons, and the mythical creatures, but we all have our own dragons, you know, whether that's a negative self talk, or a lack of self belief or self worth.

And an interesting thing is that we feed our own dragons don't we?

We talk negatively about ourselves or other people. And those dragons get bigger and bigger and bigger, fatter, and fatter and fatter.

And at some point in coaching and recognizing that in a narrative way, you got to just stop feeding that dragon, you got to put it on a die, you've got to stop this.

And then the dragon gets smaller and smaller. But the trick is to never let the dragon go away completely.

Because those dragons serve as a purpose that the negative self talk that the pessimism, it actually protects us from hubris. It protects us from doing really stupid things.

I've got a good friendly relationship with my own dragons.

These are some things that if I feed them, you know, will get me in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, I'm at an age where I've tamed those dragons and I have people around me that can hold me accountable.

They go, hey, you know, Andrew, you've gone a bit too far this way. Ah, yes. playing that one out.

So that's where this you move from self awareness into self regulation or self management, which is the second pillar of self leadership is okay, I know that, you know, I can be a victim of hubris or arrogance or ridiculousness or whatever your particular Dragon is.

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Well, it was breaking the dragon down. So dragons are a construct, right? They are anything in our brain is a construct. I mean, we, we, as human beings are meaning making machines, we we construct meaning out of anything that happens, right?

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15:23

Hmm. And it sounds like part of self-leadership is self-validation, being willing to, to validate oneself without depending on that external validation, which is nice once in a while. It's always nice to hear somebody say something and mean it. Yeah, but we need to be comfortable with ourselves.

15:46

Yeah, a lot of time people, particularly for executives, they're looking for executive presence, the ability to project gravitas and confidence and poise under pressure.

And so they're looking for that confidence that a lot of people say to me, Andrew, I really need to develop my confidence.

And sometimes it is confidence they need, but to what you're speaking is the self esteem that is underneath the confidence. Confidence is I've done in the past, I'm doing it now. And therefore I can project into the future that I'm unlikely to be able to be successful doing that again.

But self esteem is the self value underneath that. Because the word esteem is an old word for value, isn't it? So it's self value. And it's it's actually a verb, not a noun, we don't have self esteem as a fixed quantity, it's a daily process, like taking a shower, you know, it works for a few hours. And then you're going to need another one, we need to self value on a regular basis to know what our value proposition is.

And so some people who say I lacked confidence actually are not they don't know their own value. One of the exercises I do in my my workshops, whether that's in person or online, is I get people to say, Hi, my name is fill in blank, my value to my organization is, and you know, people really struggle with this.

They talk about their role and the things they do. Yeah, all of those things are great, but we could find somebody else to fill that role to do that job.

What is your value? What is it that you uniquely bring to your position? And a lot of people struggle with that. But when they get it Oh, actually, I'm valuable, and then they usually realize they're being undervalued.

And then it's when we use the self leadership to move into the executive presence, and then into the influence capital, you know, how do I get paid? And or how do I generate a business for, for the value that I'm providing?

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And the third one is have fun.

I mean, just don't be a leader all the time. Go spend time with your family, go to spend time with friends and do something for your community.

But and this is where I the in the introduction where I worked with at risk teenagers in Singapore with a charity where they gave some of my time where I could I could teach the self esteem self confidence, communication and leadership skills to teenagers that helped me grow as a human being some Much more than the stuff I was getting paid for.

And I find that the best leaders are doing something outside of the day to day nine to five stuff that they're being paid for. And it makes them grow as human beings. And I'm very proud to to some of the philanthropy that has been set up by some of my clients who go,

Okay, well, I'm been making millions of dollars my company, but why could I not set up a not for profit and make a difference there?

They are so much more energized by that and it prevents them reaching burnout.

Because anytime you do something for somebody else, what you get back is tenfold

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Leverage Your Voice: Andrew Churchill

Speak with a human voice, not like a robot

Allow your voice to reflect your emotions

Andrew Churchill demonstrates the value and power of voice when presenting your message.

Episode 99 (Andrew is based in Montreal)

In this conversation with Andrew Churchill we discuss:

• The common mistake of business and technical presenters
• How to move your voice outside of the "professional zone"
• A simple exercise to explore your other voices
• The curious connection between voice and emotion
• Why audio quality and voice is more important for virtual presentations
• How your body language effects your voice

Andrew Churchill specializes in helping entrepreneurs, academics and technical experts deliver their messages in a clear way.

He teaches engineers at McGill University how to connect with their audiences. 

You can find Andrew on Linkedin at Andrew H Churchill

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Excerpts from this conversation with Andrew Churchill

I don't try and change your voice I try and just allow you can actually use your voice. Because really what happens for most people is they fall into a professional voice. And the and the professional voice is the range of the professional voice is very, very narrow. And what happens if you present in that range is you're essentially become monotone.

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So if you have any three or four year olds kicking around in your life, go to the library of children's stories that they would enjoy hearing and read them.

Read them one of those stories and then with your phone, record yourself.

And what you'll hear is you actually have an enormously rich, dynamic storytelling voice.

And what happens when most people do academic presentations is they may eliminate 90% of their voice. And, and what we need to do is give you permission to use the whole thing.

And one way to recognize that is, is actually it's I'm not really just trying to be funny, when I say children's stories.

I actually do this exercise with academics and in classrooms at McGill University. 

I actually bring children's books into McGill University classrooms, and have students close their eyes. And listen to someone read a children's story, right after having listened to the person read an academic abstract of a journal article.

And I tend to not have to say much more, I just do that, and simply say, Okay, who would you rather listen to, and they get the point.

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What you always want to think about doing as a presenter is getting the audience to lean in.

And if I'm too loud, so if I come too loud and too hard at you, you're actually going to lean backwards, I'm actually pushing you away.

And what I want to do is I want to pull you in, people don't realize so sometimes your most important message should be done quietly.

Because people will lean in and listen. Because people think it's a secret.

They think it's important. When we talk about things that are most important. We actually tend to talk quieter, not louder. T

hat's where if as a speaker, you can let yourself feel this is a problem with memorization, people memorize and then they stop feeling because they're just reading the script.

And then they're in that professional voice because they want to sound professional and they're reading a script in their head. Even if it's memorized your your brain is still reading it. It's reading your memory, versus delivering it and allowing yourself to feel.

And that's the danger of memorization is we as we no longer feel it's why a podcast conversation sounds like conversation, but a presentation often sounds like someone talking at us instead of with us.

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So if I was only going to make one investment if I only had 100 bucks or 150 bucks to spend, I'd spend it on the mic, not the camera.

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21:11

And Andrew, there's there's an interesting point I thought you raised there. And that's that, even though the audience might not be looking, observing our body language, we are aware of our body language, and how we receive the messages from our body shows up in our voice.

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Prospecting on Linkedin that Works: Austin McCulloh

Prospecting on Linkedin does work when you follow a process

First create your prospecting plan, then follow it

Austin McCulloh helps his clients bring in qualified leads week after week. 

Episode 98 (Austin is based in Iowa City, Iowa)

In this conversation we explore:

• How to leverage automation without spamming
• How to cut through the clutter
• How to leverage connection and CRM software to stay visible
• Why an initial negative response is a good sign
• How to integrate inbound and outbound marketing
• Better questions to ask to build the relationship

Mistakes to avoid:

• Too focused on self 
• Commission breath
• Thinking short term
• Not following a system
• Asking strangers, "How are you?"

About Austin McCulloh:

Austin has personally made over 16,000 prospecting contacts on Linkedin. He has helped clients make over 25,000 prospecting contacts.

Get your copy of the 10-Step Effective Prospecting Process here

If you're looking for help to bring in new qualified leads to set up weekly meetings, learn more here.

Excerpts from this conversation with Austin McCulloh

02:43

LinkedIn is LinkedIn is the social media of business, or that's how we think of it. And, and a lot of us are on there. And I keep hearing from people saying, well, I've tried prospecting on LinkedIn, but it doesn't work. What do you say to that?

03:03

You want the honest response?

I want the truth, the brutal truth.

I'm saying they don't work. I'm saying they're not doing it the right way. I mean, that's just the raw truth.

And the reason why I'm laughing and I say it, and do I, whoever the listener is, if they're not having success, why they should be optimistic is because they're right now listening to somebody who is, has done it more than 99.9% of the world.

I've failed on it, I've done well on it. So the first thing I'll say is, they probably don't have a process.

So they don't know who they're reaching out to. If you don't know who you're reaching out to, you don't know what to say to them, you don't know how to engage in conversation.

So really, they don't have the components all lined up. And then another key point, and we're going to come back to all these, but they're too focused on themselves, trying to push what they have to offer excited about what they have to offer.

And that's not what resonates with your prospects, especially when they're complete strangers.

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16:57

It's okay to be direct in terms of asking questions, if you're really trying to solve a pain point for somebody, because if it's a real pain, and you're trying to solve it, trying to help them with something.

17:08

But don't have the intention to go close them right away.

Kind of like what you talked about George have the intention of being curious, being kind of like a researcher, ask the open ended questions, get a sense to see if it's good for them.

And then if anything, your intention should be to set a meeting to learn more, not close business. So focus on the meeting, not on the client yet.

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18:02

Somebody either accepts it, or they don't accept the connection request.

if they don't accept it, never gonna communicate with them not in contact with them. I

f they accept it, and they reply, then the conversation is ongoing. If they accept it, and they don't reply to the first message, I have it set that 92 minutes later, another follow up message will be sent.

And then about two days and 22 minutes later, another one is sent, I have about three total follow up messages.

So four total that go out, there's the connection request and the message that goes along with it, three follow ups.

Now sometimes you get some people who never end up, they'll accept it, but they never respond to any of those four messages. And then you get other people who respond to the first, the second, the third or the fourth, you get where I'm coming from. So that's that once somebody replies,

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32:00

Just take another look at it take another go. Great question.

If you have not had success with prospecting online, or even if you haven't done it before, so regardless, you haven't had success because he did it or you've never done, take 30 minutes to an hour before you even start or before you restart and put together an actual plan.

Now obviously, working with somebody who has done it before can can critique your plan can help you a lot with it.

But if you know who you're reaching out to, you already have a few scripts put together already know what questions you want to ask and you know what you want your end result to be, it's all going to work much better.

And then also know what you want to measure for it too.

So have expectations of if I'm doing so many contacts, I want to see how many accepted connection requests I get, how many responses I get, because then you can tell if it was a success or failure or and also meeting set as well.

So that's what I'd have to say I know it's a lot of different variables, but a lot of people are just kind of shooting from the hip.

And when you have a plan to follow. You're much more likely to get the results that you want.

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