Gravitas Archives - Page 2 of 5 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis

Heather, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Heather Younger

Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom of your book The Art of Active Listening: How People at Work Feel Heard, Valued, and Understood. That sure sounds handy.

Heather Younger
It is very much handy, yes.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. Well, I’m intrigued. I love that you’ve really done your homework here. I saw that you had done surveys of over 30,000 people here in your research putting this bad boy together. I’d love to hear, when you have this rich treasure trove of data, any particularly striking, surprising, counterintuitive discoveries popped out at you there?

Heather Younger

I’ve got to say that this is an evolution, and of the 30,000 surveys were surveys I did on behalf of clients where we reviewed every single comment inside those employee surveys, and hundreds of focus groups I did personally facilitate. And so, in that, I have to just say that it came down to listening, like it was the lack of feeling heard that was a huge determining factor as it related to internal employees and external customers.

And I’ve known it for a while. I started off doing kind of customer experience and listening to customers, and doing that in a variety of ways but also with surveys. I would just remember one particular gentleman, he was a lab tech at a hospital, and this has been, like, probably 14 years ago. And I remember him giving some feedback, and then he asked us to adjust some things related to this conference we were doing, and then we went back and we made the changes and requests based upon the tweaks he was requesting in the conference, and how we had things set up changed.

We told him that they’re going to change, and he came to the conversation, he saw that the flow changed. And he came to me after, and he said, “I’m going to be honest. We’ve been working with this company for years but this is the very first time I’ve ever felt heard.” And it was because we took in the feedback, we sat as a group to figure out what we were going to do about the feedback, we acted, and decided we were going to act, we let him know we were going to act, acted, told him we acted, he saw we acted, and then we followed back of each other to determine if that action was good enough or not, that we followed a process.

And I noticed ever since then when I was working with internal customers and external customers, that using that process for active listening is what, in the end, make people go, “Aha, I’ve actually been heard.” It made all the difference.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, Heather, it’s funny, that doesn’t that revolutionary, no offense, and yet I have a hunch that this sensical approach may not be so much common practice if that client said, “This is the first time I felt heard.” Is that your vibe? Like, what proportion of folks do feel heard versus unheard?

Heather Younger

Well, I think there’s many of us that don’t. If you think about, particularly in the workplace, customers often are left feeling like they’re just a means to an end of us arriving at a number on our end goal, of our revenues, so they’re often not feeling heard. Then you have employees who feel like they’re victims inside the workplace, like things are happening to them all the time and they have no say with how that’s all going to happen, how it’s going to roll out for them.

What I would say about the five, the cycle of active listening is that most of the steps are super intuitive and most people do about 60% of them, 60% of the framework, and 40% they don’t. And the 40% that don’t is where they drop the ball and why most people don’t feel heard. As we walk through the process, I would say decoding and closing the loop are the two that seem to be the most foreign for most when I was speak from stages about it.

Decoding is this idea that, after we receive feedback from someone, after we listen to someone, we lean in to hear what someone is saying to us, and we think we got it, we think we know what’s going on. Most of us jump straight to the fourth step, which is action. We want to go act upon what they just asked us to do. We want to go act on what we heard to solve an issue.

And what I’m telling people is not to go act immediately, unless it’s a life-or-death situation. You need to pause. And the pause could be two days, two weeks, normally it’s two months, but it’s some time to process what it is we heard, to reflect by ourselves or with other people, to research maybe what our response should be based upon what the people are telling us, and then act, or then go back to the client and tell him you want to act, or then go back and tell him you can’t act.

And after you’ve acted, go back to the person and say, “Well, I listened to you, I heard what you said. You wanted this thing and we went and did that thing. And I don’t know about you, but it seemed like the results are great. What do you think? Okay, because we did this based upon your feedback. Thank you for giving us that feedback because it helps us get better, and you helped us get better by using your voice.”

That is a complete foreign concept, Pete. Most people are not doing that. Most people, most organizations do not do that process. They don’t close the loop. They don’t go back after they’ve taken action on behalf of another person, and tell the other person that they’ve taken the action because of them.

They don’t go back and thank them for that feedback. They don’t go back and tell them about the tweaks they’re making in the process as they’re making them. And that is where we drop the ball and there’s the gap between when we think we’re listening and when people feel heard on the other side.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s really powerful. And I’ve been guilty of that myself. I’m thinking about one of my producers, Ria, who’s great, and she did a really great job of proactively highlighting how my vocal processing sounded a little different under certain circumstances on the podcast, and I was completely unaware. And so, I dug deep and did all the stuff and through quite a process of sort of thinking through what are all the steps associated with how the audio gets mixed and mastered and whatnot.

And then it’s sort of like, “Oh, yeah, by the way, thanks for mentioning that because we did this whole thing and changed it up, and now I think it’s a lot more natural.” And she’s like, “Oh, well, thank you for letting me know. I had no idea.” I was like, “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t unless I would say it, and I didn’t say it.” It’s funny, I don’t know what the holdup is. Maybe it’s just the time gap there in terms of it’s like, “Oh, we had that conversation months ago,” and then I’m off to another thing.

Heather Younger

Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s exactly what happens with most people, too. Time goes by, they think, “Oh, do we really need to give them that? Do they really need to know about that? I don’t think I have time for that. It’s not that important to that person that I do that,” and that is the wrong way to think about it.

We actually give people a gift by doing this whole process. When they see that we’ve taken the time to reflect on their feedback, that we’ve processed it, that we’ve done our research, that we’ve decided how we’re going to act, and we go talk to them about it, we do that action and we tell them that we’ve done it, and they see the direct correlation between their voices, they’re actively using their voices, and our response to them.

It’s powerful, because, otherwise, again, we’re just kind of sitting around like this, like in the world wondering, like you did wondering, “What? I didn’t know that.” We think we see something change, we think it’s based upon our feedback, but we have no clue it’s directly tied to us until the person or the people who did the thing tell us it was because of us.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. And that feels so great because I think all of us like to contribute, feel like we matter, made a difference. And if you can feel like you are a part of having made a real difference or contribution, by merely having maybe a quick conversation, it’s like, “Hey, remember we chatted about 15 minutes about that thing one time? Well, now, look how the world is completely different for thousands of people based on that conversation.” Like, “Oh, awesome. That’s the coolest thing, huge impact, low effort. Can I get some more of this, please?”

Heather Younger

Oh, I love it. Yes, exactly. So, I think that’s exactly right. You feed the need for people. And when we think about that baby who’s in the crib, you think about us when we’re babies, we’re in a crib, and we start making noises, and we go, “Ooh, ahh,” we make all kinds of noises, and our parents come, and go, “Oh, how are you, sweetheart, dah, dah, dah.” And, all of a sudden, we’re just like, “Ahh,” we’re just like, “Oh, they heard me.”

I’m thinking about I have four children, so I don’t know who’s listening, who has any kids, but I have four children, and as I think about each of them, and a couple of them are more rambunctious than others, as they would make those same sounds and I would not respond to them, they would start to throw things out of the crib. They would kick the crib. They would make all kinds of noises because they were like, “Wait a second. You usually come. You’re not coming now. Are you hearing this thing I’m using? It’s called a voice. Are you hearing me?”

That is innate in us. Our voice is a significant part of what makes us, us. So, the more we use that and people respond to it in kind, it makes us feel powerful. It makes us feel important. That’s a gift we give to people.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, now, we talked about the five-step framework a bit. Could you share with us each of the five steps and maybe a demonstration or a case of it unfolding in action?

Heather Younger

So, the first step is recognize the unsaid. And it kind of speaks for itself but it’s kind of like those unspoken cues, the signs within a culture, the signs within our office that something is just not right, and we don’t recognize those signs if we’re running around with our heads chopped off, if we don’t take time to pause, but those signs could be blind spots in a really big way into relationship failures, conflicts that are brewing, customers that aren’t happy. There’s a lot of things that we are missing if we don’t take time to pause and recognize those things.

So, recognize the unsaid is the first step because we need to get there for our awareness to expand so we can then go to the next step, which is seeking to understand. Once we see the signs, now we have to go deeper, have the courage to go deeper, and start asking and leaning in and asking questions, and going back and forth, and trying, with curiosity, figure out what’s happening, what the person needs from us, what took place, whatever. But we can’t do that until we recognize the unsaid. And so, the seeking is that whole reflective listening, it’s the empathetic listening, it’s the leaning in, it’s trying to understand what the other person needs from us.

That third step is the decoding phase, which is what I talked about earlier, which really is the time we take to go reflect. We pause and reflect on what the person told us in the seeking to understand phase. We go reflect. We research. We do it by ourselves. We do it with our management team. We do it with our team, our colleagues, whoever we need to, that’s what we do in that phase.

And the decoding says to the person on the other end, “I think you are so important that I’m not going to rush to a decision. I’m going to pause. I’m going to take some time with what you said. It’s important what you said.” And then action is the next step. So, okay, you’re going to take action, or you can’t action but maybe you can come to a compromise. Or, what kind of action are you going to take? So, you’ve got to take some kind of action because people will say, “Oh, the dots really start to be connected then. Oh, they actually changed something. They did something different based upon what my voice said to them, what I said to them. Oh, okay.”

And then the closing loop is that last step, which is to come back full circle to say what you’ve done, what you plan to do, or what you can’t do but how you might be able to come to a compromise so that they know, “Okay, Pete took time. He sat with me. He took the view that he told me I was going to take a few days before he could research and come back to me.”

“But he came back to me when he promised he’d come back to me. And then when he came back to me, they had a solution. And the solution was better than what I thought it was. And they told me they’re going to go about kind of putting the solution in place, and they did it. And Pete told me when they did it, and I looked, and I saw, and it was great, and it was because of me.”

That’s the five-step process. That’s kind of how that comes together, and that is kind of a real-life working because there’s stuff that’s happening all day to us. How we respond in a moment that makes all the difference.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, could you give us a demonstration?

Heather Younger

Well, I think part of it is just, like, you come to us, you say something to me. Let’s just say, a customer is complaining about a process. So, let’s say you’re a customer who complains to me about there’s a process that’s happened and I’m leaning in, “So, tell me more, Pete. Tell me more what’s happening?” and I’m asking all the questions.

And I get to the point where I’m like, “I think I understand. So, Pete, I just want to make sure I understand. This part of the process was really frustrating you and your team. It’s making the whole relationship kind of go downhill. You’re frustrated and you’re at your wit’s end at this point. And you’re coming to me because you feel like I’m the last person that you can listen to you, that can maybe do something about what’s happening to you, right? Is that what I’m getting to? Is that what’s happening, Pete?”

Then you say, Pete, “Yeah, that’s exactly right.” “Okay, Pete, thank you so much for that feedback. I need to go and talk to a few different departments and maybe even, like, my manager, to see what we can do, and, actually, just to look into this more fully. Is that okay if I come back to you within the next 72 hours with what we found, and maybe a solution?” And Pete says, “That’s great. Thanks, Heather. Thanks for at least trying.”

Okay. So, I go about and I’m talking to the shipping department, and this department, and I go talk to the manager, and I go, “Here’s what’s happening to the customer. They’re not happy. Here’s what they’re really wanting. Here’s part of the process that’s really broken. And I talk to these different people, and I look at this process, and I think the client is onto something. There is a part that’s broken but I don’t think you can give the person exactly what they wanted but we can maybe give them this. What do you think about this?” And this is what the person’s talking to the manager about.

And the manager goes, “Yeah, I think that’s possible. Research a little bit more here. Go over here. Go over there. And if you think you can come up with this, then go back to the customer and let him know we can do it. We can do this thing, this more narrow part of the thing they want me to do.” “Okay, great.”

So, I go back do the thing, come back to the manager, “Yup, manager, it’s good. I think I’m going to go ahead and tell the customer we can’t do the entire big thing but we can change this back.” So, now, I go back to the customer, and I go, “Customer, thank you so much for that feedback. I told you I’d be back in three days. I’m here. I’m here with you. I did a lot of research, talked to all different people, and here’s what we think we can do.”

“We can’t quite do all of this thing, but, as we looked at it, you’re right. There was a part of the process that is really a problem. So, here’s what we’re thinking we can do, and I wanted to come back with you to see if you thought this would work.” Then I tell the person what it is, and they go, “Yeah, I think it’s possible. Or, can you go a little further?”

Okay, I don’t know if you can see how it can go, but it’s going to require us to go more back and forth. It’s a tennis match of requests and meeting a request, and communicating back to them. And, at the end, let’s say you get to the point, and you boil it down to what it is they really, in the end, that you’ve met their need, and now they’re happy. Now they’re like, “Great. Thank you for being one of the very first people ever to hear me.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And during the course of those actual conversations, are there any particular words, phrases, questions, that you just love and seem to really go a long way?

Heather Younger

one tip I would give you as it relates to the seeking part of that cycle is when you’re listening to someone and you want to go try to paraphrase what you heard, paraphrase, do not parrot. So, don’t go back to them with exactly what they just said.

Instead, take in all of the emotions that are going on as they say it. So, you sense their frustration, you see their hesitation, you can sense their anxiety. What you do is when you go back to them, you make sure that you reflect back kind of the gist of what you heard them say and how that makes them feel, or how it made them feel, or what you sensed they felt.

This is going to take more effort for some people than it will for others, but if you pay close to attention, you’re going to see, like, there could be shifting in their body language, you’re going to hear the tone of their voice, you’re going to see the grimace in their face, knowing that there’s anger, frustration, whatever the feelings are.

Because when they see that you recognize this, like part of what they said, you recognize the thing that you’re seeing kind of what you’re experiencing and what they’re saying, now it starts to add up for them, they’re like, “Okay, what I’m saying, they’re actually hearing. They’re not hearing something different. They’re hearing what I’m saying and they’re sensing what I’m feeling about what I’m saying.” It’s powerful.

So, I would say that’s kind of a big one. Do not parrot. Don’t parrot back because that’s super frustrating. What I mean by that is this, “So, Pete, what I heard you say is…” dah, dah, dah. And then they say, “Yeah, because this…” And then you go, “Okay, so what I heard you say just now is…” dah, dah, dah, and they say some more. And you go, “And what I heard you say just now is…” that’s the parroting. That’s actually super frustrating, very irritating, it feels very robotic.

So, just calm yourself in the interaction, don’t feel the need to respond to every single sentence, calm yourself, take it all in, what you see and what you hear, and then start to ask thoughtful questions, and then wrap in the emotions of the thing that you’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s good. That’s good. Anything else we should avoid?

Heather Younger

I would say that’s probably the biggest thing. There’s probably a lot of other little things that you should avoid as you’re in them. For example, you’re really not going to be in conflict for long. Don’t go into something with your desire to be right or your desire to respond. Go into listening with your desire to find a connection, your desire to find a midway, your desire to land on solution, not to be right. I would say that to be the other thing.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And if we do have conflict, disagreement, tension, any pro tips on how we can listen effectively there?

Heather Younger

Sometimes you have to just agree to talk about it later, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to be in a superheated situation and handle it right in the moment necessarily, unless, again, it’s life or death, or something. For example, even if it’s a client, a customer at a counter, I’ve done this before where it gets a little heated, and they’re, like, yelling, and I go, “Excuse me, I just need to take one moment. Is that okay? Just one moment.”

And then I go in the back, and just kind of go, “Ahh, ahh,” because I really want to strangle the person. I just go, “Ahh,” process it, and then come back out, and go, “Okay. Sorry about that. I just needed to kind of gather my thoughts or whatever it was. Okay, so now I want to make sure I hear you,” and then you can kind of go into it.

I would say the biggest thing is seeking and going in with curiosity because, in conflict, in most cases, we want to be right. We’re seeking to win our side. So, in conflict, if you feel yourself like in it, remove yourself from it for the moment, or totally table that discussion for later if you can.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, tell me, Heather, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Heather Younger

No, I would say that’s it. As we think about it, active listening is a gift, and our presence and undivided attention for people is the biggest gift we can give them. So, we just have to remember that, as we ask ourselves, “Well, I don’t have time,” or we say to ourselves, “I don’t have time to listen like this,” or, “Listening is not that important,” or, “I think I’m a pretty decent listener. That’s all I need to be.” Think about what kind of gift you want to deliver.

Do you want to deliver one that’s frayed in a box that’s been, like, banged up? Or, do you want to deliver the gift that’s, like, it is beautifully wrapped box with a bow, where someone goes, “This person really thought a lot of me.” And that would be for you to answer.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Heather Younger

So, it’s by Marianne Williamson. It’s the deepest fear quote. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Pete Mockaitis

Yup.

Heather Younger

Here’s part of it. It’s not the full thing. “We ask ourselves ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are we not to be?” And it’s actually a much longer quote so I would definitely invite everybody to go look at it, but it really is this idea of not minimizing ourselves for the benefit of others, not making ourselves smaller so that others can feel bigger, that’s really up to them to do, that’s not up for you to do.

I absolutely love that quote so much because, often, depending on your personality, if you have kind of a personality that’s bigger than life, or you have goals that are really big, oftentimes, we want to minimize because we can see other people aren’t in a good place, or they may not take in whatever it is you’re going through and they may be negative about it. And I say, well, that’s their issue, not yours.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Heather Younger

I love pretty much anything John Maxwell, so The Leader Within, all those leader books by John Maxwell are the best. They’re thin so you can get through them really quick on an airplane ride or while you’re at home. Anything by John Maxwell is, what I would say, books I love.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Heather Younger

This is a love-hate relationship but I’d have to say my iPhone. I probably do 90% of my things from there, like emailing, texting, social, just everything. So, when people are like, “Oh, when you do this on the desktop,” and I’m like, “I don’t do much from the desktop so I don’t know what you mean.” So, iPhone would probably be my best tool.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite habit?

Heather Younger

I like to eat the same breakfast every day.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, what is this breakfast?

Heather Younger

See, now you’re intrigued, right? Two eggs with spinach with a little bit of parmesan cheese and, like, a Pico de Gallo on top, and a piece of sprouted grain toast and natural peanut butter, and some blackberries. That’s my breakfast.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate, folks quote it back to you often?

Heather Younger

I think the idea that listening is…being present is, in fact, a gift to others.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Heather Younger

I’d say go ahead and go to LinkedIn, just look for Heather Younger, and, boom, I’ll be there. That’s probably the biggest way for them to kind of follow me, contact me is LinkedIn.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Heather Younger

I would say that we all have the ability to own the listening that we do and how well we do it. And be really reluctant to give away your power. Don’t point the finger or blame your manager or somebody else in the organization. Instead, stand in your own shoes and own your own presence when it comes to people around you.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Heather, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun and gifts of active listening.

Heather Younger

Thank you so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Richard, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Richard Newman
Thanks, Pete. Good to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m so excited to talk to you about your book and wisdom and insights associated with body talk and You Were Born to Speak, but, first, I think we got to start with tell us the tale, you, Tibetan monks, six months, nonverbal communication. What is the story here?

Richard Newman
So, what happened was that when I was at school, high school, I was planning on going straight to university just like all of my friends, and I knew though while I was there that I was not great at communication, and I didn’t know why. I just really struggled with it. I’d grown up being called shy. I didn’t realize I was an introvert at the time, but I’ve since come to understand that term more. And I’ve only very recently been diagnosed as autistic.

And so, anyway, when I was back at school, I was struggling in communication, thinking, “I really want to do something about this, and I want to do something good for the world as well.” And I was starting to read books around communication, and I read this book all about body language that I was fascinated by, and I thought, “Wow, I want to do something with this and explore where this can take me.”

So, just before I was about to leave high school, I had my university places organized, and this guy who’d been at our school a few years prior, he came back and he did a speech to all of us, saying, “Look, if you’re thinking about maybe taking a year off before university, here’s something you could do.” And he had been on an adventure to go to Katmandu or somewhere near there to work in an orphanage. He gave his story, and I thought, “That’s the kind of thing I want to go and do.”

And so, I put myself forward to different organizations who arrange this sort of thing, and one of them told me about this monastery where they never had a teacher before but they really wanted help with connecting with the outside world. So, it’s a group of Tibetan monks who were in exile, living in the foothills of the Himalayas in India, and they needed a teacher. So, I said, “Yup, that’s the one for me.”

And so, I ventured across India, I’d never been on a holiday without my parents at this point, so I’d never been overseas without them, and it took me days to find this monastery. And, eventually, when I got there, I then realized that the monks couldn’t speak any English, and I thought I was there to improve their English, but it turns out they didn’t speak any English, so I had to use body language and tone of voice just to connect with them to understand “Where am I going to speak? Where are we going to do a lesson together?” that sort of thing.

And then I was teaching them for six months, so I spent six months with them learning how to use nonverbal communication in a way of being able to explain myself and help them to learn my language. And so, by the end of that time, they could then have a good conversation in English with me, and I’d learned how to speak Nepali, which is the main language of the area we were living in, and it was also the easiest language to learn because Tibetan is quite challenging in comparison.

And so, I came back to the UK with this sort of profound feeling about nonverbal communication, wanting to do something with that, which then started me on the journey of building up my communication training business.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow, Richard, there’s so much I want to dig into there. That’s cool. So, one, congratulations, mission accomplished. I don’t know if I’d spent six months living with folks who didn’t know any English whatsoever, where we’d be at the end of that. So, that’s cool that you pulled it off. So, I’m curious about that right there in terms of how did those breakthroughs occur exactly? I guess you could maybe pick up stuff, “Bowl, this is bowl.” Or, how is that even done?

Richard Newman
I started to realize that I could explain myself better if I was being really congruent, meaning that if my body language and my tone of voice and my words were all headed in one direction, they understood me. And if they weren’t, they had no idea what I was saying.

So, for example, if I wanted to teach these words, teach the monks how to say the word excited, I needed to look excited, sound excited, and say the word excited. Whereas, if I wasn’t doing those three things in unison, going in one direction, I could’ve been saying pineapple and they wouldn’t have any idea about the difference. So, it really taught me that sense of congruency.

And so, there were elements that I taught. One of the most fun lessons that I did actually was where I was teaching them about texture, and I thought, “How am I going to teach them? I wanted to teach them about smooth, and wet, and rough, and hard, and so on.” And so, what I did was I got a big bucket, and I got a blindfold. So, I blindfolded them and I put their hand into this bucket, and then they would touch something that was hard, something that was wet and so on, so they would understand when I’d say the word, and so they’d suddenly learn those pieces.

But other pieces were much more visual, which people won’t be able to see listening to the audio recording. But I would do this where I would point or gesture as I was talking to them about prepositions. So, where I would say up, down, into, onto, over, under, out, in front, behind, next to, opposite, round, and roundabout, and I would mimic those pieces to give them those sort of physical senses of things.

And so, it was a gradual buildup of a sense of using props, using very specific directive gestures, and then, primarily, using congruency in communication that was enabling them to build that up. And that’s what I then gone on to teach people in my career is particularly that congruency piece, which is really missing in day-to-day communication in business and people’s careers, where I find people might really think carefully about their words, but they don’t necessarily think, “Well, what tone of voice do I put with those words? What body would I put with those words?”

And so, this is where you’ll have people attending conference, and the CFO gets up on stage, and says, “Hi, everyone. Really excited to be here today. We’ve had some really good financial results.” And what people are seeing and hearing is they’re thinking, “Are we about to go out of business? Are we about to go bankrupt, because he doesn’t look very excited? Like, what is he not telling me here?”

And so, that congruency piece has been one of the major pieces I’ve focused on for clients over the last two decades to make sure that everything is matching up so that people really believe everything that you’re saying, and get the right message in the end.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now, at the same time, you mentioned you’re recently diagnosed as autistic, and so my knowledge of autism and the spectrum is somewhat limited to a few things I’ve read on the internet. But isn’t that not often associated with missing these very things that you are speaking to? Tell us how that fits into all this.

Richard Newman
Yes. So, my diagnosis has been a long time coming, actually. So, when I was a teenager, friends noticed that I was having challenges with communication. So, one of the big challenges for me would be, as you mentioned, around sort of figuring out the nonverbal side of communication. So, an example of that is banter. So, banter, being when, from my perspective, what I see is I’d see two neurotypical people engaged in banter, looks like they are insulting each other, and then laughing at each other’s faces.

Pete Mockaitis
“Oh, you old sandbagging SOB, how are you doing? Uh-oh, look what the cat dragged in, this guy.” Yeah, I love old people is my favorite, watching them banter.

Richard Newman
Right, yeah. So, I’ll watch this sort of thing, and I think, “Oh, that seems to improve their relationship.” And whenever I try it, people get really insulted. And, just like you said, what I hear is…

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us an example, Richard, of how you blew it? That sounds like an interesting scenario.

Richard Newman
So, I think back to about sort of ten years ago, I was at an event with a couple of colleagues of mine, and I can’t remember exactly what they said to each other but it was along the lines, from my memory, of one of them said, “You’re just so ugly that blah, blah, blah, ha, ha, ha, ha,” and the other one said, “No, no, no, you’re so ugly that blah, blah, blah, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

And I thought, “Okay, I think I can engage in this conversation. I’m going to try this.” And I said something like, “No, no, but you’re so ugly that blah, blah, blah,” and they both looked at me, like, “That is so offensive. I can’t believe you said that.” And I was thinking, “But I just did what you did, didn’t I? I didn’t mean it. Obviously, I didn’t mean it. You didn’t mean what you said.” So, I thought, “Okay, banter is not for me.”

And so, yeah, from teenage years, I realized that I wasn’t very good at that but I started studying books on body language, and I was originally reading books by people like Allen Pease and Desmond Morris, were sort of the forefathers of the areas that people look at now with body language, and also people like Joe Navarro, other people that I was reading up about.

And it got to the point where I’d realized, “Well, hang on a second, I’ve studied so much on body language, I now understand more than the average person about what these things mean, what nonverbal signals we’re giving off, and how to improve our nonverbal impact.” And when I started leading then my company, one of my first clients that I worked with was a Formula One racing team.

And for them, they gave me a script that I needed to deliver in meetings for their clients who would come in from all over the world. And, essentially, what happened was that I memorized this script that I needed to deliver word for word, it was a legally approved script, and I delivered that script about one thousand times to one thousand different audiences over the course of five years.

And because I couldn’t change the information, each time I delivered it, I thought, “Well, what if I changed a bit about my nonverbal communication, just see if it gives me a better reaction than it did yesterday and the day before?” And I would note down, I’d look through all the books I could find on body language, all the research I could find, and I would note down, “Okay, let me try this technique tomorrow.” And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, and sometimes it worked for maybe a European audience but it didn’t work for people who came in from Asia.

And so, I’d note this down, and it got to the point where I thought, “Okay, these are the things that definitely work universally.” And then I put together a research project in 2016 to get all these verified, and we had this breakthrough research paper that was published in the Journal of Psychology that was peer reviewed. And the people who were working with me on this, the experts in this field from the University College London from the psychology department, they said that they’d never seen statistics like we had achieved on this project.

So, to come back to the question around autism, I think that what this has given me, in my particular case, is a unique lens to be able to look at communication with, where neurotypical people, which is most people, sort of just look at information from other people, body language, they’re not really aware of what they’re looking at. Whereas, I’m laser-focused looking at, “Well, what’s happening right now? What does that mean? What can I do in response to that that will lead to a positive outcome?”

And I was able to put all those building blocks together for people, and then teach my clients. If you imagine like a wall, and they’re saying, “I don’t seem to be having presence at the moment. I haven’t got the gravitas I need.” I look at the wall that they’re putting together and their body language, and think, “Okay, these three bricks are missing on your wall. We need to put these three bricks into place, and now you have presence.”

And that’s what the research project showed. So, from my perspective, it’s actually been an advantage to me in many ways that I’ve been able to have this other way of looking at communication that would be different to most people, that’s allowed me to analyze it in a way that I can then be useful to my clients, and then to build up those techniques for myself to the point where I can be effective as an onstage speaker, knowing what techniques to apply to get the right reaction.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fascinating. And so, to recap, whereas neurotypical folks just sort of intuit, like, “Oh, okay, this is what’s going on, and this is why this banter is okay,” you are kind of dissecting the components and the ingredients that build that up. And is it because you did not have that natural intuition about things and you just happen to be fascinated by the subject matter that you went ahead and determined, “Well, what are those ingredients?” Is that fair to say?

Richard Newman
Yeah, exactly, because sometimes I get people saying to me, “Oh, well, you can’t really demystify this communication stuff. You either know how to do it or you don’t.” And that, for me, is a very neurotypical response to things, where I can see why people are saying that because they can’t see beyond what’s happening.

Whereas, for me, it’s a little bit like looking at a goldfish in a bowl and being outside of the bowl, and being able to see how the interactions are happening, what’s happening there from a perspective, almost like, if you think about a nature documentary presenter who’s watching how another species interact, and is then able to observe it, build up research around it, and think about how to apply that in different situations.

So, that’s what it’s been like for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful stuff. All right, let’s talk about this 2016 study here. Tell us, what are these eye popping statistically mind-blowing discoveries, and can you share some of the numbers associated with them and the key takeaways that all of us should use if we want to have more presence, and be more compelling and persuasive?

Richard Newman
Yeah, sure. So, this study we put together, first of all, we looked back over sort of 30 to 40 years’ worth of research in the area of nonverbal communication and influence to see what had already been proved and what sort of protocols have been used by people that we could build upon. We then spent 18 months building up the research project that we did to really refine it down to certain pieces we wanted to measure.

And so, the essence of what we’re aiming for is to see is, “Is there certain body language choices that every person can make no matter what your gender is, no matter what country you live in, no matter what your skin color is? Is there something that every human can do that improves their impact?”
So, we put this all together, and the way that we did this, we created over a hundred videos of people speaking to a camera where they would be saying the same words in every video, they would wear the same clothes as well, but in each video, they just slightly change their communication style.

We also used, in the videos, there’s four different actors. So, two female, two male, and they had two with lighter skin, two with darker skin, and they also, all four of them, went through an aging process with prosthetics because we wanted to see if they did exactly the same thing but they looked 30 years older, “Did that change how people rated them as a leader or for confidence and so on?”

And to our complete surprise, it didn’t matter what their gender was, it didn’t matter what their skin color was, it didn’t matter how old people thought they looked, and it also didn’t matter if we did the test for people who were watching it in Mumbai versus people watching it somewhere in California. And the people who watched these videos, we had more than 2,000 people take part, people age from 18 to 65, men and women who were looking at this, that didn’t matter either.

The only thing that really changed our results is that if people went from the most common forms of body language that you see in day-to-day life, and they shifted away from those most common elements across to what we thought would be a more effective, this is where we got these eye popping results, where we found that with a couple of simple shifts anybody can make, you can then increase how confident people think you are by 25%, you could increase how many people you convince with whatever you’re saying by 42%, you can increase how many people think you’re a good leader by 44%, and you can increase how many people would vote for you in an election by 58%.

And that is while you’re saying the same words, you are the same person, you’re wearing the same clothes, and you just change a couple of things nonverbally, and that’s the reaction you get, and it was working universally for people. So, we’re really excited by that.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I want to ask, of course, what are the things? But, first, just so that we can fully link and, for all of the enthusiasts out there, what is the full journal article name so that we can link to it and read it, the full text in all its glory?

Richard Newman
So, I believe if you Google nonverbal presence, and then you put in my name Richard Newman, you should be able to find it. It’s been downloaded and used and commented on many times over the years, and it’s from the research journal Psychology. So, if you put those into search engines, you should be able to find it. You can download the full reports. I think it’s like a 16-page in a PDF that people can get on this.

And so, for me to go through a couple of pieces…

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Oh, sorry. And co-authors?

Richard Newman
Oh, co-authors, yeah, Adrian Furnham. So, Adrian Furnham is known to be one of the top five psychologists in the world. I believe that he has authored or co-authored roughly a thousand research projects over the last 30 to 40 years, and he gets to go and speak and do keynotes all over the world, the head of psychology at UCL. And also, I mentioned there should be Alistair McClelland and Roxana Cardos. So, people can go and check that out.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now, I feel like I need a drumroll or something. Richard, lay it on us, what are the body language choices any person, anywhere, can do to see a 25% to 58% lift in key things we’d like lifted?

Richard Newman
Sure. Okay. So, let me start with something really simple. So, one of the big questions I’ve been asked by people over the years is “What do I do with my hands when I’m speaking to people? If I’m in an interview, I’m doing a presentation, that sort of thing, what do I do with my hands?” And it’s quite a funny question because if you think about it, when you go out to a bar with your friends, and you’re just talking about telling people what you did on the weekend, you just move your hands and you don’t really think about it. You just gesture, and you create stories, you don’t worry.

But when people are in situations where they get self-conscious, like a job interview, sales pitch, presentation, they suddenly think, “I don’t know what to do with my hands. I don’t know what I normally do,” and they freeze. And so, something that’s very common is that people stop gesturing altogether. In fact, I’ve trained many people over the years who’ve said, “I was told by my boss early in my career, ‘Stop gesturing, sit on your hands. You look unprofessional. You’re flapping your arms around.’” And this is really detrimental.

Now, what we already know from other research by Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow from the University of Chicago is that the more that you gesture, the more you stimulate your mind, you can speed up your thought processes. So, it makes sense to gesture while you’re speaking because it allows you to think and process information well.

There’s really interesting studies that she put together. One of which shows you that, and I believe I’m quoting this right, they took a group of mathematicians, and they took the mathematicians who were scoring the highest results, highest grades in the class, and they put them through an exam, an oral exam, where they got them to sit on their hands and answer math questions. Then they took the people from the group who were previously getting the lowest grades in their class, and they got them to frequently gesture while they had an oral exam.

I’m sort of simplifying the results, but those who used to get the lowest results, when they gestured, got much higher grades from the test, and those who used to be the highest-scoring in the class were then getting much lower grades, and it’s based on the amount and frequency they were gesturing. So, anyway, we wanted to do our own version of this test around gestures to see, “Well, how does an audience react to gestures?” So, importantly, if you do no gestures, you get terrible ratings. So, to be very clear on this, like if you’re keeping your hands held in one position, or you’re having them down by your side, very poor.

Secondly, if you do low-limp gestures, you get the worst possible ratings. And low-limp gestures is, effectively, if you imagine your arms sort of loosely by your sides, and you just sort of occasionally flapping them slightly away from your body because you think, “Maybe I probably should gesture but I don’t really feel like it. I feel a bit self-conscious,” then you look very low status by doing so. And that’s gesturing below the waist or if people are in a meeting or a virtual meeting. Gesturing out of the camera’s view or gesturing under the table, very low ratings.

However, if you gesture where people can see it, above the waist, the key area to do it is between the waist and the shoulder height. So, if you go above shoulder height, it looks too dramatic. If you go below waist height, it’s then suddenly, it looks low limp and disengaged. So, between shoulder and waist height, you need to be slightly away from the body.

So, if you go towards the body, then you look like you are being timid. If you go too wide, you look like you’re overreaching. But you want to go slightly away from the body, getting your elbow away from the body, and there’s two positions to think about which work universally. It doesn’t matter where you are around the world.

So, importantly, with gestures, if you do like a thumbs up or an okay symbol, that means different things in different parts of the world. But there are two gestures that mean the same thing everywhere, which is palms up and palms down. Now, palms up, it indicates an open message, it could be a question, it’s a warm gesture, it’s inviting for people. Palms down means the opposite. It is a closed statement. So, as if to say, “There’s no arguments, no questions, that’s just the way it is,” doing it palms down.

And so, if you use them back and forth, those two gestures, congruently with your message, we talked about congruency earlier, if you use them congruently with your message, so palms up for open statements, and palms down for strong closed statements, then suddenly you’re being utterly congruent with your message, and your measure for how charismatic you are suddenly shifts completely because people see you as totally congruently connected with your message, verbally and nonverbally, so make sure palms up and palms down.

So, I talk about those, like if people think about tennis, you got a forehand and backhand. These are your forehand and backhand that you can go to over and over again. You can do it with one hand, you can do it with both hands, and you can use them no matter where you are. So, that one suddenly gave people a massive leap upwards.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, could we do a quick timeout there, Richard? That’s so powerful

So, we want to talk about the up with I’m thinking, all right, let me just see. Tell me if this feels right. So, if I say palms down, “We are 100% committed to investing in the metaverse over the next three years,” and then palms up, “But we’re going to have to learn a lot of new things in which we’re not sure of a few key points, and so we’re going to have to do a lot of listening to figure out what’s going on.”

So, palms up, we’re listening, and then palms down, “But make no mistake, we will be spending $300 million, or whatever, in order to be the leader in this space,” palms up, “And we want all of you to come with us on this exciting journey.” So, is that kind of what we’re talking about here?

Richard Newman
Yeah, exactly. And what you’ll notice as well, for people listening to that, is that your tone of voice changed each time you did palms up versus palms down. And we find that people do this without us even sort of saying to them, people who aren’t as much expert as you would be in front of a microphone. But when we change someone’s gestures, their tone of voice naturally changes. And if you change the pace at which you gesture, the pace and the fluidity of your voice changes as well.

So, sometimes if I’ve got a leader who’s being very choppy in the way they’re being, and being a little bit aggressive, I say, “Look, move your gestures like you’re stroking a large dog. Just imagine you’re doing that,” and suddenly their tone of voice changes with it as well. But the way that you did that palms up and palms down, that’s exactly the right sort of idea behind things. And it makes sure that people really believe you, because seeing is believing.

We’ve got so much data that we take in through the optic nerve, we want to make sure that what’s going through the optic nerve and cranial nerve, while we’re listening to things, they go in and they seem to all fit together perfectly, where you think, “Well, everything I’m seeing and hearing matches. Wow, that’s charisma. That’s a great leader. I believe them. I want to follow them. I want to vote for them.” So, yeah, that works really nicely. So, that’s the piece on gestures.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Richard, may I ask, we got palms up, we got palms down. What happens when I’ve got my palms, I guess, parallel to the ground? It’s like neither up nor down. I’m sorry, perpendicular, excuse me. Perpendicular to the ground.

Richard Newman
So, you can call these palms even, palms equal, or palms neutral, if you want to. And this is good for time gestures or for showing people the size of things. And this is a really important one that we teach people. So, for those listening to this, if you just imagine that I gesture, I make a large gesture, and I say, “If you give us $100,000 investment,” I’m doing a big large gesture, palms even, and then I make a small gesture, and say, “I will give you a 10% return.” So, I’m going from a big gesture, “If you give us $100,000 investment,” down to a small gesture, “I will give you a 10% return.” It seems like it’s a bad deal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s terrible.

Richard Newman
I’m going from something big to something small.

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t even know the terms but I was like, “I don’t think I like that, Richard.”

Richard Newman
Exactly. So, watch, if I do the opposite, I make a small gesture with palms facing each other, and I say, “If you give me $100,000 investment, I will give you a 10% return,” with a big gesture on the end, you suddenly think, “That’s amazing. Of course, I’m going to do this. That’s really exciting.” So, it’s really good for showing people the size of numbers.

I always say to people, “Look, 27% doesn’t actually mean anything, 4.7% doesn’t mean anything. It might mean something to you but it doesn’t mean anything to me.” People only understand what a percentage means or a block of time means if you show them with the scale of your gestures. So, you need to show people “Is a month or three seconds, is that a long time?”

Three seconds in Formula One racing, or doing the 100-meter race at the Olympics, that’s massive. Three seconds is huge. Whereas, if you’re talking about something along the long arc of history between us and the time of the dinosaurs, three seconds or three months or three years is nothing. It’s tiny. So, it’s very useful for scaling, that’s if you’re doing palms facing each other.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we got our palms. What’s next?

Richard Newman
Okay. So, another piece to talk about, and this one is utterly fascinating, too, is all about your feet position. So, imagine that you are standing talking to people, what we often see, the most common one, we tested this one out, is that if someone is standing talking either to one person or talking to a group of people, which could be a small group in a meeting room or a large group on a stage, what you often see people doing is that they lean their weight from one hip to the other hip, and then going back again, in this sort of rocking direction.

And what they’re always doing is always having their weight on one foot rather than on both. And by being in that position, what you’re doing is you’re physically placing yourself so that gravity is working against you. So, you physically look like a pushover, meaning that if someone came up and pushed you on one of your shoulders, you’d fall over because your weight is off-balanced, off-center, and you’re in a position called anti-gravitas, so you’re going to be easily pushed over.

Whereas, if you do the opposite to that and you do what so few people ever tend to do, so if you place your weight so that your feet are shoulder-width apart and your weight is equally balanced between left foot, right foot, toes, and heels, so you’re physically centered, again, if someone came to you and pushed you on the shoulder, you’d be much less likely to fall down. This is the position that people stand in.

If you look at sports, if you look at someone playing golf about to putt on the final tee, if you watch someone playing basketball, they’re doing a free-throw shot, if you watch someone playing tennis and they’re about to receive serve, what are they doing? They are shoulder-width apart with their feet, maybe just slightly bent potentially, weight equally balanced between left foot, right foot, toes and heels. They’re in a very strong ready position about to perform at their best.

Now, if you do that when you’re standing and speaking to one person or a large audience, then your ratings go very significantly up, but the distance between your feet is key. So, we tested this, we said, “Let’s get the person balanced but let’s try three different widths that they could have their feet.” So, we tried having their feet completely touching each other, so together, they’re still standing balanced on each foot but their feet are together, then we tried feet shoulder-width apart, then we tried going beyond shoulder-width apart, so beyond shoulder-width apart.

And we said, “Okay, let’s just try, keep everything the same and test that worldwide, and see what reactions we get.” And what we found is that when people have their feet together, feet touching, it got the lowest possible results. So, that person was not inspiring, they’re not confident, they’re not a good leader. And the reason being, even though they’re standing centered, their weight on both feet, because their feet is so close together, again, if you give them a nudge, they’d fall over. They look weak. They look like a pushover.

If you put their feet wider than shoulder-width apart, then the person looks more commanding but it also looks a bit strange. It looks like they’re trying to be some sort of superhero rockstar sort of thing. It doesn’t look natural. It’s just like, “Why are you splaying your legs so far apart?” It looks better than the subservient feet together feet position but it doesn’t do the best.

And then, finally, and this was the really strong one, if you just go from feet together to feet shoulder-width apart, and this worked for men and women, you get an increase of 32% increase just by doing that one piece, 32% increase in how convincing people think you are, saying the same words, wearing the same clothes, using the same tone of voice. You just change that one thing because, physically, you are going from being a pushover to having gravitas, gravity working with you.

When people recognize that, they see you as a pack leader or a tribe leader, somebody who has strength and gravitas behind their words. It’s that physical instant reaction that people can do. And it works for men and women, it worked no matter who we tested this on around the world for different cultures because it has that sense of the laws of physics working with what we are seeing.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so, Richard, I love the precision that we’re looking at here. And as I’m thinking about shoulder width, are we thinking that the feet are aligned to the center of the shoulders, or the outer part of the shoulders, or the inner part of the shoulders? Or, if a tailor were to measure straight across the back, shoulder to shoulder, that’s the distance of space that should be between my shoes? Or, how are we defining shoulder width?

Richard Newman
So, the way that we did it in the study, if I’m getting this right, is that we used a tape measure to measure the width from one side of the shoulder to the side of the other shoulder, and then we measured their feet, and we made sure that from one side of their foot to the other side of their foot was the same distance. And then we went from that.

But if people want to check this out, the reason that we know this works, it’s so universal, if you look at a child who’s around about one year old, then they’re usually at that point where they’re trying to stand up and trying to get their balance and maybe start to walk, and it’s the position that children, effectively, stand up in.

So, if children try to stand up, and they put their feet too close together, they fall down. If they stand up and they’ve got too much weight on one leg and not enough on the other, they fall down. If they stand up and their feet are too wide, they fall down. But, eventually, they work out, “Wait a second, if I get my feet shoulder-width apart and there’s no tension in the knees, I can stand and I don’t need to hold onto the furniture. That’s amazing.”

We’re bringing people, essentially, back to the way they are born to stand, the way that gravity naturally works on their body. And that’s why it works so universally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, the outer point of the shoulders aligns to the outer point of the feet. Got it. All right. We got our palms, we got our feet, keep going, Richard, this is awesome.

Richard Newman
So, there’s been a multitude of these pieces that we put together for people, but the key extra element that I want people to keep in mind is the congruency aspect. So, you can have those aspects if you’re, like, working for you, but if your message is not congruent with them, then suddenly it starts not to work.

So, importantly, let’s say, if we go back to the piece around the posture, then if you say to somebody, “Look, I really want to hear what you have to say,” then suddenly you don’t get a useful reaction. If you’re doing palms down and strong and centered, you say, “Tell me what you think about this,” then suddenly your ratings go down. So, what you have to do is to lean your weight onto one side, palms up, “I’d love to hear your thoughts,” and you give the floor to the other person. By that way, you’re being congruent with the message. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. So, the feet shoulder-width apart is saying “I am in charge. I’m authoritative. I am ‘whoa.’ I’m laying down the law,” versus, I guess the feet together, or leaning, is sort of like, “Hey, I kind of…” maybe more deferential, like, “I’m curious as to your take here. I’m not all that. I’m just a humble…I’m your humble servant who’s here.”

Richard Newman
Exactly. Yes, we’re always keen to say to people you have to be able to adapt to what you’re doing here to different situations. So, if you want to be seen as a tribe leader in some way, then it’s critical to understand what a tribe leader looks like, which we talked about with those gesture and posture positions.

So, the extra piece that I added there is you then stop to think, “Well, how do I want the other person  to feel? What is the end feeling I need them to have by the end of this sentence? Let me get everything towards that piece.” So, sometimes you need to look like a commander, sometimes you need to address them like more a facilitator, like we were talking about there with that sense of, “Let me ease off. Let me show you that you now have space to come into the conversation.”

Sometimes I want you to engage with me in a way where you’ll maybe laugh, we can have more of a friendly conversation. So, then you need to go into more of an entertainer position. And what we found on this, again, we looked at this universally with clients we’ve coached over the last 20 years, when you go into an entertainer space, the place you need to go is that your gestures need to be much more floppy.

When I was in the States recently, they described this as loosey-goosey, if you’re familiar with that phrase. That was a new one for me, so loosey-goosey, that the tone of your voice needs to go up and down much more. And the pace of your voice, if you’re going to be the entertainer, would be faster than if you’re going to be more of a commander. So, you need to get them congruently going towards that direction if you’re going to work on that.
So, yeah, I think the key question really, I will say to any leader, is think “How do I want people to feel by the end of this meeting, or by the end of this interview, or by the end of this presentation? What is that feeling? And now I need to get everything I’m doing in my body language and in my tone of voice headed towards that outcome.”

And so, you’ve got to think, “Well, if it’s light-hearted, what is my tone of voice?” So, again, if you think about people who are reading the news, they’re expert at doing this. They can go from a major international crisis to some uplifting good-hearted news.

Pete Mockaitis
“Here’s a puppy.”

Richard Newman
And they do this really well with their tone of voice, and they do it as a transition. So, they’ll say, “And that is the latest update we have on the war in Ukraine. Now, we’re heading over to San Diego Zoo where we’re going to talk about a new baby panda.” And they do that transition in their tone of voice, which very often people don’t do, and people are not doing that these days, particularly on virtual meetings. They just talk to a camera lens and a screen, and they’re saying, “Here’s the good news. Here’s the bad news. Here’s the neutral information,” and it all sounds the same.

And, suddenly, we’re getting this very flat response. And the reason being, we’re not telling people through our tone of voice how they’re supposed to react to this information. So, it’s critical that people focus on that target of, “How do I want people to feel? What can I do, congruently with my body language and tone of voice, that heads us in that direction?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so, Richard, I could talk to you for about six hours about this. So, maybe let’s do a demo. Let’s say I am doing a training, or a bit of persuasion, so it could be sales or training. I think I want a similar emotional response. And what I would love for my audience to feel is a sense of inspiration, excitement, possibility, like, “Whoa, that’s really cool. That thing you’re teaching me is really cool, and I’m excited to go try it,” or, “That thing, that product you’re introducing me to is really cool, and I’m excited to go give that a demo.”

So, that’s what I’m after. I want them to feel excited, inspired, curious, to go forth and take action. Can you give us the alchemy here, Richard, in terms of what do I want with my gestures and my tone, etc. to bring that magic together?

Richard Newman
Yeah, absolutely. So, actually, what you just demonstrated that people would’ve heard in your demo of being that excited audience member, that’s exactly what you need to embody as a speaker. So, if you think about, “What is the end result? How are they going to leave this room?” And the way that you energized that with your voice and with your body was, “Hey, wow, this is amazing. I really want to put this into action,” that’s fantastic.

And so, we say to a leader, “Okay, if that’s how you want them to be, then guess what, nobody is ever going to be more excited about your ideas than you look and you sound. And so, whatever it is you want them to look like and sound like at the end, you have to go to that level and/or more than them in order to achieve this.

And so, we would call this going into the motivator style. And so, if you’re going to go into motivator style, again, I’ve checked this with people, audiences we worked all the way around the world, where we worked in across the Middle East, we’ve been into South Korea, we’ve been to South Africa, all across the Americas, and so we say to people, “Okay, if you think about a motivator style, what does that look like and sound like?”

Well, people repeatedly say, “It’s fast choppy gestures,” so it’s not that sort of stroking the dog piece that I talked about earlier on, it’s not loosey-goosey. It’s high intensity in your arms, and you can be going palms up or palms down but they need to be congruent. Then you need to match that with a faster than usual pace of voice.

So, if you think about this, the average pace of voice, it’s about 140 words per minute. If you slow that down to around about 100 words per minute, then that’s where when somebody is doing their inauguration speech as President of the United States, that’s roughly where they might be.

If you speed it up and you go somewhere around 180 words per minute or higher, then suddenly you’re in that motivator zone. And, in fact, if you go even higher than that, Tony Robbins has the average of around 240 words per minute when he’s being motivational in his talks, and I think that’s the average pace of his TED Talk that he gave. So, you need to be in that higher zone in terms of your pace of words.

Other things that you need to think about doing is to use words that are one syllable. So, you can say things that sound really punchy rather than them having to people having to break it down all the different syllables to figure out, “What on earth did that mean?” So, you want to make it super punchy in your words.

And then, last piece to look out with this, which you can add into the pieces I was talking about before, is to think very simply about a shift in your sternum, and this is where we get a little bit more precise about things. So, the sternum is the center of the chest plate, and this tells us a huge amount about how someone feels about their message and how people are going to react.

So, the sternum is a place where you can, literally, the Latin behind it which is inspirare and expirare. So, inspirare has given a word inspire, or to breathe in, or to feel inspired; expirare, to breath out, or to feel expired. And so, if you just notice this, the next time you see someone, and you think, “Wow, that person looks like they’re really inspired.” What they do is, just before you think that they’re inspired, they breathe in, they lift the sternum, they go, “Hah,” and you think, “This person is inspired. They’ve had some inspiration. I need to listen to what they have to say. That sounds really engaging.”

Equally, if you see your boss in a meeting, and you think, “Why does this person looks like they just mentally left the building?” Well, the reason being, they may have just breathed out and dropped their sternum, and so you see them go, “Ahh,” and suddenly this sternum drops in, they look concave, they look de-energized.

And so, when you’re speaking to people in an interview, in a meeting, in a presentation, it’s important not only to get your feet planted right, to get your gestures working for you, but lift that sternum slight. And you don’t want to go too far, you don’t want to look like you’re sort of trying to be the Hulk or something like that, but just slightly lift it to a point where you think, “Okay, now I’m in a position of inspiration.”

And then you want to be the motivator, you want to get them energized, you have the gestures up, and it’s going to be somewhere near to shoulder height, so slightly lower down is more commanding, slightly higher is more motivational. Fast and choppy and energized voice, changing your pitch up and down as you go through at a pace towards energizing people towards taking some action.

So, as an example of this, just to sum all that up for you. I get people to do this sometimes as an exercise where I say to them something along the lines of, “This will change the results by 3%.” Now, let’s just imagine, what does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It could mean something serious. It could be something exciting. It could be we need to act on this, we need to think about it, we need to debate it. What does it actually mean, “This will change the results by 3%”?

If you want to say it in a commanding way, like, this is life and death information, you go back to what I was saying before. You have a strong start, you do palms down, you slow your pace right the way down, and you say, “This will change the results by 3%.” And so, people think, “Oh, that’s just lifechanging information. I need to sit and think about that for a minute.”

If you want to motivate them to actually take some action, like you’re trying to energize some salespeople behind this to get out there and go and get their commission, then you come back and, say, lifting the sternum, fast choppy gestures, around about shoulder height, and make sure that you’re going fast in your pace as well, and you say, “This will change the results by 3%.” And people think, “Wow, that’s amazing. We need to get out there and get our commission.”

And so, suddenly, by energizing the message, what you’re doing is also you’re engaging more with the emotional brain rather than the logical brain, and people are more likely to feel that sense of energy and excitement from you, and, therefore, will go out there and just straight away get into action.

Pete Mockaitis
This is beautiful powerful stuff, Richard. And I think you’re demystifying something that I have wondered since I was a high school student and wanted to become a professional speaker as my career, which I did. And I’ve done many keynotes and it’s been a lot of fun. And I tend to really be fascinated with the words people are saying, such that I put a lot of thought and attention on them, and I’m really wrestling with them, like, “Is that true under all circumstances or just a few circumstances? Under what circumstances is that true? And how would I apply that? How is that useful?”

Now, in so doing, I think I have a little bit less of wowed, razzmatazz, hypnotic entrancement with some speakers because some people say like, “Oh, my gosh, that speaker was amazing,” and I’m like, “Really? I mean, he didn’t really say anything novel or applicable or relevant. His stories were kind of entertaining, I guess.”

And I think what’s happening is they’re doing all of the things you’re describing just right such that folks whose brains are not doing what mine are doing, are just like along for the ride, like, “Wow, that’s amazing.” And I think that’s my leading hypothesis now, decades later, is that, “Oh, that’s what’s going on here.” What do you think?

Richard Newman
Yeah, and actually to pick up on that, I think that you’re right in terms of the way the audiences react to certain elements. But the piece I’m always keen to stress for our clients is to say, “You’ve got to make sure you have substance and style because, eventually, style by itself runs out.” The challenge though is that if you’re to take either/or and say, “Well, which one do you need to make sure that you’ve got?”

And I’ve tried this, I’ve tested people from many different countries, and I ask this question, I said, “Would you rather have a random person dragged in off the street who’s going to read to you from the works of Shakespeare, or would you rather have your favorite actor in the world to read to you from the ingredients from the back of a cereal packet?” And every single time, people choose their favorite actor reading from the back of a cereal packet.

And the reason being, we love that sense of just being emotionally engaged in their delivery. You think, “Whatever they do is going to be interesting.” But what I always say to people is  you’ve got to make sure that you’ve actually got both because, eventually, the logical brain is going to kick in and go, “But how is that valuable to me? I don’t really understand. This is fun but fun runs out. When is this actually going to be worthwhile?”

And I’ve seen too many people who have brilliant and such valid points that they’re making but nobody is actually listening to them. They can’t keep people engaged long enough to get them to understand the value of what they’re saying. So, I’m always telling people, we put both those together and use the power of storytelling and the science that goes behind storytelling, and match that up then with your style. So, then you have both coming together, and people leave, and they think, “I know why that’s important. I know how I’m going to use it. I know how I need to put this into action,” and years later, they can repeat to you what you talked about and why it was important to them.

So, there are certain aspects that I’ve talked with clients. There’s one other client we’re still working with today, that we’ve worked with about 13 years ago, I think, was the first session that we did with them, but they’re still using the techniques that we taught to them back then those early sessions because we’ve designed it in a way that they can put it into action and be using it immediately. So, it’s key for people to make sure that they have made sure they’ve got both of those pieces that are working with them.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, Richard. And I think Aristotle said something along those lines back in the day with logos, pathos, ethos. Like, straight up, when you’ve got them all, it’s a power pack. Well, Richard, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and quickly hear about a couple of your favorite things?

Richard Newman
Sure. So, I think, actually, I’m going to share with you, because you mentioned how fascinated you are sometimes by watching speakers and how you can do this. I’m going to share one little tip I love to share that people can read more about if they want to go and check out my book and so on, but I love teaching speakers how to do this. If you want to be really utterly compelling on stage, you need to understand timeline. And when you understand this, it changes everything.

So, if you imagine, for anybody listening to this, imagine you’re looking at a graph, and zero is on one side, and a hundred is on the other side, which side of the graph is the zero? Or, if you imagine a graph that’s showing January on one side and December on one side, which side is January? Which side is December?

So, anybody listening to this no matter where they are would say, “Okay, well, the zero is on the left and the hundred is on the right. January is on the left and December is on the right.” And the same goes when somebody watches you on stage. And what do I mean by that? When somebody watched you on stage, they see the past on the left hand side of the stage. As they’re looking at the stage, they see it on their left hand side, that is the past.

Pete Mockaitis
Their left, the speaker’s right?

Richard Newman
Their left, the speaker’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
Audiences’ left.

Richard Newman
The center of the stage is now, and the audience’s right hand side of the stage is the future. And so, if you want to utterly compel people to listen to your stories, then when you’re talking about the past, you move to the audience’s left, when you’re talking about right now, you move to the center of the stage, and when you’re talking about the audience’s future, you move to the right, the audience’s right. And by so doing, you’re helping them to process your information based on a timeline.

So, some people just like wander backwards and forwards, and it just has no correlation to what they’re saying. But if you can use that, you can use it by walking to parts of the stage, or if you’re just in a small meeting where you want to convince and compel clients or your team, you want to gesture to their left to talk about the past, gesture to their right to talk about the future. And, suddenly, they can take on board what you’re saying in a much more persuasive and compelling manner.

So, I wanted to share that with you just to get people’s brains worrying around, thinking, “Okay, I’m going to put that into action.” For me, it was one of the hardest things for me to learn. It took me about 10 days of practice to get really used to doing that so I could do it second nature. But now that I’ve been doing it, it’s so much easier to talk to people about the past, talk to them about the future, and not have to think about it. So, that’s one piece.

But I think the last piece that I would just offer up as a key principle that’s gone into my new book, the title is Lift Your Impact, ways that going all the way back to what we talked about, about me coming back from being shy, introverted, autistic. How did I figure out communication? It simply all came down to one thing, which is the word lift, where I noticed that great communication is about taking people from a negative or a neutral state, and by the time you leave the room, they move to a positive or a more positive state because of their interaction with you. That’s what great communication is all about.

And it’s about generating that feeling of lift. So, great leaders lift the room. When you leave the room, everybody feels lifted. If you do a really good job in a job interview, when you leave the room, the people interviewing you, they feel lifted by your presence. And if you can apply that to all of your communication, thinking, “How can I lift these people by the end of this conflict resolution, this challenging conversation, this sales pitch? How do I make sure they feel lifted?” then you know that you’ve had a great impact as a communicator. Everything needs to head towards that.

And that, for me, it’s come back to what we talked about earlier about banter, that’s where I thought that’s the ingredient I’m missing. Everybody is going into banter, thinking, “How do I lift the other person?” And what you say is not that important but the lift is the key to it. So, for people to have great communication this week in any situation, just remember to focus on lift.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is great in terms of demystifying banter there, because, you’re right, when folks are bantering, and they might be saying words that are quite sharp, like, they’re looking at them, they’re smiling, they got a tone and a chuckle, and it’s like their body language, all the nonverbal stuff is saying, “Hey, you’re here, and we’re going to honor this moment that you have appeared.”

I’m thinking about the guys at the wagon, “We’re going to honor this moment in which you ventured our space by giving you the attention and pointing general good vibes that we have, that we’re pleased that you are here.”

Richard Newman
Yeah, perfect.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Richard Newman
Throughout my life, I’ve always had like vision boards and plans and maps of where I’m going to go with my career and with my life and so on. And I’ve also worked with people on mindset and goal-setting so that they can achieve their goals, too. And something that people have said to me that I’ve thought about is, “Is it okay that you’re sort of struggling towards something where you’ve eventually going to end up being happy?”

And what I’ve always been aiming to quantify for them is to say, “It’s not about you’ll be happy in the end when you’ve achieved something, but to happily achieve it along the way.” So, to come from place of being grateful, come from a place of being centered in where you are, and enjoy the journey. And I saw somebody put this together recently, I can’t remember the person’s name, but it was he talked about “The Pursuit of Happiness,” the movie, and he said, “Actually, what we’re aiming for is not the pursuit of happiness. It’s the happiness of the pursuit.”

And that landed with me so well, where I thought, “That’s exactly what I’d like to work on with people.” Whenever I’m working on mindset and goal-setting is have happiness in the pursuit.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Richard Newman
The one that instantly comes to mind for me is one that I was fascinated about to begin with, which would be around, it was two people, really, come to mind. So, firstly, Desmond Morris, whose book Peoplewatching… If people are really deeply interested in body language and nonverbal stuff, which I picked up with you during the course of our conversation, this was one of the original books that I looked at.

It’s about 600 pages long, and it was written a few decades ago so it’s not like an easy read but within there, there were some great research, about certain projects that were done. One of them, I believe, was a group of 25 students from Oxford and Cambridge University were taken around 40 cities within Europe to look at what are the commonalities and what are the differences in how people communicate going from one place to the next.

And what I found fascinating in there, one of the pieces was if you look at people in Germany, they gesture significantly less, as do people in Sweden gesture significantly less, than people in the UK. Whereas, people from Latin cultures, say, Spain and Italy, would gesture significantly more. And so, while we have the palms up and the palms down we talked about earlier is universal, the frequency at which we gesture is going to be different based on our culture. And that was one of my first ways in towards that.

Other studies that I’ve been fascinated by is a Paul Ekman’s piece where this is years ago. If they’ve seen the TV show “Lie to Me,” they may be familiar with his work, which was put into a fictional story there. But he was the first person to prove universality of human expression, where he went off to, if I’m getting this right, Papua New Guinea where he found that there were tribes there that their understanding of human facial expressions from people from different parts of the world were exactly the same as they would be in the US and Europe and elsewhere.

And so, he was the first person to find that facial expressions are understood the same way by everybody. And there was a certain number, I forget what it was, I think it was six, it’s around the region of six different emotions that everybody can identify the same way from different faces from around the world.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Richard Newman
I’ve been enjoying David Goggins’ work. So, if people are okay with lots of expletives, then they should go and check out his work. I really enjoyed his recent one. So, his first book was Can’t Hurt Me, and his recent book was Never Finished. And, essentially, if you’re just feeling like you want a little bit of a jolt of energy, a bit of motivation to get stuck into whatever your mission is in life, then I really encourage people to take a look at his work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Richard Newman
I think, actually, what comes to mind, the last couple of years, previously, in 2019 and previous to that, everything that I did was in person, and I was used to group activities, group interaction, doing lively talks with people. And then when I went online, I thought, “Well, how do I do that in a way that keeps everybody engaged?” And we came across Mentimeter.com, and it’s a brilliant tool for group interactions online, where I hosted up to 3,000 people at a time on interactive live virtual sessions that I’m hosting.

And by using Mentimeter, what it allows me to do is I can get the voice of every single person in the audience, taking part in, like, virtual quiz, sending me what they feel about what I’m saying at all times. And running that session, you don’t have to download anything for an audience to use it. It’s anonymous for them to take part as well and so it’s allowed people to share with me what they’re genuinely honestly feeling in a way that I couldn’t do if I was live with a thousand people in a room. So, I’ve loved using that tool the last couple of years.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really connects and resonates with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Richard Newman
I think the most important piece that has resonated with people over the last two decades is simply focusing on how you want people to feel. So, it’s all very well thinking about what you want to know and what you want to do, but everything that I have taught around storytelling, around body language, tone of voice, slide design, handling objections, conflict resolution, always comes back to “How do I want this person to feel at the end of my interaction? And how do I target everything around helping them to feel that way?”

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Richard Newman
So, my new book Lift Your Impact is out in all good bookshops, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, everywhere else that you’d like to go to. And you can find more information at LiftYourImpact.com. And also my main website, if people are interested in some of the body language stuff we talked about here, UKBodyTalk.com. There’s loads of free videos, free articles, and a bunch of stuff on the website there.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Richard Newman
My suggestion is really very simply write down your dream of who you would love to be, who you would love to become in the next few years, and then work on yourself until you become that version of you.

And remember that the sky is the limit. Back in the day, for anyone to have predicted that somebody who, as a teenager, was very uncomfortable, shy, introverted, and autistic to become a highly paid keynote speaker, who teaches communication, well, the prospects of that are very, very small. But, for me, it was about working on who I wanted to become, and, in the journey of doing that, getting to go on amazing adventures as a result.

Pete Mockaitis
Richard, this has been a huge treat. I wish you much lift and fun in all your adventures.

Richard Newman
Great. Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Muriel, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Muriel Wilkins
Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig in and chat about executive presence. And maybe you could start us off by saying what the heck does that even mean?

Muriel Wilkins
That’s what actually set me on a track to figure out what it means because a lot of people don’t know what it means. It’s a term that’s used so broadly and loosely, and it’s a term where many of my clients, my coaching clients were getting feedback on their executive presence. And, quite frankly, when I would ask, “Well, what does it mean?” They’re like, “I have no idea.”

So, from my perspective, and based on the work that I’ve done with folks and my research on it, executive presence is really about how others experience you. And, more specifically, when I think about it from a leadership presence, is when others are in your presence, do they feel like they’re in the presence of a leader? And that has nothing to do with where you sit hierarchically in the organization. It all has to do with what you exude.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, certainly. And so, I can see how that really is frustrating for the individual, it’s like, “I don’t know.”

Muriel Wilkins
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
“It’s like based on someone else’s perception of me.”

Muriel Wilkins
Exactly. And even worse, it’s like, “Well, I don’t know, but Joe has it.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but you’re not Joe.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. So, that sets the vibe. It’s like, “If someone has executive presence, and I’m in the presence of someone with executive presence, I feel like, wow, I’m with a leader.” Okay. Well, then I’m curious, you tell me, is it like you either got it or you don’t? And what if you don’t, what do you do?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah, that in itself is sort of demoralizing as a follow-up to getting feedback on executive presence. It’s like, “You need to work on this.” But, you know, can you really work on it because you’re either born with it or you’re not? And if there’s one thing that I’ve tried to do around this topic of executive presence is really debunk the myth that it’s just something that you naturally have. It’s something that you could definitely build and develop over time. The key is developing a presence that is also authentic to you because it’s not mimicking everyone else. It’s about having an impact in a way that’s relevant to others while still maintaining a sense of who you are and what you bring to the table in your own authenticity so that you’re not a chameleon.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, got you. So, that sounds super. Let’s maybe dig into maybe the particular components and approaches to make that transition happen well. But maybe could you start by sharing an inspiring story of someone who got the word, “Hey, you need better executive presence,” and then what they did and the results that happened from that turnaround?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. Well, I’ll share my own story because I was the receiver of that feedback way back when, and the feedback that I got was that I needed to tone it down.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy.

Muriel Wilkins
And it was like, “Okay, what does that mean? My volume sounds just fine.” But what they were talking about was, again, my presence was not one that was with those particular stakeholders, one that really exuded the position that I had as an executive and as a leader at that time. And so, that is something that I think many people have experienced, whether it’s, “You need to tone it down,” or whether, “You need to be more confident.”

You often hear it in terms of adjectives, “Be more this,” “Be more inspiring,” “Be more assertive.” And the fact of the matter is that, just as I described with your presence, it’s the feeling that you give somebody. An adjective is not a verb so it doesn’t really give the concrete steps of what you’re able to do. I often say, if somebody has received feedback of “Be more confident,” it’s not like you wake up one day and say, “Well, today I decide not to be confident.” Like, everybody wants to show up as confident.

So, when we think about executive presence and what are the steps to really get there, the first place is to recognize, “What is the impact that you want to make? What is the impression or the feeling that you want to leave people with?” And when you think about what the impression is, or the impact, that a leader or an executive or somebody that you want to “follow” has on you, it’s usually two things, the combination of two things: they are credible and they’re relatable.

And so, the intersection of those two things is actually what makes up or what makes you feel like somebody has executive presence because they have that impact on you. And so, the first place to start is understanding that those are the two levers that you have, and then determining, of those two levers, “Which one am I exuding and which one am I not? Or am I exuding both? Or am I not exuding any of them?” So, it starts with some self-awareness around what the impact is that you’re actually having. Because if you can figure that out, that it’s either the credibility or the relatability, then you can figure out “Well, what do I do about each of those muscles?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I love that a lot. And in terms of that first step, I think it’s easy to skip over, like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, give me some tactics, Muriel.” But, no, no, it is so foundational because I guess I think I’ve made my own mistakes with this in terms of any types of presenting of yourself, like I think I’ve had headshots done, and I’ve made the mistake before. I picked a headshot, it’s like, “Ooh, I look really hot in that one. I think that’s the best photo to go with it.” It’s like, “You might look like the most aesthetically pleasing, in your opinion, Pete, but actually that’s not what we’re trying to accomplish here in terms of the target demographic and audience and impression that we’re sending.” Like, these aren’t modeling headshots. These are for a speaking agency to get me booked to do keynotes.

And, likewise, that comes up in LinkedIn in terms of it’s like, “In your profile and your picture, how do you want to present those elements and the headlines and the experiences because there’s a variety of flavors you could take?” Like, if you’re trying to represent yourself as a model or a standup comedian, that’s going to have a different vibe than if you’re trying to do this executive presence thing. And you’re seeing, when it comes to executive presence in professional workplace environments, generally what we’re after is conveying credible and relatable. So, it’s awesome.

Muriel Wilkins
That’s right. And it also goes beyond the professional workplace. If you think about your friends, or the people you associate with, or your family, or your partner, yeah, I don’t know about you, but I want my partner to be credible and relatable.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure, yeah.

Muriel Wilkins
So, it really also just becomes around what do we tend to look for as humans in others that gives us a sense that we can be confident in them, and that we have some type of connection to them? And so, those are why they end up being the two muscles.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so then in practice, what are some key do’s and don’ts to convey all the more credibility and relatability?

Muriel Wilkins
So, the way that I tend to think about it is almost like conditioning an athlete. When you think about an athlete who conditions themselves in their preferred sport or their sport of choice, they’re a master at that sport. They have to be conditioned at three levels. They have to be conditioned from a mental standpoint, they have to be conditioned from a skills standpoint, the skill of that particular sport, and they have to be conditioned physically for the sport that they’re playing or competing in.

Likewise, when you’re trying to really master and train these muscles of credibility and relatability, again, mastering your leadership presence, you also have to condition yourself at those three levels. And so, what are those? So, the first place is your mental conditioning. Well, what’s our mental conditioning when we think about our presence? It’s the beliefs that you have. It’s the thoughts and the assumptions that you have about yourself, about the other, about the situation.

And understanding what those are, and with no judgment of “Is it a right thought or a wrong thought?” this is not like “The Power of Positive Thinking.” It’s more around, “Is that belief actually serving you in showing up as credible and relatable?” So, if I don’t have conviction around my message – and conviction is just a belief, I believe in my message, I believe in what I’m saying, or I have knowledge about what I’m saying – then how in the heck am I going to show up as credible in what I have to say?

So, the first level is mental conditioning, and I’ll tell you, Pete, that’s the hardest one for people to get their head wrapped around because a lot of times it is about them dismantling the beliefs that they’ve had for an eternity. So, that’s the first one. The second level of conditioning is skill conditioning. And in our game of executive presence, that’s your communication skills. And so, what are the communication skills that allow you to show up, again, credible and relatable? It’s quite simple.

From a credibility standpoint, the communication skill is your ability to speak in a clear and concise way. Rambling does not define credibility. And on the relatability side, the key communication skill is the skill of being able to listen so that you can understand where the other is coming from. Understanding creates connection. And in between those two, we have the skill of how you frame your message and also how you handle questions both in terms of how you ask them and how you answer them. So, with my clients, we work on those four buckets. I try to simplify. You don’t have to know all. You don’t know how to use every golf club in the bag. You just need to learn how to use a few of them.

And then the last piece is your physical conditioning. And physical conditioning is your nonverbals, your body language, your appearance, even your visibility and what message that sends across. And, again, I’m not one to say, “Here are the five great body language postures that you need to hold for you to show up as a leader.” What it really comes down to is, “Is there alignment between the way you are holding yourself nonverbally, or what you’re communicating nonverbally? Is there alignment between that and what you say and your assumptions?”

And so, we’re looking for alignment along all three of those conditioning levels, and that they’re not working against each other, and that they’re also not working against your desired outcome of being credible and relatable.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Muriel, this is so powerful in terms of, okay, we’ve got the set of things to be working on. And the athlete analogy is swell. So, let’s talk about the mental and the skill and the physical components of conditioning. I’m thinking when you said with beliefs, thoughts, and assumptions, not about good or bad, right or wrong, but rather is it serving you? Is it helpful? Is it working out for you?

And you mentioned sort of the beliefs in the message, like you fundamentally buy what you’re selling. And I think this is probably universally true, it’s like I just cannot sell something I don’t believe in. I’ve turned down a lot of prospective sponsors. I turned down a lot of them.

Muriel Wilkins
I hear you.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, there’s that. And then I’m thinking there’s also some beliefs, thoughts, assumptions about sort of you, yourself, what other people think of you, like, “Oh, everyone is looking at me. Oh, they think I’m stupid or they don’t think I’m senior enough to be in this room. They think I’m a loser. They think I’m stuttering. They think I’m saying like or so and you know too much.” So, it seems like there’s a whole host of potential beliefs, thoughts, assumptions that can be not serving you. Tell me, are there some go-to beliefs that you find helpful, reassuring, confidence-boosting? And how do we condition ourselves to land there instead of the unhelpful places?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah, absolutely. So, a big one in terms of when you’re trying to boost your confidence, as you said, is around the belief that you don’t have to always have the answer, and that you are in the room to share the value, and you have to understand what it is the value that you bring to that table, and that the value isn’t always – and most times it’s not – about having the answer and knowing everything and being an expert on everything.

And so, when people tend to show up as lacking confidence, they place an expectation on themselves on what it means for them to show up successfully in that meeting or at that table. And what I have them do is recalibrate, “Well, is that even realistic? What is the value that you bring? Why are you in that meeting?” And when they’re able to define it and then actually stay in their lane in terms of what they’re able to do, they can have confidence in it because they know exactly what they’re there to do. So, that’s one example.

On the flipside, if somebody is working on the relatability aspect, the belief that often gets in the way is, “I already know the answer,” which then shuts them down from listening. And so, the belief that would serve them better in terms of showing up in a more connected way and a more relatable way is to come in with the thought of “I have a perspective around what needs to be done and I’m open to hearing others’ perspectives.” So, it’s a slight reframe. It’s a slight reframe.

And it doesn’t mean that, if you’ll notice, it doesn’t mean that you’re disregarding that you have the answer. Like, I’m not going to lie. Yeah, you probably do but let’s expand that a little bit. Let’s open the possibilities a little bit. When people stay too attached to their belief, it creates constriction, it creates closedness both in terms of what you have to offer, what gets in the way of confidence, as well as what you are open to from others, which then creates a disconnection.

So, all I try to do is get them to see that there are different ways that they can think about, again, themselves, the situation, or the other, that might then open them up to different ways of communicating or physically showing up.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And so then, once you know and have heard the belief once, you’re like, “Okay, yes, Muriel. That sounds like good, fine, and solid lead. That is true.”

Muriel Wilkins
“I wish it was that easy.”

Pete Mockaitis
“I would like to land upon and return to again and again.” But how do you condition, train, reinforce, lock in those neural pathways so that that’s where we go?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. Look, this is like, if we boil it down, this is what most people have, again, a very difficult time with. It takes practice. This is what we’re talking about here is mental discipline. And so, I try to get folks to just really focus on one at a time. Let’s hone in on one and they just practice it, they practice it, they practice it. And I try to get them to practice it in real situations, so not just thinking about it conceptually, because everybody can do something conceptually. I can speak conceptually about how I can do the Iron Man but it’s very different to actually go do the Iron Man.

And so, I get them to practice it, practice it, practice it, until it becomes more natural. And when they start seeing that their actions, because, again, it’s not just the mental, it’s also the skills and communication and the physical, when the skill conditioning and the physical conditioning reinforces those beliefs, then it helps, so it kind of creates a cycle. It’s holistic rather than just “Oh, I only need to do one thing and not the other.”

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And so then, when you say practice it, as I was thinking about the athlete analogy again, I can imagine practicing free throws, or throwing the football, or conditioning strength, bench press, squat, deadlift in the weight room, what does practicing a belief look, sound, feel like in practice? What am I doing when I’m practicing a belief?

Muriel Wilkins
So, at a very practical level, let’s say I’m coming on to this show with you, and I can pause for 30 seconds beforehand and say, and really pause and ask myself, “What am I thinking about what I’m about to go into? What do I think about me? Like, let me really try to understand what my beliefs are going in, about myself? Do I believe I’m going to mess up? Do I believe I’m not prepared? Do I believe I don’t know what this is about? What do I believe about the show? What do I believe about Pete? What do I believe about what’s going on around me?”

And if I conclude that those things are not going to help me show up on this show in a way that is credible and relatable, then I say, “Okay, like what thoughts do I need to focus on right now? Let me put…It’s not that those things might not be true, but let me put them on the backburner for a little bit. I can come back.” So, the way that I’ll do it, I’ll just say this to my clients, is just say, “Hey, you know what, negative belief or belief that doesn’t serve you, I’ll check back in with you in 30 minutes and we’ll deal with you, but you just stay over there right now and let me focus on the ones that help, okay?”

So, it truly is around being able to pause, having awareness around what you’re thinking, and then being able to redefine the thought. It’s a three-step process. It is not easy, Pete. Like, this is, again, the stuff around mental discipline, and it’s hard because it’s inside of us. It doesn’t operate outside of us. But it’s what creates, from my standpoint, it’s what makes the most sustainable impact.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you zooming in there, and that is handy in terms of making sure that you do have time for that silence as opposed to, “Oh, go, go, go, finish up, finish up the last words and the last deck, page, slide, and the last seconds, and then grab the laptop and head on into the room or the Zoom call,” or whatever.

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. And, you know, the funny thing, Pete, is like most people will say, “Well, I don’t have time for that.” Like, it doesn’t take a ton of time. Like, we just did it in 30 seconds, in a minute. It does not take a ton of time. So, I’ll tell my clients, like, “Well, as you’re brushing your teeth in the morning, kind of go through the meetings that you have that day?” Well, people aren’t commuting these days, but as they commute, as you’re walking the dog, the day before, go through your Outlook calendar, whatever calendar you use, what are the meetings, and just do a quick mental check around what you’re thinking going in versus it’s the warmup. I consider it the warmup.

You don’t wait till you’re on the field to look around and say, “Oh, who am I dealing with? Who am I playing against? What position do I play?” No, you do that. But that whole warmup happens way before you’re on the field.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. Well said. All right, so that’s the mental game, a core piece of it. And how about we talk about communication skills? We could spend hours talking about these core skills. I’m curious, do you have any particular tips, tricks, tools, tactics, or do’s and don’ts that make all the difference when it comes to listening or speaking clearly and concisely?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. So, with listening, speaking clearly and concisely, framing, questioning, here’s the thing. These are not about just, “Hey, I just need to know these skills,” because, quite frankly, most people are already using them. The question is, “Are you using them in a strategic way? Are you clear around what it is, again, the impact you’re trying to make?” And given the impact you’re trying to make, then being able to dial back and say, “If that’s the impact that I’m trying to make, then what communication skill would increase the probability that I’m making that impact?”

And so, when you start thinking about it that way, so then you have a choice around what you’re doing rather than just being on default. You say, “All right, if I’m trying to create a connection with the other person, or with this group of people, or I want to come off as engaging, then it would behoove me to listen more.” Why? Because when somebody feels heard and understood, for whatever reason, it creates connection. When we feel understood by the other, it deepens the connection.

And I’m not talking about like we have to get into a deep intimate relationship with everybody. It’s just a feeling of like, “Yeah, you get me.” But when you have somebody, you’ve probably experienced it, when you’re faced with somebody, and you’re like, “Oh, my God, they don’t get me at all,” there is no relatability, there’s no connection.

So, listening is the key skill, I’m sure there are others, but the core skill. And it’s not…there are different levels of listening. You don’t have to go to the deepest level every single time. Again, it depends on what you’re trying to do. But I will say, if your goal is to influence or inspire somebody, the more you’re trying to inspire others, the deeper the level of listening you have to go into, to really understand what is going on with them.

On the flipside, which is the skill of what we call structured efficacy, the skill of being able to speak clear and concisely, what I tell folks is always start with the headline first, and then drill down to the data. Most people who cannot speak confidently will tend to share all of the data and then they give you the conclusion or the answer 20 minutes later. And I try to get them to flip that, “Give me the answer, give me the headline, and then give me the three supporting facts or datapoints or rationale that support your thesis, let’s say, or your headline.”

Because it’s kind of silly to say, “I have three points,” but then you go on to number 20. So, that in and of itself helps one be concise. So, those are some tips around those two. And to be honest, the most critical one is the communication skill or framing, because framing is all about how you set context, and context helps determine whether you can get other individuals to interpret the message that you are giving in a way that’s similar to how you want them to interpret it.

Left without context, people are going to interpret the message based on their own beliefs, assumptions, biases, and thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, if it’s the most critical, we must talk more about this framing. So, how does one frame well? And can you give us some examples?

Muriel Wilkins
Sure. So, one that people face many, many times is you walk into a meeting and there’s an agenda but there’s not a clear sense of what outcomes you’re looking to drive through in that meeting. So, you have good conversations, you leave the meeting, and it was like, “Hmm, what did we actually accomplish?” And so, a great example of framing is what we call outcomes-driven framing, being able to start your message or your conversation with, “Here are the outcomes that I want to drive to. I’m going into a meeting, all right. So, what we’re trying to drive to by the end of this meeting is making a decision on X.”

Now why is that helpful? Because everybody in that meeting at that point, or increases the chances that everybody in the meeting at that point will interpret or take in the discussion with a sense that there’s a decision that needs to be made rather than they’re taking it in as an FYI, they’re taking it in as a point of contention, they’re taking it in as whatever, the list goes on.

So, framing from an outcomes standpoint really helps. What’s another example of framing? Another example of framing is what we call strategic framing. This is when you give strategic context, or bigger-picture context, or the 30,000-foot altitude context. Where is this particularly helpful? It’s helpful when you are communicating up, communicating to people who are more senior than you. So, you frame your message in a way that’s relevant to them and what their strategic agenda is rather than how it’s relevant to you at the 10,000-foot altitude.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you give us an example of that in practice in terms of, “Okay, there’s a thing I want to make happen, and I got to give some strategic framing so higher up folk engage and want to back it”?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah, let’s say that you work in the HR function and you’re proposing an initiative around leadership development. So, framing it from your context might sound something like, “Leadership development is really helpful in terms of cultivating people and creating engagement in the workforce,” and then give whatever the initiative is.

Framing it from a strategic level is saying, “I know one of our key strategic pillars this year is talent excellence and retention of our employees. We’ve talked about how, by the end of next year, we want to achieve a workforce of X numbers,” whatever it is. It’s tied to the strategic pillars of the organization or the main business priorities of the organization, and so you start there. And then say, “So, therefore, this leadership development program or initiative is in support of that.” So, you tie it directly to whatever the organizational objectives are.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s super. And I’m thinking that some organizations have maybe – if I may be so bold – too many organizational objectives that the higher up you’re communicating with may well have forgotten that that was one of the strategic initiatives, they’re like, “Oh, that is one of them, isn’t it? And you got something for me to make that happen. Oh, and I don’t know of anything else that’s making that happen. So, yeah, let’s go ahead and do what you’re saying, Muriel.”

Muriel Wilkins
That brings such a funny story, Pete, because I ran into that once, and I framed it strategically around what the top brass of the organization had said was important for them, and they’re kind of like, “Huh? No.” And I said, “Well, look at the homepage of your website. Like, it says it right there.” So, they all pulled it up on their phone, and they’re like, “Oh, wow. Like, yeah, we actually said this was one of our strategic priorities.” So, to your point, sometimes they forget what the priorities are.

Pete Mockaitis
And then that just makes you wonder how much of the priority is it truly, and how much of it was sort of a word salad committee production versus a, “Wow, we’ve really thoughtfully clarified and drilled down into that which is the huge most impactful leverage.” Well, that’s a whole another conversation, strategic critical thinking priority matters.

Let’s hear about the physical view of things – the nonverbals, the body language, the appearance. So, we want to have alignment so it’s not sort of contradictory throughout. And I guess everyone have their own tics that they have, and maybe I’ve heard videos is a great way to assess them. I’m curious, are there any particular things you’ve seen again and again and again in terms of, “Hey, start doing this. Stop doing that,” that makes all the difference and it’s so easy to fix?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. Well, first of all, I think, again, it depends what it is the impact that you’re trying to make. One of the things I tell my clients is, “Look, if the feedback you’re getting is that you show up as abrasive, and when you asked, ‘Well, why do I show up as abrasive?’ people are like, ‘Well, you tend to yell a lot and you always have a scowl on your face.’’ If I say that to a client, the client says, “Well, I want to show up as abrasive,” well, then we’re done, we’re good, because their nonverbals are giving them the outcomes they want.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, mission accomplished.

Muriel Wilkins
Right, mission accomplished.

Pete Mockaitis
Apparently.

Muriel Wilkins
But usually that’s not what people want. Again, they want to show up as credible or engaging and relatable. And so, from a nonverbal standpoint, the place to first start is, “What is under my control?” which I am. I’m 5’3”. I cannot change that. I might add a little bit of height by wearing heels but out of my control that I’m 5’3”. So, if I want to give the impression that I’m confident and height is not on my side, because for whatever reason, height might make me seem a little more dominant or whatnot, so what else is at my disposal?

Well, how I sit at the table, when I physically sit at the table. Do I shrink to the back of my seat? Do I slouch back, therefore, retreating me even more? Or, do I actually lean forward on the table, pull up my chair to the table? I’ve been known to, if I walk into a meeting and the   is too low and makes me seem even lower than my 5’3” size, then I raise it to maximum height. So, these are things that are under your control and, quite frankly, it’s not just about the impression you make on the other. It’s also how it makes me feel. I don’t want to feel small at that table.

The other part is your voice. And so, your voice says a lot about you. Number one, you want to be heard in that meeting. Well, we better be able to hear you from a projection standpoint. I have twins, by the way. They’re 14 years old and so I’m constantly in this, “I can’t hear you. You’re mumbling.” Mumbling will never get your message across. And so, even from that basic level with your voice, “Do you have some poise around your voice?” Well, what does that sound like? It usually sounds with people who are comfortable, taking pauses as they speak. They speak much more in a deliberate way rather than just speeding through it and never slowing down. That’s in your control.

So, with all of these things, whether it’s your eye contact, your gestures, your voice, your posture, it’s not about, again, a right or wrong, which I think is the way that it’s been positioned a lot of times. It’s more around, “Is the way you’re carrying these things, are they going to have the impact that you want to have in this environment, in this context?”

Because take something like eye contact. In the Western culture, eye contact exudes confidence for whatever reason, but in other cultures, it does not. So, it also has to be culturally and contextually relevant. So, executive presence in and of itself is very situational. It’s very dynamic. It’s not this, “Do it this way and that’s it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so let’s say adopting the context specifically of we’re in a professional United States business environment, looking to be credible and relatable and persuasive in what we have to say so that it’s taken seriously and action is taken and things move forward, I’m curious, are there any particular appearance things you might quickly suggest that we adjust?

Muriel Wilkins
Yeah. So, here’s my rule of thumb when it comes to appearance, let it not be distracting and detracting from every other thing that you’re doing. That’s it. I have many people who ask me things like, “Should I cut my hair? Should I cut my beard? Should I not wear braids? Should I straighten my hair and not have my hair curly? Should I dress a different way? Should I wear suits? Should I wear pants? Should I…?” and the list goes on and on and on.

And I say, “Okay, in the environment that you’re in, would your appearance distract in any way?” So, I share the story around with me, I have clients all along the spectrum. I have some organizations that I work with who are extremely conservative, very traditional. And then I have clients where I have some nonprofits that I work with that are, in the inner city, small. If I were to go to my small nonprofits dressed the same way that I go to my traditional conservative clients, it’s not that the way I’m dressing is bad. It just would make me stand out in a way that then maybe makes me feel confident but doesn’t necessarily create or engender any form of connection with the clients that I’m serving.

So, it truly is about to what extent is the physical energy that you exude distracting or detracting from what you’re trying to do versus supporting you? So, that’s the same we do with beliefs.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I’m curious, and this might be maybe more of an advanced move, are there times in which we do want to look a little different and distinctive from the audience in the room for a particular objective? What are your thoughts there?

Muriel Wilkins
Yes. So, let me back up a little bit from that question, because the goal is not, “Hey, I need to fit in.” You still want to have, like I talked, I’m not the most traditional conservative person, but I got to have these clients, so what I’m not going to do is wear my most outlandish outfit, but I will wear a suit but I might have some jewelry that’s still a signature me, so I don’t feel like I’m completely “selling out.”

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Muriel Wilkins
But are there times when you may want to stand out a little bit? Yeah, but know why you’re doing it. Know why you’re doing it. So, I’ll give you an example, not just about appearance actually, but more going back to kind of nonverbals. So, if you’re giving a presentation, you may have a choice between standing behind the podium or not using the podium at all.

Well, when somebody asks me, “Should I use the podium? Should I not?” I say, “Well, what impact do you want to make? What impressions do you want to make? If you want to come off as very professorial and expert-like, by all means, stand behind the podium. If you want to show up as like the expert, stand behind the podium. If you want to lean into engaging with the audience, trying to be relatable to the audience, don’t stand behind the podium.”

So, it always comes back to, “What do you want?” And that’s where a lot of people don’t have clarity is even around what is it that they want, how they want to come off.

Pete Mockaitis
Perfect. Thank you. Well, Muriel, tell me, anything else you want to make sure we’d mention before we hit the favorite things?

Muriel Wilkins
Well, this stuff, as I said before, takes a lot of practice, and you never really fully stop because your context changes, you change, your assumptions change, your skills, hopefully, improve over time, how you physically show up changes, so you constantly have to think about, “In this moment, at this time, what is the impact I want to make? And then how do I get there?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Lovely. Now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Muriel Wilkins
The one that’s really been resonating with me over the past couple of months, the past year, quite frankly, has been, and I know it comes from Buddha’s teachings but I can’t quote who said it, is, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Muriel Wilkins
My favorite one is around growth mindset and the reframing, because I think growth mindset has a lot of reframing, and Angela Duckworth’s work around that, reframing around how we approach learning. And how we approach, quite frankly, how we define success, that it’s more about the effort rather than the outcome.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. And a favorite book?

Muriel Wilkins
Favorite book. My favorite book of the moment is The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Muriel Wilkins
My Outlook calendar.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. And a favorite habit?

Muriel Wilkins
Favorite habit. I wish it was a more infused habit, but my favorite habit is meditating.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that you’re known for and people quote back to you often?

Muriel Wilkins
I say there’s a favorite question that I ask my clients over and over again.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s hear it.

Muriel Wilkins
And it is, “What do you want?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Muriel Wilkins
So, they can go check out my podcast at Harvard Business Review called “Coaching Real Leaders,” or go to CoachingRealLeaders.com. They can find more information about me and all of the ways that I work with folks at MurielWilkins.com or ParavisPartners.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Muriel Wilkins
Figure out what you want and the impression you want to make and the outcomes that you want to drive to, and then work backwards from there.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Muriel, thank you. This has been fun. I wish you lots of success and luck in the adventures to come.

Muriel Wilkins
Thank you. This was great.

Pete Mockaitis
Diane, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Diane DiResta
It’s great to be back.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s great to have you back. And, boy, yeah, a lot of things have evolved since our last conversation.
Well, so much of your business has now shifted to a whole boatload of virtual meetings, presentations, trainings, interactions. Tell us, how has that shift in experience gone for you?

Diane DiResta
I love the virtual world. Now, what’s interesting is I’d already started virtual coaching before COVID hit because I had some people who were from North Carolina, Canada, Texas. So, what I was doing ideally when I could is either they were coming to New York for the first visit or I was going to them. And then it worked really well virtually. But once COVID hit, it was all virtual.

And I didn’t get any pushback from people. I had one client who I started with in-person, he had one session left, and he didn’t want to do it virtually. And then, finally, he realized this might be a year or so, and he said, “Let me do it.” And so, he realized it’s working really well. So, I’ve done training sessions, speaking engagements, and coaching virtually. I really like it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, so you’re a pro and you have made the transition like a pro. Can you share with us any surprises in your own personal experience as you’ve made the transition?

Diane DiResta
Well, the first thing I did immediately is I went for certification so I’m now a certified virtual presenter.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, interesting.

Diane DiResta
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Where does one do that?

Diane DiResta
Through eSpeakers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Oh, that’s right. I have seen that little icon there. Sometimes we recruit guests from eSpeakers because they have a huge database of experts. Pro tip, podcasters.

Diane DiResta
Yes. And so, well, it was important for my credibility. And a big surprise to me was how bad some of these presentations are from people at higher levels. So, the first surprise was I was watching TV and I saw this senator that I had seen many times on the news, who was a spokesperson, who was very media savvy, very good, and I witnessed her first Zoom presentation, and it was like this – side of a face, looking down. She didn’t even know where the camera was, and I’m shocked. Like, how could this happen?

[03:31]

And then someone explained to me, “Well, when you’re in the media at that level, people are doing things for you. You’re talking into a teleprompter, there’s a producer, so they don’t really learn this.” So, I realized there is a market here and people need me. So, I start to rant when I see these kinds of things happening.

I was working with a physician, I was a facilitator or an interviewer for a health summit, a virtual summit. We had a conversation beforehand, we met five minutes before the meeting, and I was shocked, once again, because here he was, in his office, with a ceiling fan, a rotating fan. So, I got rid of that through manipulation of the laptop. But then his backdrop was so messy, there were tons and piles of books and papers and files, and there was nothing I could do.

So, here’s what people need to realize. You are communicating a message, and that messy background interferes. Number one, it’s a distraction to the message but, secondly, it’s communicating another message about your presence. So, there are some people who feel or believe that if they have really good credentials and they have very good content that that’s what counts.

But, no, if you have a mess behind you, you’re communicating sloppiness. So, what does that mean? Is your research sloppy? Is your presentation sloppy? So, it’s really important.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, boy, there’s so much there in terms of, one, those associations. And I’m reminded of, well, I’ve got that book in my background, Pre-Suasion by Bob Cialdini talking about how we have associations. Like, if a resume is on a heavy clipboard, we sort of associate some weight to it. If you’re given a warm cup of tea, you might have some warmth toward the person who shared that. And so, there are some studies that point to that, and so then how much more so when it’s your entire background, that which is in my field of view as I’m beholding you, is messy. Like, that association will pop up all the more so.

Diane DiResta
Absolutely. So, this is what’s different and this is why I’m helping people translate stage presence into screen presence because the 3D world is very different from the virtual platform. So, one of the things people have to realize is they need to stage themselves. When you go into a meeting in a 3D world, the meeting room is there. You go into a conference room, the overhead lighting is there, the table is there, you don’t do any of that. But when you’re recording from your home or office, home office, you need to change the way that looks, you need to take control, so you become a producer. And the staging is very important, it’s the backdrop, the background.

And so, when I talk about staging, it’s what’s your backdrop. So, you have a few options. One is a screen. I have a room divider and what that allows me to do is hide any mess so that I can be camera-ready in a pinch. And we just had this experience a moment ago. You saw the mess behind me and there was no dial to change the backdrop so I took my screen up. So, that’s the first thing, it’s a physical screen.

Secondly, you can change your backdrop. I use Zoom a lot, and so you can upload your own backdrop. Now, here are some choices. One is, if you want to promote, if you want to communicate your brand, you can create your own. So, what I have is my logo on one side and my book and my Certified Virtual Presenter on the other side, so it’s speaking for me.

But you can have a nice scene, a beach scene, or a mountain scene, and that’s very calming. Or you can have a regular real-world backdrop. So, for instance, if you have a lovely living room or a very calm soothing office, and that’s real, use it, but make sure that it is supporting you, that it supports your brand. So, I would say be mindful and be strategic. What is it that you want to communicate?

Now, let me explain why this can impact you on your job. People take this lightly. When we first came to the virtual platform, post-COVID, people were very casual, they were showing up in their hoodies. But then we got over that because we realized this is here to stay. Well, I had a client who said to me, “Listen, Diane, full disclosure. In the beginning, we hired a vendor and they did four hours of virtual training, and I still don’t like how my team is showing up. They’re too casual. They’re too lax.”

So, I came in and I did a two-hour workshop, and one of the things we did is staging. And so, they learned how to center, they learned about lighting, they learned about backdrops, they learned about anything that would distract. So, what was fun is I had them look at still pictures of people in a frame and they had to critique it.

And then I had them do it on each other. So, I’d call on someone, I say, “All right, Pete, we’re going to have someone else look at you. So, Joe, take a look at Pete right now. What would you say about him if you were coaching him on his backdrop, on his staging?” and it was very enlightening for them, and they realized that, “Oh, this is about presence.” It affects your executive presence, so your screen presence can’t be lax.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel that in many regards in terms of visually as well as auditorily. Before I go there, since that’s a whole other ball of wax, I love that technique there associated with having peers review each other because they…and sometimes they may have something they’ve been wanting to say for months, “That thing has been annoying me…”

Diane DiResta
Well, we don’t do it that way.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. I’m sure it’s constructive and uplifting and positive and useful and so forth. So, that’s great right there in terms of a great way to get feedback because I think, a lot of times, we don’t even see that stuff because we’re just so accustomed to it. Sometimes I don’t even see my own mess in the house if it’s been there for a long time, it’s like, “Oh, yeah, I guess there’s no reason whatsoever for that thing to be hanging out there.” But someone else coming in will say, if we’re good friends, like, “What’s up with that random thing shoved in the corner?”

Diane DiResta
Exactly. Well, I had another client and I had done a similar workshop for them, and then they got a new CEO, and the HR person contacted me and said, “Listen, I want you to talk to his assistant because the way he’s showing up, he really needs your training.” So, I worked with him and he said, “You talk away. Tell me what I need. I don’t have the equipment. I don’t know about my backdrop.” And he had a backdrop that he created, and I said, “No, that doesn’t work for you. Let’s come up with something else.” And, afterwards, the next day, or the next week, his assistant called me and said, “Wow, I really see a difference.” So, it really is skill-based. People don’t know, a lot of times, what they need to do and they don’t know how they’re coming across. And so, that’s where I come in.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And, actually, to also follow up on the point you brought up at the beginning, it’s skill-based. And if you are senior, you may very well have people that are handling all things for you, and so you need that skill and it could really be a blind spot. So, great that we’re shining a spotlight on that right now. But, now, I got to hear, if this person made the time to construct their own background but it wasn’t working for them, what makes a background bad?

Diane DiResta
Well, here’s the thing. He didn’t construct it, it was one of those backgrounds that you can download, and it looked like it had flipcharts on the floor, and I said, “It doesn’t look right. Let’s take it out.” In fact, when he had no backdrop and he was in a regular office, that actually looked better. So, he just needed the feedback.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure. Okay. So, yes, there could be any number of reasons why something doesn’t fit. And maybe flipcharts on the floor, I don’t know, if you’re a design-thinking coach, it might be perfect, like, “Oh, that really gives me a creative space.”

Diane DiResta
Yes, but not for CEO.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Diane DiResta
It did not communicate his brand and his level. So, again, I tell people, “Be strategic. How do you want to be perceived? Because you have the power, you have the control over how people are going to perceive you by how you show up.” And we all know the studies about the visual and the impact and it takes seven seconds or less to make a first impression. And, boom, as soon as you turn on the camera, they see that and that’s their first impression, so make it positive. Make it powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, we talked about sort of the visual components here. I’d love to talk about audio, and I’m going to try not to dork out too hard here because I’m pretty intense about this. Well, Diane, you’ve seen the booking process. The choices are, “Are you going to be in a professional studio or should I send you a headset?” Those are the only two choices.

And you can debate what constitutes professional in terms of audio, but that is my experience, that if something is unpleasant to hear, well, one, there’s those associations again. It’s like, “Hmm, I just don’t like the feeling of you talking.” Like, you don’t want that associated with you just because of a bad microphone.

Diane DiResta
True.

Pete Mockaitis
And, two, I’ve got hard data from podcast listeners. Bad or even a little bit worse than mediocre, so like maybe slightly disappointing audio quality, results in lower engagement. People just tune out and stop listening earlier – I’ve got hard numbers on this – when the sound is lame. So, tell us, how do we make sound not lame?

Diane DiResta
Well, you’re exactly right. If you have to air, people will forgive you, let’s say, on YouTube if your lighting isn’t great but not the audio. The audio is really key. So, how do you make your sound good? The first thing is the worst kind of sound is when you talk directly to the computer because it sounds tinny. And I know when I see these new shows and they bring in experts and they’re talking to their computers; it’s irritating for me to listen to.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, do you mean the computer’s internal microphone, talking to the computer?

Diane DiResta
Yes. In other words, you don’t have any external mic. You’re just talking to the internal mic and it’s tinny. It’s not the best quality. So, at the very lowest level, put in some earbuds. I’ve used them, they work really well. Get an external mic. The Yeti is one of the top-level mics. And, again, when you have microphones and you test them, it’ll be much more effective. You can also use a headset, and Logitech is a good brand. I actually was on a very high-level podcast, and this podcast host required a certain headset.

Pete Mockaitis
John Lee Dumas, the Logitech H390.

Diane DiResta
Yes. Yes. Yes. Entrepreneurs on Fire. It’s John Lee Dumas, yes, and he actually tells you which one to get. And I got it. And I don’t use it that often because, it was interesting, in my network group today, a question came up, “What about headsets and executive presence?” And I thought about it and said, “You know, it depends on your level. I would not recommend someone at a high level, at the senior level, to be wearing a headset. It just doesn’t look like an executive. But, at other levels, it’s appropriate. It really depends on the venue, the culture of your company.” But headsets are good because they have the built-in mic, you don’t have to worry about anything. It’s all there. So, it depends on what you like. If you’re a podcaster, headsets are the best. Usually the best choice.

[15:50]

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, it’s sort of like, in our world, so we send headsets to guests because, it’s like, “Hey, we’re only recording the audio so it doesn’t matter to listeners what you look like and it doesn’t matter to me.” You look great with your backdrop there. That’s really lovely.

Diane DiResta
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I think that’s great. I will make a shoutout. We’ve spent dozens of hours testing many, many headsets and we love the Sennheiser or IMPACT EPOS SC30 or 60 in terms of bang for the buck, in terms of mic quality. Not the most comfortable or durable or best headphones, but, darn it, for a great-sounding mic at a great price, that’s, I think, the best game in town.

And I got to comment on the Yeti, and I think the key to using that well, and please chime in, Diane, if you’ve got some perspectives on this, is that you want to set it to the cardioid pickup pattern and speak pretty close to it and have enough stuff in the room so it’s not super echoey because I’ve seen a Yeti in a closet is a dream come true, a yeti in an empty room is echoey and unpleasant.

Diane DiResta
Yes, there is the acoustics factor and there are certain microphones that are unidimensional or multidimensional, and you need to know which they are so that you can speak differently. So, there are certain microphones where you speak right to the head, and there are others that are standup and you speak to the side of the mic, depending on which kind of microphone it is.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. So, I think that’s great. And that notion of just stepping into your thought process is excellent in terms of thinking about the headset and the presence and the impression that that gives. I can totally see what you’re saying with regard to if you are a CEO or a senior executive, a headset kind of makes you think call center, like, “Wait a minute. That doesn’t feel quite right.”

But then, again, if you are an analyst, I’m thinking about like with Jack Bauer, CTU, the 24 TV series, like CIA analysts who are like fighting terrorism and using computers and being brilliant at them. That can kind of fit in terms of, “Oh, look at you. You’re a hardcore and you don’t have time to waste. You’re going to be clear and get right back to coming up with brilliant insights from your analysis.”

Diane DiResta
It goes back to your style, the culture, what you’re trying to communicate.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. That’s cool. Okay. Well, we’ve got a lot of great tips here. Let’s talk more about maybe sort of like mindset or thought process or key questions to go through because we can get the particulars in terms of what’s a great background and what’s a great meeting platform, software, and what’s a great microphone. I just want to hear about how we should go about thinking through these questions to make the perfect choices for ourselves.

Diane DiResta
Well, the first thing, is people are not familiar with the technology, and there are so many different platforms. There’s Zoom, there’s Teams, there’s Google Meet, there’s WebEx, and so you need to know which one you’re on and get familiar with it. And, in fact, I went to a seminar that was virtual court, yeah, the virtual courtroom. It was for lawyers but I thought it’d be very interesting.

And one of the things that they said, the judge said, is, “We offer jurors, or people coming for hearings, the day before, to meet with a court officer who will train them and take them through the process.” That’s really important because, too often, people are on mute, and people don’t know it. And, in fact, there’s a coffee mug I’ve seen, it says, “You’re on mute,” and I think that is brilliant because it happens on every call. So, you need to get familiar with the technology. You need some help.

One of the worse situations, there was a professor recently, and he was giving a lecture and it was really interesting, but he started out and he didn’t even know he was on mute. And because there was no video, they were trying to let him know, and it took a while. And then, finally, “Oh, the wife is coming. She knows technology.” And then he said, “Well, you know, I’m a technophobe.” You’ve got to be prepared. You can’t let that kind of thing happen. So, that’s really key.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. Either you got to have the skills or you have to have a team immediately available whenever the situation calls for it.

Diane DiResta
And even then, things can go wrong.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. You’re talking about virtual court, we’re just going to have to link to this because it’s the funniest thing I think I’ve seen this year. Have you seen the cat?

Diane DiResta
Are you talking about, “I’m not a cat”? Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, my gosh.

Diane DiResta
I blogged about that and I said the same thing, it’s like, “Get there early. Test it out.” Because that so embarrassing and it was funny but it was embarrassing. So, we don’t ever want to be at a position. For those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about, there was a viral video, there was a lawyer in court, and he couldn’t get his video to work except for an animated cat. So, every time he spoke, it was his voice through this cat. And the judge was saying, “Well, check your filters,” and he still couldn’t get it to stop. And that’s an embarrassment, you don’t want that to happen on the job.

Pete Mockaitis
“Oh, I’m here live, judge. I’m not a cat.” And it’s the funniest thing I have seen, thus far, in 2021, so do yourself some favor and pull that up.

Diane DiResta
I will tell you, one of the things that people don’t realize is, and this is my rant, the talking head is dead. Truly, the talking head is dead. So, if you think you’re going to come online and lecture, you’re not going to be successful. People will tune you out. So, I talk about the two Es which are very different in the virtual world, and that’s eye contact and engagement.

Eye contact, when I coach people in the 3D world, I tell them, “Look at one person at a time and spread it around so you’re looking at the whole audience.” The reverse is true online. You want to look directly at the lens of your camera. Now this is hard because it’s like having a satellite interview. So, here’s what I do.

When I’m speaking, I look at the lens. When you’re speaking, I look at you so I can catch the nonverbals. But if I don’t look at the lens when I’m speaking, I’m not making a direct eye connection. The second thing is I always encourage people to start out with interaction. A poll is great or a question where they respond in the chat.

Because if you don’t do that and if you don’t engage them immediately, they’re on their phones, they’re going through their papers, they’re doing other things because they think they can just flip you on and listen as if it was on an ongoing webinar. So, don’t do a slide show where you’re just a voiceover slides because you will not have an audience paying attention. So, those are key.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is big. And that’s a great point on the eye contact with regards to just getting into that habit in terms of, “Now, I’m looking at the lens, and now I’m looking at you.” And I’m sure, someday, one of these tech people are going to make a lens inside a screen so that…

Diane DiResta
It’s happening. I think it might be Invidia. It’s already happening but it’s not going to be available for us, but, eventually, it will.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. So, here we are and I think that’s a good point with regard to conscientiously choosing that because it makes an impact in terms of, like, “I have a different feeling when you are looking right at the lens and I’m seeing you do that than the reverse, even though it’s so weird that we are not actually able to both make eye contact with each other at the same time.”

Diane DiResta
I know. And that’s one of the downfalls of the virtual world. But just think of yourself almost as a broadcaster or an actor, and you’re talking to the camera, and I can see you, I cannot see your face but I see you there in my peripheral vision. But, now, when you talk, I’m going to look at you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great.

Diane DiResta
And that’s what I do these days.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Well, let’s talk about the engagement piece in terms of interactive, a poll. I would love for you to just rapid-fire share your favorite tips, tactics, tricks, brainstorms on how to engage virtually. I think a poll is great. What are some other ways you can do that?

Diane DiResta
Well, it depends on your platform. Some are more robust than others. I have the enterprise version of Zoom, and you can do a lot of things. So, polls are great. It can be a question-and-answer, a one-word or a sentence response, or it could be multiple choice. What’s great about polls is they’re fun because we can see them in the moment.

One of the things I do after a presentation is I raffle off a digital copy of my book Knockout Presentations. And the way I do that is there’s a virtual wheel, and I input everybody’s name before the presentation, and then I go to that wheel and spin it so they can see it and they can see their name, the spindle landing on their name, and it’s a lot of fun. It keeps people engaged and it also keeps them engaged to the end because they know that they’re going to get a prize. So, you have to have something at the end that they’re looking forward to.

There are some other ways that you can engage people. And, of course, we have breakout rooms, in that way people are getting into small pods and they’re talking to each other which is great. I love some of the icons, the hand raising. Now, you can do this a couple of ways. One with the icon or you can just have people raise their hand for a visual aid.

Sometimes when you need an icebreaker, if you see there’s a lull in the conversation, what you can do, I have a friend who does fabulous footwear, she’ll say, “All right, everybody, take off your shoe and hold it up and let’s see who has the most interesting shoe.” And, again, that can be something fun. You can use music. And I like to do something called square dancing when I want to get energy going. And so, you put on the music, you crank it up, and then people start dancing in their squares. And, again, people are moving to the music.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s kind of fun to watch in the gallery view, everyone moving at the same time. Okay.

Diane DiResta
Yes. Now, of course, if you’re talking to an investor, you’re not going to use that technique, but it depends. Now, here’s something that is a lot of fun. It’s an investment because you have to pay for this. But you can go online and download software games such as Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Let’s Make a Deal, whatever those are. And then you can use them as part of your learning.

So, let’s say you’re doing sales training. Instead of the typical lecture and who has the answer, you can have two teams and you can input different answers beforehand and then you call in the team, they give you an answer, and either they get it or they don’t. So, it’s a lot of fun and it’s very engaging.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that is cool.

Diane DiResta
So, some of the software games are fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love to zoom in on a couple of these in particular. So, software games, there’s a training company that does this. Is there one in particular that you can mention here?

Diane DiResta
The Training Arcade.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, The Training Arcade. Okay. So, they have like a Jeopardy piece over there. Okay. Excellent.

Diane DiResta
You can download them. You’re going to pay for them but it’s worth it if you have a lot of people. So, I would say, if your goal is to train or to have fun or to motivate, if you’re in a sales culture, a training culture, you might want to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent. And then your little spinney piece.

Diane DiResta
The spinning wheel?

Pete Mockaitis
What was that?

Diane DiResta
That is called WheelofNames.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Wheel of Names. Okay. Very cool.

Diane DiResta
And what you do is you input the names in advance. So, let’s say I have 20 people who are coming, I would put those 20 names in. And then, when I was ready, I would go to that page online and I would start spinning. It’s so much fun.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think that’s so cool, it’s that just the ability to share your screen enables tons of things to be possible. And this is very rudimentary, but I remember when I have my mastermind meetings with my fellow podcasters, who are awesome, everyone has been on the show and vice versa as it should be with the mastermind, we have…even just someone having the notes and the timer, and then sharing that screen so we’re looking at the notes and the timer, makes it more engaging than, hey, we’re just kind of talking.

So, those little things can make a world of difference even when it’s nothing fancy at all.

Diane DiResta
Using a whiteboard and actually drawing in real time. You see, here’s the thing with the brain. Every time you do something different, it stimulates attention. So, even the act of going to share your screen to show a document, people are, “It’s something new.” They’re going to go and look.

Pete Mockaitis
Great point. It just feels good to task-switch or multitask, even though that has its perils, which we’ve discussed several times. So, too, the switching it up feels good in that way. And I’m thinking about, I think, Miro – hey, they were a sponsor once, they’re awesome – has a lot of cool ways to like whiteboard and engage interactively there.

And I’m also thinking about even just like a Google Sheets. We’ve had some moments where it’s like, “Okay, guys. We’ve all talked about these options and now it’s time for us to, each on our sheet, rank or rate how well we think each of these options hits each of these criteria.” And then there’s sort of a top-level sheet that summarizes.

And, sure enough, I find that supremely engaging because my heart is stomping and I’m kind of wondering, “What number are they putting? What number am I putting? Should I check what number they’re putting? No, Pete, don’t be like the Olympic judge. Stand by your own opinions. Don’t sneak a peek.” It’s like, “I wonder if the one I’m supporting is going to be the winner.” Anyways.

Diane DiResta
Yeah. And, also, video clips. You can show a quick video clip that everybody watches and then can comment on. So, there are a number of ways you can do this. You can actually have people write their responses in the chat or you can open up the mics. Call on someone and say, “Let’s hear your voice,” because people want to talk. They want to hear their own voice. So, a number of techniques help to engage.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good.

Diane DiResta
So, the more variety, the better.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, Diane, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Diane DiResta
I would say a couple of things. People don’t realize that this is a skill. And I always say that gifted speakers are born but effective speakers are made. So, make a commitment to learn these skills because, years ago, I used to say that tomorrow’s speakers would need broadcasting skills, and we are here. We are way beyond that. So, you need to start thinking of yourself as a broadcaster, not just a speaker presenter.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Diane, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Diane DiResta
The quote that I put in my high school yearbook, which is, “A quitter never wins. A winner never quits.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And a favorite study or a piece of research?

Diane DiResta
I like some of the research that’s coming out about women. The one I read recently was, you know, the belief that women are talkers, and yet when they show research, I believe it was Harvard or Stanford, women actually talk less than men do in meetings. So, it really blew away a stereotype.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Diane DiResta
The Science of Mind and Think and Grow Rich. The Science of Mind is a huge textbook-like book by Ernest Holmes but it’s all about spiritual, mental training which really helps people understand the power they have when they use the power of their mind.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Diane DiResta
A favorite tool. I love Zoom. I use Zoom all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Diane DiResta
I don’t know if it’s a favorite habit but I have a habit of getting up early now, and that makes a big difference in my productivity. I get up at 5:30 in the morning. To me, that’s early. And that allows me to create certain rituals, so prayers, affirmation, and I read one page of something spiritual before I look at my phone.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate and get quoted back to you frequently?

Diane DiResta
What I said earlier, that gifted speakers are born and effective speakers are made.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Diane DiResta
The best place is my website DiResta.com. And I want to tell people that I’m going to be starting a group coaching for women, for women business professionals so that they can feel more confident and have the support of a group as well as work with me in a coaching capacity. So, that’s coming up. If you would like to learn more about that, send me an email through DiResta.com. And you can also get my book Knockout Presentations on Amazon or any of the online stores.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Diane DiResta
The final challenge is commit to being a good communicator. I don’t think there’s any skill that’s more impactful or important than communication. It doesn’t matter how technically proficient you are or how smart you are, you need to be able to be a good communicator. So, make a commitment. And make a commitment to be able to do that on a virtual platform because this is not going away.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Diane, this has been a treat. Thank you and I wish you lots of luck with all presentations, virtual and in person.

Diane DiResta
Thank you. And I wish you success on the platform of life and may all your presentations be a knockout.