Kalasia was a nervous wreck. She was preparing for a presentation to the CEO. Her project was at a critical decision point. The CEO and senior leadership team would decide yay or nay whether her ideas for transforming the organization would succeed, or be shelved as irrelevant.
Kalasia hadn’t been sleeping for a month worrying about it. It was a big win that she was being asked to present her ideas to the top – she had made it this far. But now a year of work was riding on a 30-minute presentation. Kalasia’s dreams would either be crushed or become reality and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing.
In her initial coaching video, you could see Kalasia actually wringing her hands as she spoke. Even her voice sounded unnatural, filled with fear as Kalasia strained to project a professional composure.
Kalasia started our coaching session saying, “I’ve been recording myself, I’ve made a thousand recordings and I hate them all, I hate seeing myself on video.”
Kalasia was bursting with questions. “My head keeps tilting at a weird angle, what should I do about that? What should I do with my hands? What kind of hand gestures should I be making at the end? How am I coming across? Should I lean forward when I make this point? Should I emphasize this word?”
I asked her, “What is the outcome you’re going for?”
No hesitation: “To convince them.”
Our starting point was easy. Simply put, Kalasia had been led to the wrong purpose and was asking the wrong questions. Both lead you down a path away from yourself into something very artificial.
Struggling with the treacherously self-sabotaging purpose “to convince”, and overly focused on her gestures, Kalasia had become a powerless woman, desperate for approval and trying too hard to make her ideas sound “convincing”.
The more artificial Kalasia became, the more nervous she got.
The purpose “to convince” is a trap.
The purpose “to convince” drains you of your power, puts you in a “one-down” artificially inferior position, transfers all your power over to the person you’re trying to convince and puts you in a trap where you can’t win.
If you’ve been reading my articles, then you know that REAL power comes from the purpose “to be understood”. This purpose changes and improves everything about you, every muscle in your face, even the words you choose naturally become more clear.
Kalasia settled in with her new purpose “to be understood” and this relaxed her considerably. The tension in her face eased markedly. She said, “That’s MUCH easier than trying to convince!”
Then I pulled out a coaching tool you would never expect. I pulled out a dictionary. Actually, I pulled out many dictionaries, most of them very old, one of them going back to 1828, the original dictionary of the American language created by Noah Webster.
I said, “We’re going to start with something you haven’t asked about but that you need. We’re going to begin with dignity.”
Kalasia and I spent a generous amount of time utilizing a process called Word Clearing, carefully examining and taking apart every definition for the word dignity. We did the same with the word poise. Within a definition of the word poise was the word grace. Within the word grace there was the word elegant.
These are very powerful words. They embody very powerful concepts. In a GOOD dictionary, especially an older one, they have many meanings, many definitions. Each one gives you a nuance required for the richness of the whole concept.
Kalasia had a superficial understanding of these words and a number of interpretations that were simply incorrect. They were words she could recognize, but she did so with no real understanding. They had no real meaning for her. And so, she couldn’t execute on them. In truth, they were foreign to her, just as thoroughly as if they were from a foreign language.
I spent one entire coaching session clarifying definitions and clearing words with her. The Word Clearing process created a depth of understanding that went into Kalasia’s emotional and conceptual DNA, into her very being.
As we went along, definition by definition, everything about Kalasia changed. You could visibly see every muscle relax in her face, and her shoulders, and then her whole body. Kalasia gradually sat higher and straight, then with elegance and poise. She moved with grace. And she did a very interesting thing about mid-way through. With a beautiful slow motion, Kalasia raised her chin and held her head up high. It was a motion so elegant, so poised. So completely natural. So powerful.
Dignity is your feeling of worth. Dignity is not something anyone else but you could ever grant or give you, or even decide you have. It’s something that comes from you, from within, from that place where you are really you.
Kalasia had been completely out of touch with hers. The dictionary cleared the path for her to re-discover it.
As we went through these words, Kalasia became completely calm. Calm means still. This stillness chased out her agitated energy, her anxiety, and what emerged was a beautiful and strong presence.
Kalasia was now completely natural. You would say she had style. Rather elegant too.
When we practiced her presentation, it was a completely different Kalasia. Her eyes had a firm look that held you in place. Even her voice tone was deeper and created a resonance. To say Kalasia was compelling is to sell her short, she was magnificent.
If I had told Kalasia to be magnificent she would not have known what to do. And yet this magnificence was inside of her waiting to come out.
Everything I’m describing, all that materialized, was completely natural to Kalasia.
Imagine if I had told her, “Hold your head up high. Sit with poise. Deepen your voice. Move your hand gestures with elegance.” Can you see how artificial she would have become trying to execute these confusing instructions?
These fine qualities are BY-PRODUCTS of something else, something so important it must be discovered by you for you to succeed at the high level you dream of. Don’t run down the misleading path chasing artificial postures and poses when the true source of your greatness will create an abundance of these wonderful qualities once you shine the light on it.
This is where my coaching begins. It works with what’s within, not the external. That’s where a person’s true power is. Word Clearing is a new path to that power within.
There’s too much focus on behavior, behavior, behavior. As if we were lab animals who need to be taught to scurry the right way to please the people watching us.
Human beings are SO much more. What is within the soul, the heart, and the mind we each possess, THAT’S what needs to be visible to the world.
When you bring these to the surface, your voice tone completely changes, your hands know what to do, your head knows how to hold itself up high.
Be the cause!