Giving presence for Thanksgiving

Last week I delivered a Causative Communication workshop to a small group of wonderful professionals ranging from a reliability engineer to several senior directors. 

Every single one of them, in their final video, is radiant. There’s no other word for it. They are about to be confronted with a difficult situation.  And they are radiant.

As a matter of fact, even before they’ve said a word, they have won you over.  Any resistance you have, has completely melted away. You are already smiling and completely drawn to them.  You can’t help it. 

Their radiance steers the difficult situation they’re facing solidly on track towards a positive outcome.

It’s an almost overwhelming radiance. You might call it charisma, but charisma is a shabby word compared to this.  What you’re seeing is much more powerful.

Where does this radiance come from?  Two things.

In their first video, the “before” video, they were all thinking. This happens to pretty much everyone, no matter how successful they are.  They’re thinking about what they’re going to say, about the outcome, about how difficult the situation is, lots of things. This thinking introverts their attention.

They’re not really being there, not in the moment, fully present and so therefore, they don’t have presence.  Without presence, there is no radiance.

Secondly, in their first video, they don’t have much affinity for the other person. There’s no reason for them to have any because the other person is being difficult, so they don’t.

However, in their final video, they have stopped thinking. They have graduated to looking and knowing. They are completely in the moment, they are completely there, you feel them totally with you.  Their presence is strong.

Additionally, they are FULL of affinity.  For no reason, except that they are.  Their great affinity makes you smile back before you even have time to think about it.  It supersedes logic.

Radiant means to shine beams of light from a center.

That center is YOU.  The light that shines is directly from you.  

And when you are fully present, with your attention fully extroverted onto the other person, and when you are full of affinity, you are radiant.

You are also beautiful and handsome. We talked about how politically incorrect it was to mention it, but it just is that way.  Their unique personalities were shining and they were beautiful and handsome.

That brings us to our special holiday tomorrow.  In addition to being about fabulous food, Thanksgiving is about love. And connecting with the people we love most.  We choose carefully who we spend Thanksgiving with.  These are the people who really count deepest in our hearts.

You are what they are most thankful for.

A powerful connection is born when you connect directly from you, from your center, from your core. You connect by really being present with the people you’re with and by being full of affinity or even love for them.

Affinity is one of the highest nutrient-rich foods you can ever serve to your soul.  It’s the only substance in the world that if you start giving away in the morning, but the end of the day you have way more than you started with.

As for me, I feel very grateful our paths have crossed - I have been truly enriched by it and am grateful we are part of a community dedicated to making the world a better place with our causative communication.

I’m wishing you a beautiful Thanksgiving full of love!  May this special holiday abundantly fill your soul and emotional heart too.

Be the cause!                                                                                                                                                                  

Ingrid

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How to talk to a room full of idiots

Steve, one of our clients, had the idea of the century. Unfortunately, nobody was buying it. He had been presenting it to management with zero success.

He brought this idea to his first presentation in the Transforming Your Presentation Skills workshop.

His attitude was, “You idiots! You need to really get this.”

Of course no one got it. It’s no surprise that nothing happened with an approach like that.

It’s never smart to present to a group of people you feel are idiots. In Steve’s case, he just couldn’t find anything good about the people he was talking to.

At the workshop, that was the first thing we changed.

And when he increased his affinity for the people in his audience, everything was different. Suddenly everyone was willing to listen to him. It was a dramatic shift.

Understand this:

Whatever you’re thinking about the person (or people) you’re speaking with is clearly transmitted directly to them in ways you might not realize.

The way you look at them, the tone of your voice, everything gets through.

We humans are WAY more telepathic than is commonly realized. We think we’re hiding our thoughts, but we’re not. We can’t! We’re energetically broadcasting everything in many ways.

Your attitude toward the other person reflects your opinion of them. And people are VERY sensitive to others’ opinions of them. It’s one of the things they are MOST sensitive to.

People will respond more quickly and more forcefully to your opinion of them than to the words you are using. They will do this every single time.

If you’re talking to your boss and you have the opinion he has more authority and influence over your future than you do, that belief gets transmitted and puts you in a “one down” position. This is going to mess with your intention and negatively impact any conversation you have about requests, promotions and raises.

If you’re are talking to your teenage child and you have the opinion they don’t know as much as you do, or that they’re making a mistake with their life, this is going to provoke an immediate and strong reaction that is not going to help your cause.

Anytime you have the opinion the other person is wrong, you’re asking for trouble.

Your opinion of them is the FIRST thing they pick up.

It is what they respond to.

This works in positive ways too. Did you ever have a teacher who thought you were really smart, good, creative? How did you respond to that teacher?

Does this mean you have to have a phony opinion of people? Do you have to pretend that they’re right when you really think they’re wrong? No! You need to stay true to yourself.

Pretending will work against you. When the other person senses you’re pretending, you will come across as condescending. And that spells doom.

If you want to be successful in one of these difficult situations, you need to take your attention OFF the negative opinion you have, and find things that you do like and do respect about this person. You need to genuinely prepare yourself for the conversation.

This is a skill. You have to practice it to master it.

When you can do this in any conversation, with any person, under any circumstance, even when they’re pushing your buttons, then you are on the road to becoming a world class communicator.

Be the cause!

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How to melt a frozen heart

“I don’t do affinity,” she said.

These words were spoken by a young woman in her 20's who had recently graduated college and was navigating her first job in a large corporation.  She has great career aspirations for a leadership position.

She was beautiful and well dressed, enough to turn heads. Her face was expressionless and her eyes were cold.  She signed up for the Causative Communication workshop because she wanted to learn how to get other people to do what she wants.

As I coached her through the workshop, she did the exercises well, but with this coldness. I was in the process of coaching her to increase her affinity when she looked at me dispassionately and very deliberately stated, “I don’t do affinity.”

I asked her why not? And she said her attitude towards people was very neutral.  She said, “I don’t like you and I don’t dislike you. I’m here to get the work done.”

Even without knowing her exact back story, how she came to be this way (cold and beautiful), I could clearly see she had had a complete mis-education in the subject of people.

I had no doubt that there had been an intense period of confusion in her life, in the middle of which her solution to the confusion was to shut off her feelings. Young as she was, she had now done this for so long, she had no feelings for others.

She told me she thought that having affinity involved making (or forcing) yourself to like someone you didn’t like. I explained to her that you can’t make yourself like someone.  

I told her the real secret to affinity and then I walked away. I had a lot of affinity for her when I said what I said.  And then I left it up to her.

In the next exercise I watched her from a distance. She was different. She was smiling at the person she was paired up with.  It was not a big smile, but it was genuine, it had warmth. Her partner smiled back.

Her transformation continued from there into something miraculous.

“Cold and beautiful” melted into someone warm and alive.

She opened up the circle of people she was working with (from only 1-2) and ended up working with everyone in the workshop.  She was forming great relationships rapidly and people were responding to her with great warmth. She looked happy and astonished.

I knew she had never experienced anything like this in her life. She didn’t know I was watching her.  I wiped a tear and went back to coaching others.

At the end of the workshop she looked me straight in the eye and with a great intensity of feeling said, “Thank you.”   We didn’t speak, just looked at each other and shared a long moment of intense understanding and mutual admiration.  Warmth.  Affinity.

The reason she was able to transform so quickly is because the power and knowledge was within her already. I just had to give her a friendly reminder where to look.

I just had to show her the path to being causative.

Once you show someone the right path, they always do the rest.

You can do this too. You just have to make the choice to learn.

Be the cause!

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Gravitas

Angela reports directly to the CEO of a large organization and has global responsibility for thousands of people. She interacts directly with the entire leadership team.  It's a high intensity position.  The leadership team is composed of strong, stubborn, driven personalities.

She came for 1-on-1 coaching. Her goal was to develop gravitas and increase her ability to persuade and influence at the leadership team level. 

Gravitas is often expected in a VP or Senior VP position.

The problem most people have developing gravitas is a confusion about what it is and no sense of how to get there.

In the dictionary gravitas is defined as a serious, solemn, dignified manner.  

Serious is defined as sincere and earnest, solemn, no laughing.  Solemn is defined as not cheerful or smiling.  Dignified is defined as elevated self-respect, a feeling of being worthy.

Dignity sounds great, but gravitas sounds rather stern and grim. This is going to be rather difficult for people to sustain.

What if it doesn't match their personality?  Which in Angela’s case it didn't.

In other words, there's a lot of confusion around this word, imprecise definitions, confusion about what it is.  

Having said that, I understand what she was looking for and how to get there. I’ve helped many people develop what others would call gravitas. 

There are 4 key elements

Note – you can’t fake any of these. They’re skills that you have to develop by doing the hard work it takes to make them real.

The first is being there comfortably.  Most people who come to my workshops or for coaching are agitated. They're a little bit stressed, a little bit anxious. This strips you of any dignity. It strips you of gravitas. You have to be in the moment, calm and comfortable. When you are, it makes you dignified, makes everyone around you relax, get calm and take you more seriously.  Anxiety is a dignity-killer. It's hard to take someone who is anxious seriously because they don't create the impression they're in control.

Second you need to make a deep, strong connection with the other person. If you don't have that connection, that rapport, your words just bounce off.  When you have that connection your words penetrate and create a completely different effect. Clients tell me all the time, “I said the exact same words, but this time they listened.”

Third, you need to communicate with intention. Most people have never been coached on intention and they substitute effort, force and energy. All these strip you of gravitas.  Intention has everything to do with certainty and nothing to do with being forceful. What you see when someone has executive presence, when you see a powerful leader, is not in intensity of energy, it's an intensity of intention. The energy is incidental. Many very powerful leaders speak softly but with unmistakable intention. When you speak with intention, it gives you great dignity.

Fourth is your affinity.  Many people think that in order to have gravitas you have to assume a demeanor that is almost cold.  This will only work to make everyone cold toward you.  That’s not what you want. The warmer you are, the warmer they will be toward you and the more they will trust you.  Affinity is how much you like them.  It must be genuine. It's not something you project.  It's something you feel and it must be real.  Many people feel they can't afford to have affinity because they won't be taken seriously. The problem is never too much affinity. The problem, if there is one, is insufficient intention. Both affinity and intention have to be high.

It is magical that when you put these all together, you have what people call gravitas, you have respect, you have credibility. When you speak, people listen.

I haven't covered building a relationship, listening and other components that are vital to complete the picture and pull the whole thing off, those are for another blog.

My Lead Trainer coached Angela on these points, one at a time, using our unique coaching methodology. When Angela saw her final video, she cried. This is not a woman who cries easily.  

What she saw in the video: Her eyes were sparkling, she was completely comfortable, completely in the moment, dignified, worthy, she made a strong powerful connection, she wasn't forceful but her intention was penetrating, she was loaded with warmth and affinity and she was compelling. You would have followed her in a heartbeat. She was beautiful and powerful.  

She said, “I had no idea I could ever look like that.”  

We cried too.

This is inside of everyone. It's inside of you.

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