“I counted 19 ‘um’s’.”
This was from the Chief of Staff who had just watched his first presentation here. The senior executive had brought his Chief of Staff with him for his executive coaching before he met with industry analysts and investors in New York. Big presentation with a lot riding on it.
“Um’s” are what’s known as “filler words” during a presentation. They’re unnecessary and distracting. As in, “What we learned was important because … um …. what customers were saying was that … um… they wanted faster service.”
She turned to me and said, “Can you help him with the ‘um’s’?”
I told her yes, but not to worry about it right now. She trusted me and nodded.
I coached him on other things and within an hour they had disappeared.
Her jaw dropped and she said, “How did you do that? You never coached him on that?”
Zero “ums”. And they never appeared again.
The reason I can do it is because I can find the root cause. “Um’s” are not the actual problem, they’re a symptom of a problem. If you’re always chasing after symptoms, you never get to the root cause. You’ll replace one symptom for another, but you never solve the real problem. You just get a new problem.
A huge percentage of the thousands of people I have coached have told me they want to get rid of their “um’s”. And most of them have said, “I have been trying to get rid of my ‘um’s’ for years and nothing works.” The more they concentrate on getting rid of them, the more they end up with.
In the world of Causative Communication, something different happens. They all walk out with no “ums”. Without my ever mentioning them.
As we went along, the Chief of Staff also wanted me to coach the exec on facial expressions, especially his eyebrows, which tended to go up. And his hand gestures because he often clenched his hands in front of him and made very small gestures with his left hand while his right one hung awkwardly. “Can you get him to make bigger hand gestures? And can you get him using his right hand too?”
Again, I always assess, “What’s causing that?”
These are superficial manifestations of what’s actually going on inside of a person.
You have a powerful INNER world happening within you every moment you are alive. Your audience sees physical manifestations of this world. They don’t SEE your inner world. Their view is usually limited to the more obvious physical manifestations of it.
I don’t coach the physical manifestations because they’re only an indication of something below the surface, and that is the root cause we want to find.
For me, finding the root cause is accomplished by answering this question, “What is happening in your world right now as you are up there?”
Get the right answers to that question, and you’ll have the answer to many other questions.
This is not just one thought or another that you have. It’s a world. It’s the world of YOU. There’s a lot happening.
I could see what was happening in this executive’s world. His attention was on himself. He was self-conscious. Self-conscious means “too much attention on yourself”. He barely saw the audience. His attention was totally focused inward. He was thinking while talking. Trying to get “the right words”, struggling, not flowing.
I taught him how to own the room, how to solidly connect with his audience, to make a strong personal connection, how to communicate with intention, how to create a wonderful good feeling of rapport with them starting with his first sentence. All of these had to do with helping him bring his own INTERNAL world back into being, restoring the certainty and optimism of his state of mind, of himself, for his audience, and for how he sees the world.
As the executive’s state of mind transformed, so did ALL of his body language. It happened ORGANICALLY.
His eye contact became strong and captivating. He stood up straight, shoulders back, head held high. His arms unfolded and his hand gestures became magnificent, perfectly in tune with what he was saying. The “um’s” completely disappeared, his pauses became perfect. He was riveting and charismatic. And best of all, his words just flowed.
He said, “I don’t know where my words are coming from, they just seem to be coming out of nowhere.”
I said, “They’re coming from you. You are now in the moment, in a wonderful zone of rapport with your audience and intense creativity.”
He said, “That’s what it feels like. I’ve never been here before.”
At least not in front of an audience.
Both he and the Chief of Staff were beaming when they left. I got an email from him the morning of the New York presentation saying, “I am walking in confident.”
Next morning in the news, top analysts announced that his company was the number one stock pick of the moment.
What’s happening in the world of you? Not the physical manifestations. Not what everyone sees when they look at you. Not what they say about you. Not limited to the part you show the world. But the actual full, rich world of you.
This is the place that gives Causative Communication its power. It is overlooked by virtually everyone, and it is the secret key to everything. Your inner world controls your ability to create extraordinary outcomes.
When your inner world becomes extraordinary, your outer world will shift to match it.
Be the cause!