I was watching the audience. When Arte walked on stage, they were looking at him with mild interest, light curiosity. It was his quarterly All-Hands presentation to 1500 in his division. Arte started:
“Good morning, I’m excited to be here, I hope you’re excited about being here also. Today I would like to talk to you a little bit about…”
By the time Arte got to that point, the audience had lost their spark, they were fading. He didn’t see it.
I don’t think the audience even realized it. They are so used to unengaging corporate presentations, drifting away seems normal. They get sudden interested when they see a new speaker start, but they can lose that interest fast.
By the time Arte got to the middle of his presentation, even to him something felt flat. He started to talk faster. He tried to inject enthusiasm, but it felt forced. He ended by telling a sea of polite but uninspired faces they had an exciting future ahead.
Arte wasn’t bad. Some of them even went up to him after and told him it was a very good message.
Arte knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. He felt a powerful need to break free of something, but had no clue what was binding him and holding him back.
By corporate standards it was a “good” presentation. But ordinary. Ordinary means with no special or distinctive features. It comes from the Latin word ordinarius which means "the usual".
Extraordinary means very unusual or remarkable. It comes from Latin extraordinarius which means "beyond the common ordinary".
Audiences don’t pay attention to things that are ordinary.
They are forever captivated by the extraordinary.
Arte’s was the kind of ordinary presentation that corporate executives give every day all over the world.
You are not made to be ordinary. No one is. It’s not the truth about you. You have numerous special and distinctive features. No one in the world is you but you. No one in the world sees through your eyes the way you do. This gives you the ability to create what no one else in the world can create.
There’s nothing usual or ordinary about you unless you let yourself sink into the usual and the ordinary.
Once we’re talking to each other, I easily discover how extraordinary you are, and the many features and qualities about you that make you extraordinary. It surprises people when I tell them. It shouldn’t.
Many people haven’t made this discovery about themselves. They’ve been trained by school, by life, by corporate pressures to be ordinary. By the time their work anniversaries roll around, especially by the time they become executives, they’ve lost the inner knowledge they were born with that they are extraordinary. The instinctual knowledge about themselves they had as children has disappeared from their view.
They show up for coaching wanting to become “authentic” and inspiring, when that is actually who they really are.
Deep down we all know that we are extraordinary, buried deep down because continuous agreement with others has submerged what makes us unique and extraordinary along with our knowledge of it.
Individuals trying to survive in large corporations who are playing it safe and trying to please everyone makes “vanilla” the one flavor for all corporate communications and presentations the world over.
It had been a long time since Art felt free enough to let loose and experience the qualities that make him extraordinary. But knowing they were there is what made him show up for coaching and training.
What happens in our training is that people start out ordinary. I’m talking about pretty much everyone, including CEOs. I’m even talking about people who make many millions of dollars.
I have never had anyone walk in for coaching who knew how extraordinary they actually are.
The first thing I do is look for what is extraordinary about you. It doesn’t take me long.
Then I help you re-discover what that is for yourself. It’s a defining moment. People walk tall from then on after it happens.
Then I help you develop the necessary set of communication skills you’ll need to inspire and move your audiences. These are skills we should’ve been taught in high school. They would have allowed us to protect ourselves from losing the awareness that we are indestructibly extraordinary, and would have enabled each one of us to live life being both unique and inspiring to others.
That’s what being a Causative Communicator is all about.
All three steps must be done, and they must be done well.
In many ways it’s a lifelong journey. I’m still following this path myself and always will to my last breath.
However, what individuals can accomplish in a matter of 2–3 days of Coaching is absolutely amazing.
Arte rediscovered his own power during the workshop. Who he is as a person, what this man has accomplished, plus his dreams, plus what he wants for the 1500 people he is talking to are all extraordinary. Now he’s making it visible to the world.
Arte uses his newfound ability to communicate to make a connection with his audience that is all of powerful, beautiful and highly unusual. He is not like anyone else anymore. Every one of his words creates meaning. His words are not too different, the way he says them totally is. He is himself. Simple, natural, and has real power. A breath of fresh air as a leader.
Not surprisingly, the effect on the people listening is a touch of amazement and a surprised happy enthusiasm. They are willingly and powerfully drawn to this man and his ideas, leaning in with enjoyment, feeling like they have a real leader, inspired by shared new vision. The energy flowing back to Arte from his audience is like nothing he’s ever experienced.
Arte’s eyes were ablaze with joy when he watched his videos from his last presentation. He will never again forget who he really is. He has left ordinary behind forever.
Be the cause!