Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How Henry became a VP without changing who he is

I’ve met too many people who have no personality left. It’s been sanitized out of existence.

I’ve met people who are afraid to speak up and are way too quiet. They say way less than they should. I’ve met people who are always apologizing for what they think and who they are (“I’m so sorry I feel this way …”).  I’ve met too many who are filled with self-doubt, trying to figure out “what’s wrong with me”.

And I’ve met too many “corporate professionals” who have learned to say and do all the right things, and then wonder where the satisfaction is in life.

Henry didn’t let the outside world influence him at all.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Mastering “Direct to Camera” presentation skills

Jake, the executive I was coaching, was looking at the camera like it was a snake. He had come for coaching for what’s called “Direct to camera” presentation skills.

Many executives are coming here for this coaching because so many are being asked to make Direct to Camera videos. They’re being asked to sit in a small room and talk to a camera, with no actual audience present, to create a solo video that will be watched by 200 or 10,000 people. Many of these videos will be posted online for the public to see. I recently coached an executive who posted a video to 5,000,000 views.

It’s a weird feeling to talk directly to the camera. It’s not a “natural” skill.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The love we feel today

Me: “I just called to tell you how much I love you.”

Justine: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “Nothing‘s wrong.”

Justine: “Yes there is. You never call me in the middle of the week. And you sound like you’re about to cry.”

Justine’s my big sister. She was right. I was driving across the San Francisco Bay, on my way home …

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
One presentation strategy almost no one knows

“I don’t know if it’s possible, but I would like to be captivating.”

This came from Jeffrey who sounded like it would never happen.  He was telling me his goals at the start of the presentation skills workshop for senior execs their CEO had arranged. Jeffery is in Finance and no one would have described him as captivating.

Alan, the senior exec over Engineering, said, “Me too.”

The rest of the group all nodded, they wanted that too.

They all did their “Before” videos. They came across as brilliant, smart, experienced. None of them was captivating.

They looked at me hopefully.

 

By the end of the training, they were each not only captivating, but irresistibly compelling, and even charismatic. They came across as true leaders.

I’m going to talk to you about one of the things they learned that contributed to their transformation…

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How not to lose the audience … or yourself

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.  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 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.

The secret for how to get promoted more easily, more often

Sometimes my students write the best articles. I think you'll be inspired by this success story.

I've worked with MANY people who wanted to get promoted. They have tremendous technical expertise and many other abilities and fine qualities. The key differentiator that always ensures true recognition and significant success for them is gaining the ability to communicate at the high level of skilled communication that their lives require.

One gentleman, whose name is Krishna, perfectly illustrates this.

The most direct communication there is

What happens between childhood and adulthood that makes adults so uncomfortable and tense about looking into each other’s eyes?

This is a question I ask myself often. In our Causative Communication Live! Workshop, I help the grown ups restore their lost ability to really LOOK at another person. And I always wonder how we let ourselves get so mixed up with so many confusing ideas about it.

Independence and the secret to being causative

Worrying about what others are going to think, fear of their reaction, being excessively careful not to ruffle feathers … All of these cripple communication.

I can't tell you how many times clients come to me and say, “I just have to put up with it for now because I don’t want to shake things up right now. I’m just going to let it go for now.” And they suppress their own communication and chance for success. “For now” turns into a very long time.

If you need everyone to agree before you stand up to speak, you’ll never make anything happen.

Becoming more attractive

Most people don't know how to truly connect with others as themselves. There's always something holding them back, some self-consciousness, a feeling something is “missing”, or something they put between themselves and others to protect them.

Often this is manifested when you see presenters trying to connect with their audience through their PowerPoint slides. You can see the trouble they would have if you took the slides away from them. They’d feel exposed, vulnerable, unsure.

Whether it’s slides, a beautiful body, or some attitude a person assumes because they think it makes them impressive, it doesn’t make any difference. The REAL skill is connecting directly as yourself.

How to transform a meeting

Ayansh felt powerless. His promotion had put him in an extremely contentious engineering team. They didn’t discuss each other’s ideas, they shredded and destroyed them. No one listened. They were all sneering. Each one showing off how brilliant they could be, and the way to do that was to see the others go down in flames.

They were brilliant. But it was all being wasted.

The #1 rule of communication

What a group of successful execs will learn in Causative Communication, are the rules. Not the rules that I dreamed up, but the rules that are common to all human beings, crossing every border reaching every culture, every generation, rules that determine the winners and the losers, timeless rules deeply baked in to human nature, powerful rules that will still be active 500 years from now.

The first one they learn is unexpected. It’s foundational.

Others change in her presence

As I was teaching the concept of affinity, Bridget very bluntly told me she doesn’t have time for it. I told her that I understood, and with her busy schedule she certainly doesn’t have time to do anything additional that would add time. But I explained to her that affinity is not something you do in addition, it’s HOW you do what you’re ALREADY doing. It doesn’t take any time.

The power of intention to fix everything

Liza: “I’m leaving you.”

Matt: In shock. “Oh no you’re not.”

He was at home in Silicon Valley. Liza was calling from Boston. She was in a hotel room with the man she was leaving Matt for. She was on a business trip, but now she was telling Matt she wasn’t coming home. Matt just found out that their affair had been going on for months.

He knew things had gotten distant between them, and he felt responsible because he had been working too hard and had stopped really being present in their marriage. “I wasn’t there for her.” He suddenly realized what a mistake that was. But he loved Liza and he didn’t want her to go.

Matt was on the phone and thinking fast. He felt he was losing everything, his mind was a blank. He had just done Causative Communication and the only thing he could remember was intention.  

How to move a mountain

Many people don’t know what to do when they run into push-back, hostility, opposition, or resistance. Especially when it comes from groups. There are so many wrong ways, but there are also many right ways to transform it. They all rely on outrageously great communication.

This isn’t something you can do “half-way” and expect to generate extraordinary outcomes. This type of result requires an ability most anyone COULD achieve but one that few ever will.

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How to talk to a large audience

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Terror, fear, even a little anxiety, makes people talk too fast. When you talk too fast, your words lose their meaning. Correct pacing is the hallmark of a professional speaker. There was one thing that Mariela was doing that was causing ALL the problems I just mentioned. She was talking to EVERYONE.

It seems logical. You have 300 people in your audience - you should talk to 300. Right?

This is the worst thing you can do.

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Coaching with candid screenshots

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I take many candid screenshots during the virtual training, and a number of videos with small enough groups when the workshops are in person. A candid photo is a photo where the person is not posing, they don’t even know a photo of them is being taken.

As people go through the workshops, and they see their faces change in their screen shots, especially when they see the anxiety replaced with affinity, they almost can’t believe how good they look.

Your face alone has 42 muscles. Some sources say it has up to 60. Every single one of them reflects your attention and your affinity.

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The power of dignity

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How do you teach the principle of dignity? Most people wouldn’t know where to start.

I start with the word. People don’t know what it means. And if you can’t define it, you can’t do it.

Think to yourself, do you have crystal clarity on dignity?

I use a revolutionary new process called Word Clearing to teach extremely powerful concepts, including executive presence.

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Navigating the maze when the other person is stubborn

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People make a huge mistake thinking that just because they said something, that the other person “got it”.  That it registered.

When the person you’re talking to is solidly stuck in a particular viewpoint, when they have an obstinately fixed idea, there can be a time lapse between the time you say something and the time it registers.  Why? 

Your communication hasn’t ARRIVED.

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How to change someone without saying a word

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He was a hard-driving senior executive everyone was terrified of.  His criticisms were plenty, immediate and penetrating. Even so, the people in his division were fiercely loyal. He demanded, and they achieved.

Yet even the ones who had worked with him for years trembled with fear when they were called into his office. Most of his people don’t know what real listening is. They are too terrified of him to really listen, too terrified to really be there for him. You’re not hearing anything when you’re terrified. You’re focused on your own survival. You’ve got to really be there for someone for them to open up.

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So good they won't interrupt you

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Imagine being in a really good movie. Would you interrupt what’s happening on the screen? Never! You would never let anyone else interrupt either until it’s over.

The audience only gets restless and starts to talk, or wants to do something else, when what’s happening in front of them doesn’t hold their interest.

The right question to ask yourself is, “What does it take to be uninterruptible? What does it take to be so good, everyone wants to hear everything I have to say? How do I keep them totally captivated from my first word to my last?”

When do you give up on someone? That’s something only you can answer, but when the answer to this question affects tens of thousands of people, it’s worth pushing the limits of not giving up.

I’ve seen communication succeed despite all odds, and this is where REAL skill comes in.

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How to influence the leaders

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Some of the people that have come here for training have no authority and they’re being influenced by the people at the top in ways that block them from doing what really should be done. Their goal for the training is to learn how to influence their leaders, especially when the leaders don’t have the communication abilities needed for others to find them easy to talk to. Especially leaders who don’t listen.

 

When do you give up on someone? That’s something only you can answer, but when the answer to this question affects tens of thousands of people, it’s worth pushing the limits of not giving up.

I’ve seen communication succeed despite all odds, and this is where REAL skill comes in.

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The power of pure intention

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Intention is an invisible wave that carries your communication across and causes you to be successful in being fully understood.

 

Learning how to create this carrier wave is a game-changer.

People often try a variety of different approaches before they land on the precision it takes to create pure intention.

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Creating exceptional relationships with "difficult" people

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If you would like a little more magic in your life, raising your affinity for the other person is a super effective and rapid way to create it.

It’s not something that needs to happen only once in a while. You can do it in every conversation you have. Even in horrible, terrible, hammered situations with “difficult” people. Especially in those.

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