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.

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.

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 …

“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…

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.

Bryony hung up from the virtual meeting with her boss with a heavy heart and a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had just gotten the news she dreaded.

Bryony was a Senior Manager who’d requested a promotion to Director. Her boss said, “Well, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll recommend you because you’re doing good work” and had unenthusiastically taken Bryony’s request to her boss. The answer was not only “Not now,” the top boss dismissed Bryony’s future possibilities as well.

Her boss thought she was being helpful when she said,” You don’t really have a chance of getting promoted because you don’t have leadership communication skills.”

Bryony had no idea what she was talking about. She asked what skills were they?  The boss had trouble defining them, just that Bryony wasn’t coming across as “a real leader”.

Bryony sat for five minutes trying to figure it out, wondering if she needed to be bossier. It was not her style and if that’s what was required, it was hopeless. She also didn’t see how being bossy was a good thing.

A large corporation had acquired 8 successful companies through their Mergers and Acquisitions. They paid a lot for them. Each one of them had a CEO. Now the CEOs were Senior Vice Presidents, high up in the large company, but no longer the men in charge of everything and everyone.

The CEO had gone through our special virtual Leadership Coaching Program based on Mastering Virtual Presentations. When he saw each one of these 8 new SVPs speak to internal audiences, he cringed. They had good content, but lots of sharp edges and missing key skills in their delivery that would make them great. So, he signed them up for the program.

The 8 men showed up skeptical and arrogant, but willing to give me a chance to see if there was anything good in what I presented. They didn’t think so, but they weren’t rude about it. They were quite pleasant. But arrogant. Especially with each other. Each one tremendously competent. Each one exceptionally accomplished, and the proof was the organizations they had built from nothing and then sold for hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars.

Everything begins with awareness. When you are not fully aware of them, you lose sight of the person in front of you. An invisible wall forms, you unknowingly start talking at them, and your words can’t quite reach them. But when you become fully aware of them, truly present with them, the wall dissolves. You don’t have to try. Connection happens on its own. You start talking to them. Your communication flows naturally, it becomes effortless, and you reach them.

Ben didn’t want to just “improve” his communication skills. He wanted to stand out.

When he gave a presentation at a conference, he didn’t only want applause. He wanted people talking about it in the hall afterwards and telling everyone when they got back home.

When he met with his boss, Ben didn’t just want “a good meeting”. He wanted his boss fully engaged and talking to his boss about it, and that boss telling it all to his boss.

When he met with his team, he didn’t just want to “go through the agenda.” He wanted a team spirit that lifted everyone higher.

He wanted peers who respected him and sought out his opinions. He wanted customers with long-term, enthusiastic loyalty.

He wanted people’s faces to light up when he walked into a room.

Ben was done with ordinary. He wanted extraordinary.

I love AI. I use it every day, I can’t believe how much time it saves me. Many of the people we’re coaching and training are not only using it, they’re creating it. They’re the ones designing it, making it all happen, and even shaping the future of AI for all of us. So, how do they feel about it?

This week I wrote about Human Connection in the World of AI. But I did something different. I recorded it as a podcast. Since I’m talking about human connection, it felt right that you should hear it in my voice.

Good listening is composed of attentiveness, strong interest, understanding and a friendly feeling toward the other person.

During coaching they learn how to really listen. Often for the first time. I teach them to confront, to really face that person, to stop thinking, to stop judging and evaluating, to stop formulating their own response, to be there comfortably, to pay attention and simply receive and fully understand what the other person is telling them. And to let the other person finish. To be strongly interested in every word. To really be there all the way through. To make sure the person is satisfied they have told you everything before you respond.

Does that sound easy to you?