Marten’s Chief of Staff:
“When he talks, you feel it down to your core.”
Me:
“It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Chief of Staff:
“What did you do to him?”
Me:
“I didn’t do anything to him.”
I created an environment where he could be amazing. I showed him things about communication he didn’t know, and helped him develop a level of command over it most people never experience: the ability to shape both the message and the way he delivers it so it reaches people and changes what they think is true, important, and actionable.
Once Marten had that, he could create the same effect anywhere. Any audience. Any room.
And then I turned him loose.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Most leaders assume communication transmits reality, that if the words are clear enough, they will see it.
But communication doesn’t transmit reality.
It creates it.
That’s a subtle but seismic shift.
And that means every time you speak, especially at a senior level, you are not just sharing ideas.
You are shaping how reality is experienced in the room.
Communication at the highest level is a causative force. It alters understanding. It reorganizes priorities. It changes what people see as possible, or not.
Most leaders already sense this. They know that something real is at stake when they speak.
What leaders are usually trying to express doesn’t live on the surface. It lives deeper, in judgment, conviction, decision and resolve.
The people they’re talking to arrive with opinions, assumptions, judgments, and conclusions already in place. Until communication reaches them on that level, it’s just words, easy to set aside.
Most communication stays on the surface. The words are clear. The logic is sound. But nothing actually shifts because nothing actually lands.
When it reaches deeper, it changes how people think.
To reach someone at their core is to shape the message so it enters the place where their judgments become decisions, and their decisions become action.
Communication shapes reality.
As a leader, you are not outside that process. You are the intelligence through which it happens.
This level of communication isn’t rare because it’s unattainable. It’s rare because most people never decide to master it. It’s a skill, one that can be learned, practiced, and refined. And once you have it, it changes what’s possible in every conversation that matters.
Be the cause!