Coaching, Presentations
Ingrid Gudenas
How to move people when logic isn’t enough

David leads a large group in an organization that has over 80,000 people. They’ve been  getting hammered in the news for months now, trying to recover from mistakes made by the then-CEO five years ago.  Unfortunately, they’ve just had to announce layoffs.  There’s a tremendous amount of unsettling re-organization and re-shuffling going on. Where people will land is up in the air.  The future of the organization is uncertain and morale is at an all-time low.

David’s group is the only inspired group in the whole organization. They’re engaged, focused, forward-looking. And helping the new CEO turn the whole organization around. That wasn’t always true.

They’re inspired not because conditions are better for them, but because David changed the story he was telling them.

When David first came for Beyond Persuasion, his attempts to “inspire” his team were falling flat. He was saying all the right things: the new vision, the plan, the priorities, the outcomes, the call to action. All good, but none of it was working.

Coaching, Presentations
Ingrid Gudenas
How to become a fearless presenter

Most people begin presentations unsure how the audience will react. It’s the not-knowing that undermines self-confidence. They look for the first response to regain their footing. And when the reaction isn’t what they expected, confidence drops again.

Prediction vanquishes fear, even when the starting point looks dismal. You’re not needing. You’re not guessing. You’re not hoping or wishing. You’re able to predict. With certainty. Prediction becomes possible when …

Coaching, Presentations
Ingrid Gudenas
Communication Doesn’t Transmit Reality. It ...

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.

Coaching, Presentations
Ingrid Gudenas
The 10 rules of “Audience Logic”

Most people don’t know how to create instant acceptance. It’s rare to see someone who does. When the stakes are high, most think they’re being “logical” when they’re actually relying on a kind of logic that generates too many words. They talk a lot, present too much detail and explanation, believing it’s essential to creating understanding and agreement. Audiences don’t work like that.

Especially at the executive and senior levels. They have their own logic.

To be successful you have to master a different logic. Audience Logic. Audience Logic decides the outcome.

Here are the rules of Audience Logic (especially senior level audiences):

Coaching, Presentations
Ingrid Gudenas
How to win the audience before you say a word

Laura: “You weren’t watching me!”

Me: “No, I could hear you. I knew what you were doing. I was watching the audience to see what change you produced in them.”

Laura had asked me to be there when she presented at an industry conference with hundreds of potential customers. The revenue potential was enormous if she was successful with her presentation. I spent several days coaching her to get her messaging, and the way she delivered it, just right.

The big day came. I was watching the audience like a hawk. I wanted to see the audience reactions from the moment she said “Hello”, all the way through exactly how they looked as she walked off the stage. Were they looking at her with admiration as they applauded? Or shuffling around and checking their phones?

I started watching the audience before Laura even walked on. They were on their phones or talking to the person next to them.  Laura entered the room. I could feel something change in the room as they watched her walk. It was the way she was walking. They could see she carried herself differently.

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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How to be a soft-spoken powerhouse

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Amy came to Causative Communication thinking she had to learn to “be more forceful”, but that made her feel defeated because it was so far from who she really is, and it wasn’t who she wanted to be.  It meant sacrificing too important a part of herself.

I loved her immediately.

The problem wasn’t that Amy was soft-spoken. The problem was that she had absolutely no intention when she communicated.

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How to skillfully step into "frenzy" meetings

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Everyone also tells me, “I know that listening and acknowledging are ‘the right thing to do’” and they wish they could do it because, “A good person does it.”

But, there seems to be a big split between “The right thing to do” and GETTING THINGS DONE!

Of course, people want to do the right thing and be a good person, and the people I teach really are good people already. But more than anything, they need to GET THINGS DONE!

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Touching another human's heart...at work

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There’s a love that happens at work that’s not a romantic love. It comes from sharing and working together to achieve a deeply-felt, and deeply personal, purpose. It comes from pure appreciation. It comes from real admiration. It comes from the joy of creating something incredible with someone or someones. Perhaps you are thinking of someone in your life that you feel this for as you read this.  Then you know - it’s powerful and deep.

Large corporations give us an extremely limited vocabulary for expressing this deep love. And great restrictions on how we communicate it.

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