0:02 If you want to be seen as powerful,
0:04 respected, and confident, your words
0:06 have to match your ambition. I've spent
0:08 years working under executives, becoming
0:10 one myself, and learning from the most
0:12 respected people in the room. These are
0:14 the five communication skills that
0:16 separate those who get listened to from
0:18 those who get overlooked. Skill one is a
0:20 hard one. You have to stop speaking to
0:23 be liked and instead speak to lead. In
0:26 our company today, we have over 250 team
0:29 members. And so I get to see day in and
0:32 day out people who exude confidence and
0:35 act like leaders versus people who
0:37 accidentally erode their own
0:39 credibility. And they do this in the
0:41 simplest of ways. The mindset shift that
0:43 the people who are successful have is I
0:46 am a leader even if they aren't yet. The
0:48 mindset that people have versus the
0:51 mindset of I am in somebody else's
0:53 environment and therefore I have to be
0:56 less than or smaller or less certain.
0:57 When you are less certain in your
1:00 communication, it shows. So, in order to
1:03 be more certain, you can do a handful of
1:04 things to switch up the way that you
1:06 speak. One of the most important things
1:09 that you can do is actually mean what
1:11 you say and only say things that you are
1:13 certain of. CEOs, leaders, top
1:16 executives, they have a point of view.
1:18 They see themselves, they see their life
1:20 experiences, and they use where they're
1:23 at in order to frame what their point of
1:25 view truly is. And they're confident in
1:26 that frame. If you want to be able to be
1:28 more certain in your communication,
1:30 remember that your point of view is
1:32 important and you are there for a
1:34 reason. Now, the simple language tweaks
1:37 on this are as follows. Qualifying your
1:40 statements by saying I think or I feel
1:42 reduces your credibility. Just say what
1:45 you think or say how you feel. It's
1:46 obvious through the communication that
1:48 you are thinking or you are feeling
1:50 something. But those qualifiers make it
1:51 seem like you are uncertain. So,
1:53 consciously practice making these
1:56 language swaps. So instead of saying I
1:59 think we should try this instead say the
2:01 best path forward is another example
2:04 instead of saying I feel like this might
2:06 work say here's the strategy that will
2:09 get us this result. It is this simple
2:11 switch but removing you from the
2:14 conversation and just stating what you
2:16 see how you see it instantly increases
2:18 your credibility. Next is number two
2:20 which is that your emotions are making
2:23 you sound reactive and unsure. We have a
2:25 saying around here, high emotion, low
2:27 intelligence. Have you ever noticed that
2:30 people who are wildly emotional, always
2:32 talking about what's wrong and being
2:34 outrageously creative in their
2:36 storytelling, very rarely have a lot of
2:37 success around them. They don't have
2:39 people who are winning around them. They
2:41 don't have successful business
2:42 relationships. They don't have
2:44 successful businesses because the more
2:47 you use emotion, the less you're using
2:50 logic. Emotion just clouds your
2:52 decision-m ability. And effective
2:56 leaders are spectacular. They are
2:58 gangsters at being able to take a
3:00 situation, remove emotion, and be able
3:02 to logically make decisions very
3:03 quickly. And they trust their
3:05 decision-making process. The only way
3:07 you know you can trust your
3:08 decision-making process is if you have
3:10 your own internal confidence that you're
3:12 not being swayed by something based off
3:14 of the emotion that you have. You're
3:16 actually being swayed based off of
3:19 logic, based off of data. Just this
3:22 week, I had somebody pop off on me and
3:25 had this whole emotional outburst. It
3:27 was embarrassing and it instantly
3:29 reduced my confidence in this person.
3:32 Their inability to feel something, to
3:34 experience something, to have there be a
3:37 form of rejection in front of them and
3:39 be able to handle that with grace,
3:42 understanding, questions allowed me to
3:44 see this person through a very new lens.
3:46 And that new lens is they make decisions
3:48 based off of their emotion. And as I
3:50 looked a little bit further into this, I
3:52 actually started to see how there was a
3:53 lack of success in a variety of
3:55 different areas, which is a key
3:57 indicator that emotion is used in all
3:59 sorts of conversations. And instead of
4:01 creating confidence, it actually erodess
4:02 people's confidence, which means you
4:04 cannot be successful because without
4:06 other people as a leader, you're not
4:08 successful. You actually cannot by
4:10 definition be a leader if other people
4:13 don't trust and actually follow you. So
4:16 never let your emotions override your
4:18 message. One of the visuals I use to
4:20 help me during emotional situations is I
4:23 imagine myself being a blade of grass.
4:25 Follow me on this one. If you have a
4:28 blade of grass that is horizontal and
4:30 there is a rock that falls through the
4:32 blade of grass, the blade of grass isn't
4:34 going to stay hardened. It's actually
4:37 going to move with the pressure. It's
4:38 going to move with the rock and then is
4:40 going to bounce back up to its original
4:42 shape versus if you had a toothpick
4:45 there. A toothpick when a rock goes
4:47 right through it is going to rake. It's
4:50 very rigid. It's hard and it's frail. So
4:52 in situations instead of thinking of
4:54 yourself as somebody who's going to make
4:56 their point and who's going to prove
4:59 somebody wrong and get hardened like a
5:01 toothpick, imagine that you are a blade
5:03 of grass and that situation is just
5:05 going to fall through you. Not because
5:07 you don't care, but because you're not
5:09 going to get emotionally involved.
5:10 You're going to let the data that
5:12 they're giving you go through you.
5:13 You're going to let the emotion that
5:15 they're giving you pass by and then
5:17 you're going to respond in the way that
5:20 you should respond without the tense
5:22 rigidity of the toothpicks in your life.
5:24 Next is number three and focuses on
5:27 authority. This is the secret to getting
5:29 people to stop interrupting you and
5:31 start actually listening. Great leaders
5:34 don't speak more, they speak with
5:36 weight. What about what you're saying
5:39 actually matters. When you think of
5:41 every conversation you're in as an
5:43 opportunity for you to make an impact,
5:45 you will show up to those conversations
5:47 differently. Any meeting that you're
5:49 attending, any conversation you're a
5:52 part of, it has to matter because as a
5:54 leader, you have a million things
5:56 pulling at your attention, there are no
5:58 shortage of things on your to-do list,
6:00 emails that you could be answering,
6:01 presentations that you could be making,
6:04 but instead you're in that room for a
6:06 reason. If you recognize that you have
6:08 nothing to say and there's no reason for
6:09 you to be there, leave that
6:12 conversation. A leader knows where their
6:14 time is best spent and they prioritize
6:17 accordingly. So whenever I walk into a
6:19 room, I know the reason I am going into
6:22 that room. I ask myself, what is my
6:25 target? When I know I have a target, I
6:27 have authority going into the room
6:29 because I'm clear on why I'm there. Most
6:32 people just go through the motions. They
6:33 show up. They're not even sure why
6:36 they're there. They just listen, think
6:38 about other things, maybe distract
6:40 themselves, answer emails. That is not
6:42 what great leaders do. Great leaders
6:44 know that there are a plethora of
6:45 problems for them to solve and their
6:47 time is going to be spent solving the
6:49 most important problem. Therefore, their
6:51 attention and their communication where
6:53 they are truly does matter. So, if
6:55 you're struggling with authority,
6:57 re-evaluate where you're spending your
6:59 time. Go into the meetings where you do
7:01 choose to participate and actually
7:04 participate. Have a point of view. Use
7:06 your authority because you've thought
7:08 through the situation and you know that
7:09 there's a problem and there's something
7:10 that you can help with or you need to
7:12 better understand as a way for you to
7:15 build up your own authority in your
7:17 mind. Leaders matter. They drive
7:20 initiatives forward. So never enter a
7:21 room where you don't know why you're
7:23 there and you will all of a sudden have
7:25 more authority in your communication
7:26 simply because you took a handful of
7:28 minutes in order to really understand
7:31 why your time was best spent there when
7:34 participating. and leading meetings, you
7:36 steer the conversation with clear,
7:38 confident delivery. Next up is number
7:41 four, which is to become a question
7:43 master. You do not need all the answers
7:45 to lead. You just need to know how to
7:47 ask the right questions. The best
7:50 leaders put themselves in a position to
7:53 solve the most complicated problems in a
7:55 business. And in order to solve a
7:57 complicated problem, there has to be
8:00 some sort of constraint, some level of
8:03 confusion, and no clear path forward. So
8:05 if you are an effective communicator,
8:08 you are able to address and properly
8:12 identify what questions you need to ask,
8:14 what information is missing to be able
8:16 to make the best decision to move that
8:18 problem forward. I like to think about
8:20 this as untangling a necklace. When
8:22 you're looking at untangling a necklace,
8:24 it's taking one piece after another
8:26 after another to really start to
8:28 understand strategically what is the
8:30 core knot inside this tangled necklace.
8:34 Your job as a leader is to unnot many
8:36 necklaces. The best leaders think of
8:38 themselves as professional problem
8:40 solvers. But the reason they're able to
8:41 solve these problems better than more
8:44 junior people is simply because they ask
8:46 more questions. It is not the
8:48 expectation that you know everything and
8:50 you're coming at it from this high
8:51 vantage point to be able to tell
8:54 everybody what to do. Often times you
8:55 don't know what to do when you're
8:57 entering that meeting or that problem.
8:59 It's a new problem. You see, great
9:02 leaders guide conversations by asking
9:05 powerful and strategic questions. So
9:07 challenge yourself to ask these
9:10 questions. Instead of what do you think,
9:13 ask what data supports this decision?
9:16 And instead of how's it going, ask
9:17 what's the biggest challenge you're
9:19 facing right now. Instead of can we fix
9:22 this, ask what would it take to ensure
9:25 this never happens again. The quality of
9:27 your questions determine the quality of
9:29 your results. Here's a little trick that
9:31 my parents taught me in order to become
9:33 better at asking great questions. When I
9:36 was growing up, we would play the
9:38 question game at any sort of social
9:40 function. The question game meant that
9:42 little Natalie was supposed to walk up
9:45 to an adult and ask them three
9:47 questions. So my mom at a social
9:49 gathering would say, "Go talk to Mr.
9:52 Bob." So I would walk over to Mr. Bob
9:54 and my target was to ask Mr. Bob three
9:56 questions. Well, it's terrifying talking
9:58 to adults when you're young, and
9:59 sometimes it's still terrifying to talk
10:01 to adults. So I had to overcome that
10:05 fear. But then I also had to ask three
10:07 questions that kept the conversation
10:09 engaging. Well, as a very young kid, I
10:11 wasn't able to ask super engaging
10:12 questions. The questions might sound
10:15 like, "Mr. Bob, I realize that Bobby,
10:18 your son, is going to baseball practice
10:20 these days. Does he love baseball?" And
10:22 then Mr. Bob's going to answer back. And
10:23 then by the answer, I'm going to
10:25 hopefully be able to ask a second
10:27 question. Well, often times I couldn't
10:28 actually make it to question three
10:30 because I would run out of things to ask
10:32 questions on. So, I'd go back to my mom.
10:34 My mom would say, "Here are a few other
10:36 question choices that you could ask Mr.
10:38 Bob." and she'd make me go walk back to
10:41 Mr. Bob and ask him the final questions.
10:44 This practice of getting good at asking
10:46 questions, keeping the conversation
10:48 going, understanding what really matters
10:51 is priceless and an invaluable trait if
10:53 you really want to communicate like an
10:55 expert. That brings us to number five,
10:58 which is what most people do wrong. You
11:00 have to stop oversharing. I will never
11:01 forget the first time I had to fire
11:05 somebody. I was 23 years old and I was
11:07 coached ahead of time to say a very
11:10 specific statement that led me to a very
11:12 specific conclusion to not get into some
11:14 large debate as to whether or not we
11:16 were going to fire this team member. And
11:18 instead of saying what I needed to say,
11:19 I started
11:22 overexplaining. I started telling them
11:24 how wonderful they are and how much I
11:26 liked them and how much of a pleasure it
11:27 had been to work with them. And as I
11:30 talked more like that, I became more and
11:32 more tense and more and more
11:34 uncomfortable. So I kept saying things
11:36 like that. And instead of successfully
11:39 firing the person, we just effectively
11:41 had a nice little touch point in the
11:42 middle of the day. And I had to take
11:45 another swing at it the next week. It
11:47 was awkward. It was embarrassing. And it
11:50 was the exact opposite of what somebody
11:52 who has confidence and presence would
11:53 do. When you know what you're going to
11:56 say, say it. You say it with grace. You
11:59 say it with directness and you are firm.
12:01 It's not because you don't like people.
12:03 You don't deliver communication.
12:05 Overexplaining is an indicator that you
12:08 are not confident. When you do speak
12:10 with confident people, they say things
12:13 with effect. They have a message. They
12:15 clearly articulate that message and they
12:17 don't continue to communicate. I like to
12:19 think of this like an airplane. I'm sure
12:21 you've had an experience where somebody
12:24 talks and they continue to talk and they
12:26 continue to talk and the plane is about
12:28 to land, but instead of actually
12:30 landing, nope, we're going back through
12:32 it again and you already know that they
12:34 said that, but they're about to land it
12:36 and nope, there's another new angle to
12:38 just restate what they already stated.
12:41 It's uncomfortable as a listener. It's
12:42 difficult to communicate with somebody
12:44 like this and it clearly shows that the
12:46 person isn't confident and is
12:48 uncomfortable. So instead of
12:50 overexplaining or softening your
12:53 feedback, be direct. More than that,
12:56 seeking validation can instantly erode
13:00 your authority. And highle CEOs actually
13:03 get authority because they are direct
13:05 and they are deliberate. So be like a
13:07 confident CEO. They don't need
13:09 validation and neither do you. And
13:12 another hack on this is watch really
13:14 successful people communicate. I didn't
13:16 say listen to how they communicate. I
13:18 said, "Watch how they communicate."
13:21 You'll notice that they don't talk like
13:23 this. This is not the way that somebody
13:25 who is successful communicates. They sit
13:27 up straight. Their shoulders are back.
13:29 They have confidence through their body
13:31 language. They move their hands through
13:33 this certain little section of their
13:35 bodies right here. They don't sit there
13:37 and fidget playing with their fingers,
13:39 playing with their rings, moving their
13:40 feet around. They're able to sit there
13:43 comfortably, have a direct conversation,
13:45 eye to eye with another human being. So,
13:47 it is very simple to just throw your
13:50 shoulders back, sit up a little taller,
13:52 and look like you are more confident
13:54 before you actually become more
13:56 confident. One of the things that I had
13:58 to work on for a while, the way you
14:00 project your voice also matters. And
14:01 this was actually something I had to
14:04 work on for quite some time. I tended to
14:06 whisper for a very clear reason. I used
14:09 to get quieter when I would voice my
14:10 opinion. And that reason is pretty
14:13 obvious. I wasn't certain of my opinion.
14:15 I didn't feel like I could present my
14:17 idea and be passionate and be excited
14:19 because I was actually uncertain and you
14:22 could tell not just by the words I was
14:24 saying but by the volume that I was
14:26 using to portray my ideas. So I had to
14:30 actively work on not talking like this
14:32 and trying to quiet myself but by being
14:34 louder and being more communicative
14:36 through my body language but also
14:38 through the volume which I was speaking.
14:40 I had to work on this for many months
14:42 and it was not a short process. Every
14:44 single time I would start whispering,
14:46 I'd have my core team of people tell me,
14:47 "Hey, Natalie, you're whispering again."
14:49 And I'd be like, "Okay, good to know.
14:50 I'm going to project. I'm going to get
14:53 clear on what I'm saying." Because
14:55 clarity matters in communication. So,
14:56 when you find you're doing some weird
14:58 things, putting your shoulders in,
15:00 starting to whisper, fidgeting, just
15:02 remember, future you doesn't communicate
15:05 like that. So, fix it in the moment and
15:07 deliver the effective communication. If
15:09 you master these five skills, I
15:10 guarantee that you will be able to
15:13 communicate better than 99% of people.
15:15 And if you are still feeling stuck,
15:16 check out my next video that will help
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