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