Speaker 1: Does it ever feel like executive communications are hard, but somehow you're observing other people and it seems really easy for them? What I want to share with you today are five key principles that you can implement to make executive communications easy. And the way that I'm going to share it with you is I'm going to start by sharing five mistakes that people make and then to share a solution moving forward for them. And as you're going through these mistakes, I want you to reflect on your own career path, your own communications as well so you can see how that's been playing out and therefore you can see the application of what I'm about to share. And if this resonates with you, I want you to comment below and let me know what resonates with you the most. As well, remember to subscribe to my channel, ring the notification bell as well so you can be notified every time I release a new video every single week. So let's go. Mistake number one. The mistake here is thinking that the purpose of executive communication is to impress. And here's why that is a mistake. When we feel the need to impress somebody, we necessarily need to puff ourselves up. We need to necessarily put ourselves above our audience. And in that moment, we need to be able to be impressive. So think about it. When you're impressive to someone, you're trying to make an impression and impress them. We need to be puffed up. We need to be grand. We need to be proud. And therefore we need to look down on someone and show them why we are better than. And in that communication, that mindset as well, the attitude and their approach to communication comes across inauthentic. It comes across strong. It comes across rubbing the wrong way. However it is that can be perceived, there's a degree of inauthenticity there. So what's the solution? If you've been thinking that executive communication is there for you to be impressive, for you to make an impression, I submit to you that the purpose is different. Shift your mindset because the purpose of executive communication is not to impress. The purpose of executive communication rather is to impact. Speak to impact, not to impress. So here's what I mean by that. When you speak to make an impact, this is where you are seeing your audience as your equals. They are not above you. They are not beneath you. You don't need to puff yourself up. You don't need to pretend to be somebody you're not. You didn't need to put on personas or to act as though, or to pretend about something else. You just are present to make an impact because you understand to make an impact, you are making your most important contribution. You are serving to your highest level. You are making the best contribution with insights to the most thorough way possible, right through to completion. That is how you make an impact. And simply shifting the way you see the purpose of executive communication will cause you to show up differently. It will cause you to show up present and poised. It will cause you to show up as a leader, and it will cause you to show up with the calmness that you have desired. So speak to impact, not to impress. That is the first milestone and it stems from the mistake that most people make and that is touted in social media that we need to make a strong first impression. So think that through. What does it mean when we try to impress somebody? What exactly, what is the essence of what we're doing when we need to try to impress somebody? Is that truly authentic? So speak to impact, not to impress. That is the first one. Mistake number two that I see in executive communications is not creating a fair exchange through communications. You see, what happens is that when you're communicating at the executive level, you have different people coming together and every individual that comes together in that room or in that conversation, every individual has a different set of values and every individual is driven by that set of values. Their actions, their decisions, their behaviors, their perspectives are all driven by that value. But you have different values coming together and that's why conflict is very common. That's why conflict is unavoidable because you have different values. Sometimes another person's value is so different from yours that it appears to be contradicting. It appears to be direct opposite of yours. Opposition to yours. So what happens is that you have these different values come together, different sets of values come together and every individual coming together in that conversation, the one thing they'd want to achieve, the one thing that they're dedicated towards is how do I fulfill my values? How do I achieve my goals? How do I fulfill what's most important to me? How do I achieve the top priority that I have set for myself? Everybody coming into that conversation has that in common. So what do you do? The key of executive communication is coming through a resolution and coming through to solve problems and coming through united on the other side. So how do you create that union? If it is true what I shared with you that individuals just want to fulfill their top priorities, just want to fulfill their most important values, then the key is how do you create a fair exchange? How can you fulfill what's important for them and also what's important to you as well? That is a fair exchange. And that is the only situation in which relationships are meaningful is when there is a fair exchange between parties involved. The biggest mistake I see that comes out of this mistake is that individuals come up into executive communication situations and they just share information. They just share data. They just share updates. And that's the extent of their executive communications. The problem with that is that now you just end up sounding like everybody else. Sharing data, sharing information, sharing updates. You just sound like everybody else. But the higher level of communication and effective executive communications is exactly creating that fair exchange. Just simply sharing data, information, knowledge, and updates, just simply sharing those things does not create a fair exchange. A fair exchange is the fulfillment of individual values, right? So that is mistake number two. Mistake number three is not developing communication skills. You notice how this deals with the skillset. The first two mistakes, mistake number one and two dealt with your mindset. This one deals with your skillset. Oftentimes career professionals work very hard at developing their technical skills, going to school, going to get certifications, diplomas, master's degrees, MBAs, going to really work hard and taking courses, technical knowledge to build their knowledge base around their technical area of expertise. Oftentimes career professionals spend a lot of time, energy, money, and resources in developing those technical skills only to find later on at the executive level that those technical skills matter less and less and less. And what matters more and more is your ability to communicate those skills. Society calls these softer skills. Society likes to call them soft skills, but you're going to notice at this level that they're not so soft after all. At the level of executive and beyond, when you are a senior manager wanting to break into the boardroom, wanting to break into executive levels, you're going to notice that people who communicate advance farther and faster. People who are effective in their communications, who can express and articulate very well, they advance into leadership. They advance and they are given invitations to become an executive. And that's because communication skills is where it's at. So the mistake that people make is focusing so much on executive or sorry, focusing so much on technical skills at this level and not enough emphasis on developing communication skills. Now communication skills is not just about what you say and how you say it. Communication skills is not about reducing your accent or being able to pronounce words clearly. That's not only communications. That's such a small sliver of communication skills. Communication skills also involves leadership. How do you lead effectively? How do you communicate the vision? How do you get everybody on board? How do you get buy-in? How do you negotiate effectively? How do you change direction and communicate different decisions? How do you assure that all of your team's voices are being heard and create greater unification? Those are all communications as well. Not to mention presenting, not to mention being able to give feedback. Those are all communications. You see it's much more than just reducing your accent or pronouncing words or your vocal intonations. It's much more than that. It's much deeper than that. It's also being able to navigate the landscape around you so that you can grow so that you can manage different cultures that you're working with, different educational backgrounds, different communication styles and everybody who has different opinions. How do you navigate that complex landscape? That's also communication skills too. So if you're listening to this and you feel, yes, and now I see it and it's important to you, then I invite you to work with me. In my executive coaching program, I focus on helping you to master your communication skills, but also on developing the right mindset to step up into executive leadership. How do you develop the right mindset? Then how do you develop the right skill set? And finally, what is the tool set to advance? If you're serious about achieving this, then below in the description, I have a link to apply for my executive coaching program. And this is where you're going to either talk to myself or a member of our team to ensure that it is the right fit for us to work together. And if it is, then I'm excited for what you're about to experience and how you can grow and develop as a person. So click the link below and I'll see you on the inside. So what is mistake number four? Mistake number four is trying to find opportunities. A lot of career professionals that I teach and coach in my program, they've been trying to look hard for opportunities. They go on Google to Google their companies and look at what job postings they have. They go on LinkedIn to look for job postings there, indeed to look for job postings. They go to network soirees to see what opportunities people are opening up and they wait for opportunities. Every once in a while, periodically, once a week or once a month, they go again and they look again, finding opportunities. That is mistake number four. Stop looking for opportunities. Stop finding opportunities and instead become the kind of person that they discover that is the person who can fulfill the roles and responsibilities they desire. How do you make yourself more discoverable? Stop looking and becoming and instead become more discoverable. Now get this. If there's something noteworthy about you, this is where you can step up to really demonstrate the value you have to bring for that next role. And more importantly, to position yourself at that next level that you want to be. The key is to start positioning yourself right now because there is a position, there is a role in your mind that is inspiring to you, that is fulfilling your calling and your life purpose. What is that role? What is it that is aligned with who you are and the values that you have? There is a position like that. What is it? What will you be doing? And chances are you don't have that title yet, but you need to already be positioning yourself there. And the positioning is what helps you to become discoverable. So when you become discoverable, they come and find you. You're not looking for opportunities as somebody who is unknown to them. You become discoverable and they see the value that you bring and they come to you because you can become the person who can fulfill the roles and responsibilities they desire. So that is the fourth point. And now we come to the final mistake. Mistake number five. And mistake number five is communicating what you know. Now, I get that this sounds like it's very counterintuitive because we've been taught and programmed to talk about what we know, to demonstrate what we know. The problem with that is that at the executive level, communicating what you know is facts and information and data. That's not what transforms. And that's a lot of detail. So instead of that, and I get it, what stems from that, the drive to communicate what we know, the drive to it comes back to mistake number one. Remember, mistake number one is the thought that the purpose of executive communication is to impress. And that's where it comes from because we feel the need to impress and that's why we tell everybody what we know. We want to communicate what we know. It's that need to impress. Remember the correction to mistake number one was not to, instead of speaking to impress, speak to impact. And so speaking towards that, the best way to speak to make an impact is instead of speaking what you know, instead of communicating what you know, articulate your principles, your principles. These are the thought processes behind what you know. And when you communicate on a principles basis, when you communicate at the principles level, this is how you increase, you significantly increase the perception of the value you have to bring. Right? So those are the five mistakes and the solutions to each of those five mistakes. Now, if you are right now in executive communications and you're finding that there's an intense fear whenever you speak to executives and you're wondering, how do I overcome that fear? Then in my next video, I'm going to talk exactly about that. How do you overcome the fears of speaking in front of executives? That video is coming right up next. I'll see you there.