Launch Module 3 - Evening Course [8.5.2020]

Look like I lost the audio.

Excuse me.

Jerry, I'm going to give you host again.

Hey, everyone.

Hello, hello.

Hello.

Gary, Jeff is really gonna like today's module.

Yep.

It involves beer.

I like that.

Amy, where are you?

Amy? That's got beach umbrella written all over it. Amy.

I know. My husband got a flat tire, so I am stuck in the front.

Oh, we lost her.

Sorry.

I'm in the front yard watching kids do slip and slide.

Oh, that's great.

She does live in San Diego where it is. I do 75 and sunny all year, all the time.

I don't think there's any better weather year round than San Diego.

Yeah, it's pretty good, except for, you know, the fires and the floods and all the other terrible things you have to deal with.

Traffic. Traffic.

No, nobody gets to say it again.

You don't deal with three. Three months of bone chilling cold.

You only get three minutes of bone chilling cold, dude.

See, that's a secret about Colorado. No one knows. They all think it's cold. And I'm like, no. Our winters are extremely mild. You live up in the mountains.

Yes.

You're gonna get 400 inches of snow. But down here on the Front range, it is 60 in January. Don't tell anybody because we don't want anybody else moving out here. And it's sunny there, right? It's sunny a lot. Yes.

Andy, where are you in color?

We're in Fort Collins, so hour north of Denver.

I spent many years in Denver. Three of my four kids were born at Rose Medical Center.

Oh, okay, cool.

So I love the weather out there. They're trying to move back.

Yes. It's a secret we don't like to share.

I'm originally from Colorado. I grew up in Evergreen, and all my family's still back there. But we always had a bumper sticker growing up that said, don't californicate Colorado.

Already happened.

Why?

Because people from California move there. Yes. They're leaving California in droves.

And they changed the culture. Yeah.

I will tell you, and no offense to anybody from California or Texas, Fort Collins has had a massive influx of Californians and Texans, and it has absolutely changed the culture.

Really?

Yes. Yep. That's why he's wearing a pink shirt.

Well, with that, Jeff, I think we'll start.

Can't start any better way than that.

That's fantastic. All right, so Joan is not here, but hopefully she'll join us in progress.

She actually might not join. I think that was the week she was going to listen to recording. She's on vacation.

Okay, good. Good to know. I will follow with her. So as we come into Module 3 here of launch, quick recap of everything we have kind of come up to this point and I want to whittle it down to the essentials. You now have a sense of brand, you know who you are, and after last week, you should have a really good sense of what your priorities are and how to prioritize yourself as a leader, to lead yourself first so that you are better positioned to manage others as well as to produce at your job. Before we dive into module three, which is going to be how to more effectively communicate to your people in this remote work world, virtual communication world, let's do a real quick recap with Andy as we go back establishing. Wait a second. I've got the wrong one up. I apologize.

Well, while Jerry's pulling that up, let's go back. I'm going to go. I'm going to call on random people, go through the list here. And I want you to think back to last week. And number one, want you to think what was one aha, or insight you had from module two with time management and productivity. And then I want you to list off your number one personal priority right now and your number one business or professional priority right now. So with that being said, why don't we start with Elizabeth.

For me, my number one personal is the kids.

Professionally, it's kind of just continuing to find the groove. I don't know how to say it in the virtual space.

And then what was your other question?

Any insights? Any aha from last week?

Breakthroughs.

You know, a lot of what you did we train on already. So I think for me it was just continuing with my morning routine and kind of focusing on, you know, starting the day off.

Cool.

Awesome. Laura.

Let me make sure. Am I. Yeah, okay. I'm unmuted. Sorry. I would say let me go on back to my list here. So my. My number one professional is finishing coaching notes to wrap up a project. So I was just kind of thinking about how I prioritize that to get that done for tomorrow.

And my personal is actually reading a book on suicide prevention that I'm doing that I'm really enjoying. And then my. I don't know if this is an aha moment, but just kind of taking. Taking thought around some of the feedback around managing others. And I was just thinking how thankful I am that I don't actually manage anyone anymore. And. But thinking about how useful that information would have been about two years ago when I was managing about 60 people. So I was kind of feeling thankful about that and thinking, well, I'll file this away.

For others, we'll call that a backdoor way of showing gratitude, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Excellent.

That's awesome. Amy, how about you?

Okay. So for me, it was kind of actually the same to what Lisa and Laura were saying in regards to. So personally, I am really trying to do what my perfect morning was, which was getting exercise early in the day. And it didn't happen every day. But definitely, I think it's something that I recognize is really important professionally. I think I really like the idea of color coding my schedule. I already do the time blocking or try to do it, but I think the color coding was a brilliant way that I had that I'm trying to integrate. And then as far as insights, similarly to Laura, I am so thankful I am not the director of anything.

I recognize how difficult that was.

Yeah, well. And what you're going to learn today, too, I think this is why this is an important module, especially for anybody leading teams, is we get so wrapped up in learning about the people we manage, we fail to let people get to know us. And so you'll see how today module three is going to be very impactful on how you can do that, especially in this virtual setting. Chris?

All right, here we go. So I guess personally work life balance and working on the life balance side of things.

Pulling away from the work a bit and then professionally looking at, I guess, leadership more often than the management side, excuse me, and focusing more on taking care of those that report to me is, I think I do that pretty well now, but I know I can definitely improve. And then I guess the aha thing is twofold. One exercise, definitely. Jerry, when you showed that time block all the way across, that hit me like a ton of bricks. And I this morning and several mornings prior to, have followed through with that. And my day starts a little earlier than yours. Usually I will be out of bed by five and try to get out on the road by six on the bike. And then the other thing I wanted to say was that.

I think in my. Even in my leadership role, I'm too flexible with my schedule and those tasks that I have to do. For instance, today I got a call that on a job that we just finished, a mover was moving some folks into a multifamily facility and the mover hit one of our concrete tees in the parking deck and damaged it severely. So I got a phone call and was immediately taken into that. And so no matter What I had on my schedule. If I didn't answer that call, I'm sure it would have been taken care of. But it's nice to know in case there is, you know, a worse situation where there's injuries. There was no. But nobody was injured or anything like that. And it wasn't really anything attributed to us, but yet we're still on the project. That area has been turned over, but yet, you know, we have to take responsibility and provide a good response. So usually upper management should be brought into those difficult situations. So again, flexible, because there's always little things like that happening all around me.

That's the key, Chris, is if you really focus on owning your morning and getting that big priority out of the way right away, odds are that that fire, that urgent need probably not going to happen first thing in the morning. And now mentally, you just open the space of being more flexible throughout the day that if something like that happens, you're just much more open minded and okay with having to take care of it.

Understood. Very good. Thank you.

Awesome, awesome. Jeff, how about you?

Yeah.

So priorities remain the same as far as, you know, family. I do need to do some work on the fitness piece. My wife sitting across from me in the office here, so she's hearing this. Commitments I'm gonna have to hold to.

Professionally. The insights led to my professional piece. The quote I like the quote from, I think was that book. The one thing it reminded me of, the Zen quote around life is about chopping wood and carrying water. It's the unsexy things that I tend to just avoid and I'll move to other things that I think are more interesting. But then the unsexy things just build and become crises. So I think getting in the mindset of, you know, this is boring and routine, but like you said, getting it done as early in the day as possible, then that leaves the rest day to be more creative and do things that are sexier, more fun for me. So I really have to work on that professionally. That's the area that I really want to nail down because I think working from home and not having direct reports, things like that, you can start to create this little space where you actually think you have flexibility. You don't and you trick yourself into that. So.

Yep.

And you have to, especially working from home, you have to give yourself gaps to unwind and recharge a little bit. So important, especially if you're on your laptop. Ms. Lauren, how was your birthday?

It was really good.

Good.

So personally, what I'm focusing on is physical and mental health. And I already have like a morning routine, so that like helps a lot with that. And then as far as professionally, I use Google Calendar and I color code and I also have like a random Google Doc where I just sometimes brain dump everything that's going on in the week and that just helps me like look at it straight on. And I'm kind of using that and the calendar to prepare myself for like virtual classes and finishing up like the school year this year. In addition to planning out like portfolio work and how I'm gonna like finish that.

One of the insights I had was like going through my week and like time blocking. I realized that I have to move after I do a time block. Like I can't be like, I have, I finish a task and then I have to like move. So that's gonna be a little challenging to like get used to doing more things.

In a row and like being able to just like charge through a lot of.

When you say now when you say you have to move, like physically, literally move.

Yeah, physically move.

Well, just remember, like, if you're working on one thing and you complete it or whatever, give yourself that space to physically move, get up, recharge, you know, have a cup of coffee, take a break, go for a walk, whatever, and then get back at it to do the next Friday. Don't think you're going to crank right through priorities. One, two, three, like that. It's not going to happen. You have to give yourself break. You have to give yourself breaks in between. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay.

Especially you brought up a great point. College kids right now with this virtual setting where they're going to work from home. Time management is going to be the ultimate maker or breaker for college.

Yeah.

So awesome. Pam.

Hello.

Personal goal is re envisioning my next life phase because I've got my youngest going off to college and my oldest.

Can you speak up, Pam? Oh, yeah.

So I have my youngest going off to college and my oldest coming home from college.

So you know, we're gonna be empty nesters for a day and a half.

And the one you wish wasn't leaving is leaving and the one you wish would stay away is coming home.

It's all good. They're very different. But that's part of the reimagining because it's not gonna be just, oh, we'll still have a kid at home. It's a different kid.

Yep.

Right.

Different personality. Yep.

Totally different ages. And then professional is trying to really focus on providing quality training in this, you know, I Keep playing with my format when we're virtual like this. So it's important to me that I keep honing it and sticking with it.

Awesome.

The only insight that I really liked was thinking about the perfect morning. Now that I'm not on the road training and training, but I'm not traveling, I'm able to kind of capture my early, my best morning, favorite morning, whatever the words were. Perfect morning because I don't have the chaos of travel.

You're going to love a tool. We're sharing the second half of the coaching tonight, which is a short cycle learning module. And it's something I think that you will be able to adapt very quickly to your training programs and you'll see a much greater impact and much better feedback from using it. So I think you'll really enjoy tonight.

Great.

Yeah. Awesome. Zach, how about you?

I'm gonna say I'm a little jealous of Laura and Amy there about not having to manage people anymore because that is just a lot of fun.

For.

Me on the personal is a little more intentional father and daughter time. Be more intent with like the planning some trips and different, more fun things.

She's six, so this will be the.

Good time of making memories that last for her and things like that. Professionally is working on better communication, team building. And that kind of ties in with my aha moment when we were talking about. I forgot what you called it, Jerry. With the.

Having a gallon of liquid and trying to. Trying to give so much. Them only being able to retain 4 ounces or something at the time, which.

That kind of hit me up. Oh yeah.

I kind of vomit a whole bunch of information on somebody expecting them to remember it all. That certain people can only retain so much at a time. So being more focused on working through a better way to explain or get my point across in segments, I guess, if you will, versus trying to get.

It all at one time. And one of the principles that you'll be able to tap into real quickly, Zach. And this works for everybody, Pam, for you, with training, for everybody in the remote workforce space. Now try to increase the frequency of your communication and decrease the volume of it. So say a lot less, but do it more frequently. And that's how you play to the audience's capacity instead of to your content. Think about it. Andy and I could have structured this entire program as one six hour training session. Yeah, that'd be rough, right? And after, after the first two hours, the last four hours would have been completely wasted. You would have missed the insights, all the AHAs because you would have been maxed out and we would have just been dumping into four ounce cups that were already full.

Yep, that's an awesome insight, Zach.

Last but certainly not least, Wendy.

So personal, like a lot of our friends here was getting back into the morning routine and didn't hit the mark every day since last week. But I hit it a few times in terms of getting into reading, getting in, some yoga, prayer, all those things professionally.

I need to reorganize my day or just organize my day. I haven't had any kind of a structure to it. So I'm going to follow your model, Andy, for a while and see how doing.

Marketing and prospecting type things in the morning and then service in the afternoon goes and then flip it and see which works better for me. So thank you for that, that tip there and then.

Insight is just like a general awareness about priorities and even boundaries.

Awesome. And Aaron, I'm going to get to you. I did not mean. Did not get to you yet. Quick comment on what you said, Wendy, is when I said, you know, like morning for prospecting and marketing and things like that, what I would urge every one of you to do is figure out when you are at your peak energy. I'm a morning guy. Don't try to get me to think after five, six o' clock at night. Some of you might be afternoon, evening people, but whenever you are at your peak energy is when you want to also really focus on what matters most. So I talk about getting that number one priority first thing in the morning done. I believe in that. But if you're actually more of a late afternoon, evening type of person, maybe that's when you're getting your best work done. So take what I taught you but then match it when you find those pockets of time where you have the most energy throughout the day.

Okay?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Erin. All right. So in terms of sort of the personal, I think.

One of the things in terms of the priority is getting back to doing some sort of physical activity in the morning. So stretching. I actually have some.

Bad knee and shoulder currently. So it's actually kind of critical that I do a bunch of like sort of stretching and processes in the morning. So getting back to that as a full on priority.

One of the things the other that was thinking about is making sure that I have some sort of organization to the day personally in terms of like eating, breaks, other things. So really trying to structure that a little more because right now everything sort of bleeds in. Like it's just, you know, I'm Working and trying to fit in stuff around work when it should be a little bit more the other way around. Yep. The other thing from. From a professional point of view is, you know, I really appreciated last week the conversation about the blocking of schedules. I actually have some blocks on my schedule currently, but I haven't enforced them particularly well over the last.

Few months or so. So part of, you know, that priority is to begin taking back some of those blocks and then figuring out how I can sort of flip it a little bit, where I'm doing.

You know, more of the same thing instead of sort of toggling back and forth between administrative tasks and sort of, you know, service tasks.

So. Yep. And as you get more comfortable with time blocking, you'll find that that's where you will find great satisfaction over time, because those time blocks are where you get to do the deep thinking, the deep dive. You develop the ability to just be with that. Whether that's a marketing project for 90 minutes, whether that is your portfolio project for 90 minutes, whether that Is reframing some of your leadership priorities, or Zach, coming up with some of your communication models for your team. Those time blocks become sacred, because that's where, in a world where all of us have a minute here, two minutes there, we're doing the shallow thinking. That's where you do the deep thinking, and the deep thinking is always where you find the goal. Absolutely. Excellent.

So, as we move through this third module tonight, what I want you to do is really think about your core four, the core four that you came up with in module one, because we're going to put that into action in a way that helps you to leverage that brand and think about appearance, body language, and tone. Those either become support for your words and your point, or they block access to your words and your point. The more effectively you are at conveying your point, the more you build the relationship and reputation as a great communicator. And as you know, great communicators don't need a lot of time to communicate. So what's your brand? I want everybody to have their core four at the ready, because we're going to be pulling you on camera and talking about different things as we go through this module. And your core four is going to be your boss. Start, if you would, with me with a simple exercise. Fold your arms across your chest like you see this gentleman doing.

Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Nobody that I can tell is confused by the instructions, and nobody asked me for instructions. You didn't explore your possibilities. You just folded your Arms in what I call the default position. This is how you have folded your arms your whole life without even thinking about it. Now notice which arms on top and which arms on bottom. And reverse the order.

How's that second wave?

I see some confused looks. Pam, does the second way feel at all different from the first way?

Yeah, definitely not as comfortable.

Right. Chris, how about you? How's the second? Notice Chris has already unfolded his arms.

So is Elizabeth, so is Zach. And that's natural. Chris, what did you think of the second way?

Since you've done this with me before, I guess I felt a bit different, but they expected it.

Yep.

Gotta be honest.

So who did? Not Elizabeth. Have you done this before?

Lauren? I know you haven't done before. How'd the second wave feel?

It felt weird and unnatural.

Exactly what the people have done this before. Know what I'm gonna say is all that feeling was is the feeling of change.

Change hits you right in your gut and it crosswires your brain, even for something simple like folding your arms. But if you do that second way once an hour throughout the business day, by the end of the month, the second way is as comfortable as the first way and you've doubled your skill set. Folding your arms in a second way is not going to help your career. But the ability to double your skill set as a communicator will greatly enhance your career because it will help you to leverage your brand, it will help you to leverage your priorities, and it will help you to leverage your communication skills. But in order to do that, in order to become more comfortable in an uncomfortable space, you have to learn to lean into the discomfort and do it more often until it becomes more comfortable. That's the trick. Most people just move away from it. And so instead of being able to grow as a communicator, they just stay in the same spot doing the things they've already done. So here's what we're going to do tonight. We're going to talk about something called the Zen of the digital world. And it's one of the things that dramatically separates remote communication from in person communication. We'll talk about being on camera and being on brand. I'm going to show you a lot of tricks and insights on that. And then we'll deep dive on the mechanics and the medium of Zoom. GoToMeeting WebEx all of the remote work world communication modules that we use. Everything from the way you look to where you look to the lighting and how it affects your brand. So I want to start, give me A show of hand. Anybody who has found Zoom to be challenging to deal with in the professional space, if you've had any challenges, just give us a show of hands. Lauren, let's start with you. What's the biggest challenge you run into?

Did you say Lauren?

Mm.

Okay. I think connectivity issues is a big thing.

And then also finding time to, like, speak and not speak over people or, like, clash when, like, other people are talking. And that gets a little awkward for a little minute.

Very much so, because in person, you have more physical cues, and on Zoom, you're listening a little bit more, even though you have some physical cues. And here's a little technique that'll help you with zoom.

Build in a little bit of pause. Typically, when people converse in a business setting, they do it like this. Andy and I are talking, and Andy is talking, and I'm listening. It's why I formulated what I'm going to say. And once I formulated what I'm going to say, all I'm doing is waiting for the pause, and then I jump in. Well, the problem with Zoom is that there's actually a little bit of a micro time lag. There's something called frame sync with Zoom, and all of the remote meeting.

Modalities. And frame sync is this. Think about what's going on in your laptop. There's video, there's audio. All of that gets compressed down into ones and zeros, transmitted over the Internet, reassembled on the other side and synced back up. Well, that frame sync, while it's really quite remarkable, is not as fluid and as smooth and advanced as television, and it actually taxes your brain a little bit. So even though consciously you can't see frame sync going on, you can actually feel it in your brain, which is why after two, four, eight hours of Zoom meetings, you're physically exhausted and your brain feels tapped. It's because of frame sync. Well, frame sync also interrupts things like when you talk and when I talk. And so while in person, I'm more used to the cadence, in frame sync, things get a little bit off, and all of a sudden you start to step on each other, and then you both lay out at the same time, and then you step on each other. So the two techniques that are really most helpful in that situation are one, build in a little bit of pause. It takes tremendous discipline. Instead of just jumping in in the open space like we normally do, lay out, give it a half a second beat, then speak, and the other one. And this is the greatest test of your listening skills. Listen without the intent to respond. If you think that's easy, go into your next conversation tomorrow, any place in a business setting, and go into a meeting, a conversation, and fully listen without any intention to respond.

What will happen is natural. Pauses will grow.

Question.

Yes, go ahead.

Chris, you just said listen without the intent to respond.

Earlier, when you just started talking about you and Andy talking, you talked about. You were formulating your response. What's the difference?

So the difference is I've learned how to listen without the intent to respond. What I was showing with me and Andy as a model was that's what most people do. Most people in a conversation, business, personal, will listen only up to the point where they can think of what they want to say next, and then they wait for the pause so they can say what they want to say.

What I'm trying to share with you is an advanced level of communication, and it's listening without the intent to respond. So, Chris, you and I are talking, and I just give you my presence. I'm just present with you to listen to what you're saying. I'm not formulating what I'm going to say next. I'm not trying to be. Look at the great. I'm not trying to one up you. I'm not trying to add one new level. I'm literally just being present.

In doing so, you'll sense that I'm giving you my full attention.

And ironically, I will actually eventually think of more intelligent things to say in response, because I've been fully present with you listening instead of wasting a lot of mind energy thinking about what I'm going to say.

I will caution you, it takes some discipline to pull this off.

Sure.

But once you start doing this, and I encourage you to do it in your personal relationships, people will notice the difference right away.

Well, and to that point, Jerry, there's a little trick you can try, especially with Zoom. You should be doing this in person when you're in a room. But even more important on Zoom, it's called backtracking. So if Chris and I were talking and Chris, you know, gives me an answer, says something, what I'm going to want to do is actually restate what he said and then move on to my statement. Because if you constantly focus on, I'm going to restate what that individual just told me, one, it's going to force you to listen. But number two, what it's telling the person on the other end of the computer, even though they're a thousand miles away, you're listening and you're connected so try. When you're on zoom calls is really. Try listening and then restating a little bit what they just said.

Zoom doesn't actually cause the listening problems. Zoom merely exposes them. Yeah, that's the power of it.

So with the digital space, there's something that I call the Zen of the digital space. Not to get all eastern on you, but I think you'll follow this simple analogy and this. The woman you see on the screen with her hands is doing what I'm talking about. When you are on a zoom call, when you're on GoToMeeting WebEx, you're on camera. And a camera, whether it is on your laptop, on your cell phone, in a television studio, on a prosumer camera that you might use. All cameras have energy. They've actually measured this. Cameras have vibrational energy, and you feel that energy. It's one of the reasons a lot of people don't feel comfortable on camera. So the camera is putting energy on you. What normally happens when we're uncomfortable in those situations is we back out and the camera overpowers us a little bit. We've seen people kind of get mousy and disappear. Some people will actually see get too far away from the camera. In our afternoon session, we had a guy who was really good, but he's like. I called him the kid at the Thanksgiving dinner table, the kids table, because he was like, back here, like, come join the adults.

But if you get too much energy, you get too up in the camera, and all of a sudden I've got all this energy and I'm coming at you. All of a sudden I'm overpowering you, and that freaks people out. So you want to find the even balance where the camera doesn't overpower you and you don't overpower the camera. And notice the key to doing this is eye contact. Again, much like listening. Being present, being fully present, not multitasking, not thinking of 27 things, not thinking of tomorrow's to do list. Being fully present enables you to meet the energy of the camera with your own energy. And that gives you presence. Great communication starts with presence. You think of the root of present. It's present. You're giving people the present of your full attention. In a distracted world. I can't think of too many things that are more powerful than that.

Because you're on camera. It's your great chance to be on brand. As a matter of fact, when you're on camera, you are only one of two things. You are either on brand or off brand. What I want to share with you are some techniques and some insights from years and years in television that will help you always to be on brand when you're on camera. And I want to emphasize this point. You're not going to be perfect. You're gonna have mistakes. Things will go wrong. Tonight. We started, I had the wrong keynote pulled up.

But my brand is not to panic. And as long as I don't panic and Andy's a great teammate, he covers for me, it's fine. It's not the end of the world. You've heard me use a phrase. It's not about perfection, it's about connection. Think about any newscast you've ever seen. Lester Holt on NBC or somebody on CNN or Fox News, whatever you watch. Do you really think those people are always in a great mood at six o' clock at night?

Do you think they're really always mentally sharp every night when they come on? No, but they've learned as professionals to turn it on and to be on brand. As leaders, you have to do the same thing. And it starts with knowing your brand and then knowing the medium. What makes the medium so much different than in person? The difference between room and zoom is the frame. Look at everybody who's in our meeting tonight. Everybody has a rectangular frame around them. I have a rectangular frame around me. As I talk to you, as long as I keep my attention within the frame, I enhance the likelihood that you'll keep your attention with me. But notice what happens once I start taking my attention out of the frame. If I just gather a thought and I come back smoothly, that's fine. But if I start bouncing around, if I start moving around outside of the frame with my attention, and now if I stay outside of the frame, you're starting to wonder what I'm looking at. If we're in a room and you see me looking over your shoulder, you can always do this and figure out what I'm looking at. But once we come into this two dimensional zoom world, if I'm doing this and I'm bouncing around out of the frame, your mind stops listening to me and starts filling in with the idea of what in the hell is he looking at? And since you can't see it, you start wondering, and now I'm over here talking about something, you're not listening anymore because you're just playing out a different narrative. That's how people get lost in zoom all the time. You have to honor the frame. You want to put the majority of your attention within the frame. When you leave the Frame, leave it smoothly. If you have to look at your notes to see where you are on the agenda, whatever the case might be, gather your information and then smoothly come back and get back in the frame. Get back on camera and stay there for a while. Here's the guiding principle. When you move, do it smoothly. When you arrive, stay where you land. By doing that, I give you the feeling that I'm in control, that I have poise, and that I'm not flustered. And if I'm not flustered, I enhance your comfort. And once you're comfortable, we can have a much more effective conversation. That's the power. So the frame really is a huge thing. Perfect example. If you look at her, she's doing what I call the cheat. People do this all the time. They cheat their eyes thinking nobody can see it. Guess what? Everybody can see it. And not only can they see it, but it's awkward. Typically, when we look at something, let's say something loud happens over to the right, you would typically look at it like that. If I just cheat a look.

Your trust in me goes down.

As a leader, trust is crucial. It's essential. And the way you largely hold trust in this zoom world is to hold eye contact one person at a time. Now, most people are not terribly comfortable with eye contact, and so they don't know where to look. And since they don't know where to look, they figure if I just look at a bunch of different places and do it quickly, I'll eventually be it right. You won't. It's so simple where to look once I show it to you. First, you have to think about your camera position. Your camera position should be in such a spot that you are eye level with the camera. Now, if you're like most people, I'm gonna start moving my laptop around so you can see what I'm talking about. If you're like most people.

You would put your laptop down on the desk, but notice what happens. Now I'm looking down at you. Been in a few of these meetings or these where people aren't even aware of it, just looking up their nose, how uncomfortable that is. This is a very intimidating thing. If I were doing this in the workspace, you'd call hr.

Look at me. I look like I'm in a hole. And it's because my screen is so big, my camera has to sit up high.

I'll show you a couple tricks around that. This is. This is the kind of the world Jeff's in.

Yeah, exactly.

Now the audience is looking down at him. And that is not nearly as effective as this. Eye to eye, we're on equal footing. Remember, on Zoom, we all have equal real estate. We might as well maximize the fact that we have equal footing if we take full advantage of that. And it doesn't take a lot of high technology. If you look around your house, you'll find things like this. This is some decorator box my wife had over in the corner. It's nice and light. I pick it up, I put it on my desk. When I'm on zoom, presto, I'm at eye contact. It's that simple. So let's go through everybody's shot. I'm gonna. I'm gonna scroll through, and we're gonna workshop this a little bit.

Want to play around with your shots? So, Wendy, do you have two screens?

No.

Okay. Because the reason I ask is you're spending a lot of time over here on the right.

The way I had this. The.

What you call it, laid out, you guys were all on the right, so I was actually looking at you.

Okay, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. I was just wondering because I. Because I saw that, and when once I came to you and I said, wendy, I. All of a sudden, you righted your whole body, and you gave me your full attention. And that changes my perception of you. It's a much more positive perception.

Okay. Yeah. The configuration of everybody changed when you moved to this, away from the keynote.

Exactly. It moves everybody around. So Wendy's camera can actually come up a little bit. Put something underneath your laptop. Here's the tell, and it's a full.