Mastering the Message [The Leadership Playbook for the New Normal Module 3]

Pull that up.

And I will share. We will start.

Guys, I'm going to warn you, of all the modules, this one's going to probably make you the most uncomfortable.

Thank you.

In a good way.

In a good way, yes.

Uncomfortable in a very good way.

Everybody ready to roll?

Yes.

Let's get caught up with week two and see where that took you, Andy.

Yeah. So quick review, guys, of module 2. How did that feel last?

For me, it felt great at the.

End of the class and by Thursday.

I was getting confused and what led to confusion, Marilyn?

I just think getting the process down.

I never did anything like it before.

Okay. So just feeling comfortable using it.

Right.

Okay. What would you. How about you, Sharon?

Good.

I reevaluated some of the things I said I would do and that I thought would start my day.

Great.

That whole walk thing, unless I can do it in my bathrobe, it's just not happening first thing in the morning. But there are other things that I have. I kind of compared it to my weekend because the weekend I get up, I have coffee on my patio, I watch the birds. It's just this really nice way to start the morning.

Yep.

You know, so I have flipped that and then like today went for a walk at 11 o', clock, you know, so I just changed that and it kind of, you know, fitted into my meeting schedule, which, you know, for me that's one of the hard things in life to do is that to realize that like I am my own boss and that if I choose to go for a walk at 11 o', clock, I can.

So let's, let's do, let's go through this quickly because you bring up a really good point, is you guys probably remember me last week talking about non negotiables, meaning it doesn't mean you're selfish. It's just these are things in your life that you need to do. So you're at your best. You brought up a point that I want to hit upon, Sharon, is you realize that that walk, just based on your calendar, your daily calendar, that walk in the morning can be impossible.

Yeah, just. Well, and I just don't want to do it.

Be really honest here.

But to the point though that if it is truly a non negotiable, maybe it's not, but if it is, as long as you put it somewhere in the day.

Yeah, I feel more energized doing it part way, you know, like I get my meetings over, my early morning meetings and then to go out and do it, it was like great. I was Listening to music. It was wonderful. Had a phone call with my brother, you know, came back to work and felt like.

Energized.

Well, and you. And then you said over the weekend you went outside on the, on the port, on the deck, had coffee and just listened to the birds.

Yeah.

The important thing about your morning, whatever, I gave the examples of reading, meditating, exercising, journaling. If you're thinking, if literally going out and sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee, listening to birds is what ignites this and puts you in the right mindset to start the day, that's all that matters.

Well, and you know, what I did is I compared it to when I go on vacation, what do I do in the morning on vacation that makes me so happy about being on vacation? And it's that I sit around and have a cup of coffee outside usually. I mean, if I. Wherever I stay, I try to stay someplace I can be outside.

Yep. And you're pro.

Yep. Yeah. It's the antithesis of waking up, pouring your coffee with the TV on or the newspaper over open, listening to the bad news, rushing to check your inbox, and then all of a sudden you're not even out of your bathrobe yet and the fires have started.

Yeah. And if I do that, it does. I mean, and you know, the other part of it is about trying to balance that. If something really is that bad at my work or on fire, so to speak, I'll get a call. Like, I don't have to go in my email. People don't email me that. They call me on the phone.

And that's good because I would say a big issue in a lot of organizations today is when teams email urgent items to them, to other teammates and then wonder why you didn't get back to them right away.

Yeah, no, no. They know that if it's bad, you send me a text or you call me. You know, that's the level. You know, there's steps. The phone call means it's really bad.

Yeah. Let's go through this quickly. Michael, I'm going to start with you.

Yeah.

Go through your three or four personal priorities. Because I know, Sharon, you said you went back and reevaluated, which is great. Your three or four professional priorities and then any insights that came out of this? Michael, why don't you go first?

Okay. Yeah. The personal were.

Health and spouse.

Finance and family.

The professional were.

My professional approach.

Communication with clients.

Communication with advisors.

And then ongoing training.

For me.

Okay.

Any insights? Any aha's?

I think the AHA's were the communication with.

Clients and advisors.

I perhaps was taking that for granted, but no, that's, that's definitely a key factor.

Okay.

What I need to do in my practice.

The personal priorities felt good. Going through that exercise and coming up with those.

You know, four personal priorities.

I had fun using the time blocking this past week, so that was also good to help me highlight each of those items.

Awesome. Did you feel like you were able using time blocking, did you feel like you were able to focus on priorities more?

Yes, because.

Time management has always been one of my biggest problems and I tend to have a very long list of priorities. So the idea of capturing that into 3 or 4 instead of 13 or 14 in the morning, because they really aren't priorities when you have 13 or 14.

Correct.

So then I really tried to almost create three 90 minute time blocks.

Awesome.

And the first one is the easiest because for the most part most people are not getting together with you from 7 to 8:30.

Yep.

The one in the middle of the day seems to be the toughest because there's always emergencies happening and then before you know it, the one at the end of the day. So I just started to try to block them.

And use an actual barrier. Like I said, 7, 8:30, noon to 1:30 and then 4 to 5:30.

Awesome.

In my previous life I probably would have gone 7:30 to 9:00pm But.

I'm.

Not doing that anymore.

But you said something so important. You know, getting that first one done is usually the easiest and stuff's gonna happen throughout your day. Sometimes you're not gonna be able to get to time blocks two or three. And that's fine. As long as you can get to that first one every day, you're still gonna make a lot of progress.

Right. And doing that daily four, since I do get up early, that really was reinforced last week. So it really was enjoying the coffee and the sounds of nature while listening to music or reading. And then I've increased my exercise over the last two to three weeks.

Look, if you're getting more of the important stuff done and you're enjoying yourself more, that's when that is definitely that's the right track. It's not about just getting more done. Get more of the important stuff done in a way that you do feel good about.

Yep, absolutely.

Rick, how about you?

What about you?

Well, my, my personal priorities were cycling. I'd say it's cycling slash fitness, family reading and decluttering.

My four professional priorities were delegating long term planning, coaching the team and CEO updates and noted as weekly.

From the personal priority, the cycling and the fitness has rarely been an issue because that is, I roll out of bed and I'm pretty much on the bike. And I had been actually training for an event so I've had a formal training plan since September. So that's kept me on point. But I've also increased it a bit, adding in other aspects because I've always felt hurried to get it done because, well, I got to get done. I got to take a shower, I got to get to the office. And now that the office is in the basement when this all started, I was online by 7, 7:15 every morning and now it's closer to like 5 to 8. It's like, you know, I don't have to rush and I'm going to do take my time at this and not come down almost already frazzled because I feel like I've always got to keep, keep going.

Family, you know, we've, we're all five of us cooped up here so we have been spending time together whether we like it or not.

But we have tried to do more focused. You know, when I was in the office all the time, I would still come home and find work to do in the evening.

Yep.

So I've decoupled more and you know, just, hey, there's stuff that's not going to get done. I'm going to hang out with the wife and the kids in the evening. Even if it's just, you know, binge watching, you know, Community on Netflix or something stupid like that. It's, it's just time away reading before bed and on the days the weather sucks.

Yeah.

We start cleaning up and looking at stuff that, you know, one time permits, we're going to start, you know, clearing, clearing out some old things.

Good.

Professional.

Pardon?

What was your biggest insight from going through the process.

The challenge of. And it kind of ties into putting the Weekly Planner together to, to focus on.

You know, focus where you are at right now. And it's hard to do some of these like working out and having the, the work thoughts constantly creep into the back of your mind and trying to tune things out and I guess just trying to be more mindful of being in the moment and you know, this is the time for this and the time for number two is coming and it'll get here when it gets here. Just, you know, be, be here now. And there's a couple of the things on the list I've been pretty good at and there's a couple I haven't so it's getting a little better. You know, the ones I haven't been is good at being totally in the moment on.

And one of the benefits of the time block that Andy taught you is that it does start to give you that mindset of one thing for one time. And it breaks the old model of multitasking.

Yeah.

Gives you as a leader more of that deep dive time which is where the gold is always found.

Yeah.

Karen, I'm sure you've discovered that. Marilyn, I'm sure you've come across that. Michael, I know you've come across that. It's. It's when we have that deep time where we're not getting constantly interrupted every eight seconds or eight minutes and we can get 10, 20, 30 minutes into something that's where all of a sudden we make our discoveries.

And I was just going to say the magic of the morning. 4. Rick, I'm sure you have gotten amazing ideas while on your bike.

Oh yeah.

Michael, Sharon, you guys have gotten amazing ideas while out for a walk.

Right.

And giving yourself that space to yes, you might be thinking work even though you're cycling. Because I trust me, been there, done that. But sometimes that idea pops because you gave yourself the space to exercise or to get out and enjoy and open the mind. And that makes and all of a sudden that becomes something that goes on next week's priority. And boom, you're making that. And that was the reason for the six questions is just every week to get you to pause, level, set and go over those questions again. Because you're constantly then evaluating your priority list.

And Marilyn, as you felt a little frustration during the middle of the week, it might be for you. Just pare it back. Just ask yourself what is the one or two things I can do to start my day on a routine that makes me feel better, makes me feel more on point, makes me more productive and makes me happier.

The last thing we want to do is give you a 40 point checklist that makes you feel overwhelmed. That's the exact opposite.

Back off of it.

Good.

One of yours that really struck out and I thought it was really good is get out of bed on time.

There's one.

And I did.

For you.

It might be as simple as get out of bed on time, have a cup of coffee for 10 minutes and then calmly start your day and then.

You'Re off and running.

And actually with all of this, I've actually been able to. To shift my time and pick up an extra half hour of sleep because that's something I know that I've been running a sleep deficit pretty much forever.

And that makes that Extra half hour, 45 minutes makes a difference.

It really does. All right, so Andy told you you're gonna feel a little bit uncomfortable today.

Let's start feeling uncomfortable, shall we?

All right, so a quick recap. Let me take you back. You remember the perception pyramid, Each of you, I can already see how much you've taken this to heart to start shaping your brand. You have a real good sense of what your brand is. And the idea of your brand is not being perfect. It's just knowing when you're on course and when you're off course. So let's start really putting this to use in this two dimensional world. I want you to do a simple exercise with me. Fold your arms across your chest just like this guy.

Each of you defaulted to the way you have folded your arms your entire life. So, Michael, you have your left on top of your right.

Sharon, I can't tell which one you have on top. Rick, I can't tell. Whatever one you have.

I got my right on top of my left.

All right, reverse it. Whatever one you have on top, reverse it and put it on the bottom.

Easy for you to say.

That's just unnatural.

How's that feel? Give me some more. Give me some more words to describe unnatural.

Yeah.

Awkward.

It's difficult.

Awkward.

Sharon already unfolded her arms A second.

Sharon would have sat here all day because that's the way she's always done it in the second wave. Felt so awkward, so unusual, so weird. She got away from it. What I want you to take out of this is what you felt. You felt this uneasiness right above the top of your stomach and this confusion in your brain. That's what change feels like. And that's where it registers in our body. What normally happens is we feel that awkward, strange, weird. And the natural movement is get away from it. The problem is if you get away from it, you never move forward in that direction. I want you to recognize that feeling and now rewire your brain to start leaning into it every time you feel that sense of it means you have the potential to grow. But the only way you grow is if you lean into it and you do more of it. And I point this out because for the next couple of hours, we're going to spend a lot of time with that feeling. Today I'm going to talk to you about the Zen of the digital world, which I will explain in a moment. And it will completely change the way you feel about this the Zoom World and communicating on video conferencing. We're going to talk all about the power of on camera and on brand. And if you've taken the time to learn your brand, I'm now going to show you a lot of the television insights that I've developed over the last 35 years that will help you to take that brand and immediately multiply it in these types of meetings and conversations. And we're gonna look at the mechanics and the medium of being your very best self on camera. Everything from where to look to how to light, to what angle your camera should be at. There are a lot of mechanics that most people are not remotely aware of and it's part of the reason that the Zoom world has been so uncomfortable.

So I want each of you to.

Share with us the biggest challenges you have faced in the Zoom World and suddenly having to take your on site work and bring it online. Sharon, what's been, what would you say have been some of the biggest challenges of being in the Zoom world for you?

I think that there are certain people that I'm not seeing that only call in, they don't do video and I love seeing them. So it also, without being able to see them, it's hard to discern what's going on. So I'm having to have a convers and not know what the actual reaction is sometimes because it's, you're missing the, missing the video.

And then.

A feeling of, you know, I would say honestly, I don't feel it's been as hard as I think it is for some other folks because I actually in some ways feel more connected to my executive team. We changed. We typically would meet once every other week and now we're meeting every morning at 9am and if we don't take the whole time, we just leave the meeting. But in order to keep all 400 employees working, we had to, you know, things change every day and we've had to meet every day. So now do I expect to continue to meet every day with my executive team? I don't know, you know, but as long as it's valuable, I will. So really it's just been not being able to see people.

Has been the hardest thing and then some barriers with technology here or there. And I've redone my workspace repeatedly here at home. So I've moved three times now.

I'm actually going to move a couple times in our time together today to show you the impact of your workspace has on others. And Sharon, you just came across What I call the hybrid future.

We used to work on site, and now we work only online. And as things move to the future, we're going to have the discovery of, well, you know what? Even if we're in the office, I can still do a Zoom meeting with my team every day at 9 o' clock because now people can get there. So what we're finding is the skills we need to thrive right now. We master these skills, we lean into that discomfort. We're going to be bilingual, so to speak, with our skills in the new hybrid future of a little bit on site, a little bit online.

Right.

Marilyn, how about you? What's challenge number one? Been in the Zoom world?

I don't have a lot of problems with Zoom because in the previous class, my job, getting in front of people and talking and doing presentations are usually very easy because I've experience in it. So that part has been. Okay. The part that I have is it's really been difficult. And I've think I've got one under my belt is doing listing appointments with clients.

Via Zoom. And that's. That's difficult because you have to explain to them everything in that great big contract and not be boring and be there to answer their questions and make them feel like I'm there in person.

So that's.

That's been a little bit of an interesting one. So.

And then.

And then the last one is, I'm absolutely horrible video video marketing.

Okay, well, I want you to hold these two thoughts as we go down the line sharing the. Would you say that there are some predictable parts of the paperwork that people will struggle with?

Yes, probably.

Okay.

As we get a little further on, I'm going to show you some techniques that you can literally pull that out and help people to see the difficult part. So you can explain it.

Okay, that's a good idea.

And I just want to ask Marilyn a quick question. Marilyn, what did you say to me about Zoom? That was a struggle when we first jumped on today.

I forget you're exhausted.

Oh, exhausted, yeah.

Energy.

Yeah, it's true energy.

You will see why that's not your imagination. You will see why.

Good, because I think eating all day today, it's been my imagination.

Not it's.

Physiological, and I'm going to show you why. Rick, how about you?

Well, I think it's also the not seeing everyone all the time. You know, when we first started, more people were more prone to do video. And now as we've kind of settled into this regular routine of work from home, more and more People are leaving their video off. So I don't know if it's, you know.

I'm the boss on a lot of these calls, so I could say, look, everybody.

Turn it on.

I'm curious about that because I have not done that, but I've thought about it. So just saying, you're not alone, you.

Know, bring it up, because I know.

Both of you are bosses, you're both CEOs. So one of the things that you can do is set the standards. Just like you said, an on site standard for dress, for culture, for behavior, for language, for some of it is common sense. But this is not a common sense world. So you have every right to set the standard. Now, you might have some people who work in tiny spaces or things are very uncomfortable for them, and, you know, they can come to you on the sidebar. And as you'll see, I'm not a fan of the virtual background, but if they had to, they could use a plain white virtual background so that if they were in a tiny, cluttered space and they were embarrassed by their space, they wouldn't have to worry about that. But you both, at a gut level, registered, you don't like it when people are talking and some people are seen and others aren't seen. Do you remember that old show, Charlie's Angels?

Yeah.

Nobody ever saw Charlie. And so it added this level of mystique, which was great for the show, but it's terrible for and trying to build, you know, relationships and conversations. And remember, the bottom of the pyramid is relationship. So the lack of video is undermining that relationship. Tell people that from now on, you are going to have everybody on camera.

And Jerry, this is probably a really bad analogy, but imagine we were still in the live environment and you had your whole team around the conference room, but one of your employees says, you know what? I'm just going to sit at my desk. I'll call in from my phone, right? The message he or she's probably sending is, there's a disconnect right there, right? Like, I don't want to be around you people. So therefore, I'm just gonna sit at my desk. Or I'm. I'm more important, therefore I'm gonna. It's the same thing that's happening when they don't turn cameras on. There's that automatic disconnect that they may not think is a big deal, but it's actually creating a disconnect with the team.

And I thought at least saying, because, you know, we'll have eight, nine people on Our weekly team call and sometimes having video on, they tell us to turn it off because it can be a bandwidth issue and some people's home network isn't. Is that robust. But at least saying, look, if you're speaking, we need to see you.

There's no, you know, no Charlie on the other end of the phone. We need to see what Charlie looks like.

And that way you establish the culture, you establish the standards, and it creates a level playing field for everybody in the organization. So that some. Because if you feel like some people are hiding, then others feel like some people are hiding. And once you have that going on in a multi directional way, it's very undermining to anything else that's going on.

I also think people, and I hate to think this way because I'm usually the more optimistic, but there's an optimistic group and a pessimistic group that if my video's off, it'd be real easy for me to multitask and be doing email and stuff while, you know, the rest of us are trying to be engaged.

Correct.

Very, very easy for people to disengage, to be present without being present. And all of that creates to an undermining of the feeling you're trying to create in these meetings, which are going to be shorter meetings online. You'll see why when we're done than they are on site. Michael, how about you?

I've just been amazed at all the little details that you have to either appear to be expert at or to make sure that your viewers, the participants like in this experience today, or there's a large group.

You'Ve got to have lighting, you've got to have background, you've got to have, do I want this up higher?

Do I want it down lower?

That's exactly what we're covering today.

Right?

So perfect.

We're going to answer all of those questions. All right, here's the first part. I call it the Zen of the digital world. And this is something you learn working in television that you don't think of necessarily in this space, but you're still working with a camera. And if I were to take you into a TV studio camera, you would feel that that camera has actual energy. And part of the reason the camera has energy is it the expression is the camera never blinks. If you've ever had a conversation with somebody who never breaks their gaze and never blinks, it'll wear you out. Well, the camera is that person that doesn't blink, doesn't change eye contact and has energy. And so Much like the woman you see on the screen, the camera brings energy to you. Your job is to meet and match that energy. And if you do, you get this really good balance. It feels really good. If you don't, what happens is people. You'll see people talking like this. Their head will tilt back and they'll lean back because the energy is actually pushing them back and they don't connect with the audience. Then you'll get the other people who want to overcompensate and have too much energy and get all up in your face, and they're coming at you a million miles an hour. That freaks you out.

Like, whoa.

Too much, no good.

Too little, no good. The Zen is that place you just feel that that's right for you, and it will be different for all of us. There's no, you know, it's not speak at 37 decibels. It's find the energy, feel the energy of the camera and make sure you are meeting that energy. It's not pushing you, and you're not pushing it. And when you do that, all of a sudden when you're on camera.

You'Re on brand.

That's the power and the fact that you know your brand is going to make each of you appear different on camera, but have an equal level of comfort. Andy and I have very different styles on camera, but we're both very comfortable with our styles because we know our brand and we consistently deliver that brand. That's why we started with brand first, and we're finishing with the mechanics of what it takes. So, quick question to each of you. Now that you're aware of it, do you feel that energy from the camera?

Yeah, I think so.

Because it's there.

It's there, yeah.

And as you get more comfortable with it, you will establish what I call the emotional route to communication. And I want you to think of it like this. We don't communicate thought to thought. We communicate emotion to emotion. Which is why I had you do that arm exercise. Not much easier way of instruction of fold your arms, change the order of your arms. That's not exactly an algorithm. And yet everybody was completely confused by it, made to feel uncomfortable. And in that moment, I could not teach you anything. Because once you get emotionally in knots, you block the pathway from your heart to your brain. And I've always been fascinated by this pathway. And here's the research that I've done and found that there's a scientific reason.

Why we communicate emotionally.

First, there are more blood vessels that originate in your heart, and Go to your brain than originate in your brain and go to your heart. Which is why people you are comfortable with and people you like are people who tend to have more influence in your life.

Now I showed you the arm folding exercise. As we go farther into on camera on brand, I think Andy has an exercise he wants to share with you to help you get that emotional connection of communication.

Alright, so here's what I want you guys to do. This is going to be one part of the uncomfortable part. You ready? So Sharon, you're going to partner with Marilyn. Michael, you're going to partner with Rick. Okay, can you guys all see each other? Okay, go over. So Sharon, if you go over Maryland's video, you see, you guys all see the three dots.

If you click over somebody's screen, you'll see it says mute. Then dot, dot, dot, click on the dots.

And then you'll see an option that says pin video.

So Sharon, you're going to pin Maryland's video. Marilyn, you're going to pin Sharon. Michael, you're going to pin Rick. Rick, you're going to pin Mike.

Okay, there you are.

Let me know if you guys all got that. So now that person should be only individual on the screen, right? So one person's gonna be the observer, one person's gonna be the mirror. Here's what we're gonna do. For one minute, if you are the mirror, you are going to mirror everything the person's doing on the other side. And.

You'Re gonna look at each other in the eyes.

Oh boy.

Then at a minute we're gonna flip. So determine who's gonna be the, the observer, the person being observed and the person doing the mirroring. And then we're gonna go for a minute.

Okay?

Okay.

That's what you want to do.

Okay, I'll mirror you for the first minute. Okay.

All right, here we go. One minute. And go.

Mirror you.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

You can see.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's funny.

Try to do it with no sound, just looking at each other.

Okay.

Thought you were marrying me.

This is odd.

About 20 seconds.

Ten seconds.

All right, now let's flip it. Now the other person is going to do the mirroring.

Again. The key trying to be keep I maintain eye contact with each other.

20 seconds.

And stop.

How did that feel?

Uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable.

The reason I had you guys do that is because there is definitely your whole goal, especially now in this two dimensional setting, is to create that connection. It's so much easier when you're in the same room with people. It's harder when you're now sitting on camera, Marilyn, this is really important for you, especially working with clients, is being able to create that connection, emotional connection. Now, what Jerry's going to go through in a little bit is how camera positioning is very important with that. So, for example, you'll notice Michael, Rick, and you can unpin each other if you guys want. So go back to those three dots and then unpin each other.

It should say unpinned video right on there, Right on the image right there.

And while you do that, I want you to answer the question you find easier to do.

Lead or follow. Rick?

Actually follow, it seemed like, because it was always like, well, okay, what am I going to do next?

Right.

When you're only your face, it's like, how many times can you give the thumbs up or stroke my beard or, you know, just for a minute. It's a long time.

That's one.

How about you, Sharon?

Yeah, I think.

Just sitting there was harder for me just to. Then following was easier.

So the importance, and we're going to go through this in a little bit is the angle of the camera and how you're positioned. So. So if you guys look right now, Michael, you're kind of slightly looking, you're looking pretty straight on the camera, right. Whereas Rick, you're kind of looking down at it.

Yeah.

Sharon, you're kind of looking, you're away and a little up. While Marilyn, you're kind of right, you know, direct. Just those little nuances when you're communicating, especially one to one with somebody on zoom, make all the difference in the world. And again, we're going to go through that in a little bit how you, how you create that connection with whoever it is you're talking to. Jerry.

So the first thing about this two dimensional world you have to understand is what I call understanding the frame. When you're on site, when you're in the office, when you're in a conference room, it's a great big space and you only make up 2, 3% of the entire available space. And it's usually an open space that doesn't have borders. But if you look at your screen, whether you use a laptop, an iPad, an iPhone, you'll notice there's a rectangular edge around it. There's a frame. And if you look at everybody's frame to the right, Marilyn, to speak to your world, everybody has the exact same.

Real estate.

And they're all in this frame. And because you're in that frame, everything you do is now wildly magnified.

Especially when you turn Your attention outside of the frame. You see, when we communicate frame to frame, it only works if we're in the frame. The second I start looking outside the frame, you have no idea. Am I looking at a hornet that suddenly have come into my office? Am I just. Did my wife show up? Am I bored? But what happens? I've created this disconnect, and because you can't see what I'm doing outside the frame, what happens is you will start filling in the answer, and that answer will usually be something very different than my reality. And that creates miscommunication. So part of the challenge, and Rick, you brought this up, is one of the reasons people tend to like to hide with no video, is they can multitask and not get caught.

By putting everybody on camera, it eliminates their ability to multitask without getting caught, which tends to reduce their tendency to multitask. You want to keep people in the frame and you want to stay in the frame, especially when you're leading. We had you to the lead follow example because it's a lot easier to follow somebody who's comfortable leading.

If the leader isn't comfortable, the follower will be uncomfortable every single time. So part of the discipline is making sure your attention stays within the frame. And if you do go off frame, try not to stay off frame for very long. Because you'll notice as I go off frame here, your trust in me will go down. And the longer I stay off frame, the lower your trust becomes and the more your mind starts filling in the blanks of what I'm actually doing off frame.

So the simplicity of it is there is a frame in your communication. Honor it, stay within it.

And if I could just say something quick, Jerry, I think for everybody that's on. You know, in the workshop here, you've all led meetings before in person, right? And there's a time we've all been in the meeting where there's just a real quiet side chatter going on between two employees. And sometimes it actually won't disrupt the meeting, right? You still go on, you still keep talking. The interesting thing, though, on Zoom is when you have a whole team on all it takes, if you're talking to the entire team and one person goes like this.

It throws you off.

And so when people aren't locked in on that camera, it's so much easier to get distracted in the two dimensional world than it even is in a live setting.

And as you saw with Rick and Michael, once they started having a sidebar conversation, Andy had to say, do it without words. Unlike in a conference room. And Rick and Michael could sit off in the back of the conference room, and they can whisper, head nod, write a note, and it wouldn't really ruin the meeting. But it only takes two people trying to have a sidebar in a zoom meeting to throw everything completely off.

So in order to create the perception of more comfort as the leader of a meeting, you have to know where to look. And, Michael, I think you touched on this. It can be confusing. It's so simple. Once I show you the points, there's only two places you ever want to look. When you're running an online video meeting or if you're delivering an online keynote or just talking to somebody. Literally two places. When you're talking, you look at the camera, and when you're listening, you look at the screen.

And that keeps you both in frame and connected.

As I'm talking, I'm looking at the camera, and if you're looking at my frame, it appears like we're making eye contact.

So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to have Andy speak for a minute, and as Andy speaks, watch what I do with my eyes. Go ahead, Andy.

Yeah. So, you guys, it's important that you know where to look, and you know you can control what you can control.

But you can't always control where others are looking at. So what we're going to show you in a few seconds is camera position.

So my urge to you guys is control how you are viewed on the camera. But we had you guys do the exercise of leader and follower.

When you're following, you can't control what the leader is doing with his or her camera, but you can absolutely mirror what they're doing to create that connection. So let me give you a few examples. If I am leading a meeting.

And I'm talking to my team like this.

Does anybody know what subconscious message I'm sending.

Over us?

I'm looking down at you guys. I'm a little better than you, right? As subconscious, as little as it might be, your team is taking that message in. Now, flip side, I'm leading a team meeting.

And I'm leading it like this.

That subconsciously is sending the call, the subservient message. As little as it seems, you're subconsciously telling the team you're. You're showing weakness, I guess is the best way to say it. And again, it seems so little, but it can impact the trust your team has on you. Now, I'm not even gonna go into what message this is sending.

But it's important as you, the leader, create as much level eye contact with that camera as you can. Now quickly, you're not the leader, you're in another meeting. Marilyn, you're one on one with a client.

And the client is sitting. Like, here's a perfect example. You'll notice with Rick's camera. Rick, you're looking down, right, which is not wrong. Right. Right now. But if I'm now going to talk to Rick and I'm trying to create communication with Rick, I'm going to try to create the same scenario.

I'm going to try to look slightly down at my camera as.

Because that's what Rick is doing now. It's creating that connection. Now, Sharon, you're slightly sitting back and looking slightly up.

I'm going to do the same.

The point is, is when in trying to create a connection, one, if you're leading a team meeting, which you're trying, you have eight, nine, 10 different people, level camera looking right into that dot on the camera. But if you're talking one on one with somebody and you're trying to create that connection, it's gonna be a little odd to be like, hey, can you move your camera and be straight on.

Mirror whatever position their camera's on, It'll create that subconscious connection. You're looking for Jerry.

And as the leader now, notice what I just did with my eyes. As soon as Andy's done talking, I just go from the frame back to the camera. And that's all I want you to do. That's the only two places you ever have to look. And that creates that normal human eye contact connection. That creates that strong emotional connection that we lose when we're bouncing around or we're all outside the frame. It's just discipline of pick those two places. That's the only place you have to look and you'll stay connected to your audience. Let's talk about camera position because that's the other set of eyes. There's your eyes and there's the camera. Those are the two eyes in the conversation. Andy touched on a couple of those. Let me walk you through it. There's your camera position. You want the camera to be about eye level and you just saw why. It creates a different emotional perception if you get above it or if it gets above you. Now the other one is if you are at a 45 degree angle. So for example, Rick and I think we're picking on you, but I want you to see the difference. Rick is looking down and at an angle which creates the perception that he's not giving your full attention. Now, the key thing here is perception. I have no idea why Rick's camera was off to the side and why he was looking down, but my brain is naturally going to fill in the blank of. Well, he's got a lot of email to work on. He's got other things going on. He's got other projects. Notice the difference about how you feel about Rick now as he squares up his camera and he gets it more.

Eye level because the holder for my iPad kicks it back at like a 15 degree angle and it's just a.

Crappy holder and it's a great one second.

Did I think that? Did anybody, did anybody think that? No. And that's the power of the perception. When we don't. When we don't feel like somebody's connecting with us directly, our brain will fill in the blank and it will almost always fill it in incorrectly to your reality. I want you to take a minute and look at your core four. Everybody take a peek at their core four.

And ask yourself, what about my eyes? What about my camera angle do I have to be conscious of to convey that?

Core four?

Marilyn, I know you, one of yours, the super producer.

But yours is not intimidator.

So that's really important for you to make sure you bring. You. You want to put a book or something under your laptop so that you level out the camera with your eyes.

There you go.

Sharon, you've got it nailed. Don't touch a thing. I love yours.

Don't do anything. Okay.

You're spot on. And Michael, I want to. I want you to bring your camera up. Bring your up.

There you go. Keep it going, Keep going, keep going.

Good.

Much better, Much better.

Does everybody see the difference of what happens and how you feel.

With who's who? You see.

The number one difference is that or the number one thing I see from others is exactly Rick, what you're going through or your cameras over here.

You'Re staring at your desktop, at us. Yeah, but your cameras over here. But to Jerry's point, that perception is. I'm going, but is Rick looking at email like what's going on here?

Yeah.

Whereas now as you square up and you give us. You give us your full presence, the emotional connection is magnified. Thousand volt.

Now.

Now I had. I had to lower my chair about 4 inches.

Let's go back to the exercise Andy put you through. Remember how it's so much easier to follow than to lead? It's a lot of work to lead, but you're all leaders, so you're kind of used to that. It's a lot of work to lead correctly in zoom, but once you know the techniques, not such a heavy lift anymore. Because your job is not for you to feel comfortable. Your job is to make everybody else feel comfortable. So if they're comfortable following you.

The other way we do that is with body language. Now that we're square, now that we're making eye contact, now that everything's level, it's a lot easier for our body language to convey where we're coming from. If I put the four of you in a room, you won't really even think about your body language. It will be very natural. As soon as I put people on zoom and put them in the frame in the box, they get locked down.

And the only thing that might move are their eyes. For some reason, their head doesn't move anymore.

You've probably seen it. This is really weird.

Not only will they go off frame, they'll go off frame with their eyes and think nobody can see that their eyes are off frame.

We can see your eyes are off frame.

The trick with body language is to make it natural, but make it natural within the frame, right? So unlike in a room where you might be able to see my legs and my full body.

In a zoom call, as you look at where I am, I'm from chest up. That's all I have for body language.

And here's the thing you have to keep in mind, if you get uncomfortable. Sometimes when we get in a very uncomfortable expression, we want to get rid of some of the adrenaline in our body. Your body expels adrenaline most efficiently and does it naturally four ways. Your feet, your hands, your teeth, and your voice. Have you ever heard a speaker in a tense situation have a quiver in his or her voice? That's because they have too much adrenaline and they can't get rid of it. Their body's trying to get it out through their voice. If you start to feel that way and you're in a zoom call, if you start to feel tense, just be a duck underwater, wiggle your toes, tap your feet. As long as you're on a carpet, nobody can hear it. And it will calm you down and nobody else will see it.

Otherwise, it's going to start coming out through facial tics in your hands and you'll be all over the map. And I'm a huge believer in body language. I speak with my hands all the time. But here's the thing you have to keep in mind with a Camera, that does not apply to a room.

If you're on site and you reach.

Towards somebody, it's not intimidating. If you're online and you reach towards.

Somebody.

Look at how distorting that is.

If I start pointing at you, that.

Is a really uncomfortable thing.

If we're in a meeting and I just, oh, why don't you guys come over here? That's not a weird thing online. That's a weird thing because as we move camera, we get wildly disproportional.

And so you have one thing that you're operating within a frame and everything has added dimension.

Go ahead, Rick.

I was gonna say that, you know, so as you were talking through all this, and I've been adjusting my camera, and they have to try and.

Frame up just for everyone else because I'm using an iPad, and so I can show everybody along the bottom with Jerry pinned to the middle. But with Zoom, we use teams at work, and it's a little bit different. And with zoom.

I actually can see myself as well. So I've got the ability to.

Readjust and say, okay, now I can, out of the kind of the corner of my eye, see my image in the frame. And hopefully now I'm square in the frame and looking forward. Even though I'm sitting at my desk looking, I'm actually looking off angle at my iPad so that my eyes are tracking in with the camera so it looks like I'm engaging more directly with Jerry.

You have much greater presence by doing it the way you're doing it now. Also, on Zoom, when you first come on to Zoom, before you actually join the meeting, you can see exactly what you look like on camera. That's the time to take a minute. Everything straight. My hair, right? Background.

Good.

Is my body language. Am I on point?

The correct answer to the common question is, what do I do with my body language? Go back to your core form. What's your brand? If your brand is somebody who is wildly energetic and you sit here the whole time and nothing moves, that's not gonna work.

If your brand is zen, calm, and unflusterable, then you don't want to be this person.

It's not about, don't ever use your hands. It's not about, don't ever use head movements. It's about be as natural as possible in alignment with your brand. And know that because less of you is on camera than is available in a room, everything you do is magnify. So that's body language.

In a room where, you know, my head makes up less than 1% of the available space. Me raising my eyebrow, not a big deal. Me raising my eyebrow in a zoom meeting, that's big body language. So just keep in mind that everything is magnified. When it comes to body language in this space.

Seated versus standing comes up a lot. Which do I do? If you look at the two people on the screen, you'll notice the natural tendency of seated versus standing. We tend to be way more animated when we're standing than when we're seated.

If you're somebody who's trying to be a little bit more animated, try standing. If you're someone who's trying to dial it back a little bit, try sitting.

We have to stand and sit. We become very comfortable. Comfortable with both, but they are very different.

Jerry, if I can just make a quick point there. Does anybody, any of you four, speak at all in your, in your roles? Like, were you actually speaking in front of an audience?

Yes. Yes.

Have you found, like, if you are speaking, let's say you are presenting your team or a group, have you found yourself sitting and finding that you just don't have the same energy that you have, like, when you're on stage or in front of an audience? Give yourself the space. To Jerry's point, I'm the same way. If I'm doing a virtual keynote now, I have to stand because I have to put myself in that same position of having that energy I'm used to when I'm standing on stage. Do the same. Because when I sit down like I am right now, I'm not as passionate or energetic that I am when I'm standing. So put yourself in the best position that's going to let you be you. That's a great point, Jerry.

Because it is very much about energy and alignment with your brain. So as you master keeping your eyes in those two places on camera, when you're talking, inbox when you're listening, as you get comfortable with your body language, that helps to convey your brand, all the while staying in frame. In the two dimensional world, what you really do is not only do you develop a sense of mastery, but you make your audience feel more comfortable, which is five times more important in zoom than in room. They're both important, but the reason it's so much more important in zoom is that the medium itself, whether it's teams or Zoom. GoToMeeting WebEx. They all have something called frame sync. And frame sync is the way the technology takes all the pictures and all of the audio, bundles it up, sends it out over the Internet reassembles it on your computer after disassembling it on my computer, and is doing it at the speed of electricity. But it's all coming in these little packages. And the packages are not as tight as what you're used to in broadcast television. So your brain is seeing this frame sync without you consciously doing it. You're subconsciously feeling this frame sync. And every so often you'll notice there's a little bit of blur, a little bit of tear, lip sync will be off. And that is exhausting to your brain. Which is why if on Monday you were to have six hours of on site meetings and Tuesday you were to have six hours of zoom or virtual meetings, on Tuesday night, you would be five times more exhausted than you were on Monday night.

Because it's taxing your brain and it's taxing your audience's brain. And so as the leader of the meetings, you want to do everything possible to make people feel comfortable, make them forget they're actually in a virtual meeting and feel like you're having a real human interchange and alleviate as much of the stress that's already present in the medium itself.

And that's why, as we were talking earlier, you feel a sense of fatigue in these zoom meetings that you never felt in the room meetings.

It's because the electronics are much different than anything you're used to. And your brain is not processing the way your brain processes television or an in room meeting. So you have to be aware of that for your audience. Otherwise.

Everybody'S fatigued. And once they're fatigued, they tap out. Once they're exhausted mentally, they're gone. So in sports, Andy and I both have a big sports background. The way you master a skill is what you just saw that guy doing with the soccer ball. You just do the simple things over and over and over and over until they become second nature. So what we want to do right now is we're going to have these little mini sections. I want each of you to think about one minute and you're going to share something with us. And I don't really care what you say. You can talk about real things, you can just say, yada, yada, yada. I do not care what you say, it's how you say it. And operating with the mechanics that we just shared you, I want you to just try to do that for each of us for a minute. And that way Andy and I can help position you, to find your position of strength that you can repeat over and over and over to make your Audiences feel so much more comfortable while you look so much more in control. So, Rick, let's start with you. Pick a topic, any topic. I'm going to stop sharing for a minute.

Okay.

I will time it. Jerry, we'll go for a minute.

Go ahead.

Good.

Go ahead. Here we go.

Okay. So I guess I'd want to talk about why I feel I'm, you know, I'm driven to be more progressive and an agent of change. Change in my life. And the companies I work for. Growing up working in my father's business as a child, it was a one man show. And the, those of you who remember the economy of the late 70s know it wasn't the greatest. And over those few years, I watched the business fade right out from under him to the point where we had to close and liquidate and he had to go find a job, worker for someone else. And it was largely because he refused to change. He saw other businesses come in. He saw other businesses spending money on advertising. He knew we had a better product and better prices, but there was no desire to tell anyone. There were other companies that were willing to bring him in. And he refused because, well, I like it this way. I want to be my own show. I'd have to hire people. But you just watched it fall apart. And you know, years later, I know he realized if he had made some of those changes, he'd had that business till the day he died. And I just, to me, it has always driven me to not, you know, to keep moving forward. The world is changing. You can't control it. So you might as well get in front of it and be part of it because it's going to suck along the way, but it's gonna be even worse.

Awesome.

By the way, has anybody noticed your perception of Rick has completely changed with the camera shift.

Powerful.

And it's gonna change even more after a couple of little shifts. Ready?

Let's go back because you're gonna, you're gonna hear me do this all the time and I want to embed this thought. The core four is your boss. It's your brand. That's your, that's, that's the place you go for all of your answers.

So rick's, Rick's Core 4.

Progressive, inspires confidence, quick wit and decisive.

How did he do?

Good? By changing the way he looks on where he looks on camera, by squaring up. But there's two changes we're going to make and one is Rick is sitting in a swivel chair.

What gave it away?

And that's what happens. That's what happens.

And the reason we're swiveling is we just put Rick on camera. We put him in front of the room, we put him on the spot. And the natural release in your body is adrenaline. Adrenaline starts pumping through your body. If you're in a swivel chair, if you can lock it down, if you can't, just tap your toes in place. The reason you're swiveling is that's just the adrenaline trying to get out of your body.

Just tap your toes, wiggle your toes, and that'll keep you from swiveling. Because when you swivel like this in a swivel chair, it doesn't convey confidence, it conveys nervousness. And just like we didn't know you were looking off camera because your iPad was over here and your computer was over there. When the audience sees what it perceives as nervousness, it will fill in its own answer. Oh, Rick must not believe in what he's talking about. He must be making this up. If he doesn't trust it, I don't trust it. Now, the audience is over here, you are over there, and you have a communication gap.

We'll get to backgrounds in a minute, but I'm going to change your background. You'll see why.

Okay.

All right, go ahead, Michael, you're up.

Just talk about anything.

Talk about anything.

Okay. But I'd like to talk about recent story that was done from the Blood bank of Delaware.

30 plus years ago. I was in a major accident and.

The accident was on line 95 with a state police officer. Unfortunately, he was killed and.

A truck driver without a trailer was driving, either got cut off or.

Fell asleep. But the point of the story is that the folks, the first folks who came to my rescue were a doctor and a nurse going the opposite way on I95. And.

Also because it was I95, state police officers were there. So I was flown to Shock trauma back in 1-30-82. It was about two weeks before I was to be married. The reason why I'm telling that story is that I just left the Blood bank of Delaware since I moved back to Baltimore and I was.

Giving donations there for 38 years.

Gave over 225 units. And when that story hit, it really made an impact. Not just to remind me of the story, but I also sent it out to a few people who are helping me with marketing and social media.

Good.

Community service.

Powerful story.

Yeah, thank you.

Powerful story.

Remember Marilyn and Sharon?

The words are up top, right.

And if you go back and look at those words, those words were amazing.

We didn't connect with almost any of it. I was writing notes. An officer was killed. You were flown to shock trauma. And that's because your tone was the tone of yesterday. The paper boy delivered my newspaper, and it went into the garden instead of the front door. And I had milk for breakfast. And tonight I'm gonna have iced tea after dinner. And I hope your day was a lovely day. All right, so we never got to the actual words because the tone was flat. And here's why the tone was flat. If you go back and look at the pyramid, body language and tone are connected. Right? And what you just did with the camera is a very common thing. And when I point anything out, please know I'm not picking on anybody. These are all things that I had to learn, and we all learned from each other. So for Michael, what Michael has done is what I call the ratchet. And this is super common. We lock our eyes in on the camera, we ratchet our body in behind our eyes, and nothing moves.

Right? Like you just move. You laughed. It was fine. When you laugh, your body moves. When you're telling me about the shock trauma, you should soften your voice and lean in. Like I'm looking around thinking, God, what is going on? I blow my mind.

Feel the difference, right? So while holding eye contact, remember, the rest of your body can still move. You don't want to lock eyes in on the camera and then not move, because if you don't move, you can't move anybody.

And it's okay with your eyes to move them from the camera. I call it the Karate Kid principle. Remember that movie Easy Off? If you're going to move, you just move your eyes, and you kind of collect your thoughts. And again, I came out of the frame here, but I did it smoothly. And when I come back, I do it smoothly. And now I stay wherever I'm going to be for a couple of seconds.

If after 10, 12 seconds, this gets uncomfortable and you need a break, you can move back down. You can look for your notes. And as long as I move smoothly and wherever I go, I stay there.

For a little while.

Now I make you feel comfortable with me as opposed to right now. You're sitting above your camera lens.

Yeah.

You're not moving, which makes you like you're on Mount Olympus, and you're telling me things that I can't connect with emotionally.

And if I don't connect emotionally, I'm never, ever, ever going to follow you. Intellectually. And this is critical for you, Michael, because you're working in this space where, you know, farmers have to connect with you. They've got to trust. They have to trust you financially.

Right?

People who do not know the financial aspect of your business the way you know it, they have to feel you, they've got to trust you, and they've got to connect with you to give you that trust.

So we're going to practice again. We come back on the next practice round. Michael, I want you to raise your camera so that it's eye level. Feel free to look around, find a book, something put under it, be eye level and create better on camera movement, more body language so that you connect more with us.

Okay?

Very good. All right, Sharon, your turn.

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk about.

Well, to prepare for a meeting I have on Thursday where I'm meeting with all of the staff on Zoom at my agency to talk about reopening and where we are with COVID as an organization. One of the things I need to talk to them about is our non compliance or opting out of the FFCRA statute, which is a statute that allows 12 weeks of FMLA for employees due to childcare and other reasons during the pandemic. As an agency, we chose to opt out of this. As a healthcare provider, we're considered an essential service. And as a result of that, we can opt in or out of this statute set out by the government. We decided to opt out for a couple reasons that I want to explain to everyone on staff. The first reason is that we were able to offer a bigger benefit to all of you.

By opting out. And that is, we have paid, kept everyone within the organization on payroll from April 1 through June 30, providing 12 weeks of paid a payment for services, payment, payroll.

By doing this, it meant that you did not have to apply for fmla, that we were just granting it to anyone who needed time off during this period of time. In addition, our concern was that if we were.

Yeah, Excellent.

Okay, so there were two things. Really, really good. No, there was two things you did really, really, really good that you weren't even aware of.

Okay.

And it was right before you began and it was right after you ended. You smile.

Smile while talking about some federal law thing.

So remember. Remember the mirroring when you smiled? I got the cue that this was something good and I felt better. And then you went into, you know, talking about the acronyms.

Yeah.

And then your body language said you're bored with this stuff. So my brain said, I better be bored with this stuff. And then we got to the end.

You smiled again.

I like this lady a lot.

And it's not that we want to force a smile through. Hey, 15 people died in this car accident today.

It was awful.

But we want to make sure we're setting that tone. Okay, let's go back to your core.

Four.

Exceptional honest businesswoman.

I gotta see the exceptional part.

And that exceptional part doesn't mean you have to have, like, you know, the Statue of Liberty hat on or like, aren't I wonderful? But it has to have a sense of presence that you are comfortable in who you are.

Okay.

And a smile is almost the easiest way to do that, the second way for you. And this is, again, something everybody can learn from. Look with your whole head, not just your eyes.

Oh, yeah.

Did you guys notice, like, I like that you were looking down to gather your thoughts, but you were doing it like this.

We don't do that in normal life. If suddenly my phone were to ring, I would look at it like.

I.

Wouldn'T look at it like this.

Because that makes you feel uncomfortable.

So look with your whole head. What you did really well was when you did move your eyes, you did it smoothly and very fluidly.

That one little adjustment of smiling a little more and moving your whole head when you move your eyes is going to create a change in your aura because you already have a great sense of leadership. You already have a great sense of presence. And this is going to add a little bit of warmth and depth to your. To your aura, to your presence, to your emotional connection. And that's going to bring people in right away.

Okay, great.

Okay, Marilyn, your turn.

I thought I saw Marilyn actually try to escape before it was.

Barking to get out, so I had to let her out.

I wanted to talk to you today about something that has happened very. Let me try it again. I want to talk to you today about something that happened as a realtor, that you might want to understand that there are times when there are funny things that happen and times that are very serious things that happen. And you have to, on the split second, go ahead and make a decision. The story actually happened to me. I was looking for a home not too long ago. Actually, it's long ago now, but 15 years. And as I was looking for the house with my agent, I got a phone call from my husband telling me that he fell out of a tree. So I rushed home to talk to him, and when I went to see what happened, he was sitting Outside on the deck, pale as can be and looking like he should be at the hospital. So since we lived only two minutes from Howard County Community, I put him in the car, drove him over. He got flown to Shock Trauma. We found out that he had broken ribs, punctured lung, broken arm, and he was.

Going into a trauma center that was going to keep him focused on him for most of the day. I then called my agent, said to my agent, I won't be around for another couple days. He goes, I'm sorry, Marilyn, you really need to come out today. He goes, because they're going to get you to see this house at five o' clock tonight. And if you don't see it at 5:00 tonight, somebody else is going to buy it.

And good, Excellent. By the way, guys, four awesome stories that we did not expect.

Powerful stories.

And so what you're starting to get a sense of is as you master the mechanics of this medium, that's the impact of those stories will multiply because people will get the connection. Whether, Michael, you know, it's your trip to Shock Trauma, Maryland. You know, I'm kind of dying to hear how the story works out, Sharon. It's whether you're helping everybody navigate the complexities of this world they suddenly find themselves thrust in. But as you master the mechanics, what happens is time disappears and the medium disappears because the connection.

So Marilyn did something that's very common right out of the gate. She self edited and said, let me stop and go back over.

Because you tripped over a word or a syllable or you thought you did.

Remember this mantra. Go for connection, not perfection.

I looked at your core 4 Perfection is not in there.

Knowledgeable, cutting edge, honest.

To convey. Honest. You got to be real. As you were telling me that story, you were picking through it in a staccato tone because you were holding back. And you were holding back because you didn't want to trip. Misspeak, make a mistake.

Too often in the world of communication and especially in this medium, people go for perfection, not connection. I'll share with you a little trick that I developed because I've been doing home broadcast for 10 weeks. And it was a trick that I learned years ago on radio when I would tape segments that were. It's called Look Live, where I had to go run off and do tv. So I would tape a radio segment and nobody would know that I was off in tv.

As long as I don't make a factual error if I have a little misstep. But I'm sorry, I meant in the tape segment. I leave it in because it feels live. Nobody ever speaks perfectly when they speak live. If you play back the recording, you'll hear every one of us has a misspeak and misstep. I meant to say that's human nature. That's how we communicate. Nobody speaks perfectly. And if you strive too much for perfection, you'll miss the emotional connection every single time.

So try to avoid the self edit. Marilyn, this is a really powerful story that has, you know, the dream house you're going for, a personal crisis, all of it at the same intersection. There's great drama in this story, but I'm not feeling the drama because you're holding back. Trying to have a perfect delivery.

And.

A great way to think about this. Jerry, if I can add. Marilyn, if you were out having coffee with a friend, which we're all dying to have right now, right? And somebody. Your friend asked you to tell that story.

I'm guessing you would tell it in a totally different way. More animated, more dramatic. Do the same thing on camera.

Let's go.

Having coffee with a friend. Having a conversation.

So let's go back.

To the pyramid. I'm going to share my screen.

Look at the perception pyramid.

Can you see it?

Okay, I lost you.

Hold on.

I don't know why.

Yeah, I can see.

I'm good.

Yeah.

Relationship or reputation are foundational. They will take care of themselves. There's nothing you can do to technique.