Remarkability Institute with Bart Queen

Bart:   Hey guys, it is so great to be with you. And I'm so excited for you to meet our guests today. Now you all know that I love to share quotes. And when I think about this young woman, two quotes definitely come to my mind. The first one is this. If you believe in yourself and believe in your mission, People will believe in you and your mission and follow you.

[00:02:07] And the second quote is if one, someone, once someone believes in you, you can not fail both of those quotes, really just highlight. Who Kara is and what Kara is all about, and what she does with the young people that she mentors and leads and works with at Virginia Tech, I met. Kara several years ago when I was working for a client in the outer banks of North Carolina.

[00:02:42] And since then, she and I have walked a similar path. We've grown together. We've experienced the ups and downs that life has brought us. So it is with great joy and an absolute treat to have her with us today. If there's one thing that Kara and I have in common, it's the fact that we believe our youth are our future.

[00:03:05] We would also believe that our youth are our future voice and that our youth are our future change. So as we spend our short amount of time together, what I'd like you to do is begin to see a share as Cara shares, how inner confidence in these young people change the complete trajectory of where their lives have come.

[00:03:32] I want you to begin to see how, when they found their voice and they exercise their voice, they were on the right path. They were in the right direction, and they were able to lead change. Kara. And I timed came to know each other as a result of an initiative that I took in 2008 and reaching out to an organization in Kenya.

[00:03:54] Now, many of you may have heard this story. There was a woman in my class who said that her parents owned an orphanage. And I said, if you find any value, I'm happy to come to that orphanage. Now that was in 2008. I had the privilege and the honor of working with 60 young people. 60 young people in an orphanage.

[00:04:15] Most of them with only one set of clothes, very few of them with any shoes. And they got one meal a day. But at the end of that experience, I saw lives transformed because they gained inner confidence. Not because of anything that I necessarily did, but because they began to believe in themselves. And some people reinforced that idea that they were worth something.

[00:04:43] Kara. I am so excited to have you with us today to be a part of our guests and share your story. Welcome wall. 

[00:04:53] Cara: Thanks, Bart. I'm excited to be here and excited to be talking to you as always. It's always a pleasure. 

[00:04:59] Bart: Now I know you're known at work as the boss lady, but could you tell us a little bit about what your title is?

[00:05:07] Outside of the boss lady, of course, 

[00:05:10] Cara: outside of the boss lady, that's at home and pers at personally and professionally, I should note, 

[00:05:19] Bart: we need to get your husband on here then. Cause we need to probably talk about that 

[00:05:24] Cara: conveniently. He is working on a sidewalk for his grandparents, but we'll say that's 

[00:05:30] Bart: my fault.

[00:05:32] Cara: I'm an academic advisor at an institution, a higher education institution. So I do a lot of coaching and mentoring. That means that I. Usually, the bread and butter of what I do is plans of study. If you think about an academic advisor, the reality of what I do is really the coaching and mentoring and leading and guiding portion of my job.

[00:05:57] So I fell into academic advising and a bit of an unconventional way. Originally I wanted to be a wedding planner. There's a. Long string of events between wedding planning and academic advising, but I have always had a passion for helping and mentoring, and guiding people. 

[00:06:16] Bart: Tell us just a little bit more about this path that you just shared.

[00:06:21] What was the catalyst that made you say yes, I'm going to go take this job as an academic advisor.

[00:06:31] Cara: It was just a common thread for me, and this is something I share with my students really often. There's going to be a common thread and the things you're attracted to the things you enjoy doing. And for me, that common thread that central pillar has always been people and helping people.

[00:06:49] And what I found through the different organizations that I've worked for between event planning. Lodging hotels and. Property management and now, higher education is just a passion for helping people and mentoring, specifically people students in the high school and college-age range. I have been fortunate enough for that to be okay.

[00:07:16] Something that's a part of my job, but not my central role in most of my positions. And I just have been so drawn to it. And, one day I just said, I think I ought to change my job. And so I did. I was really set on being an academic advisor with no experience whatsoever in doing it. And to give you the glory, it worked out. 

[00:07:37] Bart: though.

[00:07:38] Tell me, how long have you been doing that now? 

[00:07:41] Cara: Since October of 2016, so 40 

[00:07:43] Bart: years. Congratulations. Thank you. Sure. A little bit about when you first got started, what were the challenges that you faced, and then if you wouldn't mind share, of course, as a result of COVID in our pandemic situation, what are the challenges that you're now facing with the students?

[00:08:06] Cara: So, at first, in my role, one of the most challenging parts was not understanding. Higher education as an organization. So if you've ever looked at a higher education website or worked in that industry, there's a lot of people with similar titles. I often tell my students you have to. There are many people with the title Dean, and it means something and higher education, but to students, it doesn't.

[00:08:33] And so I was in this position where I'm trying to figure out who is the Dean of what and what that means. And. That's just a small example. But while they're also figuring it out. So I think that was one of the biggest challenges and transitioning from industry to higher education.

[00:08:54] All of the other stuff was transferrable. If you're just the emotional intelligence, compassion, caring, concern for other people being able to say, I don't know, but I'll figure it out, or we'll figure it out together. That has been pretty much my motto or something that I think I say every day, but I don't know, but we'll figure it out.

[00:09:17] Let's figure it out. And then in the days of COVID. The challenge is being physically distant from them. So we were really intended to create an office space. I have a wonderful team. That's just, they're wonderful to work with and have such great ideas, and they're welcoming. They make you feel at home.

[00:09:37] And we wanted our students to feel at home in our office. So we had a coffee bar and—little snacks. We always made sure some things like gummies granola bars, because they often come to meetings for these really short time periods and haven't eaten, and they need t...

In preparation for today's interview, Bart was digging into Gary Keller's book called "One Thing" which highlighted three things for Bart:

• Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow your focus is
• No one succeeds alone
• Mastery should be seen as a path and not a destination

 Communication takes a lifetime to master. Thomas has seen his journey with mastering communication as an opportunity to focus on the path and not the destination. He is part of the theological program at the Shepherds Institute. He was involved in an organization called Send international and spent a year in Russia and we dive into his experience in this episode.

They were teaching English in a summer camp format during their time in Russia. Thomas shares about what the three biggest challenges to overcome.

1. The cultural differences
2. How to show people we love them without words, but through emotions and body language
3. Working with the church about logistics without a shared language and vocabulary.

We discuss overcoming the often negative stereotypes of Americans in Russia which Thomas described as an uphill battle. We discussed how in any communication there is a difference between perception and reality. That gap is called disparity. When addressing a group of people the perception of how you might perceive it is going as the communication may be different than the way the listeners are perceiving.  The goal of successful communication is learning to close that gap. 

Thomas described hurdles he faced when trying to close that disparity gap during his time in Russia. Understanding what they needed and what they were looking for when they attended class versus what he thought they needed. This fits perfectly into an idea often discussed in classes by Bart which is being listener focused instead of teacher-focused.  

Thomas also discussed how cultural differences communicated more than he intended. For example, when offered tea, he may have refused because he preferred water or not wanting people to go through the trouble of preparing tea, but in Russian culture sharing tea was a staple and often people would be offended by his refusal of tea. 

Thomas also shared about his wife's experience as a woman in Russia, which is a largely patriarchal society. We discussed the power of a woman's voice in effective communication and transforming lives.

When asked about what's next, Thomas shared some potential plans they have for their future. 

We spent time talking about the cultural differences between churches in Russia to churches in America. For example, there is less influence of consumerism, mostly smaller, there are small changes in government restrictions. 
 

Nelson Mandella said, "Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world." Tina is a great example of the idea of taking education and using it as a weapon to produce change.

Giving students the power to communicate helps them with college interviews, presentations, and sets a foundation for key relationships in their lives. 

In 2008, Bart was able to travel to Kenya to work with juniors and seniors in an orphanage. It was during this trip that Bart felt called to give a million people their voice. It was during this time that Tina asked Bart to consider coming to her high school and working with her students.

Tina is a dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond with her students. Bart has worked on and off with Tina and her students over a six-year period and they talk about the effects of investing in the communication skills of these young people.
 
"It has been transformational both for the students and in my life to see these young people that have struggles beyond what we could imagine walking into your class and in three days walk out transformed." - Tina

Tina shares examples of students who experienced transformation in their confidence to speak and engage with others and share their beliefs as they learn to live their purpose.

Guadalupe was a young woman who took the class and went from a young lady with low self-esteem to the next year running for homecoming queen. 

"I think that's what this class does better than anything, it empowers the student to be their best self." - Tina

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. Today. I am very excited about the program I've been doing around virtual communication. If you're joining us for the very first time today, what I've covered over the last podcasts, you're not going to want to miss. So make sure you go back. 

[00:01:24] the very first one, I gave a high-level overview of what a virtual meeting really needs to look like. That there were three major buckets to that. There's the pre virtual meeting. There's the actual virtual meeting. And then there's the post virtual meeting. And in my first podcast, I spent a fair amount of time on each one of those.

[00:01:48] On the last podcast, I began to dive into the actual virtual meeting's actual content structure. Now guys, one of the things I shared was that most people think that 90% of the struggle is actually doing the meeting. It's actually now me interacting with the technology, and the student it's wrong.

[00:02:10] It's really only 10%. 90% of the struggle is getting them to come to your meeting, getting them there, and then number two, driving them to action. Once it's done, it's not the actual meeting itself. It's getting them there, getting them to commit. And then how do I drive them? What's the action to take them forward.

[00:02:34]The third piece that I shared was that idea around the actual content structure. And I shared several pins principles that are the foundation for us to build from today's podcast is actually getting into the content structure components, the actual components, as you began to craft content. So now, if you are at home, you're in your office, your listing, you have a place where you can have pen and paper.

[00:03:05] I will definitely be able to take some notes, guys. I think you'll find some interesting things you can use immediately. And if you happen to be driving in your car, maybe, you can relisten to this again. You can turn your phone on record and listen from that perspective. That way you'll have some notes, guys.

[00:03:23] All right. So the versed very first key component that we want to look at in content structure is what I call your three teas. Now, your three teas are your topic, your theme, and your title. When I'm coaching someone. And I ask them, do me a favor and write down your topic. Most people will give me a title.

[00:03:49] Guys, what's the number one purpose of a title, whether you're writing or you're speaking,

[00:03:54]most of you will say something to give the listener or the reader a sense of what you're talking about. Incorrect. The number one purpose of a title is to grab someone's attention period. I want you to start getting creative with your titles. Now with the title, you're allowed two subtitles, one subtitle, clarity to the topic.

[00:04:21] the Second subtitle benefits the listener or the reader, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. I want you the next time. You're. Going to spend a Sunday at a Barnes and Noble or a bookstore. You're just going to hang out, drink coffee, look at magazines and look at a couple of books. Look at how that principle is lived out on almost every single book that you pick up.

[00:04:44] What makes you pick up the book? It's either the title or the picture of the book. And then you look at the subtitles, which give you clarity into that title. A topic is the bull's eye center of what you're trying to talk about. So let's say the topic is just, it could be XYZ solution. It could be risk. It could be security.

[00:05:10] It could be happiness. It could be humor. It could be anything, but you've pinpointed that topic down to something, boil that as simple as you can make it. Your theme is a common thread that you run through your content, a mountain climbing theme. A gardening thing, a physical fitness theme, any type of theme that you feel like you'd like to run through it.

[00:05:38] Guys, this is a tremendous opportunity for you to share a little bit about yourself in building a common thread. One of my favorite examples of this is a book called beyond the summit. Tom Skinner is the author's freestyle mountain climber who climbed almost every single mountain in the world. He decided to write a book about what he's learned about mountain climbing and equated to business leadership, the book's topic, the business leadership theme in the book, mountain climbing title of the book beyond the summit.

[00:06:21] A brilliant use. breaking out the three T's, the second major component. Anytime you're crafting a meeting and especially in the virtual world, it is your open and close. These are critical. That's a starting place in the ending place. Now, if you'll listen last week, you heard me talk about what's the purpose.

[00:06:44] Is it education? Is it selling? Is it building awareness? What's the purpose. So once you've pinpointed the purpose, you have to have a starting place and an ending place. That's all an open-ended closed. Does it frames 

[00:06:59] the 

[00:07:00] Bart: body of what you want to share? It frames the body of what you want to share, the meat of what you want to share.

[00:07:09] It gives your listener a natural starting place and putting this puzzle together and fitting the pieces together. And it gives you a listener, an exit point. The third major component then is the body. Excuse me, guys. It's the meat of what you want to share. And the last point, the last key component is what I call foundational information.

[00:07:38] It's the logistics, it's housekeeping issues. It's credibility building both for yourself and for your business. If that's what you need to do, it's also the background. Now that background should have been from your discovery situation. Why you're there? What are you trying to solve? Remember, no pain, no value, no business.

[00:08:04] So if you're not relating what you're bringing to the table to some type of an issue challenge or a pain you're hitting, you're just going to be missing the Mark guys.

[00:08:14]Now, with those in mind, let me get into a little bit deeper detail around this idea of your body, the content, the main body of what you want to share. No more than four key points, anything more than four key points, guys. You're on that verge of how do I tell them more? Not how do I get them to remember more?

[00:08:37] And with each within each one of those four key points or four main objectives or format ideas? No more than four sub-points within each one of them.

[00:08:49]Three is ideal. Three major points and three subpoints are what you want to strive for. Now, if you want to go for three major points and four sub-points for each one, that's absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with that. If you're going to follow a body structure, that's more of a Ted type talk. It's one message backed up by three supporting points.

[00:09:13] So study a good Ted Talk. They have one thing. That's the message they're trying to drive one single message, not three messages, one single the message. The greatest example that I enjoy on Ted talks like that is Simon Sinek. Start with why the one, especially that I enjoy is inspiring leaders. This is the one where he shows the golden circles.

[00:09:38] If you, by chance, seen that or read one of his books. He's got one major point and three supporting points that back it up. If you go to the other side of a traditional keynote, remember a traditional keynote is really 60 minutes or 90 minutes on the longer side, where at Ted type t...

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. If you joined us last week, I began a series on virtual communication. And last week, I spent the majority of our time together giving you the structure of what the meeting needed to look like. I shared with you that there were three key pieces to do it, doing something virtually successfully.

[00:01:29] Number one, there's the pre virtual meeting, getting all the logistics set up there is the actual meeting itself. Whether you're on Microsoft teams, you're on WebEx; you're on zoom, whatever kind of a platform you're using. And then there's the post virtual. Meeting critical to drive the listener forward the organization forward, get them to take the action steps that you so desire.

[00:01:58] This is the second major piece of that, and this is around the actual virtual meeting. But within that virtual meeting, you must have some type of structure that you can work with then. And all the world travel that I've had an opportunity to do in my 30 years of working with this skillset and helping organizations.

[00:02:26] One of the key things that I always enjoy is the architectural structures of things that I've had the privilege of seeing walking on the great wall of China, seeing. No true Dom seeing sacred heart, seeing things in the United States, seeing buildings and architecture all over the world. Now having spent most of my life in the Bay area as my home, that part of the world had two structures that I always admired.

[00:03:01] One is the golden gate bridge and the other. It is the Hoover dam. Both of those structures to me are just mind-boggling about how they were built, how they've created, how they have been timely and timeless, and what they brought to you. And I not only visually, but to get from one side of the bay to the other and in the Hoover dam to produce electricity and just the visual sight of such a structure.

[00:03:36] Most people. When we talk about structure, they want to fight me on this idea around content. They will say, Bart, that's not me. It constricts me. It makes me feel like it's too tight. I'm just one of those guys. That's gotta be pure freestyle. I love those people. Whether you want to be freestyle or you, want to work within a structure that you are authentic to who you are, but I want you to realize that in my example of.

[00:04:05] The golden gate bridge and the Hoover dam that structure, the structure that they use gives the bridge and the dam strength. It allows it to be continuous. It allows it to be consistent. It allows it to be timely and timeless and what it brings to us. I want your content, whether you're talking personally or professionally.

[00:04:31] To be timely and timeless with the people that you're sharing it with. One of the key things that will help you be successful in any communication situation is having a content structure that you work with them. Now today, guys are I dive into that second aspect around virtual communication.

[00:04:57] What I want you to do is walk away with the elements of the content structure that you can use anywhere. Why it is so important in the virtual world is because the level of complexity, intensity, and confusion can skyrocket purely because of the mode that we're communicating in. When it's face to face, we can reduce some of those things.

[00:05:22] But if we take these exponential factors that we have to deal with, we have to think of ways to make it seamless, effortless, make it so a listener can retain the information and, more importantly, in my mind so that they remember it. Remember, if you spend any time with me at all, you've heard me say, it's not about how do I tell them more. It's how do I get them to remember more?

[00:05:47] That becomes so critical. I want to make sure that your content, whether it's five minutes, 50 minutes, or five hours, you're doing a whole day kind of an event that people walk out the door, absorbing what you said, structure. Is the beginning piece. It is the key critical factor that will set you out from everybody else.

[00:06:13] Guys, if you will study a good keynote speech, if you will look at any successful book, if you will look at any successful movie, there is a structure that the directors, the writers, and the creators all build within. When I think about good movies. When I think about movies like Star Wars and avatar, though, some of those kinds of movies have followed a structure, and nine times out of 10, the structure that the directors followed was some form of the hero's journey.

[00:06:53] You've heard me speak of this many times. So with that idea, let's dive into this idea of our virtual content structure for the actual meeting that you're doing.

[00:07:06]Now, when I started this process with you, we talked about three major areas, the pre-meeting, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting; we're talking now about the structure within the actual meeting. This is where I'm going to focus on our time together. I want you to remember a simple principle that there are freedom and structure.

[00:07:27] I also want you to remember. We never, we memorize what we put in it. We memorize the structure itself. If you memorize the structure, you can plug and play anything you want. You can move the pieces around if you want. But here's the hard thing. We have to do the hard work and keep it simple for our listeners, especially in the virtual world.

[00:07:51] That is the principle. Number one, you have to be able to do the hard work. You gotta be able to keep it simple, do the hard work and keep it simple. I want you to remember that a confused mind will always say no. So if they're confused, they're not even going to absorb what you're talking about. So now that's principle number one, guys, let's take a look at principle.

[00:08:16] Number two. It's what I call the 75% rule. Now, this rule has been saved many times. Let's say someone invites you to come in, and they're going to give you an hour to speak. You go back to your office, you go back to your acute cubicle, and you're starting to craft content. And most of you are probably crafting content in PowerPoint.

[00:08:43] Now here's what I want you to remember about the 75% rule. It's 75% of the time you've been given is what you should try to fill. So if I've asked you to fill 60 minutes, And you apply the rule. That's 45 minutes. That's what everybody's going to think, but I want you to realize that is not correct.

[00:09:09] There's one of the things that I want you to consider factoring in. I want you to back out what you and I would call your Q and time or your banter time or the time when you're just going to really have a conversation. Maybe that's all the way through. Maybe that's just at the end, depending on how you've laid out the communication situation you're in.

[00:09:33] So if I've given you 60 minutes and you follow the 75% role, you're going to think, okay, I need to fill 45. Now, remember that's incorrect. So you take your 60 minutes back out what you want for banter Q and a. So let's make life easy and say that's 15 minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes. Now you want to take 75% of that to fill with your content.

[00:10:03] Now, a lot of you are well, Bart, that doesn't seem like very much. That's because you have such a mindset of how do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? And my mindset to help you is how do you get them to remember more? I've what I'm telling you. If I invited you to a meeting at it ended five minutes early, would you be happy or sad?

[00:...

But remember, in the virtual world, everything is compounded. It's compounded more difficult and the challenges that you're facing. So how do I counterbalance and find all that? Now those are just some principles that are the foundation to you being successful virtually. Now let me mention some communications statistics, I think, are always important to keep in front of you.

[00:01:24] Don't let go of these. In a face to face situation, you have 30 seconds to engage that audience. That's all you get is 30 seconds. Anything after that far more difficult in the virtual world. You have eight seconds, so if you have not said something in the first eight seconds in this virtual meeting that you're doing on your podcast, on your conference call, that engages the audience more difficult.

[00:01:52] So you don't have the time to say, good afternoon, guys. Let's give everybody a chance to settle in. You've already lost because now I'm doing my email. I'm trying to catch up on what I need to get done.

[00:02:02]The second statistic I want you to become aware of is what I call the four to six-minute kind of a rule. Every four to six minutes, you have got to change it up. Now in the face-to-face world, guys that could mean stand up, sit down. If you're doing something up on a big stage, move from the left to the right of the right to the left move forward or backward, depending on what you're trying to accomplish and our virtual world, it could mean stop and ask a question.

[00:02:30] It could mean change slides. Anything that you can do now, this principle is based on a typical 30-minute American sitcom. If you study one of those guys, you'll see that every four to six minutes, you typically get an advertisement. The producers are brilliant at keeping you involved in that 30-minute story.

[00:02:55] So I want you to have that same type of brilliance and say every 46 minutes, I change. I need to change it up. I'll get systems engineers who will come in and say to me, Bart; we are going to do a. Demo. It's a four-hour demo with a customer. My response is you're crazy. Who's going to be looking at a demo seated in front of a computer for four hours.

[00:03:20] This is just not going to happen. It's hard to keep a focus for an hour 30 minutes. You're pushing it. So if that's the case, how do I create that kind of interaction and banter? Keep them focused and change it up every four to six minutes.

[00:03:37] The other thing I want you to remember, and this goes across the board. I find this statistic fascinating. Our face to face communication really takes up. People will argue anywhere from 70 to about 95% of what you do on a day to day basis. A very small percentage is what you and I would call public speaking or presenting.

[00:04:01] That's not the number I want you to remember. The number I want you to remember is that all of that 78 to 95%, 40 to 60% of what you communicate, gets forgotten. So let's just take a look at this podcast, guys. Now, this is roughly going to be 30 minutes. I'm going to have to face the fact that 50% of what I tell you will forget.

[00:04:30] So the question for me is not, how do I slam dunk more information into this podcast for you? I could speak so fast that you could not keep up. That doesn't serve me. It doesn't serve you. So the question is, how do I communicate in this 30 minutes with you so that you walk out the door and share a principle or two with someone else?

[00:04:55] If you're driving in your car on your way to work and you got to work and say, I just listened to a podcast from Bart, and he talked about this one principle. I think we should try to integrate that into what we're doing. Then we both win. That's what I want for you.

[00:05:10]Now, I've laid out some challenges that we've got to overcome. And I laid out some statistics that give us a foundation to build from. So now, let's really take a look at the virtual meeting structure. Now, when I say that, most of you will think about the actual virtual meeting you're doing.

[00:05:31] We're doing this on Tuesday from 12 to one. That's all you're thinking about, but if you're going to communicate virtually if you're going to communicate successfully. In that communication in that medium, that channel, you have to have three aspects to your overall meeting structure. There's the pre-meeting setup.

[00:05:58] There's the actual meeting, and there's the post-meeting interaction. So if I'm doing a conference call, I would encourage you to have these three. If you're doing a webcast, Microsoft teams, a zoom type of a platform, you've got to have all three, the pre-meeting setup, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting interaction.

[00:06:22] Now let me break each one of those apart. I think these are critical to your success. The pre virtual meeting is, in essence, what most people are; salespeople will call it your discovery call. It's getting on with the person who's inviting you in. It's getting with the person who's driving this idea that they want you to speak to their teams.

[00:06:49] It understands their pain, their issues, and their concerns. Now, if you're not driving and just listening, you have a pen and paper. I want you to write this down. No pain, no value, no business, no pain, no value, no business. So during this discovery call, you've got to be able to bring forward, pull out, find out, discover what the three major issues, challenges, pains, concerns that you're trying to solve are.

[00:07:19] You've got to be able to connect your virtual meeting to some type of an issue. Otherwise, why should people listen to you? I love the guy that says, I want you to come in, demo your product, your solution for us and show us everything. And I will tell that person that's a failure, just looking for a place to happen.

[00:07:43] Cause they're not going to link it to anything, and you're not going to be successful. You've got to be able to link it to pain and issue a challenge or a problem. So that's the first piece. This pre virtual meeting is your discovery. The second is to confirm and layout what the meeting logistic ground rules are.

[00:08:08] Now. Some of those are pretty simple. You can make them as complex or as simple as you like for me, I always start on time, and I will tell that person, Mr. Smith, when I come in next week, I will most importantly, I will start at noon, and I will end by one in the afternoon. If that's the time slot you've given me because most people are going, Oh, it'll take him 10 minutes to get started.

[00:08:32] Nope. I start right on time. that's extremely important in this virtual world that you set that precedent that you become known for starting on time and ending on time. Now other ground rules could be at the bottom of the hour. I'm going to open it up for questions. I like to do that after 30 minutes.

[00:08:52] That's just one way of changing it up if the group is small. If I have less than 15 people, that I've got a list of names who are on there, and I will ask very specific questions, and I will call them by name. Cause I'm trying to drive interaction, whatever ground rules you decide to set up whatever those are, to make your meeting work, hold to them.

[00:09:19] There is. A tremendous book by Roger Schwartz called the skilled facilitator by Roger Schwartz. It's a pretty thick book. I think you may find value in that when he gets into some of the ideas around facilitating and organizing the structure of what your meeting looks like. It's a great reference.

[00:09:43] I use it often. The other thing that you want to ...

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. I am especially excited for the four-part series that I will run over the next couple of weeks on virtual communication  guys. I think we're in the absolute perfect storm. So let's take a look at what's happening right now.

[00:01:27] Number one technology is constantly improving, and the competitive advantage is to have the right technology in the right situation. Number two, where we're working really hard, no matter what industry you're in, whether you're with a big company or an entrepreneur, to somehow have that cutting edge, that one thing that inches you above everybody else.

[00:01:57] And then, of course, we are currently facing world challenges, both from a health perspective and from other political and business perspectives. When all of those come together in my mind, we're facing really the perfect storm. I believe that you and I have the ability to overcome that perfect storm.

[00:02:22] And I believe one of the things that we can do to do that is to be able to master the way we communicate from a virtual perspective. Most of us, especially if you're in sales, especially if you do any type of customer-facing situation, face the importance of being face to face and having a conversation.

[00:02:43] But if we look at the challenge that the world is throwing us right now, some of that opportunity is taken from us. So how do we find a place? How do we take what we've normally done face to face, where you feel comfortable, take all that strength. And now somehow put it in this virtual format into this black box into technology, into a computer screen and take your personality and make it come forward through that in this four-part series, I'm going to cover two major buckets bucket.

[00:03:24] Number one, I'm going to spend a fair amount of time. On the actual overall look at what this virtual communication should be, meaning that I believe that there are three key pieces. There is pre your virtual meeting. There's the actual meeting, and there's a post virtual meeting. That's the first two segments.

[00:03:46] So really looking at what your meeting should look like. And the second piece, two parts. Again, I'm going to break that up into the structure that I believe will help you communicate the most effectively. What I want you to do is not only become virtually literate. I want you to become virtually fluent in how you communicate with your -clients, with your customers, with the people you need to interface with.

[00:04:20] What I want you to do today is began to learn at a higher level. Some of the aspects that you need to build awareness around and begin to incorporate them into the way you're communicating virtually. I want to make sure that in these next four sessions, you come across as confident you come across as conversational, no different than if you were having a coffee cup at Starbucks.

[00:04:49] And I want to make sure that you have the ability to just connect with the people that you're communicating virtually. Yes. So let's really begin to dive into this, and what it looks like from my perspective, we've got some virtual challenges that we've gotta be able to take a look at and begin to figure out how we're going to handle.

[00:05:14] Most people, if you look at the virtual world, are going to say that the biggest challenge is the actual meeting. The biggest challenge is right now; I'm using zoom. I'm using a webcast. I'm using Microsoft teams. I'm using some flop platform to communicate with my customer, my listeners right now; this moment is the biggest challenge.

[00:05:39] I don't believe that's true. Correct. The biggest challenge you and I face is getting people to schedule commit to coming to your meeting to your virtual situation, to your virtual training class, to your virtual sales call. I think that's one of the bigger challenges. And the second one is then once you've got them to commit, 

[00:06:02] how 

[00:06:02] Bart: do you move them to action?

[00:06:05] Really, the actual meeting is really 10%. That is 10% of your challenge, 90% getting them to commit and then getting them to move to action.

[00:06:16]Now, once you've got them there, that third real big challenge is how do I create interaction? You and I have sat in enough webcasts in enough virtual meetings,  where you're just looking at a slide, and it is all one way coming at you. There's no interaction. So the challenge for you and I, how do we build interaction into what we're doing?

[00:06:45] Okay, a bigger challenge, especially if you're more of a global company. If you're a global entrepreneur and reach all parts of the world, you've got cultural and language issues that offer a challenge. And then you add on top of that time zones, I was doing some virtual training for several of my clients, and one of my clients was in Singapore, and she said, Bart, this won't work for us.

[00:07:11] And I said, what's the biggest challenge. He goes, it's the wrong time. Even though I've scheduled it for most of the East coast and most of Western Europe, what I failed in my thinking was to realize that the Asia pack part of the world has a 12-hour difference. So if I'm doing something at noon, it is midnight, their time.

[00:07:31] That doesn't work. So how do I need to do to PA? Do I need to do two virtual meetings? One at 6:00 AM, which is 6:00 PM in Asia pack and parts of Asia pack, and then one at noon hitting more of the United States and Western Europe challenges. And then what platform am I going to use? What technology is best?

[00:07:57] When I first started doing virtual meetings, I laid it all out, mostly through zoom. Then, one of my clients came to me and said that our department will not let us do zoom due to security issues. You're going to have to do Microsoft teams. So I'd take everything I learned in zoom. Learn Microsoft teams.

[00:08:18] Now, both of them are fairly similar guys. I get that. But there are some nuances and things that just add a degree of difficulty that you have to think through. Those are some of the challenges that you and I are going to face. We've got to be able to overcome them. If we want to come across and connect with our customers, if we want to be able to have a conversation, and we want them to perceive me to be confident,

[00:08:44]But now let's just look at it from a communication perspective. Those were more virtual challenges, but just purely communication. Number one, creating engagement. How many of you have been on some type of virtual meeting webcast? Whatever it may happen to be, let's say your executive team was running some type of kickoff, and you were at your home office.

[00:09:09] You're in your cubicle, and you're paying attention.

[00:09:11]Be honest with me now, what else are you doing? Yeah, if you raised your hand and said, Oh my gosh, I'm doing email. You'd be correct. You're doing something else because you're not engaged. So how do I create that engagement? And I've gotta be able to do that quickly. And then, how do I develop a connection?

[00:09:34] Now, if you're face to face, you're looking people in the eye, there's a greater connection, but how do I connect through this screen? And especially if you've turned the camera off because you've got a large group of people. I know when I do some virtual communication from home guys because my internet is hot, not hardwired.

[00:09:54] It comes in actually through my television. The system isn't that stro...

Jeff shares a heart-wrenching story about the kid's at his son's high school raising money for Josh, whose grandfather was hit and killed by a car while picking him up from the bus. He felt powerless and knew he needed to do something to help make it right. After meeting with a bunch of guys, they decided to build him a house from scratch. 

Bart met him after hearing this story and brought a camera crew to help tell the story. This led to a lifetime friendship between the two. Later, Jeff introduced him to Yogi. Jeff felt called to serve at the AME church in Birmingham and believed Bart's communication courses could benefit some of the women at his church. 

So Bart, already committed to the power of story, spent 3 days unpacking some powerful communication tools for Yogi and the women at the AME Church.

Although she was currently a performer, she felt it would be important for her to attend. She has gone through many struggles in her life and went into it with the attitude of learning to tell her story with courage and heart. One of her key takeaways was thinking of the audience and what they take away or remember from your story.

Yogi shared about the challenges she faced, how she overcame them, and the lessons that she can share with you that can apply to your life.

Jeff shares his experience of being a white man in a predominantly black church and what he has learned from his experience.

Jeff has learned the lesson of relevant vulnerability. Being able to share our weaknesses and what we have overcome is more impactful. Our words are containers that hold things. They either hold people up or tear them down. 

Three keys that Yogi hit on:

• Know your audience
• The simplicity of the message is critical, not volume.
• Knowing what the result is

Key takeaways that Jeff hit on:

• Be vulnerable
• Knowing the right time to share

Bart shares his cancer experience and completely losing his voice and the resulting goals he added to his life.

Bart:   Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen your host. Now, if you've been following me over the last couple of weeks, we've really been focusing in on some ideas around trust. In last week's episode, I gave you more of a high level overview of some trust concepts. I talked about the challenges that we face in building trust.

[00:02:02] I gave you some ideas around the benefits, the things that will come to us as a result of working through our trust. And then I really looked at it  a deep dive in building trust from a visual perspective, as a communicator, from a verbal perspective, meaning more your content. And then from a vocal perspective, the idea on how you say things.

[00:02:27] Today's episode is a followup to what I covered last week. Now I come back to this idea that if you Google the number one trusted person in America, you're going to find that the name Tom Hanks comes up. But if you Google, what's the number one authentic person in the world. You will get zero. If you, Google.

[00:02:53] Who is the richest person in America. You'll find currently today, or when I Googled it, you'll get Jeff. So what I find interesting is that we can't pinpoint someone around authenticity, but we can pinpoint someone around trust. I come back to the idea that I shared with you last week. That's so very important in my mind that we need to look at trust as a critical factor that we focus in on.

[00:03:22] It is not something that you should leave to what I call the whim that you don't really think about. And last week, I gave you a challenge that when you wake up in the morning, before your feet hit the floor that you ask yourself, what's a number, one thing I can do today to build trust lost with my spouse, my child, a family member, or one of my good friends.

[00:03:46] And I had you keep it in the context of that close family idea before you start making an application to your customers or your clients, in this session. What I want you to do is begin to learn and understand some ideas around what I call credibility templates. And I want you to take those templates, build with them and begin to build your credibility in the market place differently.

[00:04:16] I want you to get rid of what I call, show up and throw up about your credibility. How many times have you heard someone say this good afternoon? My name is Bart. I'm with XYZ company. Our company's been around for 35 years. We've got X number of employees. Our revenue is X. We're a global company, and we're a leader in this.

[00:04:41] And you hear these long string of things, and you'll roll your eyes. If you're the customer, especially, and you say, who cares? I thought you came here to help me building your credibility by just giving a list of resume. It is probably not the most effective way to do it. I am saying I don't share that information.

[00:05:05] What I am sharing I am saying is don't make that the first thing out of your mouth builds your credibility uniquely stand out so that they can remember you. So I come back to where I started. This is something that you should take a look at critically and not leave to a whim. And what I want you to do is understand these credibility templates and be able to apply them.

[00:05:32] Now, here's what I know. You're going to find; you're going to build stronger relationships. You're going to create deeper connections, and you're going to be able to expand and make your ability to influence people far greater. One of my favorite quotes is from John Maxwell. That leadership is nothing more or nothing less than pure influence. Your ability to influence your friends, your family, and your clients is critical to your success.

[00:06:02] So, let me come back and just review two pieces of foundational information I shared in the last episode that really the effectiveness of our communication relies more on the character of the message than the content of the message. But most of us feel like it's the content of the message. And I see this over and over again because you'll spend hours and hours on a PowerPoint slide, but you won't even take five minutes to think through in this situation, in this business meeting at this conference, in this keynote speech, how can I build my trust factor with my listeners?

[00:06:44] The second thing I want you to remember around these foundational pieces is that credibility will continue to grow. Trust will continue to grow. The connection will continue to grow if credibility continues to go up, but as soon as that fails to go up, as soon as it is lessened, as soon as it is destroyed, the connection.

[00:07:07] Becomes a disconnect. And if you don't have a connection with the people that you're communicating with, why to bother share information because you want to strengthen those connections, remember everything that I've shared with you is about building trust, build relationship engagement, and the, for a level two, that everything is about building connection, building a conversation and building your confidence.

[00:07:33] And as we think about these ideas of trust, These are the things I want you to build in your confidence. I want you to have confidence in sharing who you are and what you're about, whether it's in a one-on-one, whether it's a small group around a boardroom table, whether it's in a training room of 25 to 50, or you're at a conference speaking in front of 250 people or 5,000 people, I want you to know how to build your credit bell credibility in a manner.

[00:08:06] That people immediately begin to say, I'm like him. I trust him. This is good. And when our interaction time is shorter, you know, it's even more critical when that executive says, I've got five minutes, give you, give me what you got. The first thing that come through your mind, go, how do I build credibility or deeds?

[00:08:27] The first thing that goes through your mind is, how do I sell this person? Where if you think about how do I build credibility and build a relationship, he or she will want you to come back, especially if you've engaged them about what you can bring to the table. But most of us don't think that way. I want you to start thinking that way.

[00:08:49] I want you to take a paradigm shift and the way you build your credibility. I want you to think about it uniquely based on who you're speaking to. So think about the things you did when you met your spouse or your significant other; what did you do to create conversation and trust with them? You shared stories; you shared experiences, you shared where you've been, you share how you felt about things.

[00:09:19] And if that connection started to build, if you felt like there was good communication, then the credibility begins to get stronger. So remember, within the first six months of any relationship, that communication trumps credibility, but after that six months, credibility trumps communication or overrides it; those are two amazing principals.

[00:09:42] Think about those as you're building relationships with your customer. So now, let's really get into these ideas. In the last episode, I gave you an overview, but today I want to get very, very specific.

[00:09:56]Remember that why trust is so important is because that we're capable. We're more capable of than what we think, and we're capable and building more, more reliability, we're capable and building more truth with the relationships that we have. W we're more capable of them believing in our ability of what we bring to the table, and in a business situation, someone having confidence in your ability is cruc...

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. I'm incredibly excited today. As we dive into a different communication topic, I was having a conversation with a colleague earlier in the week. We ended up boiling down things into three major kinds of buckets. Again, number one.

[00:01:59] Building the conversation, number two, building the connection, and then building your confidence. And as we got into a discussion on each one of those topics, I made the point that the number one thing that every one of us should do in building our confidence is to focus more on building our trust factor.

[00:02:24] And when I, when he, when I said that to him, he said, what do you mean by this idea of a trust factor? I had shared with him earlier that we had three major goals of building trust, building relationships, and building engagement and building that trust factor is critical to our success—both personally and professionally.

[00:02:45] I also mentioned to him that for most of us, Trust is something that we leave to a whim. It's not something that we strategically look at it and layout a game plan. Most of us don't get up every day and say, Hmm, how do I build trust with my wife or husband? How do I build deeper trust with my children?

[00:03:11] I don't know how you'd build a deeper trust with my best buddy or friend. We don't even think about that with the customer. We know that with a customer, it's critical to build trust because they're not going to buy or deal with this or have a relationship with us if we don't come across as trustworthy.

[00:03:29] But I come back to the idea. Most of us just look at it more from a whim than from looking at more at a strategic kind of. The focused thing that you're going to think about today. I want you to focus on that, the idea of how do you build your trust factor. And guys, as we discuss this, I would like you to put it in context, more of the people that are immediately around you, your spouse, your significant other, a child, a good friend, a family member.

[00:04:06] Or a close client, but I want the circle to be pretty tight as we look at it. I'm asking you to do that because I want you to begin to think of immediate application on some of the ideas that I'm going to share with you now in our time together today, to me, which is a short 30 minutes for today, I want you to understand trust from a different perspective.

[00:04:31] I want you to look at it differently, and I want you to begin to pick up tidbits' ideas on how you can build your trust factor and make it stronger. Now, if you'll do that for me in the next 30 minutes, here's what I think you're going to find. Number one, you can strengthen and deepen the relationships that you're in.

[00:04:54] Number two, from a business perspective, you can build greater loyalty. So your customer only wants to do business with you. And more importantly, in my mind, in the first two, you get a connection, and you deepen that connection. Today, guys, I'm going to do more of a broad sweep on this idea of trust.

[00:05:18] That way, I can just give you tidbits. If you care to go deeper, each one of these will allow you to do that. The first thing I want to look at is what I call trust, foundational concepts, three simple key ideas that I think layout a foundation for us to work with. I believe that the effectiveness of our communication, whether that's face to face, it's virtually it's over the phone, it's a large group or a small group, relies more on the character of the messenger of you and me, then the content of the message.

[00:05:55] If you think about it, most of us put all our focus on the message. You'll spend hours and hours trying to craft the perfect PowerPoint slide and not even really think about what do I need to do? What do I need to say to create that trust factor? It's the exact opposite of what we think, where the real effectiveness of our communication lies in our character as the messenger.

[00:06:20] So I want to remind you that people buy what they see before they buy what they hear. They're evaluating you. They're looking you up. They're looking you down and making an assessment already before you've opened your mouth, whether they're going to trust you or not. And then as you begin to share, they're going to be evaluating the things that you bring to the table.

[00:06:43] And this is where your executive presence, your sense of authenticity, and your confidence need to come forward. Part of the character of the messenger is then developed through the stories you share through the examples that you give. So that first paradigm shift, I want you to think about and building your trust factor.

[00:07:08] Is that we need to focus on the character of the messenger, you and I, more than we need to focus on the content. First the second thing I want you to realize is that credibility is a thing that makes the difference. And I found an interesting fact in my research, it said in the first six months of relationship communication, overrides credibility; so think about when you first met somebody that you dated, and maybe that person became your spouse in the first month as you went out, you had a good time.

[00:07:46] You shared stories, you talked, you were building your credibility, but it was the connection you were creating through things that you shared experiences, that you had places that you went. But what I found interesting out of this study was the second six months' credibility overrides communication. So now, I want you to think about the communication you have with your spouse over a longer period.

[00:08:19] Let's say you've been married ten years or longer in a relationship, ten years or longer. Hopefully, you both have a bank account of trust that you make deposits into, and you take money out of it, or you take trust out of it. There's an exchange back and forth. If you've built this account up strongly, there are moments when you have a bad day, and something doesn't happen.

[00:08:46] You fail to call something that doesn't work out. And the credibility holds for you, even though the communication did not so if we think over the long haul in building a business if you think of a long haul in a relationship with one of your children in a relationship with your spouse, that credibility.

[00:09:09] Becomes critical after six months over the communication that we have. It's that level of trust that we have. And the third thing I want you to realize from a foundational perspective is when credibility continues when it grows, and it strengthens that connection grows and strengthens, they learn to rely on you and depend on you, and they trust you.

[00:09:38] But when credibility discontinues, the connection discontinues. So we can see this in marriages where someone broke. Their trust. We see that with politicians, where we had trust in someone, and something happened, they broke that trust. And then there becomes a disconnect you've had that happen with a friend where you had a falling out credibility fell apart.

[00:10:06] There was a disconnect and maybe a long period that you didn't talk. Now, if that relationship begins to heal, You find that credibility bit builds again. You find that the connection builds again; these three basic foundational ideas are foundational to laying the trust factor and building it the way you see fit.

[00:10:34] So now let's look at some of the challenges. Some of the things we have to overcome are the challenges with trust that become critical for you. And I.

[00:10:44]One of the number one things t...