“You need to demonstrate executive presence.” What exactly does that actually mean? And why does it feel like code for “be someone you’re not”?

In this Talk About Talk episode, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki shares why the term “executive presence” isn’t ideal, and how “leadership presence” should replace it. She also shares a “Leadership Presence Hierarchy” framework that highlights what specific skills you need to work on.

DOWNLOAD THE FRAMEWORK NOW at:  https://www.talkabouttalk.com/leadershippresence

Check out the four-tier” Leadership Presence Hierarchy” that takes you from foundational communication skills all the way to having real impact.

This isn’t about conforming to some 1980s CEO stereotype. It’s about showing up authentically while commanding respect, building credibility, and getting heard.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

The folks that are getting promoted to the C-Suite have executive presence, but the ones who stall out do not. Since I coach senior executives and aspiring senior executives, I get asked about this topic of executive presence all the time. In fact, I’d say that over the last year I’ve noticed a real uptick in clients seeking guidance on how to establish the all elusive executive presence. 

Sometimes they’re being proactive, but sometimes this high potential leader is sent to me by their HR manager, and they’ll tell me something like, this person has all the check marks for the C-suite, but they really need to demonstrate executive presence.

And by the way, I always tell the person, this is very good news. Your employer thinks you have what it takes. They’re investing in you. Anyway, as I said, I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in requests for coaching on executive presence, but I have to tell you something else. I’ve also noticed increased pushback associated with this term.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk 

In this episode, I’m gonna share with you some important background on executive presence, why it’s so important, why I suggest we relabel it to something else, and a list of specific skills that you need to acquire. You can think of this as a checklist, your executive presence, or leadership presence playbook. Are you ready?

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki, and I’m your executive communication coach. Please just call me Andrea. I’m here to help you improve your communication skills so that you can achieve your career goals. In addition to this biweekly talk about talk podcast, you can learn more from me through the workshops, keynotes, and master classes that I run plus, private coaching and a growing library of on-demand online courses. 

You can learn more about everything we offer at Talk About Talk by checking out the website at TalkAboutTalk.com. You can even set up a consult with me there. Check it out. TalkAboutTalk.com. 

Okay, let’s talk Executive presence. Executive presence is one of those things that might be tough to define, but you know it when you see it.

Am I right? The professionals that I coach tell me that it’s all about confidence, feeling, and, more importantly, being perceived as confident, but of course not. Arrogant and executive presence is necessary to achieving leadership status. This is what I hear from the HR managers, right? 

The folks that are getting promoted to the C-Suite have executive presence, but the ones who stall out do not.

That is why people are seeking coaching in this area. Well, here’s the good news. Executive presence can be learned. I’ve worked with senior folks with exactly this quandary. They have all the technical skills and people like them. They’re likable. People are rooting for them, but they’re missing this magical executive presence.

I remember coaching a senior partner at a consulting firm. Who had this exact experience, and after I worked with him for about two months, he started to feel more confident, but also, at least as importantly, he started getting comments from others about his improved confidence and his presence. So what exactly is this executive presence?

One of the most common definitions that you’ll hear is from an author named Sylvia Ann Hewlett. She says executive presence is a set of qualities that enable leaders to inspire confidence in others. In her research, Sylvia highlights. Three, of course, three ingredients that comprise executive presence.

One, communication skills as in public speaking, body language, and so on. Two, gravitas as in confidence, integrity, unflappability, and three, appearance. In other words, how you show up. When I read this list of three ingredients, I thought. Oh good. This is all about communication. Of course, there’s communication skills, she says, but also gravitas and appearance.

And to me, all of these things are communication. And the good news again is that communication can be learned. So we can think of executive presence in terms of Hewlett’s definition. Executive presence is a set of qualities that enable leaders to inspire confidence in others. And you can also think of it specifically in terms of these three ingredients.

She highlights these ingredients as communication skills, gravitas, and appearance. Now, before I go on, I also wanna clarify what executive presence is not. First of all, executive presence is not a title. In other words, you don’t need to be in the C-suite to have executive presence, and actually, not everyone in the C-Suite has executive presence.

Of course, if you do have it, you’re more likely to ascend the corporate ladder. Executive presence does not equal title or status. Executive presence is also different from expertise. I mean expertise as in technical skills. Of course, expertise is also something that we need to succeed in our careers, but executive presence is very different from expertise.

What I often observe is that people who come to me for coaching, they often have technical expertise and they’re looking to brush up on their executive presence. So executive presence is not the same as status. It’s not the same as expertise. It’s also different from charisma. Charisma is more about energy and emotional impact.

Charisma can help boost your executive presence, but I would say executive presence is broader. Charisma is about attracting and energizing people. It’s often associated with extrovertedness. On the other hand, executive presence is about substance plus delivery, and you definitely do not need to be an expert to have executive presence.

That said, I’ve noticed that many people conflate executive presence with extroversion. This is just wrong, and this isn’t the only issue that I’ve been hearing and reading about executive presence. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the term executive presence turns many people off altogether.

I have a masterclass that I run a few times a year, focused on. You guessed it. Developing executive presence and your personal brand, and more than a few times, I’ve had to carefully define with people exactly what I mean and what I don’t mean when I say executive presence. Generally, it seems that some people are legitimately turned off when they’re told that they need to develop executive presence because it often feels like vague-coded feedback that’s used to block their promotion. 

And this happens especially to women and racialized people more than once. I’ve heard people say that when they hear the term executive presence, an image of General Electrics or GEs former CEO, Jack Welch comes to mind, along with what they see as his direct, non-inclusive, formal, authoritarian leadership style nowadays.

Our celebrated leaders are authentic. Yes, I said it. The A word and inclusive, I guess that’s the I word. Importantly, today’s celebrated leaders are listening to learn, not narrow-minded and authoritarian. 

For all of these reasons, I suggest that we change the term from executive presence to leadership presence.

Executive presence is just too loaded. Leadership presence is something that many of us aspire to. This term, leadership presence might just be more ethical and better for business outcomes. It can also be used in context outside of the executive boardroom, like with the other professionals. I coach leaders in medicine, leaders in law, and so on.

They don’t call themselves executives, but they do aspire to leadership. So what do you think? Let’s call it leadership presence. 

Now, what I’d love to share with you is my model for developing leadership presence. This model is based on my reading of books and articles on yes, executive presence, plus my observations from coaching hundreds of professionals, thousands.

If you include the corporate workshops that I run, it’s a framework that I illustrate as a hierarchy. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can see this hierarchy on the screen. If you’re listening, you can easily download the framework. If you go to talk about talk.com/leadership presence, that’s talk about talk.com/leadership presence.

Yes, I made it easy for you, of course. So whether you’re looking at the framework right now or not, I can describe it to you. 

At the bottom of the hierarchy, we have foundational communication skills, things like body language, storytelling, listening, communicating with precision, vocal presence. I call these foundational communication skills, not because they’re easy.

In fact, folks with true leadership presence often go back and revisit these foundational communication skills to elevate their leadership presence, but I call them foundational because they’re at the bottom. And here’s what my clients tell me. When we’ve been doing some work to elevate or improve their foundational communication skills, they start to feel confident and they’re often told that they appear more confident by others. 

So this makes up the next level of the hierarchy of confidence. Again, this is both confidence in terms of how you feel and how you’re perceived. The interesting thing about this level is that there’s a couple different ways of elevating your confidence.

As I said, you can do so by improving your communication skills. You can also directly improve your confidence by doing things like learning about imposter syndrome and how to overcome it. You can also learn mindsets and tactics that are specifically focused on elevating your confidence. Things like slow deep breathing. 

Things like expansive body language and things like positive self-talk. These are all tactics that can directly boost your confidence. So here, we’re ready for the next step. We’ve started with our foundational communication skills. We’ve experienced improved confidence. 

Once we are feeling more confident and we’re being perceived as more confident, this is when we start to establish credibility.

Again, there are things that we can do to directly boost our credibility. I’ve got three ideas. One, focus on developing your personal brand. Two, focus on demonstrating leadership, and three, focus on your influence. So let me go into a little bit of detail about each of these. 

First focusing on establishing your unique personal brand.

Notice the term unique. As I said at the beginning, one of the criticisms of this executive presence notion is that some people believe it means conforming to a stereotype of what a leader should look like. Personal branding. Is the opposite of this. The way I coach personal branding. It’s about identifying, articulating, and reinforcing your unique brand, your unique strengths and passions.

So this is the opposite of conforming. It’s about standing out as your true, unique, and best self. So that’s one way that you can really help establish your credibility. 

The second is by demonstrating leadership. When I coach people on demonstrating leadership, I often share with them that the obvious way to demonstrate leadership is to be a good people leader, right?

That’s where our mind goes to when we hear the word leader. But don’t forget, there are many, many ways to demonstrate leadership. Consider, for example, just being proactive, being the person who comes up with innovative and creative ideas. If you think about it, leaders lead; they are out front.

Proactive. So be proactive, and people will see you as a leader. There’s also strategic leadership. The leaders that we admire are strategic thinkers, right? They’re identifying and then reinforcing strategy. They think strategically. So there’s people leadership, there’s proactive leadership, there’s strategic leadership, and there’s also thought leadership.

What area do you have expertise in where you wanna share your thought leadership? Privately inside your organization and even publicly on social media and beyond. So thought leadership. And then the last thing that I share with my clients who I’m working with on demonstrating leadership is simply using the word lead.

Use the word lead led leadership leader, especially when you’re referencing yourself, and people will start to think of you as a leader as well. Okay, so we’re still at this, almost at the top of our leadership presence hierarchy. We’re at the credibility stage, and we’ve talked about developing your personal brand.

We’ve talked about demonstrating leadership. 

The third way that you can reinforce your credibility is by focusing on influence. This is about negotiating and making an impact. This is about being heard. If you think about it. This is all about effective communication skills and confidence, too. Do you see how all the layers reinforce themselves?

So now you see how this leadership presence hierarchy works. Again, we start with the foundational communication skills, and as we improve our communication skills, we start to feel and be perceived as more confident. There are things we can do to further. Improve our confidence, and that’s when we start to establish credibility again.

There are ways that we can reinforce our credibility, personal brand, demonstrating leadership, and working on our influence. 

Once we’ve done all of these things, we reach the apex or the top of the leadership presence hierarchy, which I label as impact. What that impact is is personal. For you, it could be getting a new job, it could be getting a promotion.

It might simply be being heard in meetings when you’re at work, you can achieve impact when you have leadership presence. 

And that’s it for this episode. I hope you’re feeling a little bit more informed and inspired to develop leadership presence. Now I have an ask, two asks, actually. First, please hit subscribe.

Wherever you’re listening, whether it’s Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, wherever you are, please hit subscribe, and then you won’t miss any of the communication skills, coaching tips that you get from me and Talk About Talk every two weeks. My second ask is that you share this episode with a friend. Do you have a friend who might benefit from these insights on executive presence and leadership presence?

Spread the word. Thank you. So much, and thank you for listening. Talk soon.

The post Rethinking Executive Presence: How to Show Up with Real LEADERSHIP PRESENCE (ep. 207) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

You know the person: they derail meetings, push back on everything, and somehow make simple projects complicated. So how do you actually handle it without losing your mind?

In this Talk About Talk episode, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki walks you through exactly what to do when you’re dealing with difficult people at work, whether that’s a customer, a direct report, a peer, or even your boss.

If you’re wondering when and how to escalate the situation, Andrea’s five-step escalation sequence provides you with a step-by-step playbook. You’ll also learn the two-word principle that keeps you from getting pulled into drama with difficult people.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there to get the foundational framework. Then come back here for the specific tactics.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Focus on the issue, not on the person. Refuse to get pulled into the, you always do this, you’ve done this, you shouldn’t do that. You can’t do this. It’s not about you and me. It’s actually about the issue or the challenge.

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. This is part two of a two part mini series on how to deal with difficult people.

So here’s the question. Have you noticed someone at work who’s being chronically difficult, confrontational, or nasty? Either to you or maybe to everyone. Have you tried to diagnose what’s going on based on the Dr. David rock scarf framework and still nothing has changed? Well, I hope what you’re about to learn in this episode will have a positive impact.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. We’re going to. Strategies for how you can respond to these difficult people depending on who they are. And I’m also gonna share a sequence of steps that you can follow, steps that you should follow if things aren’t changing or perhaps if they’re getting worse.

Let me start with strategies for how to respond to different people. How you respond, what you do can and should vary depending on who it is that’s being difficult.

So I’m gonna run through this list of five different types of people or categories of people and what you should and shouldn’t do depending on who they are.

That’s being difficult. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. So the first one. Is no one. So it’s not that the person is being difficult, it’s actually that you are in a difficult or a challenging situation. In this case, I say, great, the opportunity here is for you to pull the team together and go for a win.

Corral the group and focus on what you can do to overcome this difficult situation. Okay, that was a little bit of a cheater. Now let’s get into the actual people. So imagine you have this scenario where it’s either a one-off situation or a customer or a client who is chronically difficult. The first thing I suggest you do is pause.

Don’t get caught up. Getting emotional and responding in a reactionary way to how this difficult client or customer is acting. The second thing that I do, and this one is magic, focus on the issue, not on the person. Refuse to get. Pulled into the, you always do this. You’ve done this. You shouldn’t do that.

You can’t do this. It’s not about you and me. It’s actually about the issue or the challenge, and it’s the issue or the challenge that they are probably experiencing. So you could say, Hmm, I understand how this would be very frustrating, or, let’s work on this together. I think we can solve this. You’re focusing on.

The issue or the challenge, not the person, it’s the situation, not the person. And then the third thing, I alluded to this a little bit here in the example that I gave. Use the pronoun, we make the default that you are working with this client or this customer in solving the challenge. Okay? So again, if it’s a client or a customer, pause.

Don’t react before thinking and remind yourself, focus on the issue or the situation, not on the person, and use the term we be inclusive and encourage you to work together to solve the problem. So that’s the first one. The next one is if it’s a peer. In the previous episode, I shared a scenario where a newly promoted partner named Leanne was being challenged on a daily basis by her peer named Mike, who is also a partner at the same consulting firm where she worked.

Here’s what you do with a peer. You have the opportunity to get personal. I don’t mean necessarily that you’re sharing your private thoughts and your personal life with the person, but I just mean get them into a one-on-one situation and share how you’re feeling. I actually shared this advice with Leanne when I was coaching her.

I suggested that she invite Mike. To go out for lunch or for coffee and then talk to him. Say like, I noticed our relationship has really changed since we started working together as partners, and we used to confide in each other and help each other and celebrate each other. And I’d really love to go back to that because I think we can make each other look really good.

We could be a team. You don’t need to necessarily need to go that far, but getting personal is a suggestion that works really well if the difficult person is your peer, someone who’s at your level. Moving on. What if they’re not at your level, but they’re actually below your level? It might be someone that you are managing that’s reporting to you, or it could be someone in a different department, but they are at a lower level in the organization, in the hierarchy.

From where you are in this case, this is your opportunity. If they’re being chronically difficult to highlight the values, the expectations, and even the resources that the organization provides. People are being difficult. So I’m imagining someone here who you know is disrupting meetings, is disrupting progress and productivity in the projects that you’re working on.

And so you pull them aside and you say, listen, it seems like things aren’t as productive and positive. As I was hoping they would be. And I wanna share with you that this is not consistent with the values of the organization in this organization. We pride ourselves on being collaborative and on and on and on.

So you talk, highlight the firm’s values, the expectations of the organization, and even potentially, as I said, resources that you can share. It could be learning opportunities or other things, coaching to, uh, help the person. Whatever the challenges that they’re experiencing. Okay, so that’s if it’s a subordinate.

The next one gets really interesting, and I have two suggestions. If it’s your boss, things can get pretty tricky. So I have two suggestions. The first is a quick one. The second one requires a little bit of an explanation. So the first one, the quick one is if you are reporting to someone who is chronically difficult, you can ask yourself.

What can I learn from the situation? What can I learn about what I do not want to do if and when I get promoted to this level? I remember coaching a very impressive woman who was working in not-for-profit, and she was reporting to the executive director who was basically responsible for the not-for-profit and who reported into the board of directors, and she said, this woman was an absolute.

Tyrant, of course not with the board, but with her direct reports, including my client. And so I said, if nothing else, you can learn from this situation. What not to do when you someday become an executive director of a not-for-profit and you’ll know exactly what not to do. And in fact, fast forward a couple years, she now is an executive director of a different not-for-profit.

And she said, I have a playbook of what not to do, how not to treat my staff. So that’s one way of kind of it. It’s not overcoming the situation, but it’s reconciling it in your mind, how you can maintain a sense of productivity and maybe even job satisfaction. You’re learning what not to do. The second one here, I’m gonna say this is a little bit personal because this is advice that I received from my father when I had the experience of reporting to a boss who was being very difficult and chronically so.

So I have this distinct memory of. Presenting something to, it was my boss’s boss at the time, at a meeting where he had challenged me and the team that I was leading to meet certain challenges. And if we did, we were gonna be given permission to launch a new product. My team had gone away under my direction, established what the criteria that we were gonna achieve.

And we had worked together really hard to achieve this criteria, these benchmarks. And I went back with great pride in anticipation and presented our results and our recommendations for the new product launch to my boss’s boss. And he was like, eh, I don’t know, Andrea, I mean, whatever. And I was like, what?

I remember I was so upset. I eventually did convince him that we should launch the product that we had worked so hard on. But I remember being so upset and I actually went. I left the building. I went down to my car and I called my dad and I was commiserating. I said, dad, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how much longer I can handle this.

I’m asking my team to jump through hoops, and they’re doing so and they’re exceeding my expectations. And then when I go to this guy, he’s constantly changing his mind. He’s a horrible boss. And my dad asked me this question that I’m now sharing with you. He said, does your boss’s boss do his values reflect.

The values of the organization, or is he an anomaly? And I said, why do you ask? He said, very simple, Andrea, if his values reflect the values of the organization and you are misaligned, you need to get outta there. However, if he’s the anomaly, if your boss’s boss is the one whose values contradict, not only yours, but also the values of the organization, things typically have a way of working out.

I was like, Hmm, that kind of makes sense. I would say in this case, it’s the latter. My boss’s boss is an anomaly. I know a lot of people get frustrated with him and his values are not aligned with those of the organization, and he said, well, my suggestion is not forever, Andrea. That would be ridiculous, but.

You could probably wait this out and things have a way of working out. And you know what? My dad was right within a couple months. This guy, he was a vice president at the time. He got moved into a different department and then he got let go and I thanked my father and I have shared that advice with plenty of people who say, this is very sage advice.

So if it’s your boss. First of all, ask yourself, what can I learn about how not to manage people from this person? And secondly, ask yourself whether their values and their behavior are aligned with the values of the organization. If they are not, you can wait it out. If they are, you probably need to make a move.

So we’ve covered now a couple of different scenarios, maybe. No one is being difficult, and it’s the situation that’s your opportunity to pull your team together. Perhaps it’s your client or your customer who’s being difficult, in which case I shared three suggestions. Pause, focus on the issue and use the term we, if it’s your peer, get personal.

If it’s your subordinate. Highlight the values, expectations, and resources of the organization. If it’s your boss, as I just said, ask yourself, what can I learn about what not to do? And ask yourself whether their values are aligned with the organization. There’s one other person that it might be that’s being difficult.

If it’s everyone, if everyone around you, all of your clients. Your peers, your subordinates, your boss, your family, your friends. If everyone is around you is being difficult, then I have to say it’s probably you. I’m just kidding. That never happens. So that’s my summary of the differential advice that I have for you for dealing with difficult people depending on who it is.

Now, this is critically important. What’s the sequence to follow when things. Aren’t getting better or maybe they’re even getting worse. Well, I have a list. This is a sequence, a step-by-step sequence of things that you should do. I distinctly remember sharing this with a senior leader whom I coached last year.

She was on the senior leadership team at her corporate law firm, and she hired me to help her communicate with more credibility and authority. She also specifically asked me how to respond to one of her peers. Another corporate lawyer who constantly interrupted her in their leadership team meetings. I shared the sequence with her then that I’m gonna take you through right now.

Are you ready? So the first thing is to casually reference whatever it is, secondly, publicly and directly reference it. Three, check in with others and get an ally. Four, ask the person directly and emphatically. And the fifth and last step. Is to escalate to HR or senior leadership. A lot of folks, including this woman, this corporate lawyer that I was coaching, they find themselves in these scenarios where they’ve, they really don’t have a strategy or a sequence to follow.

And having this sequence will make you feel like you’re in a little bit more control, and it’ll make sure that you are not wasting any opportunities to try to correct the situation. The idea here is that hopefully after step one or after step two or after step three, the sooner the better. The behavior is gonna change with a difficult person, so.

After you’ve started to notice what’s going on, and maybe you’ve even jotted down, I remembered it started on such and such date, you could put it in a journal or in an email to yourself or something. The first thing you should do is casually reference it. So I told this woman, this corporate lawyer, and I’m telling you, you could almost make a joke out of it.

You’re in a meeting, the guy interrupts you. You say, Hey, you keep interrupting me. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Right. You’re casually referencing it sometimes. Calling it out. Labeling the behavior will encourage the person to stop. Often not, but sometimes step two is much more direct. This is where you publicly and directly referenced the behavior.

So in the case of this corporate lawyer and this peer of hers that kept interrupting her, she said to him when he interrupted her twice in a meeting, she said, that is the second time. In the last 10 minutes that you’ve interrupted me, I’m gonna finish my sentence and then I’d love to hear what you have to say.

She said, I’m gonna finish my point here and then I’m gonna pass it over to you. And then she didn’t even pause. She just kept talking and turned it over to him. So this is step two, publicly and directly referencing the behavior. This is a little bit more emphatic than the casual reference, right? If that doesn’t work, you move on to step three.

This is when you check in with others. And potentially get an ally. So this woman with this gentleman who was interrupting her constantly, she went to one of the other senior partners and she said, listen. I’m not gossiping behind someone’s back. I just wanna make sure that what I’m witnessing here, what I’m experiencing is real.

I’ve noticed that whatever the guy’s name is, Sam is constantly interrupting me. I’m worried that it’s affecting my credibility and I’m feeling like my voice isn’t being heard. Is it just me? And the guy was like. It is not just you. It is absolutely not just you. I can’t believe that you’ve put up with it for as long as you can.

And that’s when she went in for the ally. She said, listen, the next time we’re in a meeting and I asked him to not interrupt me. If he keeps doing it, do you mind stepping in? And he goes, absolutely. In fact, you don’t need to say anything. I’ll say it. And so the next meeting that they went to, guess what happened?

The guy interrupted her and her friend Sam stepped in and said, listen. You’ve been interrupting her over, not just this meeting, but many meetings, and we all need to respect each other and to listen to what the points that we’re making. Please let her speak. Guess what? The interruption stopped. So that’s step three.

Check in with others. Make sure you’re clear by the way, when you’re checking in, this is not about gossiping. This is about confirming whether what you’re experiencing. Actually is what other people are witnessing and the opportunity potentially to get an ally on your side. If that doesn’t work, step four.

Is directly and emphatically asking the person to stop. So I shared with this client, this corporate lawyer, if he doesn’t stop, after you get an ally to step in for you, that’s when you book a meeting with him. Ask him to come into your office, close the door, look him in the eye and say, I’ve been tracking this for the last three months.

You’ve been interrupting me. It is affecting my credibility. It’s affecting our productivity as a leadership team, and I’m asking you to stop. That step is also necessary because if it doesn’t work after that, you go to step six, which is escalating to human resources or senior leadership. And here’s where it’s really important that you have followed the previous four steps, because if you go to hr, the first thing they’re gonna say is, have you asked them to stop?

Then they’re gonna say, have other people noticed this? Have you directly and emphatically asked this person to stop whatever the behavior is? Right? And you’re gonna say, I first noticed on this day, I casually referenced it on this day. I publicly and directly referenced it on this day. I checked in with so-and-so.

He or she confirmed that I’m not crazy. This is actually what’s going on. They became an ally. They also asked the person to stop, and then I booked a meeting with the person and directly and emphatically asked them, so you’re going in. In good faith, telling them that you tried to solve the problem, you solve yourself.

You did everything in your power and it didn’t work. This will help you maintain credibility with HR or senior leadership before you escalate it, and then you can turn things over to them knowing that you’ve done everything that you could.

Okay, so now in this episode. We’ve covered strategies for how to respond to different people who are being chronically difficult, depending on whether they’re your customer or your client, or your peer, or your subordinate or your boss.

Different strategies work for different people, and now you also know the sequence to follow. When things don’t get better, one casually reference it two publicly and directly reference it. Three. Check in with others and get an ally. Four. Ask them directly and emphatically, and then five, you can escalate it.

I hope that this episode in combination with the previous episode 2 0 4, where we talked about the mindset you need to adopt and the scarf framework for diagnosing what’s going on. I hope this helps you feel better equipped on how to deal with difficult people. Please. Let me know how it goes. I know it’s not pleasant, but these skills will help you immensely.

And don’t forget to subscribe to this talk about Talk podcast no matter what podcast platform you’re on. Click subscribe now so you don’t miss any of these opportunities for communication skills coaching. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

The post Dealing with Difficult People at Work – Part 2 (ep.206) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

If you’re dealing with a difficult person at work, this episode will help you handle it.

Dr. Andrea Wojnicki shares a simple mindset shift that will help you feel empowered, plus a 5 word mantra that changes everything.

Andrea shares a real client story about a newly promoted partner who was being undermined by a colleague, and how this simple mindset shift completely transformed her experience.

You’ll also learn the S.C.A.R.F. Framework, a powerful diagnostic tool created by Dr. David Rock. This framework helps you understand exactly why someone is being difficult (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness) so you can respond strategically instead of reacting emotionally.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In Part 2, you’ll learn specific do’s and don’ts for dealing with difficult customers, direct reports, peers, and even your boss, plus a step-by-step sequence for when things escalate.

If you’re ready to stop dreading these interactions and start handling them with confidence, this episode is for you.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people. It might not literally be in your job description, but ask yourself this: as a senior leader, who else is gonna deal with these difficult people? Unfortunately, dealing with difficult people at work is a common challenge. In fact, I have to tell you this, I’ve noticed that requests for coaching and workshops on this topic are becoming more frequent.

Let me tell you why I encourage you to listen to this episode. Personally, I am a pretty positive person. I’m definitely an optimist, and I’d prefer to only cover positive topics if I could here at Talk About Talk. But the demand for strategies for dealing with difficult people is real. Here’s the good news.

You are going to learn some. Actionable frameworks and strategies for dealing with these difficult people that really work. You will feel empowered. Are you ready? Let’s do this. Let’s Talk About Talk. 

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach driven professionals like you so that you can communicate with confidence and ultimately achieve your career goals.

You can learn more about everything we do here at Talk about Talk, including private one-on-one coaching and online courses. Corporate workshops and more. If you go to talk about talk.com, we just relaunched the website, and there are plenty of free resources there for you as well, including my free communication coaching newsletter.

Okay, let’s get into this.

In this episode, you are going to learn a deceptively simple strategy that I promise will help you deal with difficult people, and also you’re gonna learn a framework to help you diagnose what exactly is going on with these difficult people. This, of course, will inform you about how to respond if you have a diagnosis.

It tells you what the treatment is, right? First, though. The deceptively simple strategy. 

Let me tell you a quick story about a client. Let’s call her Leanne. Leanne was an incredibly driven consultant who hired me to help her boost her communication skills. She actually called me her secret weapon.

She was gunning for a big promotion to partner at her firm, and it turns out she got that promotion when we were just a few months into our six-month coaching program. But that is when things got really difficult for Leanne, as in. She started to have to deal with difficult people. Actually, one main person, let’s call him Mike, actually, I think his name might have been Mike.

So Leanne and Mike started at the firm at about the same time, and he got promoted just a few months before her. They were both new partners and their offices were near each other. To Leanne’s surprise, things got pretty ugly pretty quickly. She told me that Mike seemed to be going out of his way to undermine her.

He would argue with her. He would argue with the recommendations that she made in meetings. He would raise his eyebrows and shake his head when she spoke up, and he even organized meetings and forgot to invite her. So publicly and privately, in person and online, Mike was being a very difficult person. Leanne told me that at first she decided to ignore it, but then that didn’t work.

So she tried to go out of her way to be friendly with Mike. Guess what? No change. She even tried fighting back, as she called it, in one of her meetings when he disagreed with her, and she ended up coming across as defensive and regretting her response. Andrea, what should I do? 

She pleaded, here’s what I told Leanne, and here is what I’m telling you.

This is a deceptively simple mindset shift that you’ll need to adopt to survive as a senior leader, especially when these difficult people rear their ugly heads. It’s a five-word mantra. Are you ready for it? Here it is. 

It’s part of my job. Lemme say that again. It’s part of my job. What exactly do I mean by that?

Well, here’s the thing. When you’re junior in your career, and maybe even when you’re a middle manager, you have a boss who’s looking over your shoulder, making sure you’re learning the technical skills and doing everything right and checking all the boxes for you to help you get promoted. And if someone slows you down, if there’s a difficult person that gets in your way, it’s your boss’s job to fix the situation.

But then, when you advance up the corporate ladder, here’s the insight. Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people. It might not literally be in your job description, but ask yourself this: as a senior leader, who else is gonna deal with these difficult people? It’s now part of what you do, so accept it and figure out how, instead of dwelling on how negative the situation is, dwell on your skills to deal with it.

When I shared this insight with Leanne, she told me, okay, Andrea, that makes sense. I’m gonna try it out, and I’ll let you know what happens then. At our next coaching session, she couldn’t wait to tell me how this simple mindset shift helped her deal with Mike. She told me, Andrea, when I see Mike’s name in my inbox now, or when he knocks on my office door, I actually smile to myself, and I say, here comes part of my job.

You got this. And then that’s what she does. It’s empowering. It makes you feel less like a victim. So I encourage you to try this too. Instead of dwelling on, woe is me. Why do I have to deal with this difficult person? Instead? Remind yourself that as a leader, this is part of your job. And then. Get on with it, but what exactly do you do from there?

Well, I do have some suggestions. 

So the first thing I want to share with you is a framework that will help you diagnose what is going on. When I teach this framework, people tell me they love it, and I hope you love it too. It’s called the SCARF framework. I didn’t create it. It was created in 2008, about 25 years ago, by Dr. David Rock.

And frankly, I have to say, I’m a bit surprised that this framework hasn’t gotten more traction. Most people tell me they haven’t heard about this. Maybe I should invite Dr. David Rock to be a podcast guest here to talk about Talk. Okay. Here is Dr. Rock’s scarf theory. He says that our behaviors are guided in part by five things that we seek.

If any of these five things come under threat, we act out as in yes, we become difficult. Scarf is the acronym that will help you remember what the five things are. S-C-A-R-F stands for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Got that. Its status, certainty, and autonomy. Relatedness and fairness.

You can find the list in the show notes, but let me briefly define each of these and share some ideas on how you might respond if you diagnose someone as feeling like any one of these things is under threat. Okay. The first is S status. Status is about respect and acknowledgement. Maybe with a competitive edge.

It’s a little bit about standing out. When I was coaching Leanne, I asked her whether Mike might feel like perhaps she threatened his status. Yep. When people feel respected and important, their status is secure. They’ll feel more engaged at work. If their status is threatened, they may lash out because they feel embarrassed or diminished.

So what can you do? You can appeal to their need for status. And I’m telling you, this works. Okay, so that’s the first one. S is for status, Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people…” and the next one, C, is certainty. The example I always give with certainty is COVID. Do you remember how uncertain we all felt? Like, how dangerous is this really? And how long is this gonna last?

And on and on. And of course, our anxiety and our stress levels skyrocketed. We were feeling uncertain, and many of us lashed out. The best leaders in organizations are the ones who provide certainty if someone’s being difficult because they feel things are uncertain. What you can do is make them feel certain, provide them with predictability, and tell them what the plan is.

That’s it. Okay, moving on. The third one is autonomy. Autonomy is about control. It’s about being independent. When we lose control, when our autonomy is under threat, we might become difficult. It’s natural, like when employers say we have to come back to work on certain days, and maybe for certain hours.

Some people feel like their autonomy is under threat. And you know what? That’s fair. Do you see how this works? So we’ve covered it. S is status. C is certainty. A is autonomy, and by the way, I have to mention this, these are not mutually exclusive. You can experience one or more of these things at the same time.

Or if someone’s being difficult at the workplace, you might diagnose them as potentially feeling like two or even three of these five things are under threat. Moving on. The fourth is r. Relatedness or I say relationships. This is about social groups. We are social beings, and we all wanna be in the ingroup.

However, you define that. If someone feels like their status as being in this ingroup is threatened, you better believe they’ll act out. On the other hand, have you ever noticed how you feel when someone refers to you as being in the collective, the we and the us, and how satisfying that is? That’s what I’m talking about here, relatedness.

Okay. We’re onto the last one. F. Is for fairness. Fairness as in consistency. Consistency over time, and consistency across people. This is a common one that people tell me is their diagnosis. When someone’s being difficult at work, it’s often because that person perceives that something is just not fair.

Okay, so there you go. Scarf status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. 

Are you trying to deal with someone who’s being difficult at work? Here’s my suggestion. First, stop complaining about it and tell yourself, this is part of my job. I can do this. Then use the scarf framework to diagnose what’s going on and to inform you about how to respond.

I hope this helps people tell me that it does. And in the next episode in two weeks, I’m gonna share with you some dos and don’ts, specific suggestions for how to deal with these difficult people. After you diagnose the issue, you certainly need to understand whether it’s your customer or your client, or maybe it’s your direct report.

Or maybe it’s a peer, like with Leanne and Mike, or maybe it’s your boss. That’s always a fun one when your boss is a difficult person. I have some fantastic suggestions and strategies to share with you about how to deal with these folks, and I’m also gonna share with you a sequence of steps to follow if things escalate.

Unfortunately, sometimes things get worse, and you end up having to go to HR or escalate it in some way, and I’m gonna share with you exactly what you need to do and when, step by step. So that’s the next episode. If you’re not already subscribed to this talk about Talk podcast, please hit subscribe now in whatever podcast platform you’re on, and then you’re gonna automatically receive part two of dealing with difficult people and more communication skills coaching from me.

That’s it. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

The post Dealing with Difficult People at Work – Part 1 (ep.205) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

New year, new you. What does that actually mean?

Dr. Andrea Wojnicki makes it clear: it’s not about reinventing yourself or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about rediscovering your strengths, elevating your best self, and defining a professional identity that helps you achieve your career goals in 2026 and beyond.

In this episode, Andrea shares a powerful personal brand training session that walks you through three critical questions designed to reveal what your authentic professional brand should be. You’ll explore what you’re most proud of from 2025, your biggest career accomplishment from the last decade, and what you truly want to accomplish moving forward.

Andrea also shares three definitions of personal branding that will inspire and guide you, plus her proven Present-Past-Future self-introduction framework that helps you present yourself with confidence and impact in any professional setting.

The episode also includes a live Q&A where Andrea tackles tough questions about ageism in the workplace, how to introduce yourself in sales calls, navigating social media versus in-person communication, and more.

If you’re ready to present your true best self and not the version your boss thinks you should be, this episode is for you.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Andrea Wojnicki: Happy New Year, and welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. Let’s do this. 

Let’s Talk About Talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach ambitious professionals to communicate with confidence and credibility so they can achieve their career goals in 2026 and beyond.

Earlier this year, I hosted a live training event called New Year, New You personal brand training. In this session, we covered all sorts of definitions and activities and exercises, and three questions that I ask myself and that I encourage you to ask yourself to help you develop your ideal, positive personal brand in 2026 and beyond.

Are you ready? Here we go. I wanna start by saying truly how much I was thinking about this as I was getting ready, how much I think about respect that you’ve taken time out of. I know no matter what you do, you have a busy schedule, you have lots to do, and this time of year. It’s like it gets all bottled up and then boom, first week of January, you’re back at it and you’re taking an hour of your time to spend with me.

I feel honored. I feel privileged about that, but I also, I already have a lot of respect for you, whether I know you or not, for taking this time to invest in yourself. So I promise you, in the next hour, I’m gonna share with you some things where my intent is to provide you with some real impact in how to help you develop your.

Ideal personal brand, or what we’re calling in this context here are professional identity. Okay?

So it’s a new year and a new you and I was, I was also thinking about this a lot. New Year, new you. I do not mean reinventing you and turning you into something that you are not already. I’m talking maybe about rediscovering something about you that you haven’t been thinking about in the way that you maybe should.

I am talking about. Really elevating your best self, okay? So that you are as happy. And as successful as you can possibly be. So we’re not talking about your needs, the things that your boss is telling you that you need to work on. We’re actually thinking about the opposite. We’re thinking about your strengths and your skills and your expertise and how to share those things with the world, and actually for how you can think about those things more yourself.

I am not gonna waste your time. We’ve got a lot to get through here. I am very ambitious, I’m gonna say that in terms of what we’re gonna generally and in this hour in terms of what we’re gonna get through. So I’m not gonna waste my time. I’ve been to some of these events where people spend 15 minutes introducing themselves.

I am not gonna do that. I’m gonna say, many of you already know me on LinkedIn. If you don’t, you can check me out on LinkedIn. Um, I’m Andrea Wa there, but probably what might be more helpful is if you go to the talkabouttalk.com website, and you can learn all about me there, including the podcast.

I have a biweekly podcast on Apple, on Spotify. We have a YouTube channel now where all the episodes are there and all of the. Past live trainings that we’ve done like this one are there. So you can, there’s lots of resources. And one resource in particular that I wanna draw your attention to is my biweekly email newsletter.

So every two weeks, if you sign up, you get an email from me, and it’s an update with me. And my objective with this email is basically to provide you with free communication skills coaching. So I coach ambitious executives, I’m guessing like yourself, who have establish some level of technical expertise, and you’re looking to step it up in terms of your career and maybe in terms of your life.

And you’ve identified communication skills rightly as one of the things that can really help you get there. So in that newsletter, which I hope you’ll sign up for, you can get free coaching from me there and keep updated on everything that’s going on in the talk about talk world. Okay. What I want you to do now in the next 55 minutes, we’re gonna think of this as a, not just a training session, but a real-time coaching session where you’re gonna make some traction and make some progress in terms of not just thinking about, but actually writing down what your ideal brand is.

So if you have a piece of paper and a pen or a notebook or something like that, please get those out. And if you don’t. You can write it in your phone. Some people like to write notes in their phone. Write it on another device. You can also rewatch this video later on YouTube, and it’ll also be posted on LinkedIn.

Okay? So get your paper and pen ready. I’m gonna take you through four things. For those of you who know me. You’ll be like, what? It’s not three. I know. I told you I was really ambitious. It’s a new year. Four things. The first thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna ask you three. Really important questions, and I want you to write your answers down, so that’s why you need a piece of paper and a pen.

Okay, so first thing is three questions. The second thing is going to be three definitions of personal branding, but that’s also gonna help you inspire and define your brand. Okay? Then I’m going to share with you a three-point self-introduction framework, and I know from the folks in the audience for a few of you, this is gonna be a refresher.

You’ve seen it before, but we’re gonna be looking at it through a new lens. Then I’m gonna share with you three reasons why this work is so important and how you can do it. And then we’re gonna get into a q and a. So in the Q & A, for those of you who know me, you know that I love an open q and a where I have no idea what you’re gonna ask me.

So I always make time for that at the end, if you have questions, you can save them for when we do the live q and a, or you can put them in the chat. So I’m gonna be looking for people who are raising their hands first, and then we’ll go into the chat for, um. 

Okay, so let’s get into this. I don’t have slides for this part.

I will when we get into the definitions and everything, but we’re gonna start now by me asking you, and I’ve asked myself these questions, by the way, three really important questions that can inform what your personal brand should be, and it might surprise you what these questions are. It might not. But regardless, I think these are questions that we don’t ask ourselves often enough, and if you really double down on the answers for these, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

Okay? The first question is this. What are you most proud of that you accomplished? That’s a very general term, right? Accomplished. 25. So before you answer that, I just wanna say we in this session, in this one-hour session, are focusing on your professional identity. And many of us, I hope, have personal accomplishments that they’re really proud of.

So, for our context here, let’s keep it in the context of your career. It could be a skill that you learned. It could be a leadership skill. It could like, it could be a soft skill or a hard skill, right? And the soft skills often are related to ourselves personally as well. Like you could say, I really worked on my listening, or I really worked on not using filler words.

And this is professional and personal, but I want, if you said like, I’m really proud of, you know, having my oldest child graduate and go off to college, that’s an amazing accomplishment, and you should definitely be celebrating that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about personal or professional accomplishments. 

So again, it could be a skill, it could be an award that you won, something that you got a big check mark on. It could be something that maybe at the beginning of 2025, you and your boss decided that it was something you needed to work on, and then at the end of the year, you were told that you made great strides.

It could be that. I want you to write that down. That’s the first question. Okay. You can, of course, continue to refine your answer to these questions, but that’s number one. The second question is, I want you to just pull the lens way back. What is the thing that you are most proud of in terms of your career in the last 10 years?

So I was gonna say five years, and then I thought, I know from myself and from some other people that I coach that things may have happened five or six or seven. It doesn’t really matter. It’s like recent history in the last 10 years. What are you really proud of in your career? Again, it could be you learned a hard skill.

It could be you launched a new product. It could be that you made a career change. It could be that you earned a degree or other credentials. By the way, you’re allowed to answer with more than one thing, but you need to have at least one thing that you’re really proud of from the last 10 years. Okay? Now, at this point, when I’m coaching folks one-on-one, I often get this comment from people they say, I find this really hard to answer, Andrea, because I spend so much of my time thinking about what I need to work on.

My weaknesses or my developmental areas. So that’s what’s really special about this work. On personal branding, we purposely focus on the positive, unique, and relevant things that you wanna reinforce. And of course, you need to work on your development areas, but we rarely double down on our strengths and our accomplishments.

So that’s where I wanted to kick this off. So you’ve got your, hopefully. Answer number to question number two, which is what is the accomplishment or the skill that you are most proud of from the last 10 years? Okay. Now you’re probably wondering what the next question is. Is it gonna be like the last 25 years?

I know some of you probably aren’t even 25 years old. No, that’s not where we’re headed. The third question is something that I know personally and from coaching hundreds and hundreds of folks can be very, very illuminating. And the question is this, what compliments have you received that mean the most to you?

So for some of you, you might be like, oh, I know what it is right away. For most of you, you probably don’t. So here’s the thing, when we. Receive compliments from people. We light up, we feel happy, we feel validated. We feel appreciated. We feel like we are successful at something, right? So we might be told that we are smart, or we might be told that we’re attractive, or we might be told that we are a kind person.

If you had to choose out of those, which one, it’s not that they’re not all fantastic, of course they are, but which one is the most meaningful? Which one lights you up? I can tell you the compliment that I’ve received a couple times in the last, I don’t know, six, eight months from my clients that really lights me up is they’ll say to me, Andrea, you have incredible listening powers when we’re in these coaching sessions.

You really listen to what I’m saying, and then you’re able to interpret what I’m saying and then articulate it in a way that I’ve never thought of it before, but it’s true to me. And that just shows that you’re really listening. And when my clients tell me that I light up because I’m, I’m like, well, I wasn’t actually listening on purpose.

I was just really trying to understand them so I could help them articulate their brand. And when they say that I’ve done that, I light up. So what compliment have you received? That lights you up. And this is really important for your brand because these compliments and your responses to them are telling you something, perhaps about where you should be focusing more.

So the fact that this lights me up really to me, reinforces that I’m doing the right thing with my career and coaching people. Because if the compliment is that I’m. Making an impact on my clients, and that’s what lights me up, then that’s exactly what I should be doing. So again, I’m sharing my first-person story here, hopefully to inspire you to think about when have you felt that way when someone made a specific compliment to you that really lit you up?

If you’re not sure about what this compliment is, the other thing that you could do is I have an archetypes quiz on my website. It’s talkabouttalk.com/. Archetypes quiz, and if you take the quiz, you’ll get an email back that tells you what your archetype is. So when I take this quiz, it tells me that my archetype is magician and someone who leads people through transformation, and I’m like, that maps perfectly to the compliment that lights me up.

It’s not a coincidence. Right? So the answer to this question, what lights you up in terms of a compliment and what your archetype is? Probably, there’s probably a very direct link there. There should be a very direct link there. So I guess my challenge to you is to answer that question first. To the best of your ability.

And then if you wanna, the quiz is free, by the way. When you take the quiz, you can see whether it valid and what I hear from people, they, you know, guess what their archetype might be. Or they, they think about what the compliments are and when they get the answer back from the quiz, the results of the quiz, if they align with what they.

Thought before it’s great. It’s very validating, and sometimes they don’t. It’s a little bit different, but then they see the archetype, and they’re like, but actually that’s really true. And it this helps you feel seen and this your archetype can help inform what is unique about your brand that you should be reinforcing.

So the archetypes all talk about a PO one of 12 positive personas that, um. Is like a universal pattern that people will understand and that you can use to reinforce your strengths. Okay, so we’ve got, hopefully, you’ve written down three answers to three questions that I asked. What are you most proud of from 2025 in terms of your career?

What are you most proud of from the last 10 years, and what compliment lights you up the most? I kind of feel like I may have opened a big can of worms here because you’re like, okay, this, this feels good. It’s all positive, Andrea, but what am I gonna do with it? I’m gonna take you through some definitions and an exercise, uh, uh, self-introduction framework, and some benefits of personal branding now, and I’m gonna be referencing back to these questions and your answers to these questions to help you sort of make sense of how you can leverage them.

So, by the way, your answers to these questions should be evolving all the time. I, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions the next time someone compliments yourself. I hope you have a new lens on that compliment, and you think compliments are nice. How does this one rank in all of the compliments that I’ve received?

Is it a just nice to hear or is it like telling me something? My response to it? Is it telling me something that I should be paying attention to in terms of my brand, how I’m being perceived by other,s and how, what I wanna be thinking about myself. Okay. I wish I could read what all of you wrote down so badly.

All right. Here we are. New year. New. Yes. By the way, I’m wearing the same blouse I was, I was like it, looking at what to wear today, and I’m like, I should just wear the same thing that I’m wearing on the, um, on the poster for this event. 

Okay, so the first question is, what is a personal brand? I’m gonna start by telling you what it is not.

So my guess is that, well, I hope that you are not in the camp of folks out there, and there are plenty of these folks who think that personal branding is about turning you into social media influencer or monetizing your brand, Andrea, encouraging you to quit your job. So because you’re, you’re feeling empowered to go out there and become this big, you know, influencer, celebrity that is not, that is not what we were talking about here.

Okay? We are talking about identifying, as I said before. The positive, unique, and relevant traits about you that you wanna reinforce. You can think of your personal brand in the same way that marketers, brand marketers, think about product brands, right? Like you’re selling a box of Tide, you’re selling, uh, I don’t know, an AI software platform or whatever you’re selling.

You think about what are the unique characteristics of this product that I want people to know. It’s exactly the same. Almost exactly the same with people. With people. It evolves, though, right? Because the world changes. We grow, our family changes, our careers change. But you can think of it as your reputation or your identity.

Over the years I’ve used, as I’ve been coaching folks, I’ve been using different definitions of personal branding and, uh, the one that I think is the most well known is this one from Jeff Bezos. If you haven’t heard it, you, I’m, this is probably a reminder for most of you, any article that I have read in the last, at least five years on personal branding, almost always within the first three paragraphs this comes up, Jeff Bezos says, your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

So I want you to add, this is a real coaching session here, okay? I want you to ask yourself. The important stakeholders in your career. It could be your boss and your boss’s boss who look after succession planning. It could be your clients, your customers, or your consumers. It could be your colleagues at work.

It probably is your colleagues at work, no matter what. It could be your people that you’re negotiating with. It could be investors. If you are an entrepreneur, these important stakeholders, what are they? Saying and actually thinking about you when you’re not in the room. So imagine you just met with them and you leave.

What’s their impression of you? Or if I just ask them right now, or if you could read their mind and your name comes to mind, what are they thinking and saying about you? That’s your brand. Now, here’s where a lot of people say, oh Andrea, it is not good. That is not like it. I mean, it’s fine, but it’s not what I want people to think about me.

And I say, that’s great. That’s why we’re doing this work. But if you’re gonna be. You know, if you’re really gonna make an impact here with your brand, you gotta start with what people are already thinking and saying about you, and also thinking about what you wanna reinforce. So now I want you to go back to the three questions also and ask yourself, do these people know about these good things that I’ve accomplished in the last year, in the last 10 years?

Is there a way without bragging or being awkward about it, that they, that this can come up in conversation. Should it be on my LinkedIn profile? Are they aware of these compliments that other people are giving me that are lighting me up? Did are they aware of these things? These are important questions to ask yourself.

Okay, so this is, this is. Very helpful. This is actually an exercise that I do take folks through when I’m coaching them in masterclasses and one-on-one coaching. It’s very helpful. Um, and I brought this up when. Two years ago, I interviewed the marketing guru, Seth Godin, who’s written many, many, many, many books.

Uh, depending on how you count them, it’s either 20 something or 80 something. Um, and he also ran the podcasting fellowship that I did, uh, six and a half years ago. So I asked him if I could interview him. He said, sure. And it was. Fascinating conversation. Let me tell you, this guy thinks like no one, like I knew when I logged on, this is not gonna be a normal interview.

And I also said to myself, I’ve listened to many of the other folks that have interviewed him on podcasts. I’m gonna ask him questions that my audience wants to know. So we started talking about personal branding, of course, and he said, oh, people think my brand is my orange glasses that I wear, but that’s not my brand, that’s just my logo.

And I was like. Oh goodness. We’re not gonna go down that rabbit hole. That’s just, that’s not helpful. And I said, Seth, how do you think about your brand? And this is what he said, this is gold. He said, my brand is what people think I’m gonna do next. Let that sink in for a minute. Think about the folks that I just listed, right?

The boss’s boss, your colleagues, your clients, your customers, your negotiating partner, your investors, these important stakeholders who have impact on your career. What do they think you’re going to do next? Okay? At least as importantly, what do you want to do next? So this is the next thing I want you to write down.

What do you want to accomplish in your career? In 2026 and maybe beyond, do these people think it’s likely? So let me tell you one of the things that I am most proud of in 2025, it took a lot of work, and I am really proud of it, but it’s just opening a whole other, a whole other line of projects that I’m working on now is I signed a book deal, right?

So, if my brand is what people think I’m going to do next, the important question for me to ask myself is, do people think I am going to write a book that is worth reading? Right? And if they do, that’s fantastic. If they don’t, what can I do to make sure that I’m evolving my reputation or my brand so that that is the case?

So when Seth Godin shared this definition with me, I was like. Oh my gosh. And we talked about it for a while, and then when I finished the interview, I pulled out a piece of paper sitting where I am right now. I drew a line down the middle, and I was like, what are my goals? Do people think it’s possible?

And I gave myself a score, and then I was like, how can I make people believe that this is gonna happen? Because when they believe it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be even more successful, and it’s also more likely that I’m gonna do it. So I want you to do the same thing. What do you want to accomplish? And do other people think you are gonna do that, or that it’s conceivable or perceivable that you’re gonna do that. 

And if they are great and if they’re not aligned, then you have some work to do. But this is work that is, I was gonna say, it’s not, it’s not easy work, of course. It’s not easy work, but it’s really, really important work. Okay. Alright. So we have these two definitions of personal branding from these two.

Very smart, very successful, very well-meaning people, and these definitions are getting a lot of traction. The thing that bothers me about these definitions is that there’s no agency associated with them. So what do I mean by that? By agency, I mean we have no influence or control. It’s just what are people saying and thinking about us, and what do they think we’re gonna do next?

So what am I gonna do about it? So here’s my definition now that I use it’s personal branding is about being yourself on purpose. And there’s really two parts of this definition that I want you to really understand here. It’s being yourself, and by yourself, I mean your true self. You’re not acting like somebody else.

Your whole self. So yes, we’re talking about your professional identity, but you are also maybe a husband or a wife, or a parent, a sister or a brother, or a friend, or an athlete or a musician. Like these other things that are not directly related to your professional identity, they are related to your professional identity, right?

So it is your whole self. It is your best self. So I’m asking these questions at the beginning of this session in terms of the things that you’re most proud of. I want you to start to focus more on your strengths, your accomplishments, and your skills. How can you leverage those things? Make sure you’re in opportunities where you can demonstrate those things.

Make sure you’re reinforcing them. One of the interviewees that I had in my podcast last year said it so well. She said, people are afraid to share their accomplishments and their skills. And she said, I think of it more as like a service that you’re doing for the people that you’re working for. They hired you to do a job.

You need to tell them what you do best. Think about it. If you know what your skills are and you share that with the people that you’re working with, then you’re gonna be doing your best work, and they’re gonna be getting the most out of you. So personal branding is about being yourself, your whole self, your true self, and your best self.

You got that whole self. True self and best self. It’s not that you’re ignoring your weaknesses and areas of opportunity, but that’s not what you’re emphasizing when you’re introducing yourself and you’re interacting at work. Right. And then the second part of this definition is on purpose, and I have it in capitals because that is what we’re literally, maybe not literally physically.

This is what we’re physically doing right now. We are unapologetically, strategically. Taking the time and making the effort to purposefully present ourselves in a true and effective way to others and to ourselves so that we can be our happiest and most successful self. That sounds good, right? I have this on purpose thing.

I put it in caps. I emphasize it as much as I can. It’s like I hope I’m turning a light bulb on for you that most of us go through our careers doing kind of what we wanna do and a lot of what other people expect us to do, and introducing ourselves without really thinking about it. What we’re saying about ourselves.

If you put a little bit of effort into identifying what your strengths are. What you love to do, what you’re good at, what your accomplishments are, and how to share that with the world and reinforce it even with yourself. This work, you know, I’m a communication coach, and my background is marketing and it’s all, you know, it’s all about like amplifying your message.

Recently, I’ve been thinking more and more and more about like this whole idea of self-identity and your professional identity and your personal brand. It affects you as much as it affects everyone else. I mean, not just because of the impact and what happens, but actually how you think about yourself.

So this is my definition, and personal branding is about being yourself on purpose, and what, so what this definition adds here, like I said, is agency. You can make a difference in over to Jeff Bezos, what people are saying and thinking about you. You can make a difference in as Seth Godin says what people think you’re going to do next.

You can do that. And it starts by taking an inventory of the things that you love to do, that you’re good at, the compliments that mean the most to you, the accomplishments that you’re most proud of. Okay, so you see how this circles back to the three questions that I asked you at the beginning. If you wanna take a screenshot of this page, by the way, you’re absolutely more than welcome to.

And again, it’ll be posted on, on YouTube if you wanna reference it there. And we’ll also be posting it on LinkedIn. My challenge here, if you want to think about these three definitions, is to. Like I said, do the mental exercise of answering the three of them for yourself, and also maybe thinking about where can you get the most traction.

If you look at each of the three of them, some people say, like Andrea, I agree with your definition, but Jeff Bezos, that’s the one that really matters to me, ’cause I’m trying to convince my boss that I deserve promotion. So I want, when I’m not in the room, I want ’em to tell everyone that I need to get promoted.

I’m like, bingo. That’s the definition you need to be focusing on, then. Right? So think about. Maybe which of the three is most relevant for you today, and maybe in 2026. 

Okay. Now we are gonna move on to the three-point self-introduction framework. So some of you have seen this before, and if you have, I’m going to be.

Asking you to think about it just a little bit differently in terms of integrating the three questions that I asked you at the very beginning. For the rest of you, I just wanna share a couple things. So, your self introduction, both personally and professionally, by the way, is the most direct way that you have to reinforce your brand.

Think about it. Your self-introduction is your words from you about you. You’re sharing with the world, and they’reyour  words. It’s not just, oh, Andrea’s, you know, got books behind her. It’s like this implicit thing. No, no, no. These are words about you that you’re sharing. So about four years ago I did an episode on how to introduce yourself.

And it very quickly became the top Talk About Talk podcast episode of all. It actually remains number one of 203 episodes as of, uh, this week. And. I wrote up, I wrote it up, and I sent it into Harvard Business Review in 2022, and in 2023, it was one of the three most downloaded articles of the year on the hbr.org website.

So this topic gets a lot of traction, and the self-introduction framework works. That’s why this article was so popular. I’m gonna share it with you now. And by the way, it is so easy that you do not even need to take notes. It’s just three things you start with present. 

So this is the way many people start their self-introduction, by the way, hi, my name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, where I have a podcast, and I coach ambitious executives to be successful in their careers by focusing on their personal brands and their communication skills. So you see what I did there? It’s my name, my title, my company, my What I Do.

If you’ve done the work on your personal branding, you can also. Talk about, um, maybe what your unique leadership style is, what differentiates you compared to other people. Um, but at least it is your name and what you do. Okay? So I, I told you I was gonna be linking this back to the three questions in terms of your present.

If there’s something that you have accomplished, and maybe you have a new title or you have a new skill, you can talk about this in the present tense now, right? My name is whatever. I’m a chief technology officer at a BC tech company, and what differentiates me compared to other technology experts or leaders is my ability to do this.

And I’ve recently, uh, developed a skill with AI, whatever it is, right? So you’re talking about yourself in the present tense. This is really important. You wanna anchor yourself introduction in who you are and what you do very often people will say. We’ll be going around the table. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

And people will start with the past, and they’ll share this kind of default, boring chronology. I’m exaggerating here, but I graduated in 2002 with a commerce degree, and then I went and worked at this company and then I, and it’s like what? Start with who you are and what you do. This is the most important thing, by the way, if you’re unemployed.

I coach plenty of people that are in job transition and they say, how do I do that if I’m in job transition? You introduce yourself and you share what your expertise is, right? My name is Jane Smith. I am a finance and marketing expert, blah, blah, blah, right? You just, you get right into your expertise and you tell them your industry expertise or your functional expertise.

Okay? So that’s step one. Present tense. Step two is past tense. So, here in a professional context is where you establish credibility. You, depending on the context, you might share one or two or three things. I say less is more. We all, including myself, get tempted to share too much information. You don’t wanna talk more than the person before you.

You wanna speak slightly less in your self-introduction than the person who introduced themselves before you. But here’s where you can say, guess what? The answer to the, the questions that I asked you, at least question one and two, you could say I’m something I’m really proud of in the last year that I accomplished is blah, blah, blah.

By the way. Telling people that you’re really proud of something, as long as you don’t do it all the time, like, I’m proud of this, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of this. I’m proud. Of course, that’s not what I’m talking about, but saying, you know what? I’m actually really proud of the fact, like I told you at the beginning, I’m really proud when my clients tell me that I am an exceptional listener.

I hope you don’t take that as me being arrogant. It’s like one thing. So arrogant. People are defensive. They can do no wrong. They’re good at everything, right? Telling someone one thing that you’re proud of does not make you arrogant. In fact, you should practice. Telling people what you’re proud of. So here is where you could say, in the past 10 years, one of the most significant things in my career is that I accomplished a transition from blah, blah, blah to blah, blah, blah.

Or I earned this degree. So this is where you talk about the thing from question number two, the thing that you’re proud of for the last 10 years, and then you can say, in the last year. In 2025, the accomplishment that I’m most proud of is this. And you’re telling people what your value is, what your expertise is, what your skills are, and remember what I said before.

This is actually providing a service to others so that they can get value out of you. Okay, so you could talk about your past credentials, accomplishments, things that you, you know, new products that you launched, big projects that you led, or projects that you participated in. Maybe it’s your business results from 2025 or from the last five years, whatever it is.

So this second step is establishing credibility. That’s how I want you to think about it. Okay? Now, many people, in fact, I’m gonna say. Most people, a significant majority of people, end their self-introduction here. They’re like, my name is blah, blah, blah. This is what I do. Previously I worked at this other company, la, la, la.

And then it kind of fades off. Then the next person goes, are you done? Okay, my turn, blah, blah. Right? That’s how it goes. Sound familiar? The research shows that if you can share something. Positive and enthusiastic that things will go your way. So I first learned this from a negotiation expert who I interviewed.

She was doing her PhD research on negotiations emotions, and she found this insight about the emotion of enthusiasm. And when you share enthusiasm, the negotiation is more likely to go your way. So I went into Google Scholar, and I started looking at all the research on enthusiasm. It turns out in the teaching context, people learn more when you’re enthusiastic.

In the job application process, the job applicant who is more enthusiastic, is more likely to get the job. In a sales context, the salesperson who is more enthusiastic is more likely to close a sale, and on and on and on. So here’s the magic in your self-introduction. Instead of ending it with this awkward like, and that’s me.

Add one simple sentence about something that you’re looking forward to and say it with enthusiasm. It could be generally about like in 2026. I’m really excited, you know, to be in this new role, or I’m really excited to work with you all. Ideally, when you’re introducing yourself, this three-point self-introduction framework is not a script.

It’s purposely just three words, present, past, and future, and you fill in the blanks and you always customize it and personalize it for the person that you’re introducing yourself to. For example, in step three, this future step, you will turn to the person, look them in the eye and say, I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better, or, I’m really looking forward to working with you, or I’m really looking forward to like, as a client, serving your needs, whatever on this account.

So, turn it back to them with a smile on your face and enthusiasm. And I have so many stories from podcast listeners and people who have read this article who told me they get caught off guard and asked to introduce themselves. So one of my clients, his name’s Mike, he is a very very successful wealth advisor, and I was coaching him a couple years ago, and he told me that on some Saturday, he was, uh, at the golf course, and one of his very wealthy clients ran into him and said, Hey Mike, nice to see you.

Happy Saturday. Oh, by the way, this is my buddy that I was telling you about and he’s looking for a wealth advisor. And Mike was like, oh, come on. It’s my Saturday. I don’t wanna have to sell myself. And then he thought, self-introduction framework. He said, Hey, yeah, my name’s Mike, and I’ve been a wealth advisor.

I used to live in Toronto. I moved my family over, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, he shifted to past, and he said, I’ve been doing this for X number of years. He added a few things for credential and then future. He said, I don’t know if you, if you live around here, but maybe next week we can connect. And the guy said, sure.

And five days later, he had a new client, and I was like, oh. So Mike, do I get the commission check? Anyway, he said, Andrea, you saved me. Because he goes, my mind was in a fog. I was trying to drink my coffee. It was Saturday morning, and I just thought, present past future. And he goes, it actually resulted in me signing on a client.

So your self-introduction is not always gonna be this impactful, but I’m telling you sometimes it will be when you walk into a job interview and they say, tell us about yourself. Are you kidding? The way you answer that question determines whether you make it to the next round of interviews. Let’s be serious here, right?

This framework works for that. So present, past, future. Now, I want you to think about your answers to the three questions, the compliments and the things that light you up, and how the compliments that light you up and your accomplishments from 20, 25 and 10 years before. How can you work these in without, you don’t have to say I’m particularly proud of, although I, I would suggest maybe you could once, right?

How do you include positive, unique, and relevant things about yourself in each of these three steps? Here’s the word that I was telling someone yesterday. I’m, I used to say, introduce yourself with confidence. Now I’m saying introduce yourself with purpose. This is an opportunity for you to really reinforce your professional identity in a positive way that’s gonna impact how other people think about you.

Okay, now we’re gonna move into. Three benefits of building your brand. And again, I’m gonna map this back to you, and you can continue to take notes here. But these are three, yes, I’m a huge fan. In case you didn’t get the memo of the Power of three, but perhaps not, coincidentally, there are three things that I see and hear all the time from people about the benefits of doing this work, about being yourself, your true self, your whole self, and your best self on purpose.

Okay? The first thing is when you do this work. You have the ability to control your narrative. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people will talk about you, and you’re like, ah, that’s not quite right. Or something comes outta your mouth, and you’re like, ah, you know, that’s true, but it’s not the best thing that I would’ve said about myself.

When you’ve done this work, you are controlling the words that people use to describe you and how you even think about yourself. You’re not leaving it to chance, and I, I say this to my clients all the time. You can be a very strong B plus, maybe even an A if you don’t do this work, but if you really wanna knock it outta the park, you’re gonna take the time to really define yourself, your true self, your best self, and your whole self purposefully.

And then you’re going to use those words to control the narrative. The best example that I have of this is well. Best. I said that so emphatically, didn’t I? I think it’s one of the best stories that I have to illustrate this. I was doing live coaching session very similar to this, and a brave woman raised her hand, and she said, I have a question for you, Andrea.

As you can tell by my accent, I’m an Indian immigrant, and I live in the States. I’m a lawye,r and I want my brand to be lawyer, not immigrant. How do I control the narrative around that? And so. I said to her, tell me about yourself, like where do you work? What kind of law? And every, and as she, as she was speaking, I was listening to her accent, and then I, I said to her, so your accent is definitely decipherable.

You didn’t have to tell me that you were from India. I could have guessed, but your English is clear. I’m not working hard to understand you. And you know, the research shows that when you have an accent, people might click in that you have an accent, but then as long as you don’t make them work to understand you, it’s fine.

It’s not a negative thing, so I wouldn’t worry about it. In fact, you’re thinking of it as a liability. Let’s turn your accent into an asset. And she said, okay, how do I do that? I said, you control the narrative around your accent. You could literally say to people, yes, literally, literally say to people, as you can tell by my accent, I am from India.

I have global experience. I have lived and worked in India, and there was one other country, and now the United States. I passed the bar exam in New York, and I’m now a corporate lawyer. I work as a corporate lawyer in Manhattan. And I said, boom, like your accent is actually evidence. And so you are controlling a narrative.

So here’s where if you have something about yourself that you aren’t. Maybe that you’re trying to hide like her, she’s trying to hide her accent. You can create a narrative around that thing. Don’t let other people create the narrative for you. I said, you don’t need to correct people if they call you an immigrant, but you can tell them what it means, right?

When they say, oh, are you an immigrant? You could say, I’ve lived and worked in three different countries, and I’m a corporate lawyer now in Manhattan, where I leverage that global experience. Boom, drop the mic. Right? You control the narrative. Okay? The second benefit is that working on your brand provides you with direction and focus.

So, as I said before, arrogant people think they’re fantastic at everything. I asked you a really, really hard question about what compliments mean the most to you. That answer, I hope, provides you with direction and focus. It doesn’t mean you never work on anything that’s not related to that compliment, goodness knows, but it means I hope that you have the opportunity to raise your hand enthusiastically and volunteer for any kind of project or work that relates to that compliment where you can really flourish. 

Okay. So you can see how building your brand provides you with direction and focus. I hear this from my clients all the time. They’re like, I dunno if I should be doing this or that, or this or that. And then we create this list of themes about them that they know are positive, unique, and relevant to them, and then it provides them with direction and focus.

The third and last benefit is the one that. I think is the most significant. I wanna really be clear about this, and the reason I keep bringing this up is I get this question often, like frequently all the time. I’m afraid that it’s one thing to write down these things that I’m proud of and these compliments that light me up, but to actually talk about them, and I say, you are not saying that you are good at everything.

You are taking the time on purpose. Remember to identify your unique strengths and skills, and there’s nothing arrogant about that. So, identifying the unique things about you that differentiate you compared to everybody else who does what you do. Differentiates you compared to your coworkers, your competitors, maybe even compared to your family and friends.

This is gonna boost your confidence. And one of the reasons I love what I do so much is that I am focused on the positive, right? I help people think about this strangely. They’re at work, and they’re thinking about their weaknesses and what they need to work on and their skill deficiencies, and I’m like, hang on a second.

What about your strengths? Think about the people you know who are. The most genuinely confident, not arrogant, genuinely confident, and happy and successful in their careers. They are the ones that have doubled down on their unique strengths, right? So that could be you. These are the three benefits of building your brand.

It helps you. You can see how they’re kind of intertwined. They’re integrated, but they’re importantly distinct. You’re controlling your narrative. You’re thinking about the words, and you’re reinforcing them with purpose. I’m not saying you’re great at everything. You’re providing yourself with direction and focus, and you’re elevating your confidence because you’ve taken the time to think about these positive accomplishments.

The two first two questions and compliments that you get from people, and this is sure to boost your confidence. So that is the main material I guess, that I wanted to cover with this. We’ve covered a lot already. We’ve got three big questions if you wanna send them to me, by the way, on LinkedIn, I, I would love to see what some of them are, three definitions of personal branding to get you thinking about them more deeply.

The three point self introduction. Remember, present, past, future, it’s not chronological, and the three benefits of building your brand. So if I were you. I would be thinking, thank you. This is helpful. I feel empowered, but now what? 

So onto my favorite part of the session, the q and a. First thing before I look in the chat, what brave soul here has a question for me.

I would love to hear a question. I know you’ve got questions. 

Theo: All right, I’ll go. 

AW:  Oh, Theo. Amazing. 

Theo: I’m afraid you’ll cold-call someone. So I am curious how you think differently about the future piece and the present. Well, actually, the whole introduction piece, when you’re talking about people who are either currently employed, transitioning, or coming back to employment after a long time out of the workforce.

Yeah. I’m curious, like for people who are not 25 on this call. 

W: Thank you Theo. Amazing. This is a common question that I get and I think it’s really important. I think if you are gainfully employed, it’s kind of obvious, right? Like present tense is who I am and what I do. Past tense is, you know, the things.

Remember, you’re customizing it for the people in the room, right? So you’re thinking, if you’re introducing yourself to a new project team, like what do they need to know about me that I’ve done that’s gonna help me establish credibility, right? And then future is, I’m looking forward to working with you.

If you’re in a job interview, I think the best way to answer this might be to just make some scenarios up, right? If you’re in a job interview. You go in and they very often purposely ask you, tell me about yourself. And you don’t know how long to talk, and you don’t even know what the structure is. Yes, you do.

It’s present, past,and  future. Hi, my name is Andrea. I am a, or my name is Theo. I am a blah, blah, blah, industry, blah, blah, blah. Function expert. I am. You’re still present tense, right? I am excited to learn about this position, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you say, I’m gonna tell you three things about my experience and my skills.

There are many things, many things that I could share with you, but, um, in terms of, you know, sharing things about myself, there are three things. Again, I told you I’m the, I’m a big fan of the power of three, the benefit of saying. At that point, I’m gonna share three things, is they’re not gonna be like, how long is she gonna keep talking?

And then you say, the first thing is I have extensive expertise in blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? And then you say, the second thing is, one of the things that I’m most proud of in my career is this. And the third thing that I wanna say is maybe something that’s directly related to the company that you’re interviewing with.

Right. And then you say, so those are just three things, and I’m happy to elaborate on those three things. And on any other questions that you have, and then they’re gonna think that you’re just gonna end there, and you say, but I just wanna conclude by saying I’m really excited. You see what I did there?

That’s enthusiasm. I’m really excited to learn from you more about this company and more about this role because, based on what I know, I think I’m gonna be a great fit. Boom. That’s. Okay. And if you’re, say in a networking meeting, you’re either thinking about leaving your company or you’ve already lef,t and you’re doing, you know, the classic networking call, uh, or you’re at a networking event, and it’s like, let’s go around and introduce ourselves.

That’s not when you’re gonna say three big thing,s and you’re gonna take the mic for that long. But think about what do you wanna be remembered for with the people that are here, right? So you could say, my name is Jane Smith, and I don’t know sales and. Retail sales expert and in technology, blah, blah, whatever it is, right?

So you tell them what, tell them so that when they hear about a job in that area, they’re gonna think of you, right? And then you could say, I’m currently seeking a new job in this area. I have 25 years of experience in things that are gonna really help me succeed. And I’m really excited to get to know all of you better.

Right? So you, you, you shorten it. You make sure you’re really clear and I do a lot of work with an executive recruiter, and she said after these networking events, you literally remember if they’re lucky, one thing about each person that you met. So make sure the stuff that comes outta your mouth about you is what you want them to remember.

Does that help, Theo? I’m guessing you have more specific questions. 

Theo: No, that’s amazing. 

AW: Okay, good. 

Theo: Like to get push on that a little. Thanks. 

AW: Yeah, you’re welcome. My pleasure. So Blake has a question in a sales call, would it be better to skip the future remarks and just speak on present and past Blake?

Excellent question. No, the future can be one. In fact, most of the time it’s one sentence. So if you’re, for example, you have a call with aa prospective client, and as I do right with my coaching clients, and I’ll say, why don’t you introduce yourself and then I’ll introduce myself. I would never skip the future thing.

I’m like, I would love to help you. I even say to people in this call, I’m not gonna hold back. I’m gonna, I’m gonna share with you whatever coaching advice that I have for you, but I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better. Right? So just say one thing. I’m really glad to meet you, or I’m really looking forward to this, or I’m excited about this, or I’m enthusiastic about this.

It could be about the person. Ideally. Actually, it is about the person, but sometimes if, if that doesn’t feel quite right, you can make it. The comment about yourself in general, you could say, and I’m really excited about 2026. I feel like, you know, we’ve turned a chapter or whatever, or despite what’s going on in the world, I am really excited about what we’re doing here at work.

I hear people saying that a lot right now. Okay. Anyone that wants to raise their hand in this group, I’m gonna answer it first, but otherwise I’m, I’m staying in the chat. Sydney Ann asked to piggyback Blake’s question. In public speaking, we’re taught to establish credibility. Yes. Recency bias and primacy bias.

However, in social media, it’s preferred to begin with the hook solving the audience problem. Oh, okay. Sydnee, that’s fantastic. I actually learned this from Sarah Blakely. I did the Sarah Blakely. You know the Spanx billionaire entrepreneur. She has a masterclass where she talks about problem-solving. How you did it, like what the details are.

And then step four of the sales pitch is the ask. Right? But you start with the what’s their problem? Same thing on social media. I tell my team this too, when we’re working on my social media posts, it’s not, guess what, Andrea did today? No. It’s actually talking to them about what matters to them. I think for the self-introduction framework, it’s really about.

Finding opportunities to use the framework, but you’re not shifting the attention to yourself all the time. In other words, I’m not saying that all social media posts should be present, past future, I’m not saying that at all. And if you’re doing the sales pitch, I hope you first have the opportunity to ask the other person, introduce themselves, and you’re introducing yourself.

And then I, I totally agree with you, Sydnee. You start with the other person. You do not want to be. One of these myopic, selfish people who’s always talking about themselves. By the way, did you notice I did not really introduce myself here in this session? I just said, if you want more information about me, here’s where you can go that’s on purpose, because I want this to be about you.

So Sydnee, there’s an example, right? You don’t wanna be the person that talks longer than everybody else, and you don’t wanna be the person that everybody thinks is like self-absorbed. So you speak not as long as everybody else. You make sure that the other, like this morning I had a coaching call with someone that I, I’ve been coaching for about six months and he’s like, how was your holiday?

And I was like, you go first. Right? Like it’s not all about you. I think Sydnee, the fact that you’re asking that question tells me that you know that. So that’s fantastic. Okay, I’m gonna take one more question. Are there any live questions? Otherwise, I’m gonna go to Jennifer’s question. How do you recommend navigating age bias in high-stakes stakeholder meetings, particularly when they appear younger than you are or actually are early career, while still signaling authority and competence in rooms where age is often equated with credibility?

So I get, um. I think it was about a year and a half ago, because I remember it was in the summer. Yeah, it was about a year and a half ago. I was getting this question a lot. I think there was an article that came out in the New York Times about ageism. Ageism is real. So I am 55. I’m gonna tell you that right now I’m 55, and I would say I started feeling ageism probably at around 50.

I think it depends on your industry. In some, I talk to 40-year-olds who tell me that they feel like a grandparent, like the wise old grandparent in the office. So it really depends on what industry you’re in, but ageism is real. It is a bias. It apparently is an illegal bias, but it is a bias that definitely exists.

So how do you present yourself as having the expertise and maybe years, maybe decades of expertise without having the negative impact of ageism and this sounds really simple, but if you can present yourself in a way where you have energy, then your age. Probably doesn’t matter. It actually, it’s not just energy, right?

It’s energy and like current insights. This is an extreme example. If your email is AOL or even Yahoo, I’m gonna say it, as opposed to, you know, a more modern email provider, if you are constantly talking about your grandkids or your listing, and I don’t mean necessarily on your CV or on your LinkedIn, but you’re like.

Articulating when I, you know, when I graduated from high school in 1985, and people, you’re, you’re prompting people to do the math, so don’t prompt people to do the math. Do present yourself with energy and in like youthful energy, right? People that are, you see kids running around. I sometimes if I’m walking down the sidewalk and I see a family and it’s like the two adults are like this, and the kids are like running around, right?

So have that, you have youthful energy, and you’re current. And then my big thing is like I just told you, I’m 55. Unless you have reason to believe that your actual age is really gonna hurt you, you don’t need to necessarily tell them your age, but you can reference that I clearly, the elephant in the room here is that I’m older than everybody else, but you know what?

I have a lot of experience that I’m, I would, and wisdom that I would, the word wisdom will help a lot that I’m happy to share. I think as I’m saying that, it really does, as I said, the beginning, depend on the context of your industry and the audience of people that you’re talking to. I hope that helps.

It’s a great question, Jennifer. I do have a podcast episode on ageism that I will, when I post this on LinkedIn, I’ll put a, a link to that episode. So I wanna say thank you. I wanna start actually, by saying Happy New Year again. We can say that at least for this week, right? Happy New Year. Again, thank you so much for being here for this session.

I loved your questions, and I hope you found the information that I shared with you on personal branding. To be helpful. It’s a new year. It’s a new you. That doesn’t mean you’re reinventing yourself again. It does mean that you are presenting your true best self. And I want you to really think about your answers, especially to the first three questions that I asked you at the beginning.

Thank you so much. Bye.

The post New Year, New You… REALLY?!? Personal Brand Training (ep.204) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Your work doesn’t speak for itself. If you’re a woman leader who works hard but feels invisible when promotions are discussed, this episode is for you.

Dr. Andrea Wojnicki delivers a powerful training on personal branding specifically designed for women. You will learn the three ways that branding is different for women, why “my work speaks for itself” is holding you back, and exactly what to do about it.

This isn’t about becoming a social media influencer. This is about taking strategic control of your professional identity so the right people know your value, your expertise, and what you bring to the table.

Andrea shares the PUR framework (Positive, Unique, Relevant), real stories from women who transformed their careers by focusing on what makes them unique, and practical communication strategies you can use immediately.

If you’re ready to stop being overlooked and start being recognized for the leader you are, this episode will show you how.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Andrea Wojnicki: Being yourself on purpose. I have this in capital letters because that’s what we’re doing here right now. We are unapologetically in a disciplined and strategic way, thinking about what we’re communicating about ourselves, and then communicating it in this strategic way. Well, hello there. I am really excited about this episode.

You’re about to hear or watch a recording if you’re on YouTube of a one-hour live training that I did recently called Personal Branding for Women Leaders. If you’re a long-time listener to the Talk About Talk podcast, you’ll notice that this one is just a little bit different. If this is your first time listening to the Talk About Talk podcast, then I have to say this is an outstanding place to start, and I should probably start by introducing myself.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk where I coach ambitious professionals and executives like you to communicate with confidence and clarity so you can achieve your career goals. If you check out the TalkAboutTalk.com website, you’ll find information there about all the services we provide, including private coaching, masterclasses, corporate workshops, and on-demand courses.

There are also lots of free resources that you can download there, and my free communication skills-focused email newsletter, you can check it all out at TalkAboutTalk.com. Let’s get into the episode.

As I said, this one is a little bit different from what we usually do. First of all, this episode is a recording of a live training session that I led a while ago. If you can watch this episode on YouTube, then you’ll be able to not only hear me, but you’ll also see my slides, and I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of this, regardless, even if you’re just listening.

The second way that this episode is different is that the topic is targeted to females. To women leaders. You’re about to learn three ways to define your personal brand, three ways. It is different for women, and three ways that you can start to build your own personal brand immediately. You’ll also hear the Q&A at the end, and this is my favorite part of these live sessions.

You’re gonna hear some very insightful questions from a few audience members, including a question from an entrepreneur who I had no idea was in the audience and whose products I’ve used for decades, which was actually really cool. Alright. Here we go. If you are here, I’m gonna guess that you are either curious or maybe you’re beyond curious and you’re ready to start establishing your strong personal brand, or your professional identity, as I call it.

And you probably also know, as I certainly do, that it is a little bit different for women. I’m gonna say that it is a little bit different for women. I’m gonna say it’s, we have some unique challenges. Some of these challenges are imposed on us from society and culture, and some of them are things that we do to ourselves.

So we’re gonna talk about those things explicitly. But the fact that you’re here, I think we are a fantastic tribe. I’m gonna say that if you’re here, probably like me, you’re not giving up. You’re not. I’m gonna just let it happen. You’re gonna make it happen. So kudos to you. We are gonna cover lots in the next hour.

If you follow me on LinkedIn, or if you listen to the podcast, or you subscribe to the newsletter, you’re gonna know one thing about me, which is I’m really big on the power of three. I’m really big on the power three. So I’m gonna take you through three ways to think about your brand, and then I’m gonna take you through three ways that branding is different for women.

Then I’m gonna take you through my top three suggestions. So I was thinking, given this audience of women only, what are my top three suggestions? Given these definitions and given the ways that branding is different for women, my three suggestions for what you can do starting right now to start developing your ideal personal brand or professional identity. 

So we’re gonna cover those three things, and then I’m gonna open it up to the Q&A. And as I said, you can put the questions in the chat. I’ve got Priscilla here who’s helping us out and to moderate me some of the questions. Or you can also raise your virtual hand at the end.

I don’t wanna spend too much time introducing myself, but I just wanna say briefly, for those of you who I do know, it’s wonderful to see you again. And for those of you who I haven’t met, thank you and welcome. 

So I wanna start by sharing with you what branding is not in my mind. One thing that I know from reading and thinking and podcasting and interviewing people and on and on about a focused on personal branding. One thing that I know for sure that’s true is that many people have different ideas about what we’re talking about here. So I have had clients who want me to help them establish their personal brand, and we set up a coaching program, and they go back to their boss, and they’re like, here’s the list of topics that Andrea’s gonna take me through that we’re gonna cover in the coaching sessions.

And one of the 10 topics is personal branding. And sometimes this has happened a few times. Their manager will say, yes, yes, yes, yes. No, no personal branding. So why is that? They think that I am going to try to turn them into a social media influencer, so they quit their job or monetize their brand. And I’m here to say that is not what I’m talking about.

Although if you really wanted to, you could. But I think about branding differently. I think of it as your identity or your reputation. This is basically taking the strategic principles that we know as brand managers. As I was at Kraft, a brand manager has a creative brief, a strategic brief that they share with their agency to come up with their packaging and their advertising and their promotions, and their positioning.

And all of the elements of that brief are. How we can think about ourselves in terms of your values, in terms of what makes you unique relative to your competitors, if you wanna use the same vocabulary, right? All of these things we can think about strategically in terms of ourselves. 

I’m gonna share with you a couple of definitions. The first one is a definition that, if you’ve done any reading on personal branding, you’ve probably come across this before. It’s Jeff Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon. He famously said, your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And this quote has become synonymous with personal branding work, just about any article, as I said that you’ve ever read in the first couple of paragraphs.

This is what comes up, and this is the definition that I actually use with my clients for a couple of years. So I would ask them. What are people thinking and saying about you when you’re not in the room? And now I’m actually asking you this in real time, right here and right now. What are the important stakeholders in your career?

So it could be your boss and your boss’s boss are meeting to talk about succession planning, and your name comes up in conversation. What are they thinking and saying about you? That’s your brand. Now, most people will freak out. They’ll be like, oh, oh, I think they think this. I think I want to be seen as this, and there’s a bit of a disconnect.

That’s okay. That’s why we’re here. We’ve got some work to do. But this is a really valuable mental exercise. What are people thinking and saying about you when you’re not in the room? And the important stakeholders, again, it could be your boss, it could be clients. If you’re an entrepreneur, it could be clients, it could be your staff.

It could be your team that you’re working with. It could be if you’re an entrepreneur, maybe it’s investors. What are the important stakeholders thinking and saying about you when you’re not there? So this was my definition for. Years. This is the exercise that I would take my coaching clients through.

And a couple years ago, or about a year and a half ago, I had the great fortune of interviewing Seth Godin for the podcast. And Seth, I did his podcasting fellowship, his inaugural podcasting fellowship, way back about six or seven years ago. So I emailed him, asked if I could interview him. We had this fantastic conversation.

I definitely went off script. I wasn’t just talking to him about his books. I really wanted to hear his take on personal branding, and I asked him, I said, Seth. How do you think about your brand? And we got into this conversation about his quirky, like he wears these plastic orange glasses, actually similar to mine, these plastic glasses.

And he said, some people say, that’s my brand, but that’s not my brand. That’s my logo. And I was like, we don’t need to go down that rabbit hole. I think that is part of your brand, how you show up, right? Renee, how you show up is part of your brand, but really, Seth, how do you think about your brand? And then he delivered this gold.

He said, Your brand is what people think you’re gonna do next. So he said, Andrea, my brand. What people think I’m going to do next. I was like, this is next level. This is next level. So we have Jeff Bezos. Your brand is what people think about you when you think and say about you when you’re not in the room.

You can also think of it as what people think you’re gonna do next. I actually think this is a little bit more powerful, right? It’s more impactful. So I ask you now. I encourage you now to do exactly what I did when I got off this interview with Seth Godin. I took out a sheet of paper sitting where I am right now.

I drew a line down the middle of it, and I said, what do people think I’m gonna do next? Like, what are the big career, I guess, guideposts, the impressive things, the accomplishments that I’m gonna have over the next five or 10 years? What do they think? And then, actually, what are my goals? So I encourage you to do the same thing in one column.

Write down the things that you want to accomplish. For me, I wanna write a book. I wanna be on the TED stage, I wanna be a bestseller. I’ve got lofty goals. What do people think is possible? And then the magic happens when you merge these two lists, right? This is the magic of personal branding, but it doesn’t come without effort.

And when I think about these two ways that these two smart men talk about branding, I give them credit. These are helpful exercises, but to me, they lack one thing. They lack agency. What do I mean by that? Your brand is what people think you’re gonna do next. It’s like, well, so what can I do about it? Right?

Or your brand is what people are thinking and saying about you when you’re not there. Well, okay, so how do I influence what my boss is saying about me in that room where they’re talking about succession planning? So I created a different definition that, as I said, includes agency, and it’s this personal branding is about being yourself on purpose. 

So there are two elements here that are really important for you to consider being yourself. You. Your true self, your authentic self. Yes, I said the A word, your authentic self. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re sharing everything with everyone. As Seth Golden would say, Andrea, I don’t care if your cat is puking over there or that you’re barely got here on time.

You show up as a professional. So it’s being yourself, your true self, your authentic self, and your best self. There are a million ways to tell the same story. So tell your story in a way that serves you, show up as your true self and your best self. And then, so that’s part of it, being yourself on purpose.

I have this in capital letters because that’s what we’re doing here right now. We are unapologetically in a disciplined and strategic way, thinking about. What we’re communicating about ourselves and then communicating it in this strategic way. So the big difference between how most coaches will coach you on creating a strong brand versus what I do is you can think of it as two steps.

Step one is creating or articulating your brand. Who am I? What do I stand for? What are my unique strengths? Expertise. I see people writing notes. I’m so happy when people write notes. What are my unique strengths, my expertise, my skills, my passions? So that’s step one. 

And then step two is communicating it. Communicating it on LinkedIn, communicating it in how you introduce yourself, communicating it in your corporate bio, communicating it. What’s behind you? I have my books, I have my degree, I have my plants. Right? Like, what do you have all? Communicating it in how you dress, communicating it in what drink, what drink you bring into the meeting, right?

If you, if someone brings in, I don’t know, a coffee, a beer, a water, a cola, you’re signaling something about yourself. So, being yourself on purpose. First, thinking about who you are articulating and identifying, and focusing on your unique brand. And step two is the communication step. The big difference again is that I spend much more time guaranteed than most people do on step one.

This is the thing. Garbage in, garbage out, quality in, quality out. If you spend the time creating a list of your unique strengths. Really internalizing them and thinking about how you’re gonna narrate them and how you’re gonna reinforce them. The communication step is so much easier. It’s so much easier.

Okay, so we’ve got these three definitions, and I’ve spoken with. You know many people I’ve run corporate workshops where I put the slide up, and I ask people to raise their hand and tell me which definition resonates for them. I wouldn’t be sharing each of these three definitions if I didn’t think they were valuable.

I think these are all very effective ways, and I encourage you to think of all three of them. Ask yourself, what are people thinking and saying about you when you’re not in the room? Maybe you’re like, oh, they’re thinking and saying kind of what I want. Fine. Move on to the next definition. Or if it’s not what you want, then start thinking about correcting that.

Right? And then secondly, what do they think you’re gonna do next? If these are not aligned with your goals, then you need to start communicating things about yourself so that the list of aspirations versus what people think, as I said, merges. And then lastly, this definition that I share with my enthusiastic thumbs up.

Being yourself, your true, authentic, whole self. I’m gonna add one other thing there. We are always, this drives me crazy when people say, well, I have my work identity and then I have my personal identity, and I’m really two different people. I’m like. That must be really, really hard. That must actually be exhausting.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you were always the same person? Like, truly, if you’re always the same person, but you filter, this is like, I call it the F word of personal branding filter. You filter what parts of your identity you are gonna share with the world, depending on who you’re talking to and the context.

So I didn’t share with you that I’m a painter. I didn’t share with you that I’m obsessed with the color turquoise. I didn’t share with you that I have three children that are absolutely ginormous. They’re all very tall. Okay? Those are parts of my identity. In other contexts, I might share those things, right?

If I’m going to an art gallery with a friend, I’m, I would, of course, they would know that I paint and I would talk about that, but, so you are always your whole true self, but you filter what you share. This comes up, by the way, a lot. For women in the context of being a mother. I hear this. Uh, I just got the shivers because I was remembering back in, during COVID, I was doing some workshops for newly promoted partners at one of the consulting firms around the world.

And this wonderful, young, incredibly intelligent, high-achieving, ambitious woman in China said to me, I just got promoted. I was in the room at the table with the partners, and I said something about one of my kids. Everybody went silent and they all looked at me and she said, I was like, and then later on I noticed someone else said something about their kids and she said it was like, and I said, listen, when you’re senior enough in your organization and you are gonna be, look at how young you are and what you’ve achieved, you can create a culture where everyone can talk about that stuff.

In the meantime, you filter what you talk about to accomplish your goals. Given the context, given the people that you’re with in the moment, you filter what parts of your identity, doesn’t mean you’re not a great mom just because you’re not talking about your kids in that context. In fact, you may be a better mom because you’re doing better at work, right?

So we filter. You are always the same person, and you’re doing so strategically in a disciplined way and unapologetically, and I know that that unapologetic part can be difficult, particularly for women. 

So at this point, I’m gonna move on now to three ways that branding is different for women. And I’m gonna say that I could have put so much here.

So I decided to narrow it down to, given the power of three, I’m gonna narrow it down to three. And the first one is related to society, you all. And I have very little, if any, control over the second and third one; we can control. Okay. And I hope that that inspires you. So we do have some control. That’s I guess, one of the main takeaways from today.

The first one, of course, is societal stereotypes and the culture that we live in and the research. I’m familiar with the research. I have some of the books up here. The academic research shows that women are expected to be. Warm, communal, maternal service-oriented, right? Versus leaders are expected to be authoritarian, and sometimes people would say like the opposite end of the spectrum of all of those traits.

And so, there are things that happen therefore, that are outside of your control because you are a woman. People will stereotype you, and you probably embody some of these stereotypes. So what happens? Women get interrupted so much research. Men interrupt women, women interrupt women. Women do not interrupt men, like it’s crazy.

It’s so imbalanced. We get interrupted, and when we do say something. Sometimes our comments are attributed to others. Has this ever happened to you? You say something in a meeting, and somebody says, um, so I have a thought, blah, blah, blah. They repeat what you said in different words, and then people go, great idea.

You’re like, what? Just I see people nodding. What just happened? So our, so we get interrupted. Our ideas are attributed to others. They carry less weight. Maybe, I don’t know. Anyone else have any ideas? Some dude says something, and it’s like gold, right? One other thing that happens is the type of feedback.

So I learned this really directly when I was a professor at the University of Toronto, a female faculty member warned me the first time I ever got, you know, that at the end of the class, they give all the students an evaluation sheet. Used to be pen and paper. It’s probably online now, but anyway, and scale of one to seven, how effective is this?

And then they go into the comments, she said. So the scale of one to seven is, is probably fair. Although there is a main effect of gender. Men get rated higher. By the way, pregnant women. Get rated lower than non-pregnant women. And I found, I actually hid my pregnancy one time when I was teaching ’cause I wanted to see what would happen, and then the next whatever.

So the feedbac,k though, the words in the evaluation form are very different for women, and this may happen in your formal evaluations that you get with your employer, right? They talk to you about your style. They talk to you about you should be more confident, you should improve stakeholder analysis, you should, whatever.

It’s very sort of vague style personality feedback versus for men, it’s. Great job achieving this thing, and you didn’t, you missed this one, but we understand why, because you had these things, and it’s like, what? So they get feedback that’s more tangible, and we get feedback. That’s more, and maybe this goes back to all of the stereotypes.

So the point here is we are walking a tightrope based on society and culture, where we’re trying to balance, if it’s possible, how we project our strengths. And our authority and our expertise, while also being communal and maternal, if you wanna use that word. Or at least, let’s call it having strong people skills.

Right. And it’s like the more you do one, it seems like there’s a paper that one of my colleagues at the University of Toronto wrote when she was at Harvard Business School called Competent Jerks and Lovable Fools and Who Gets Promoted. And it’s basically the idea is at work, you’re one or the other.

You’re like a really nice woman who’s a fool, or you’re a competent jerk. And by the way, the competent jerks do better. Right? And so this is really hard for women. I co-authored a paper with Dr. Amy Diehl. She and one other co-author wrote a book called The Sixth Glass Walls. It’s, you know, in addition to the glass ceiling.

The glass cliff. There are all these walls that we can find ourselves walking into that limit our career progression. And she and I coauthored a paper for Fast Company, where we talked. The paper was called Stop Telling Women to Lead Like a Man. So in fact, being aggressive or being authoritative or really mastering self-emotion or avoiding weak language.

Like these are all things that women are told that men seem to do naturally. And our point was maybe somewhere in between what women are naturally doing and what men are doing, maybe somewhere in between is actually the magic place. So again, this is a tightrope. It’s really hard. I’m gonna say this. This is almost an impossible task to overcome societal stereotypes.

But, we also do things that hurt us, like suffering from imposter syndrome. So I wanna share something with you about imposter syndrome. So first a definition and then a little bit of background. So, imposter syndrome is this feeling that most of us have, that we will be found out and people will realize that we’ve been promoted beyond our ability and we don’t belong in the room.

We don’t belong on stage, or we don’t belong behind the microphone. Right? So this term imposter syndrome was actually coined in 1978 by two female social psychologists in the US, and they were doing research on successful women. Let me say that again. The research was on successful women, and they interviewed them in depth, and they were trying to figure out what do these women all have in common that differentiates them from less successful women, and maybe that differentiates them from men.

One of the themes that came out really strongly that ended up being kind of the pinnacle of the careers of these two social psychologists was, they called it imposter phenomenon. And it was this feeling, like I just described, of being found out, I don’t deserve to be here. I’m like, I’m the one lucky person who got in somehow, and maybe I’m gonna get kicked out.

They identified this theme, and then they compared it to women who were less successful, and they realized actually it doesn’t differentiate them. They feel that way, too. And then they also researched men. Guess what? Men actually have imposter syndrome as well, and there’s been tons of research.

Basically, everyone experiences imposter syndrome. If you don’t, then you’re probably veering on the side of being arrogant. Imposter syndrome is really common. You can work to overcome it. So I’m gonna say this, it’s not your fault that you are experiencing imposter syndrome, and I, I have to say, the research shows that men experience it too.

But men don’t come to me saying, can you help me overcome imposter syndrome? They’re like, can you help me communicate with precision or can you help me with my formal presentation skills? Women are like, I know I have imposter syndrome, and I know you can help me. Here’s the thing. You can work on your confidence.

Confidence can be learned. Just ask Tina Fey. She talks about impostor syndrome all the time. And look at her. She’s a rockstar. Just ask Natalie Portman, the Oscar-winning actress. She went back to Harvard to deliver her the graduation speech, and she was quoted in the newspaper saying like, I look around at these smart kids.

I don’t belong here. I don’t know. Excuse me. First of all, you graduated from the school. Secondly, you wouldn’t want an Oscar. You’re very inspiring and capable, and ambitious. You definitely belong here. We all experience imposter syndrome. The issue with it is that it’ll prevent you from speaking up and stepping up.

You need to speak up, and you need to step up if you’re gonna be successful, and you can control this; you can work on your confidence. And this relates to the speaking up point, relates to the third way that I think branding is different for women, and it’s, I have this in quote, my work speaks for itself.

I hear this. Over and over and over again from my clients, including very successful clients. I’m coaching right now a woman, she’s an assistant general counsel at a massive global technology firm. She’s like second in line in the law department, in the legal department, and she’s been there for I think 12 years.

She hired me to help her establish her brand, her strong professional identity, and to elevate her confidence and her credibility, her executive presence, you could say, because she was given the feedback that she’s great at doing the work, but people don’t know who she is and what she does. There was one of these succession planning meetings.

She told me this when we first met, where her boss went in to advocate for her for a promotion. Like three of the people in the room said, oh, I didn’t even know she was in legal. Who is that again? And she came back to her, and she said, you have a branding problem. Like you need to be establishing who you are and what your value is and what you do so early.

It’s not our fault that this happens. By the way, and this is what I said to her early in your career, so actually before your career started, when you were at school, your teacher told you what to do. You did the work, you got an a. You applied to the universities. You did your best. You got into a great school.

She got her law degree. She started at the law firm, right? She’s ling. She’s doing what the partners are telling her to do. Patting her on the head. Good girl. You’re doing what you can. Here’s the thing. When you hit mid-career and senior career, there’s no one looking after your over your shoulders to give you the check marks.

It’s your job to make sure that you speak up for your work. Your work does not speak for itself. And so I know a lot of you, a lot of men and women, but especially women, it seems like we are apprehensive about talking about the value of our contribution and our expertise and our work. And I say this arrogant, people think they’re great at everything.

They think they know everything, and they’ll take credit for anything. Perfectly confident. People who have a strong brand are very specific about the value that they provide in the organization, what their expertise is, what their skills are, and they’re not afraid of talking about it. In fact, you can even say the words, I have to say, I’m particularly proud of how I led this team to achieve whatever the goal was, right?

You can call it out. You can say, I’m not into bragging. If you wanna be perfectly explicit, I’m not into bragging, but I am really proud of what the team under my leadership accomplished this year. Look at, here’s where our goals the, this is the final metrics. We knocked it outta the park. I heard a guy, a tech dude say once, if you don’t talk about your work, you might as well not do it.

So this is a little bit different from imposter syndrome, right? Imposter syndrome is feeling like you don’t belong there, and not speaking up, and not raising your hand to volunteer to do the work. This third one is you’re actually doing the work, but you’re not talking about it. And this goes back to, remember I said the process is step one, articulating your strengths, your skills, your expertise.

And step two is the talking. So being clear and focused about what your brand is, what your value is, what your accomplishments are, and then it makes the talking part, the communicating part so much easier. Okay. So we have these three ways. That branding is different for women, and so I don’t want you to be like, okay, this is depressing.

Cause we have society stereotypes against us. We have this imposter syndrome, which is fair game given how we were raised. And I literally said this to the assistant general counsel that I was coaching. I’m not gonna say her real name, say it’s Susan. I said, good girl, Susan, you’ve been doing your hard work for 12 years.

And she goes, that’s pretty much what my boss said. He’s like, you’re great, but you need. To be clear on what your value is, and not just sit down. And so I purposely chose this image of this woman burning the midnight oil. You will not once you hit middle management. I see this again and again. The hard work is not gonna help you knock it outta the park if you wanna knock it outta the park. You need to learn to talk about your values and your identity. 

All right, so I’ve got three ways that these are the top three things that come to mind that I would do if I were you given. The societal dynamics given our typical female beliefs and behaviors, here are three things that I would do. The first one, when people get this, makes a massive, massive difference.

So the criteria for the traits and the skills end up in your personal brand, the list of, I’m gonna say up to 15 things that you share about yourself on a regular basis. Implicitly and explicitly the criteria is that these things are positive, unique, and relevant. Positive, PUR, positive, unique, and relevant.

But if I had to choose just one criteria, it’s this one unique. If you can double down on your unique skills, you will be happier and more successful than you ever would’ve been. So if there’s one thing that I wanna leave you with, it is this. And I can tell you, I’m thinking of all of the senior executives that I’ve coached before.

This is the one that makes the biggest difference, and it seems to make a big difference, especially for women. There was a vice president of human resources that I was working with. She was on the job market. She. Happily. Well, she was employed, not happily, but she was employed. She said, I’m ready to be a Chief Human Resources Officer, A-C-H-R-O.

So she said, I’ve let my network know, and I’ve been going to several interviews. I’ve done maybe six interviews, and she said, Andrea, I’m not getting called back. For any second round interviews, and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. It must be communication skills, so I need to hire you to help me. And I said, okay.

So I said, let’s first focus on developing your brand, and then we’ll talk about your job interview answering and communication skills. So in one of our first sessions, I said to her, What is your unique strength that’s gonna make you a great CHRO? And she said something like, Well, I think they’re looking for someone who obviously has the technical human resources skills and expertise, but also who’s a real team person.

A team leader with strong EQ and people skills. And I was like, did she not hear my question? So I asked her again, and she kind of answered it the same way. And then I said to her, you’re not answering the question. What makes you unique? And she kind of like had a little bit of a meltdown she goes. Call it an epiphany.

She said, Oh my God, I have been answering the questions in these interviews in a way where it’s pretty clear that I’m guessing what they want to hear as opposed to truly presenting who I am. And I said, okay, so let me ask you again, what makes you unique? And she goes, actually, it’s my people skills.

People love working for me. My boss told me I can make my people do just about anything. And I was like. That is gold. That is gold. That’s the thing that you know people say about you, that you know is true. It’s positive, unique, and relevant. So the rest is history. She went to her next interview. Her confidence was heightened.

She felt focused on her unique brand proposition, and she got the job as a C-H-R-O. So this is gold. Focus on what makes you unique. Stop trying to guess. Of course, you have to meet minimum standards for all the criteria that they’re looking for promotion for investment, for getting a new job, but focus on what makes you unique.

You’ll be happier, and you’ll be more successful. It’s a big speak for your work and control your narrative. So this really addresses one of the points that I made on the previous slide, where your work doesn’t speak for yourself. You must speak for your work. Don’t assume that people know what you did. Don’t hesitate to use the word lead leader led leadership.

It’s shocking to me how many leaders and aspiring leaders are not controlling the narrative. They’ll say to me privately. I led this initiative where, you know, we doubled our revenue, or we doubled our profitability, whatever it is. And then I looked at their LinkedIn profile, and I’m like, first of all, I don’t see that accomplishment there.

But more importantly, where’s the word leader? Oh, this is a big one. Control the narrative. Instead of saying, so tell me what you do. And you say, Oh, my name is Jane Smith. I work at x, Y, Z company in this department. I’ve been here for 10 years. So what? You could say in the last 10 years I worked from being like a mid-level analyst to joining the C-suite, where I’ve worked in three different functions, and I now have a fantastic overview, and last year we blah, blah, blah.

Like talk about the so what, control your narrative, every word, every phrase, every sentence that comes out of your mouth. And maybe if you’ve done the work in listing what your personal brand themes are, you can challenge yourself to mention some of those things. Particularly when you’re introducing yourself.

So this comes up if you’re sharing your career narrative. If you’re sharing your career narrative, why don’t you tell me a bit about your career history? Most people think that means, okay, I graduated from my Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1997, and then I did this, and I worked here for so many years, and then I did my MBA.

No, no, no. Unless there’s a reason why you wanna share it chronologically. Why don’t you tell the person the highlights? Like, I’ve lived in three countries, I’m a global leader. I’ve lived and worked in three countries. My superpower is this, and I did this at this company and this company and this company, right?

So, share your career journey with purpose. That’s one thing. The other thing you can do here is introduce yourself with purpose. If you’ve followed my work, Priscilla will put the links in the show notes. If you followed my work, I’m really big on introducing yourself using the three-point self-introduction, present, past, future, in all three of those steps.

Use intentionality, narrate the benefit to you of what you’re sharing. Present tense. I’m a blah, blah, blah. My expertise and skill is this, right? So start it with that past tense. Previously, I tell them what you did. Tell them what your accomplishments. Again, depending on the context and the person, you are establishing credibility.

You’re choosing what you share. This is, remember I said the definition is? Be yourself on purpose. This is the on purpose part. You’re being very conscious, and then the future is something enthusiastic about what’s to come, what your goals are, so whether you’re introducing yourself, whether you’re sharing your career journey, whether you’re meeting someone at a networking event, whether you’re.

Updating your LinkedIn profile, speak for your work, and control your narrative. It’s about self-awareness. It’s about being conscious and not just like trying to get the mic, like it’s my turn to introduce myself, blah, blah, blah. Next, no. Next time someone says, Let’s go around the table and introduce yourself.

I really hope that you will think this is the best opportunity that I have to reinforce my strong personal brand. Look forward to your self-introduction. All right. The third thing that I encourage you to do to develop a strong personal brand is to network and build relationships. And so this is really taking the step two.

Remember, I said step one is articulating. Step two is communicating. If you have lots of people in your network. Yes, sure. This does include LinkedIn followers, but it also includes just getting out there, like you see this lovely woman who’s smiling at a networking event, right? It’s getting in front of people and telling them what you do, and I decided to capitalize the word relationships here.

Very purposely. I know that you’re probably, if you’re like most people, thinking networking, ugh, I hate it. I hate networking. That’s because you’re probably thinking of networking as being selfish and self-serving. I encourage you to think of networking as establishing meaningful relationships, and how do you do that?

You do that by providing value to others. Think about. Sharing information with people, sharing your personal brand, your expertise, your skills with other people in a way that will help them think about connecting your network with other people in your network. Right? You are adding value, and you are strengthening relationships.

That’s all networking is. Networking is not going to event showing up, passing out your business cards and shaking paws. No. It’s actually establishing relationships. And by the way, when you go to that networking event. Circle back to every single person that you met. Otherwise, you might as well not have met them.

It’s the same way that if you do the work and you don’t talk about it, you might as well not have done it. If you go to a networking event and you meet someone and you never follow up, you might as well have not met them. You might as well have not gone to the event. Right? 

So these are three ways that you can develop a strong brand and when I look at this list, I’m like, I feel very passionately that these three things will get you a lot of traction in developing your brand. Focusing on member positive, unique, and relevant, especially unique things. Speaking up for your work, being very purposeful about that, and choosing the words. 

Use the word lead. Please use the word lead, and if you have global experience. Stop trying to hide. I talk with clients about this all the time. Stop trying to hide your accent. Your accent is evidence of your global experience. So introduce yourself as someone who has international or global experience and let your accent be evidence of that.

And of course, networking and building relationships. But there’s a lot to do in each of these three things, and I know a lot of people feel overwhelmed. And before I open it up for questions, I just wanna say, if you wanna learn more about me and what I do, you can go to talk about talk.com. I think we’re all connected on LinkedIn, and I encourage you to check out the podcast.

I’m on all of the podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, and on and on and on. And now we’re also on. YouTube, so you can watch m,e and I’ve done some pretty cool interviews where you can actually see what the guest looks like and see me interview them. It’s actually a lot of fun, so I hope you’ll check that out as well and subscribe on YouTube.

So now I’m gonna go open it up for questions and the women that are here right now get first dibs. I have a question. Oh, yay Fatima. Yay. 

Fatima Lusito: So I wanna ask a question about, I used to work in the corporate space, but one of the things that I would say U is unique or that I love about is bringing fun into the work that I do, and fulfillment is really, really important.

So, is there any suggestions or thoughts about how you do that in a way, because the corporate side is, it could be a different feel, how you incorporate that, and that, you know, if you have a personality that you wanna bring fun into what you’re doing and how you’re supporting your clients.

AW: I think Fatima one of the most effective ways establishing a strong personal brand is taking something that someone might think is a negative and turning it into a positive. So this is really being yourself on purpose. You are the one who wants to make work fun. Hang on a second. Work is hard, right? We’re supposed to be suffering and not having fun, and I feel like you can create a narrative around that where you actually call it out.

I mean, there’s even cliches around this, right? Like, we spend so much time at our at work, we might as well enjoy what it is. And you could say that, well, like, that’s the cliche. But I actually really, truly believe that we will not only just enjoy ourselves more, but will actually be more productive if we enjoy coming into work.

So I am the boss, I am the manager. I am the leader. Use, use the L word. I am the leader who is relentlessly focused on achieving our business objectives. And making sure that we all have fun when we’re here. And then you tell them how you do that. Well, because we have a mandatory offsite and you better smile and laugh when you’re there, right?

You could make jokes about actually evaluating people on whether they’re having fun and whether they’re contributing to a fun culture. And by the way, I’m also gonna say this is like a fantastic platform for the most senior leader, right? 

Like, I’m seeing a CEO who has this? Brand of relentlessly focused on meeting OB business objectives and creating a culture that, I encourage you to use the word culture because I’m not sure what level you are, but if you’re leading any kind of team, you could even say my team culture is the most fun of any culture, any team in the organization. And then as you ascend to the most senior leadership, you could say, this is the company that people wanna work at.

Because yes, we are accomplishing our business objectives, but we’re also having fun. And you have a big smile on your face, and it’s unique, it’s positive, unique, and relevant. Okay. Who else has a question? Mabel’s labels. Oh gosh. We have so many Mabel’s Labels in our house. 

Mabel’s Labels Inc.: Oh, do you? I’m so glad. Sorry. It’s my work-from-home day, so I’m wearing my second city.

When you mentioned Toronto, I’m like, what? I’m, yeah. Yeah. Um, so I just wanted to maybe clarify, I’m not sure if I kind of missed it. It was back near the beginning when you were talking about filters and, I mean, maybe, I guess ’cause I think for my brand, my personal brand, you know, I really try to use to elevate my business brand Mabel’s labels, right?

So my customer’s moms, so like one of my personal branding goals, which is. Easy is just to be relatable, ’cause I have six kids and it’s a shit show and whatever and you know, so do all my customers. Like, it’s just, I, my personal brand is like also trying to get through the day without smelling like baby vomit kind of thing.

Right. My kids are big now, but you know what I’m saying. So I mean, I bring in, like obviously, I guess I just think maybe you can talk a little bit more about knowing who’s in the room, who your customer is, who you’re speaking to, because for me, I don’t wanna filter out that messy crap. That’s what they like.

AWi: Right? So I think that your story here, by the way, this is an incredible company. I know you’re very successful. So my kids are. 17, 18 and 22, we have in our front hall, like a little plastic bag full of Wojnicki stickers. Yeah. From your company. Um, you can label everything courtesy of Mabel. So you’ve identified your, your primary target market and it’s like you are one of them actually.

You’re one of them on steroids. You have six kids and whatever, and you’re also doing the full-time work thing. And so I think that’s very smart. But this is a great example I’m gonna say of where you’re filtering. What parts of your brand you’re sharing. If you were at a stage where you’re looking for investors and you go into a room, frankly, whether there’s women there or not, having baby vomit on you should not be the first thing that comes out.

‘Cause you’re filtering for the things that are gonna help you establish credibility with those people. It doesn’t mean you’re not a great mom; it doesn’t mean you vanished from motherhood to businesswoman. It means you’re showing up as. A working mom who has it together, right? And so the other parts of your brand, Julie, will be being a hard worker, able to transition, solving problems, leading teams, inspiring people, and resonating with clients.

All of these things, like I tell people, to come up with a list of about 15 themes that includes your current employer and your current title. The industry expertise you have the functional expertise, you have your leadership style, your formal credentials, the school that you went to, whatever other credentials that you have, awards that you’ve won, huge things that you’ve created or accomplished geography. 

So for some people, it’s like born and bred in Toronto, but I love to travel. Or it could be, you know, I’ve lived and worked in three different continents, and I love traveling. Whatever the geography is your family is for everybody. Young, old male, female. Your family role, like I, I say this, whether you say I’m a cat mom to two really lucky cats, or whether you say I’m the mom of six hooligans ranging in age from blah, blah, blah to blah, blah, blah, right?

We all have some kind of family role. It could be that you’re in the sandwich generation. I know a lot of my peers are talking about their very aging parents and their crazy teenagers or young 20-somethings. That’s another whole other thing. Thing. Right? So all of these elements are part of your brand, and you never are gonna share all 15 of these things ’cause people would say you’re crazy.

It also includes your personal hobbies. What do you do? I don’t know, Julie, after. What time are they in bed after 1130 at night, and maybe on the weekends when you’re not doing Mabel’s Labels. Right. So all of those things are part of your brand. And I mean, if you’re pitching to investors, you would tell them, part of our story that it makes us resonate so well with our customers is the fact that we are the target market.

Right? I am a mom, and I do. So that’s how it would come up as opposed to you grabbing a mic and sharing what happened in your house this morning. Right. Does that help? Okay, I got a thumbs up. Who else has a question? 

Anne Grason: Hi, Andrea. I’m so sorry I came in late. I was on a call that just wouldn’t end. So I’ll listen to the recording later.

But comes to imposter syndrome, and you may have already covered this. Do you think that affects everybody or primarily women? What’s your point of view on that? 

AW: So the research shows that it affects everyone. I like. I’ve done a bit of a deep dive here because I would say second to personal branding, the most common questions or focuses that I get for workshops and coaching is on confidence.

Confidence and overcoming imposter syndrome, really. So I’ve done a deep dive in the research on it. I can tell you a coupleof  things. I can tell you that the. Tide has shifted a little bit on imposter syndrome. There’s a recent, within the last maybe four years, HBR article where they talk about stop blaming women for having imposter syndrome and start changing the culture so they don’t feel this sense of inadequacy.

And the other thing is it’s not just women. It’s not just unsuccessful women, it’s also successful women. It’s also men that have it. I can tell you anecdotally. Men are not coming to me saying, I need help with my confidence to the extent that women are. I can also tell you, there is beautiful research that I stumbled across this past summer that says, here’s the sentence, I memorized it.

Self-concept clarity builds self-esteem. When I read that sentence, I was like, yes, this is what I see. This is what I see with my clients. Self-concept clarity is. Building your strong, unique, personal brand, self-concept, clarity, build self-esteem. That’s social psychology. Talk for overcoming imposter syndrome and communicating with confidence, right?

So I think, an important thing for me to highlight when you do the work on articulating your unique strengths and passions and skills, your confidence generally will be boosted, and when your confidence is boosted. You have credibility. We don’t listen to people, we don’t believe people, we don’t follow people who aren’t confident.

If you’re confident, though, people are gonna say, Oh, she seems to know what she’s talking about. I’m gonna think about what they’re saying. Maybe you know some of the things that I was talking about before, where people talk over you, or they interrupt you. These things, you can dampen them by. Asserting and clarifying who you are and what your value is. Yeah, so Sorry Anne. I went on, I went on a little bit of a rant there. 

Yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s golden. It’s gold. It’s what I was, um, I was. I was outside on my deck in, it was like July, and I read the sentence and I stood up and I did a dance. I was like, yes, yes, yes. That’s it.

Self-concept, clarity builds self-esteem. Bam. That’s what I’m here for. Yeah, that’s, that’s the link between confidence and branding. So actually I think that’s a great place to end. I wanna say thank you so much for being here. I hope that you got some valuable insights. I hope you are thinking about your brand differently, whether it’s what people are saying about you, when you’re not in the room, what people think you’re gonna do next, or.

Hopefully, being yourself on purpose, being unapologetic, being strategic, being disciplined, taking a little bit of time, I’m telling you a little bit of time thinking about this stuff will take you a long way.

If you wanna learn more, go to TalkAboutTalk.com and in the top there’s like a little search, whatever magnifying glass you can just enter personal branding or personal brand and a lot of the resources will come up, the masterclasses, but also the podcast episodes and newsletters and on and on, so we can continue the conversation there or on LinkedIn. And I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Talk soon.

The post Personal Branding for WOMEN Leaders (ep.203) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

When it comes to networking, your strongest professional relationships are the ones you build long before you expect to need them. Learn from 3 accomplished leaders who know how the ripple effect works in real life.

You will hear insights from BARON MANETT, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at PSBX, SHELAGH PAUL, Head of Global Communications at OMERS, and THE HONOURABLE DAVID TSUBOUCHI, former Ontario Cabinet Minister. They all contributed to the book “The Ripple Effect: Networking for Success,” and in this episode, they share personal stories about connection, reciprocity, and the habits that help the right people stay in your orbit.

This conversation will help you rethink your approach to networking. You will learn how to make a clear and respectful ask, how to stay relevant without being transactional, how to recognize valuable peers early in your career, and how consistent behaviour builds a reputation that others trust.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Baron Manett

Shelagh Paul

The Honourable David Tsubouchi

📚 Books:

🎧 Podcasts:

Shelagh Paul: You don’t know the diamonds that are all around you in your own peer set right now. 

David Tsubouchi: When you’re helping others, they remember that, and they remember you.

Baron Manett: To make it work in true networking, somebody has to pick up the phone.

Andrea Wojnicki: Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast, where you’ll learn the communication skills so that you can communicate with confidence, credibility, and achieve your career goals.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki, and I’m your executive communication coach. Just call me Andrea. Please check out the TalkAboutTalk.com website to learn more about all the services that we offer at Talk About Talk, including private coaching, corporate workshops and online courses.

And don’t forget to hit subscribe, so you’ll never miss a new podcast episode.

Today we’re talking about networking specifically what you need to do to create the network that you need later by taking action today. I have to admit, I was a little bit nervous about this episode because it’s the first time that I’ve interviewed three guests at once. Yes, the power of three me plus three. But it went really well, and I hope you agree. 

All three of these guests contributed to a book on networking called The Ripple Effect: Networking for Success. You’re gonna hear from my friend Baron Manett. He’s my favorite classmate from our MBA program. He wrote a chapter called Curious, Grateful, and People First, Networking for Future Leaders. Baron is a leading Canadian brand strategist, a marketing professor, and the founder of Per Se brand experience. 

Then there’s Shelagh Paul, author of the chapter entitled The People on the Bus. Yes. Shelagh is a master of the metaphor, and she is also the global lead at Omers of Communications. Yes, communications. I think I have a new friend. 

And finally, David Tsubouchi. David’s the co-editor of this book that we’re referencing, The Ripple Effect Networking for Success, which was published in 2025. David’s chapter is entitled, be a Giver, not a Taker. I love this. He’s an accomplished leader, a former Canadian cabinet minister, and an author whose insights on generosity and connection are nothing less than inspiring.

Okay, let’s get into this. As a communication coach, I know that often people feel icky about networking, but when you’re purposeful about networking, and you make an effort. That effort can go a long way, and this conversation will provide you with many suggestions for how to make that happen. Here we go.

Thank you so much, David, Shelagh, and Baron for being here today to talk to us about networking and the ripple effect. Let’s start with a big picture. The book title, the Ripple Effect, and Networking for Success. I would say that this is an evocative title. It’s a beautiful metaphor. David, can you share with us what inspired you to create this collection and to use this title?

DT: I’m gonna start you off in a different direction. That wasn’t the original title that I submitted. Uh, the original title I submitted was. The no *hole rule. And, uh, the publisher reminded me that, uh, we, we have Simon Schuster distribute this in the United States, and that probably wouldn’t be a good thing to have as a title.

And he was quite right because we were lucky enough to get book list, which makes recommendations, the libraries in the United States to recommend a book for the libraries down there. So it was a wise decision. So, as you know, I mean, the ripple effect, you know, one small ripple can create. Figure waves.

Uh, and sometimes it’s a matter of time. I mean, networking is not something that happens overnight. It’s about creating relationships. And all of us will say the same thing. Uh, it’s a common thing throughout the book that the ripple effect, uh, is about quality, not quantity. It’s about having that circle of integrity around you.

It’s like having the culture, you know, organizations have to have a good culture to be successful. The same thing with the, with, uh, your network. 

AW: Exactly. It’s the quality of relationships, not the quantity of relationships. And I was gonna say the term network is itself almost like, well, it’s not a network, it’s describing what it is.

And I love this image of. The ripple effect, like a drop of water and how it ripples out. And it grows not just in quantity, but in quality. So networking starts with the first step, right? The drop of water. 

Baron, in your chapter in the book, you talk about how you reached out to David you years ago, and you were, I’m gonna say a little bit nervous or anxious about doing so.

Can you tell us that story and then talk generally about how we should write that first email. I get this question all the time from my clients. They’re like, it’s just awkward. How do you do that? 

BM: It’s a great question. It’s so great to be, uh, back on the podcast, and thanks for having us. You know, I think back on it ’cause it was approximately 20 plus years ago when I first really heard of this guy, David Tsubouchi.

And I was, uh, I thought I was a kind of high Roland in advertising creative person, and I had a great idea, long story short, an idea around poker, and I thought it would be just as simple. To just, I sold it to our awesome client. It turned out to, you know, be a big program, and I just thought I’d go down to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, like a driver’s license kind of thing.

And I just get a license. And I walked in, I said, I’m just here for my license, for my poker tournament. And the outspoken clerk behind the counter says, you whatcha talking about, you can’t have that. And then, who are you? I was like, whatcha talking about? I just give it, go ahead. Just how much is it?

It’s illegal. I go, well, that’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. I go, who came up with that law? And she goes, listen, if you don’t like it, don’t complain to me. Call David Tsubouchi ’cause he wrote the law. And I went home, and I went back to the office. I looked it up, and he is right, some guy named David Tsubouchi.

And so I got his number, luckily. And I called them. And here’s what’s really interesting, right? Because I talk to a lot of young people who are afraid to make the call, and I totally get that. I was afraid to make the call. So I didn’t just call the honorable David Tsubouchi government minister. I did a little bit of research.

What was his purview where, you know, what was he focused on? I obviously could not talk to him on his peer level at the time, but I was hoping I could at least find common grounds of themes. And one of them was around innovation. You know, Mr. Tsubouchi liked to do things first, so did I. Common ground, even though we are different ages.

But to make it work in true networking, somebody has to pick up the phone, right? Somebody has to say yes. I hear a lot of people complaining, oh, my kids are networking all they can, and I believe them. Are they as prepared as possible? But are we being good partners on the other side? If David doesn’t pick up the phone, if David doesn’t say yes to me, none of this book, none of this story happens for me.

Right. So it’s a two-way street. It’s a value exchange. So thank goodness David was open-minded enough to realize that it’s not just one level. We, and now 20 plus years later, I’m trying to pay him back and so many other people by picking up the phone and saying yes. And you know, we can’t just lecture people to call into the air.

So it was a great lesson for me early to come prepared. And it’s not a one-way ask ever.

AW: I love that it’s not a one-way ask, and also this point about preparation. I’ve heard from some other wise folks that you wanna make it really easy for the other person to help you, but you also wanna make it. Clear that you’re not wasting their time.

And I can imagine, I think I knew you back then, Baron. You’re a keen young whipper snapper, and I bet you immediately impressed him, but he didn’t have to pick up the phone.

DT: Let me interject here if I could. You know, it’s how you ask to, I mean, look at all of us on this call, get all kinds of requests to meet and to talk to all kinds of people all the time.

You know, when Baron called me, I didn’t know Baron from anybody else, and I just liked the tone of his voice and the way he was talking, and it wasn’t someone who was reaching out and saying, I need this from you, or whatever it is. Uh, we just had a good conversation to begin with and, you know, it’s like having a, not coming out and asking right away.

But creating the interest on having a relationship with somebody else. And as you know, by now, because you know, Baron, I mean he’s very personable and, uh, he kind of sucked me in. 

AW: So yeah, that’s Baron’s superpower. That’s Baron’s superpower. But you’re reminding me, David, of the other thing that he said was that he identified something that the two of you have in common, right?

Your quest for innovation, creativity being the first one. That’s brilliant. I talk about how this is like accelerating the relationship trajectory when you mention anything like, oh, you worked with so and so, or, oh, you’re focused on this, or whatever it is, your leadership style. Me too, whatever it is. Absolutely brilliant. 

So Shelagh, I wanna get you in here. You talk in your chapter about how. The early bird gets the cake, and I absolutely love this. I love this. It’s powerful. Can you share exactly what you mean by this in the context of networking and what advice you have for listeners, many who have maybe early in their career, or even if you’re not early in your career.

How does this early bird gets the cake fit in here? 

SP: Thanks, Andrea. And thank you for having, uh, me join this great group on this topic. Might that chapter or might that part of my chapter? The point was start networking before you need something. So, exactly what David just said, if you have identified someone that you might share an interest, you might really appreciate their perspective on something.

That’s the best way in. So for me, it’s what about that person’s perspective on something might help me grow my own perspective on something. So I’m not asking you for an introduction, I’m not asking you for anything other than a conversation. Uh, and I think that’s the best way, and I think this insight for me happened in.

I was looking back on some of the things that worked out in the best possible ways. So I was dumped into a committee, uh, in 2010, auto change, uh, when I was in the insurance business. And it was a group of people that I just found bright, fascinating, interesting. And I thought, I gotta get to know these people.

I wasn’t going into it because I wanted to network with them. I just really, truly wanted to learn from them. And so doing it early and getting the cake, uh, is, has got a tie into our actual story, but I’ll leave that for now. It’s networking when there’s nothing at stake, and that’s all there really is to it.

So those people in that group, in that particular story, have all gone on, and I won’t name them to do spectacular things. And we are peers. So it wasn’t again that I think when some people think about networking, they’re like, I need someone that’s maybe more senior than me, or someone that can help open a door for me.

And that is a certain type of networking. But for this, I was talking about you don’t know the diamonds that are all around you in your own peer set right now. Pay attention to those two, pick the right ones, pay attention to those two because you dunno what doors that might be opened for you 20 years later.

AW: I love that. And I heard you say Shelagh. I’m not just in there to network, like, it’s like, it’s almost like it’s a dirty word, right? I get this question all the time, or this response when I talk about networking, which is like, ugh.] And you’re saying get to know people before you need to. 

SP: Exactly. The last part of your question was about early-stage career versus maybe someone more seasoned.

Hmm. And I would say early in your career, there are lots of opportunities. Get away from your desk or whatever you’re doing. Try to find other groups of people with like interests. Like Baron was saying, people that you can connect with. If you’re at a big company, they usually have employee resource groups.

There’s lots of opportunities to connect with people outside of your actual job and someone more seasoned. Think about it when you’re at a table, and you’re about to debate or try to decide something together. How much fun, easier, more respectful. Will it be if you’ve already built the relationship with them before you get to the situation where you need to actually navigate a, a solution together?

DT: Shelagh’s a hundred percent. Right? And, I get asked an awful lot by people, how do you meet people above your pay grade? The easiest example I can give is politics, and I don’t care if you’re what party you’re with, but if you have volunteer for a political party. You think about other people are volunteering, and a lot of the people volunteering are very important people, and they see you then as a colleague, not someone who wants something from them, but someone in a common cause.

And, you know, you got a chance. I mean, I inadvertently fell into politics and meeting people as a raw kid out of law school. And all of a sudden I’m rubbing shoulders with like Mel Lastman, who’s the mayor of North York at the time, cabinet ministers, and obviously, it’s not most kid. I didn’t know anything.

And, but here you get a chance to meet people way above, and you don’t need, and Shelagh’s right? You’re meeting people now as a volunteer. You’re not asking them for anything. But you know, later in life, that kind of connection. Really, really resonates because. They know you as something else other than something who wants, someone wants something.

They have that camaraderie with you. So I think Shelagh’s a hundred percent right on this because you meet people, but have a genuine interest on what you’re doing and the commonality, whatever the cause is. I mean, don’t be a, you know, a mercenary going in there. You gotta be, someone really cares what’s going on. 

AW: Oh. As you were speaking there, I was, I kept thinking about personal branding, right? So, I’m a little bit obsessed with the topic of personal branding. It’s like you establish what you have in common with a person, but you also make it clear what value you add, what expertise you have, your unique brand, and then magical things will happen.

But you’re not coming in to Shelagh’s point. You’re not coming in with the ask; you’re coming in with the let’s collaborate. Let’s get to know each other. Let’s establish a relationship, and I think a lot of people feel like they don’t know how to do that because ultimately, like, why am I going to this networking event?

Ultimately, maybe it’s to somehow accelerate my career progression and they feel selfish, and they feel salesy and they’ll, they feel icky. So I’m wondering what your take is on this, Baron, in your chapter, I have a quote here. You said, gone are the days of aggressive sales pitches. Pushing your agenda at networking events, right?

Like the, Hey, nice to meet you. Guess what I do? People wanna help and be helped is what you said. 

How exactly do we do this? I mean, it’s one thing to say that we all nod our heads. How do you actually do that?

BM: I think, none of us have time to be sold to. And I think if I’m gonna have value to or add value to interrupt someone’s time if they don’t know me, or to engage someone who does know me and take up their time, how can I be helpful?

How can I provide utility? And that might not be what I’m selling at the time. That might be somebody I know or experience that I can share, but I think being helpful. Has relevance, and I think we only have time for relevance now, and we don’t have time for sales pitches. That’s how I feel when people connect, meet with me, and I tell them what I try and bring to my contacts and conversations.

AW: So I’m gonna interrupt this interview and challenge the listeners to do something right now. Think about who has helped you in your career, and think about how that happened, and think about how you think about that person. In terms of in your network, what role they play versus like LinkedIn, every time I log into LinkedIn, someone has sent me a connection request, and then boom, sales pitch selling me something, selling me something.

Andrea, can I send you a video? Andrea, la la la. I’m like, didn’t ask to be sold to. I thought we were connecting. This is not connecting. Right. It’s become. Well, it’s gone from the networking events, right? The classic cocktail party to now happening on LinkedIn. Uh, I would say an accelerated time, and I love your point, Baron.

It’s not what am I selling? It’s how am I helping for value?

BM: I mean, and just to go back to something David said before, right when I first met David, we of course, career-wise, no parody. Uh, the same today, right? But what David let me do was to his point about volunteerism, he had a couple programs. He said, Hey, do you want to help, you know, with your talent set?

And he let me be in the room. He let me be around the table. He let me learn how to be in the room and then when to talk and when to not talk. And I think more as leaders now, we need to be, remind ourselves of that young people need to be in the room. Right? And the same time, younger professionals, if you are gonna be in the room.

You gotta earn the room. It’s a two-way street, right? A lot of people I talk to want the ball, and then they don’t know what to do with. It was fine, but just speak up. So nobody has to be perfect, but with opportunity comes responsibility, I think. 

SP: You know, and you’re going to an event, you’re, you’re gonna be somewhere where you know, you.

I might wanna have a conversation with someone. I hope that’s everywhere, but I have a couple of back-pocket questions. Just ones that you know, and because I’ll say one of the networking events we were at for this book, a young professional came up to me and said, you’re really approachable, but I have such a hard time, you know, just coming over and starting to talk to someone.

I said, well, how hard was it? So you just did it? So let’s just take that step by step. I mean, the ask was so specific. We ended up having a 20-minute conversation. We’re now connected on LinkedIn, blah blah. So and so. If he came back to me and asked me another question, I’d be all in answering it. So rather.

General like you can you, again, you can smell who said it. I can smell it a mile away. When there’s an attempt to sort of flatter your career and get specific is my point. Like, ask a question and you’re gonna get a way better return on value 

AW: And you can get meta. So I know you’re big on communications Shelagh, as well, and just calling out the awkwardness of the event can actually be the icebreaker of the conversation, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So, we’ve been talking about the in-person networking event and a little bit about networking in the digital era. And I know that, um, all of us here have. Done all of the above, right? We’ve gone to those conferences, and you go, and you fill your glass, and then you turn around and you look at the swarm of strangers that you’ve never met.

And maybe if you’re an extrovert, you’re excited, and if you’re an introvert, you’re horrified, but you go in and you network versus what’s going on on LinkedIn. I’m wondering if you have any advice for  professionals who are young and old again, who are looking to establish a stronger network and meaningful relationships when most of the interactions that they’re experiencing may maybe because they’re working from home or at least they’re hybrid when most of it’s virtual. Anyone can jump in on this one, 

SP: I think for there’s no one-size-fits-all all. So the only advice I would give in that space is figure out how to be authentic. Online, in a teams chat, in a room, whatever, people can smell through non-authentic connections. So practice. Like show some people what, like this is what I, how I might start a conversation on LinkedIn,

What’s your reaction to that? And, so for people that already know you and trust you and know that your intent is good, they’ll likely say, you know what? That’s,  I wouldn’t answer that. If I got that, here’s what I might do. And then I think again. We asked this question about sort of in person in the office versus on screen, and we all learned how to create relationships on screen.

It’s not impossible. I still in the camp where it’s better in person, but I think again, if you can show a little soul is what I call it, it’s a little more interesting through screen than not. 

AW: I have a quick anecdote that I wanna share that you just reminded me of. Shelagh during one of my kids was in college, and there was parents’ weekend, which obviously didn’t happen ’cause we were being confined to our houses.

So they had a Zoom call with like 50 parents or it was open, but there were like 50 parents on the screen. And I had my name Andrea Wojnicki Talk About Talk on the bottom of my screen. And someone sent me an email, and she said, I’m in the Zoom with you. I just googled Talk About Aalk. Looks like you have a very cool company.

Can we set up a meeting and chat? And I was like. Wow, this is happening virtually, and I became great friends with this woman. She’s also an entrepreneur. She lives in Silicon Valley. Like you can do it online. You can use the chat, use private chat, use the public chat, put your LinkedIn profile right in the chat so other people can connect with you.

What other advice do you have for making this happen in a virtual context? Anyone else? 

DT: Well, you know what, uh, I’ll just tell you about Murray Simpson. Murray’s one of our writers, and I didn’t know who Murray was, and he connected with me through LinkedIn, and then like I get a lot of requests to meet, uh, and I can’t do all of them obviously, but.

The way he asked me, like, Baron, he said, you know, eventually we, he said, you know, could I, could you meet with him and give him a little bit of advice on his company? So I looked him up and I actually, I looked up some of the people who were supporting him, which I, I need one half, which helped out. And I said, well, I’m going downtown for a meeting down at the, uh, at Elmers.

Uh, I’ll give you half an hour, you know, in the evening. Have a coffee with me and we ended up talking for three and a half hours. Wow. And we just connected on, like, I talk to Murray now three times a week. He’s like, Baron’s age too. So he is a, you know, we’re a different generation, but we connected on so many different levels, and now we do a lot of stuff together, and here’s somebody I didn’t know at all, and through LinkedIn and connected to.

And of course, I guess what you have to say sometimes is, uh, you can make that connection on, on, on, through. Remotely. But ultimately I think your personality and who you are really closes the sale, 

AW: Your personality and being, as we said at the very beginning, authentic and focused on the other person, as opposed to, and it sounds, I was gonna say, David, your story, it sounds like it was a virtual relationship.

That’s in person, and now it’s hybrid, right? To use the vocabulary that we’re using. 

Okay. I’ve got two more questions for you before we move to the rapid-fire questions, if that’s okay. The first one is regarding follow-ups and thank you notes. I mean, it’s probably a sexist cliche, but your mom always told you to send thank you notes and follow up.

Right? But what are your thoughts on this in the context of networking? 

BM: It’s a passion area for me. I actually just got my new thank-you note. It’s the first gift I got when I started, right before I started my career. Every young person I’ve met with in my career, I suggest a thank you note because, as a marketer, it is the biggest bang for your buck as a marketer.

If you think about it, the price of a stamp. Talking about paper envelope, handwritten analog, and it’s delivered to your audience. I’ve received 14 thank-you notes in my career from young people. I do about 75 to 101 oh ones a year. I’ve hired half of those thank-you note writers. And the other half, I found jobs, if you wanna break through.

It’s the easiest way in the world, and it’s so thoughtful, and it’s a lost art. 

SP: I would say in addition to what Baron’s just said, I think you have to train yourself to be appreciative, and that sounds really weird, I know that, but if it’s transactional, it’s like I just had a meeting and now I need to send a thank you note.

At least you’re gonna do it. But sometimes it can feel like a chore, or I’m not really sure what I’m gonna say. I think what I found is I had to sort of change my whole, I am an appreciative, grateful person to begin with, but I’m like, how do I get in the habit of every day looking for things I appreciate?

And that’s something I talk about in the book, and it’s different from a gratitude journal. It’s not the things I’m grateful for in life, of which sunlight streaming through right now. It’s a kind word from somebody in the office. It’s the crunchiness of a fresh apple. It’s something that’s brought me pure joy, and so I do five things I appreciate in the last 24 hours.

Every single morning. I force myself to write those down. And then I’m not allowed to repeat anything. My dog would be on the list every time if I did. So I have to look for things to be appreciative about and what that’s done, and I didn’t realize it was gonna happen. It’s now two years in that I’ve been doing this, is I look for things to be appreciative about, whether it’s a conversation.

With somebody, a hap, you know, a happenstance meeting in the kitchen, something that one of my teammates says to me that really touches me and I make sure they know. I say, thank you because you made my list today. You made me happy. You made me just a pure spark of joy. And that practice has made me more likely to do exactly what Baron just said to do, which is write a thank-you note.

Let someone know what they did that was meaningful for me. 

DT: Shelagh, that makes you more attractive to everyone else as well. That positivity just attracts people to you. And I think that’s what people need to understand. Look, I can tell you a quick story here. I’m working at home just before Christmas, a few years ago, and I got the FM radio on, listen to the local FM station.

And they had these two ladies come on, uh, talking about this women’s shelter. Locally, and I really liked them. I just listened to ’em. These things, the house was sincere, and they’re trying to raise $500 in an hour. So about 15 minutes before the program ended, I called them and said, how you doing?

Said, we’re doing pretty good. We raised the $200. And I thought, well, geez. So I said, I’ll give you the $300. And so I gave him the $300. Then I get a beautiful note from these people and I thought, well that’s kind of nice now because of the note they sent me, my wife and I are that, that’s our major charity we support out here now.

And, but it’s because they were thoughtful enough to send me a note, and I really appreciate it. It’s a small gesture, but boy, we remember these things as Bar said. 

AW: That’s a such a beautiful story, David, that really. Illustrates the point that I sometimes share with people, which is if you don’t follow up after you meet with someone, you may as well have not made the connection at all.

Right? It’s closing the loop and the thank you note is a beautiful reminder and your reinforcing how important or how grateful you are. I wanted to ask you, Shelagh, do people know about your practice of writing down the five things every day. 

SP: I tell people now, um, I try to inspire other people to do it because I, I honestly think it changed my outlook on life doing this.

So, um, I just am a happier person, but I was unhappy before. But it’s just, you know, looking for things that make you smile. And it was actually in a podcast I listened to. A couple of years back, and again, they sort of unpacked the difference between gratitude and appreciation, and I thought appreciation is just way easier.

It’s way on. It’s on the fly for things to make you happy, not for things to argue about. It’s. A ripple effect, literally. 

AW: So one of the, my past, uh, podcast guest experts is Michele Bailey, who wrote a book called The Currency of Gratitude, and she talks about these benefits of sending a thank you.

You’re closing the loop, you’re reinforcing the relationship, you’re demonstrating your values and your personality. There’s like no downside. In fact, there’s like a whole positive ripple. So, here is the last question that I wanna ask before we get to the three rapid fire question, is that I’m hoping that this podcast episode, this conversation itself will be a ripple and if someone listening, an individual listener takes action after hearing this episode, what is the one thing that you hope they’ll do?

This is your opportunity for a very brief last word, or I’ll give you a sentence. Okay. About what you hope people will do differently after listening to this Baron? Yeah, 

BM: And that’s a great question. I would hope that I’m gonna do a two-parter. One is that maybe we’ve made it a little less scary to reach out to that person you wanna reach out to.

And two, reach out with purpose, right? So the biggest gift you can give is someone’s is your time. If you’re gonna ask for that gift. The least we can do is say thank you about the gift, right? So that’s the full circle. I love what you’re talking about here. So can say thank you in a number of ways you can make donations.

You can tell people how great people are, but the least you can do is say thank you. And it’s so inexpensive. And sadly, right now, a very easy way to look like the tallest, most wonderful person in the room. So I think. Don’t be afraid. ’cause you’ll be surprised how many people will say yes and pick up the phone and don’t ignore the amount of work it is for someone to make time for you, ’cause it’s extremely valuable. Okay. Shelagh? 

SP: I would say flip the script. Get out of this. I mean, it sounds strange for someone who’s written a chapter on networking, forget about networking. Try and get. Your own instinct, your own internal muscle around building human connection, every opportunity you get.

So again, it’s not to Baron’s point, it doesn’t have to be a scary thing if you are just focused on expanding your community in the moments where you’re not actually even trying to build a network, just think about it differently. You need to change the I have to, to, I want to. You’re not gonna be successful.

AW: That’s powerful. And before you need it, to your previous point, David.

DT: You know, I talk to a lot of senior executives, and they have trouble networking, too. And one of the things I say to them is mentor. Because mentoring’s a two-way street. And it’s interesting how many people over the years I’ve, I’ve mentored, and years later they’ve become very successful and they always ask me if they can help me out.

I’m not really after anything right now. I’m doing too much stuff right now. But it’s interesting when you’re helping others, they remember that. Remember you first of all, anytime they more need more advice or help with something or new, new project. So it’s a two-way street and I think it’s being always, again, as we talked earlier on, it’s better to give than receive and to have that degree of POS positivity in what you do.

AW: Fantastic. Okay. Are the three of you ready for the three? Gosh, I love this. The power of three everywhere. The three rapid-fire questions. We are gonna make this rapid fire. Okay. The first question, I think it was Baron or maybe David, who already kind of answered this on behalf of the group, but the first question is, are you an introvert or an extrovert? David? 

DT: Uh, introvert. 

AW: Shelagh 

SP: Introvert or Gambivert. Apparently, there’s a new category, introverts that like socializing. That’s me. So, uh, or extrovert that are, or more thoughtful, but I’m more the introvert who likes socializing. 

BM: Okay. Baron introvert. I wanna be alone with my thoughts. Really? Okay. Yeah. I thought I knew you, Baron.

Wow. If I have a preference, I love people. I just love them over there. Yeah. 

AW: Okay. I know this is rapid fire, but I just wanna say, Shelagh, I didn’t wanna, um, trivialize your answer. I ask introvert or extrovert to be provocative. The truth is most of us are ambiverts. We need social time to fill us up, and we also need solitude to fill us up.

DT: So, I’m a professional likes being alone in this farm. Yeah. 

AW: Nice. Okay, next question. I actually can’t wait to hear this. I’m gonna ask this in reverse order. What. Is or are your communication pet peeves? What infuriates you about the way other people communicate? Baron? 

BM: People who spell names wrong.

AW: Ooh. Too many R’s and not 

BM: enough T’s. Right? You know, I know it’s not the easiest name, but I didn’t ask you to reach out, so just spellcheck. That’s all just details. Those things I find silly. And the no thank you is, uh, I think intolerable obviously. I’m on the record. 

AW: Can you, sorry. I know this is rapid fire. What do you mean the don’t thank you.  

BM: You gotta say thank you afterwards, after a phone call. I’m not saying, Hey, thank you. Don’t say, yeah, that’s, that’s a no-go for me. Okay, Shelagh, 

SP: I’m just gonna tack on Aarons, and then I’ll answer the question. I have two first names, right? So. And Paul, please trust that I know the order to put them in, and do not send me a message to Paul because I get it all the time because it’s a more familiar name, like.

Have a look at how, what the person’s LinkedIn profile is. The chances are if they’ve got this far in life, they don’t have their name in the wrong order. So that would be, that would be my ask is don’t call me Paul. My communication, uh, pet peeve is actually an evident lack of curiosity. Someone is speaking to you, and they’re just speaking to get their point across, or they just wanna be told what it is you need from them or, and you know, if you’re as a communicator, if you are not curious, you are not thinking about what your audience is thinking about. And so in, in terms of growing communicators, I love stumbling across curious people, and that’s what we need more of. 

AW: Amazing. David. 

DT: Yeah. I hate it when people don’t say what they’re after. I’ve got a great interesting idea for you.

I mean, tell me what do you want my help with to begin with? Secondly, I hate lazy people, so, you know, like. Someone who on LinkedIn will say to me, what do you do? My history is on my profile. Just read the stupid thing. And that automatically just, you know, thinking, well, I’m gonna delete that. 

AW: Yeah. Oh, I’m with you. The stupid questions that people try to open with on LinkedIn, it’s like, come on, it’s all there. I’d love to hear more about what you do as you look at my profile. 

Okay. Question number three. Is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending lately? Shelagh. Diary of a CEO. Oh yeah, I was just listening to it in the car.

SP: So I, again, there’s a, I, this is rapid fire, so I won’t get into the tons of examples that I had that are so relevant to the conversation we’re having. But there was an episode on the small things and being able to remember the small things about people, and it’s a really interesting differentiation that I don’t think I’d put my mind to.

Before, so not just their name, what they do, whatever else, but a year later, you remember their child’s name, or you remember something about the story that they told you. And most people have to write that down. So that’s again, being intentional. If you meet someone, try to remember the small details, ’cause you will stand out if you can do that. 

AW: Yes, people are. Really flattered when you remember personal things about them. I know speaking from experience, being on both sides of that equation, I think Diary of a CEO is really popular, and I just thought about this today when I was listening to the podcast.

It is today’s Tim Ferriss podcast. ‘Cause Tim Ferriss used to interview really successful people and try to pull in like what are the skills that we can learn? And I think Diary of CEOs doing the same thing. Baron, is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending? 

BM: Yes, both actually. Uh, the book I’m loving right now is a book called The Four Cs, the Four Conversations by Blair Ends, who I think is the best writer of developing how to sell expertise.

Certs just amazingly smart. And then the podcast I’m listening to is a marketing podcast Right now, best story wins. The podcast. Podcast. So just talk to me every week how, uh, different brand leaders come on and break down their challenges. Uh, yeah, motivating, motivating for somebody in my profession.

AW: Fantastic. I’m gonna leave links to those in the show notes. And David, 

DT: A book I got years ago when I was in the board of, uh, Tet before, uh, uh, it was bought up by Omar years ago. The CEO give everyone on board a, a copy of Who Moved My Cheese and the simple book about. Learning a lesson from everything you go through, whether it’s positive or negative.

And that’s very important for all of us. And Baron and I, oh, before the pandemic, were asked to talk to a, a big pharmaceutical company on our greatest failures because I’ve learned more lessons from my greatest failures, and I’ve had some spectacular ones than I have about successes. And so the I idea of all this is maintain that positivity. Learn from everything you undergo. 

AW: Be humble. Right. Okay. I’m gonna leave links to the books and the podcast that you mentioned in the show notes. I’m also going to leave links to your LinkedIn profiles and any other connections that you wanna leave with the listeners. And I just wanna end by saying thank you so much, all three of you, for sharing your unique perspectives on the ripple effect Networking for success. Thank you, David. Thank you, Shelagh. Thank you, Baron.

What a great conversation. I love that. Okay, here are my top three takeaways from Baron, Shelagh, and David. First, start networking long before you need something. As Shelagh says, the early bird gets the cake. I love the metaphors. Shelagh, reach out early. When you’re simply curious or maybe when you’re grateful, not just when you need a favor.

Second, remember, no one wants to be sold to. Let me say that again. Nobody wants to be sold to you can do better. So approach people with curiosity and authenticity. As Baron suggested. A great way to start is by saying, I’m not asking you for anything other than a conversation. Love it. Okay. Third, say thank you.

Close the loop. Communicate gratitude. A small gesture of appreciation, like a quick note or a message, can make a lasting impression. Gratitude builds trust and strengthens relationships. And that’s it. Please take a moment to subscribe, to talk about, talk on whatever app you’re listening to, or maybe you’re watching us on YouTube.

Click subscribe or follow. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

The post The RIPPLE Effect: NETWORKING for Success with Baron Manett, Shelagh Paul, and David Tsubouchi (ep.202) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Your out-of-office email response is an easy and effective way to communicate who you are as a leader.

In this short episode, communication coach Dr. Andrea Wojnicki explains how to craft your OOO email response to reinforce your professional identity. You’ll also learn the four do’s and don’ts: be specific about dates and coverage, be consistent while you’re away, show personality without sarcasm, and don’t overshare.

Listen for practical examples you can copy in minutes and start using today.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Andrea Wojnicki: An out-of-office message might seem trivial, but it can be a powerful way to reinforce your personal brand if you take advantage of the opportunity. 

Well. It’s the holiday season. First, there’s American Thanksgiving, and then the December craziness starts. We’ve got Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, and of course, New Year’s Eve.

I hope you’re able to take some time away from work to refresh and rejuvenate, and be with family and friends. I also hope you’re able to manage your out-of-office status. Have you ever considered that your out-of-office email responder is an opportunity for you to communicate and reinforce your professional identity and your leadership status?

Listen. I know you’re really busy, especially this time of year, so here’s my promise to you. In this short episode, you’re gonna learn some ideas that will help you easily elevate your personal brand, all while you’re physically away from the office. Let’s do this. Let’s do this. Let’s Talk About Talk.

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. If you’re a longtime listener, welcome back, and thank you for listening. If you’re a new listener, let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach ambitious professionals like you so you can communicate with confidence and ultimately achieve your career goals.

You can learn more about everything we do at Talk About Talk, including private coaching, masterclasses, and corporate workshops, if you go to TalkAboutTalk.com, and there are plenty of free resources for you there as well. Alright, let’s get into this.

Like I said, I know you’re busy always, but especially this time of year, and if you’re like most people, you don’t give a second thought to your out of office status, out of sight, out of mind. Well, not quite. Here’s the big insight. Spending a little bit of time managing your out-of-office status can go a long way in reinforcing your professional identity.

Let’s talk first about making some tweaks to your out-of-office email responder, and then I’m gonna take you through four dos and don’ts about how to manage your time away. Okay. First, your email responder. This is also relevant for Slack or Teams or whatever messaging platform you use. If there’s an opportunity for you to customize your message, that’s what we’re talking about here.

Your out-of-office response can communicate so much about your leadership style. I would call this an under-leveraged communication opportunity where it’s really so easy for you to reinforce your brand. This insight originally came up for me in a recent private coaching session that I had with a brilliant client.

We were talking about the touch points that shape our professional identity, and she mentioned how she saw a very thoughtful out-of-office reply, and it made her pause and think. This really says something about who they are as a leader. And you know what? She’s right. An out-of-office message might seem trivial, but it can be a powerful way to reinforce your personal brand if you take advantage of the opportunity.

Partly, I think, because people aren’t expecting it, we kind of expect the generic email, I’m away, and my response will be delayed. I’ll get back to you after I return. Hmm. This is a missed opportunity. So here’s what I do instead. First. Identify what part of your personal brand or your professional identity that you wanna emphasize.

Do you wanna emphasize your thought leadership? Your people leadership, your strategic thinking. Maybe you wanna role model boundary setting for your internal team, or maybe you want to empower them while you’re away. 

This first step is critical. Ask yourself, what’s the one message that you wanna reinforce?

And then once you’ve identified this main theme, go into your email settings and craft your out-of-office responder accordingly. Make sure you reinforce that theme that you chose. Here are some examples. If you are an empowering leader, you might say something like, I’m out of the office, but my team’s got this.

If you’re a strategic thinker, you might add a comment about taking time to reflect, refocus, and strategize. If you’re a boundary-setting leader, you could say, I’m offline modeling boundaries and making space for the big stuff. And if you’re a thought leader, you could say. In the meantime, while you’re waiting for my response, here’s an article or a link to a podcast episode that I think you’re gonna find helpful.

You get the point. Just adding one sentence can have a big impact. I hope this inspires you to think more strategically about reinforcing your leadership style, or you could say your professional identity, through your out-of-office response. 

And now I wanna follow up with a few do’s and don’ts. I hope you’ll consider these four pointers when you’re writing your out-of-office email responder and as you’re managing your time away. Yes, there are four more than just the power of three. 

The first one is do be specific about the dates that you’re gonna be gone. And the coverage that you’ve set up, share the date that you’re gonna return, and name the person to contact with urgent needs. And here’s a bonus tip: don’t be tempted to overpromise regarding when you’ll be able to respond.

If you’re coming back on January 2nd, don’t promise a response on that day. You know, it’s always more overwhelming when you get back than you anticipated. Am I right? So don’t over promise, rather under promise and overdeliver. This isn’t just about communication skills; this is life advice. Okay? 

My second suggestion is to be clear about coverage and be consistent. If you’ve identified someone who’s looking after urgent things when you’re away, then go and let them do their job. I know, trust me, it’s tempting to jump in and help out, but imagine how this feels to the person you’ve designated to step in for you. They can feel frustrated if your out-of-office responder says that you’re away, but you’re still actively communicating with them and managing through things.

It’s also confusing to everyone. You work with your team and your customers, or your clients. So be clear about coverage and responsibilities, and then follow through and be consistent. So now we’ve covered the first two pointers. One. Do be specific about the dates that you’re gone and the coverage that you’ve set up. And two, be clear about the coverage and be consistent. 

Number three. Show some personality. You could add a joke or something that’s relevant to your firm or your brand, but do be careful. Don’t assume that people will get your sarcasm or your quirky sense of humor. Remember, your out-of-office response goes to everyone, including prospective clients, customers, and people that you haven’t met yet.

My suggestion is that you write your out of office responder with some personality, and then ask yourself, if someone read this who didn’t know me, would they be offended? Would they be confused? If yes, then edit it. Remember, sarcasm never does well in an email. Okay? 

Now, the last, the fourth pointer, do not overshare. Sure, a little personality is great, but the reader does not need to read your full vacation itinerary, and you don’t wanna come across as bragging. I’m off on my private jet to the Riviera, where we’re meeting some friends on their yacht. Ugh, do not do that. And also with regards to oversharing, including your full itinerary, could pose a security risk.

Oh, Andrea’s whole family is away and her house is empty until January 2nd. Excellent. Let’s plan the heist now. No, no, no, no. Okay, so these are my four pointers for you. One, do be specific about the dates that you’ll be gone and the coverage that you’ve set up. Two, be clear about that coverage and be consistent. Three, show some personality, and four, do not overshare. 

I hope that this brief episode has inspired you to customize your out-of-office email responder in a way that will benefit you. Here’s the thing. The most effective leaders out there communicate with clarity and intention, even when they’re not at their desks.

Your team is watching your colleagues, and customers do notice. This is your chance to model behavior, demonstrate credibility, and yes, show a little personality. So take a few minutes to craft something that reinforces your leadership style. Then your email response can do the work for you while you’re off enjoying your time with family and friends.

And speaking of family and friends, please forward this episode. It’s Talk About Talk episode number 201. Share it with your family and friends who might find it helpful. And now I hope you go off and enjoy your time away. Talk soon.

The post How to Craft an Out-of-Office Message That Reinforces Your Leadership Brand (ep. 201) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

What makes the most successful leaders stand out? The way they communicate.

In this special 200th episode, communication coach Dr. Andrea Wojnicki shares the three ways that leaders communicate differently based on years of executive coaching, workshops, and research.

You’ll learn how to:

Andrea also reveals the Top 3 most downloaded Talk About Talk episodes of all time, each one packed with tools to boost your communication confidence and impact.

If you’re serious about leadership, this episode will show you exactly how to elevate your presence and influence through communication.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Ep.169: Communicate with Confidence: 

Ep.154: 5 Quick Fixes to Improve Your Communication: 

Ep.170: Introductions – How to Introduce Yourself: 

Andrea Wojnicki: Successful leaders are focused on intent and precision in their communication. By intent, I mean that successful leaders don’t just speak to fill the air. Every word, question, and story has a purpose, whether it’s to inspire, clarify, or align. 

Well, hello there. I have an announcement. Talk About Talk is 200. This is our 200th episode. Several people have asked me how we’ll commemorate this 200th episode. Yes, this is a big deal. Andrea, will you list your top 10 episodes to date, maybe your top 10 learnings, or Andrea, we know you’re a big fan of the Power of three. Will you list your top three episodes? Sure, I can do that, but I can also do even better.

In this short episode, you’re gonna learn how the most successful leaders communicate differently than everyone else. Over the last several years, I’ve coached hundreds and hundreds of executives, thousands. If you count the folks in the communication skills workshops that I’ve led. And based on my years of coaching ambitious executives, plus the podcast interviews and my research, I have some unique insight into what distinguishes the most successful leaders from everyone else.

These are the insights that you wanna hear. If you are hungry to become one of these successful leaders. So I’m gonna share with you three ways that your communication must evolve if you plan to ascend to a position of leadership. And yes, of course, I’ll also share the top three Talk About Talk episodes of all time.

Are you ready? Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. If you’re a regular talk about talk listener, welcome back, and thank you for listening. If you’re a new listener, welcome. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki, please. Just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, and if you’re ambitious and keen to improve your communication skills to help you achieve your career goals, well, you are in the right place.

And whether you’re a longtime listener or a first-time listener, I encourage you to check out the TalkAboutTalk.com website, where you can learn more about what we do here at Talk About Talk, including corporate workshops, private coaching, and online courses. And a free weekly communication skills newsletter. You can learn more on the website.

Okay. As I said, people have been asking me for a while now, for several months, how we will commemorate this 200th episode. Yes, it is an important milestone, and to be honest, I have to say I am very proud. And I have this idea that’s been brewing in the back of my mind for a while. It’s this idea of focusing on how successful leaders communicate differently than everyone else.

This is a topic that I don’t really hear a lot about. I don’t hear other people talking about it, but it’s critical, really. If you’re a middle or a senior manager, actually, whatever level you’re at. If you’re ambitious and you wanna become a leader with strong communication skills, what would you be doing differently?

Today, I mean differently from the junior folks and even differently from the other middle and senior level folks who aren’t quite as successful. I can tell you exactly what you’d be doing differently. So I encourage you to sit back and take this in as a private coaching session. Listen to my three suggestions, evaluate them for yourself, and decide where you can get some traction in your quest to become seen as a successful leader.

Alright, here goes the first way that successful leaders communicate differently from everyone else: Instead of focusing on speaking up in meetings and filling the air, you focus on communicating with intent and precision. Let me tell you how this first became apparent to me. I noticed that many of the more junior folks in my corporate workshops would share their struggles to speak up in meetings.

And let me tell you so. I can relate. I remember when I was in my twenties, a recent business school graduate, sitting around the boardroom table with my boss and her boss and his boss, and I was so focused on speaking up and saying the right thing. I remember making a rule for myself that I had to speak up at least once in every meeting.

I also volunteered to give formal presentations whenever the opportunity arose. It was all about speaking up and getting airtime. Have you ever noticed, though, that successful leaders never struggle with this idea of speaking up? In fact, in my experience in coaching, it seems like it’s quite the opposite.

Successful leaders are focused on intent and precision in their communication. By intent, I mean that successful leaders don’t just speak to fill the air. Every word, question, and story has a purpose, whether it’s to inspire, clarify, or align. And by precision, I mean both brevity and clarity. I almost never hear more junior folks or less successful folks asking me about communicating with precision.

But almost all the senior and successful folks highlight this as a key area where they wanna focus. Communicating with precision is a skill that they know they must attain. Now, before I get to the next point, I just wanna make something perfectly clear here. If you’re a junior person and you’re still earning your stripes, you’re still demonstrating the technical expertise, and you haven’t yet established your leadership brand, then by all means speak up.

But if you’re in a formal leadership position in an organization, then I encourage you to shift your focus to communicating with intent and precision. So that’s the first thing. Successful leaders are less focused on speaking up and more focused on communicating with intent and precision. 

The second way that successful leaders communicate differently than everyone else is their next-level listening. More junior people and maybe also the less successful senior folks. They might listen intently to their boss, but it’s only to know what their boss is looking for. They might also listen passively in meetings, politely waiting for their turn to talk. Meanwhile, successful leaders listen to understand, not to respond.

They listen deeply for insights. They reflect back on what they hear, and they ask clarifying questions. The successful leaders I coach fully understand that they do not know it all. They understand that they have to listen deeply to their team members so that they can be well-informed and informed enough to make important decisions. So that’s the second thing. Let’s call it next-level listening. 

The third and last way that successful leaders communicate differently from everyone else is their ability to project confidence and credibility without arrogance. I’ve noticed a real pattern here when it comes to seniority and confidence.

The more junior, early-career folks are typically focused on boosting their confidence. They talk about suffering from imposter syndrome, which, by the way is not a bad thing. This relates to the confidence of speaking up, doesn’t it? Which I just mentioned early in our careers we’re more likely to feel anxious and nervous.

We know that building confidence is key. I rarely hear this from more senior folks, and particularly from these successful leaders. It’s like over the course of our careers, we evolve from anxious and nervous to more confident and sure. Some people tip the scales, and they become arrogant. These arrogant folks are the close-minded ones who think they know everything.

But in my experience, this is rare. I can count the arrogant folks that I’ve coached. On one hand, interestingly, these three or four people all knew they were perceived as arrogant, but they deny it. Andrea, my boss, said that I can come across as arrogant, but really, I’m not arrogant. Okay, so here’s the thing to test.

If you’re arrogant, if you worry that you might come across as arrogant. Then in all likelihood you’re not. It’s those folks who don’t worry about arrogance, who are arrogant, and if you’ve been told that you come across as arrogant, then, like I said, you probably are one thing I know for sure. Confidence is key to credible leadership.

We are inspired to follow the confident, credible folks. I like to think of it as a continuum. On one end, we have paralyzing anxiety, the nervous folks. That is not good. On the other extreme, we have the arrogant folks. Also not good. In the middle, though, we have this beautiful equilibrium of perfect confidence.

This is where successful leaders sit. And do you know what their secret is? What is it that keeps them at this perfect equilibrium? Not nervous and anxious, and not arrogant. It’s their growth mindset. Their focus on learning. If you’re focused on growing and learning, your anxiety will dissipate. And if you’re growing and you’re open-minded, you’re definitely not arrogant.

So if you struggle with confidence, no matter what level or stage you are in your career, I encourage you to shift your mindset to focus on growing and learning. This means seeking feedback, truly listening, seeking growth and improvement. Ultimately, this can be what propels you to successful leader status, and that’s the third and last way that successful leaders communicate differently from everyone else.

We covered three, of course. Three. Do you remember what they are? The three ways that successful leaders communicate differently than everyone else are: number one. Instead of focusing on speaking up in meetings and filling the air, successful leaders communicate with intent and precision. Two successful leaders are next-level listeners instead of passively listening.

They listen to truly understand. And three successful leaders project confidence and credibility, and they maintain that beautiful equilibrium in terms of their confidence through what their growth mindset. Now that I’ve identified these ways that successful leaders communicate differently than everyone else, I see evidence in all three of them all the time.

So I thought I had to share them with you. My challenge to you is to evaluate yourself on these three dimensions and identify where you can focus so you can get yourself one step closer to successful leader status. 

In case you’re wondering what the top three most downloaded episodes are of the 200, talk about talk episodes released to date.

I’m really excited to share them with you now. Number three is called. Communicate with Confidence. Part I, preparing to communicate with confidence. It’s episode number 169. In this episode, I share strategies to help you prepare for those anxiety-inducing scenarios like giving a speech or leading a big meeting.

I also share some of my own disasters on stage, and I think that might be one reason why that episode is so popular. The second most downloaded episode of all time is episode 154, called Five Quick Fixes to Improve Your Communication. Yes, it’s five, not just three. And yes, there’s a quick payout for listening to this one.

I cover five things you can do that will make a big difference in your communication. The number one most downloaded talk about talk episode of all Time is an early episode that quickly became and remains the most downloaded episode. I’ve also rereleased this episode a few times, most recently as episode 170, 1-7-0, so you don’t need to scroll all the way down to the early episodes.

This episode is called Introductions. How to Introduce Yourself. Why is this one so popular? Well, a few reasons. First of all, I know most of us feel some anxiety regarding our self-introduction, and with good reason. First impressions are important. This three-point framework that you’ll learn in this episode is easy to remember.

It’s customizable in any context, and most importantly. It works. I hope you’ll listen to all three of these popular episodes. I’ll leave the titles and the episode numbers for these top three episodes at the top of the show notes so you can easily access them and listen to them. If you haven’t done so already, and whether you’re listening on Spotify or Apple, or maybe you’re watching Talk About Talk on YouTube.

Please subscribe when you hit subscribe. It helps us get traction, and it helps you make sure that you don’t miss an episode. And that’s it for Talk About Talk episode number 200. Thanks again for listening. I hope you continue to find this podcast helpful in your quest to improve your communication skills and accelerate your career. Here’s to the next 200 episodes. Talk soon.

The post Top 3 Communication Skills of Exceptional Leaders (ep. 200) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Ever been stuck in a conversation at a networking event that feels a little too long? You’re not alone.

In this short, practical episode, communication coach Dr. Andrea Wojnicki shares five graceful ways to exit a conversation politely without burning bridges.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

If you ever dread awkward endings, these strategies will help you handle them with tact and ease so you can keep your conversations (and your reputation) positive.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

Andrea Wojnicki: The next time I go to one of those awkward networking events, I am going to graciously thank the person for the connection and move on. Have you ever found yourself at one of those infamous networking events, and you’re going around and you’re meeting new people, and then suddenly you find yourself in a conversation that’s lasting a little too long?

You probably have, you’re back to the wall, and someone’s firing questions at you and telling you their life story, and you’re thinking, I need to get out of this conversation. This context is awkward even for an extrovert like me. So in this episode of the Talk About Talk podcast, you are going to learn five creative, clever, and polite ways to graciously exit a networking conversation without burning bridges.

Are you ready? Okay. Let me start with a true story. This actually happened to me. I remember once I was at a networking event, there was a room full of powerful women, and I wanted to meet all of them. And I found myself, after about half an hour or so, engaged in a very intense conversation with one woman, and there was no one else around.

And she was firing questions at me, and she was telling me her life story. And I remember thinking, I don’t want this conversation to go any further. I need to find a graceful exit. And you know what I did? I looked over her shoulder, and then you know what she said, Andrea, is there someone else you’d rather be speaking with?

Is there somewhere else you’d rather be? And I actually thought to myself, Oh my gosh, this is like the networking event nightmare. I’m stuck talking to one person. I’m trying to figure out a graceful exit. And she actually calls me on it more on what I should have done in a moment. But first, let me introduce myself.

Let’s do this. Let’s Talk About Talk. In case we haven’t met. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, where I coach ambitious executives like you to improve your communication, your clarity. And your credibility so that you can achieve your career goals.

If you’d like to learn more about me, I encourage you to go to talk about talk.com, where you can read all about me and all of the services that I offer. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. I spend lots of time there and I would love to hear from you.

Okay, let’s do this. Five ways to graciously Exit Networking Conversations. 

Here’s the first one. Connect them with someone. This is actually what I should have said to that woman who asked whether I’d rather be talking to someone else. I should have quickly said. Actually, I just noticed a friend over here that I’d love to introduce you to, and that I should have grabbed her and pulled her over to a friend and introduced them, and then you have your way out, right?

You’ve created a threesome and you’re the third wheel, so it’s time to leave. I’m not saying take the person you don’t want to talk to and introduce them to another unsuspecting victim. I am encouraging you to think about real positive connections that you can make. After all, this is a networking event.

You can do yourself and everybody else a favor by establishing connections. Okay, so that’s the first one. Connect them with someone else. The second one is the old food and drink excuse. Here’s what you do. You announce something like, Listen, I am famished. I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I’m gonna head over to the food table and fill my plate, and I’ll come find you later.

And then you just leave. The other thing you could do is bring them with you, say. I notice you don’t have a glass of wine, or I notice you don’t have a cup of coffee. Let’s go over to the beverage center and help ourselves, and then bring them with you, and you’re bound to find other people along the way that you can meet with and talk.

So that’s the second way. Announce you’re getting food and drink. 

My third suggestion is to turn the conversation to networking and meeting people. This is actually about telling them why you’re there. You could ask them, So what’s your objective here? And they tell you, well, I wanna learn this, I wanna meet people.

And you could say, listen, I really do too. I’m really trying to expand my network. So if you don’t mind. I’d love to exchange business cards or exchange LinkedIn connections. And then I’m gonna move on, and I’ll connect with you sometime later this week, and then you leave. So the secret here is being honest and telling them exactly why you’re at the event.

You want to make as many connections as possible. You want to expand your network. Make sure you tell them that you’re gonna reconnect with them later. And then make sure you do always follow up. So we’ve already covered three of the five ways that you can graciously exit networking conversation. Do you remember what they are?

Number one, connect them with someone. Number two, announce that you need food or a drink. And number three, focus on networking and tell them you’re trying to expand your network. 

The fourth way to graciously exit a networking conversation is to invite them to take a selfie with you. This is a great one that I haven’t heard before, but actually one of my clients who’s become a friend shared it with me.

She said she finds herself in this situation all the time, and you know what she does? She says, I’ve met a lot of people tonight and I plan on meeting a lot more. So here’s what I’d love to do. Can I take a selfie with you? And if you’d like, I can send it to you, and that way we can exchange phone numbers or email addresses, however you’re sharing the photo.

This is creative, and it establishes the connection and it gives you an out. So that’s the fourth thing. Invite them to take a selfie with you. 

The fifth and last strategy is to just tell them. Be transparent. So there’s really two ways that you can do this. Depends on how confident you are. If you’re not feeling particularly confident, you could revert to suggestion number three, right?

You could tell them, listen, I’m feeling really awkward about this, but I feel like I need to move on because my whole objective, my goal for this event, is for me to meet as many people as possible. So please don’t take this personally, but I’m gonna move on. It was lovely to meet you. And then close the loop with them, right?

So that’s one way of doing it. The other way that you can do this was actually inspired by a woman who I met a couple of times at different events, at dinners and cocktail parties, and she was the master of this. She would spend three to five minutes chatting with me, getting caught up, and then she’d say, Listen, I need to make my rounds.

So I just wanted to say it was fantastic to get caught up with you. I look forward to seeing you again soon, and I’m just gonna move on. And then she would go. And I remember consciously thinking to myself after she did this with me a couple of times at different events, like, wow, I really want to master that, that eloquence, that graciousness.

She wasn’t making excuses, she wasn’t calling out the awkwardness, she was graciously telling me how lovely it was to see me again and that she was gonna move on, and then that’s what she did, and I didn’t feel in the bit slightest. This is my goal. The next time I go to one of those awkward networking events, I am going to graciously thank the person for the connection and move on.

What’s your goal? Remember the next time you go to a networking event. If you find yourself in a conversation for a little bit too long with someone, try one of these five strategies. Number one, connect them with someone. Number two, the food or drink, excuse. Number three, tell them that you’re focused on networking and meeting as many people as possible.

Number four, invite them to take a selfie with you. And number five, just be transparent. Okay. That’s it for this short episode of the Talk About Talk podcast. And yes, this is episode number 199. The next episode is a big deal. It’s gonna be episode number 200. I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to the Talk about Talk podcast.

If you’re not subscribed already, please hit subscribe or follow on whatever platform you’re on, whether it’s Apple or Spotify, or YouTube. Where now, yes, you can watch the Talk About Talk podcast. Thanks again for listening and talk soon.

The post 5 Ways to Graciously EXIT a Networking Conversation (ep.199) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

How do you speak up with confidence without sounding aggressive? Leadership coach and TEDx speaker Ivna Curi shares how to find the balance between boldness and respect so your message lands with influence.

In this episode, you will learn:

Whether you lead teams, pitch clients, or want to be taken seriously in meetings, these strategies will help you speak boldly and be heard.

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🌐 Website: https://AssertiveWay.com

📖 Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller: https://amzn.to/3IMAduF

🎧MORE HERE: Ivna interviews Andrea for her Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-to-identify-and-communicate-your-personal-brand/id1623647915?i=1000719522727

Ivna Curi: Speak to people in a way that makes them wanna hear your power in your delivery and that conviction, and then listen to people in a way that makes them want to speak to you. 

Andrea Wojnicki: Are you an assertive communicator on a continuum from anxious to passive, to assertive, to aggressive? Where do you stand? Do you know what the important difference is between assertiveness and aggressiveness?

Yes. We want to be assertive. No, we do not wanna be aggressive. But what exactly is the difference? In this episode of Talk About Talk, you are about to find out. Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. I’m your executive communication coach, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. You can learn more about me on the TalkAboutTalk.com website.

And please, if you’re not already, please subscribe or follow the Talk About Talk podcast on whatever platform you’re on. Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you’re listening, hit subscribe, or follow. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. If you’re tuning into this episode, then I’m gonna guess that you could use some help with what we call self-promotion, a little help with feeling more bold and sounding more assertive and confident. 

If you happen to be one of the lucky few for whom this does not resonate, maybe you’re already bold and assertive; well then, I encourage you to listen anyway. But from a different perspective. As a leader, chances are a significant proportion of the folks who you work with and who report to you have serious issues speaking up and being assertive as a leader; part of your job is to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard. We call this encouraging courage. I love that we encourage courage.

Whether you’re an individual seeking more courage yourself, or maybe you are a leader, making sure everyone gets heard, you’re gonna wanna hear some of the insight from our guest expert today, Ivna Curi.

I met Ivna on LinkedIn. She had me at bold, unapologetic, and assertive. 

I knew the Talk About Talk listeners would wanna hear her message. Ivna leads practical workshops that empower leaders to navigate hard conversations with confidence, ultimately improving performance across teams. She’s also the host of the Speak Your Mind Unapologetically podcast, a TEDx speaker, a Forbes contributor, and the author of Unapologetic Voice.

Here we go. Thank you for being here today, Ivna, to talk with us about using assertive language. 

IC: Thank you for having me, Andrea. 

AW: Okay, so out of the gates, I’d love to start with some definitions. I noticed with your podcast and your TED Talk, and other things that you do on social media that you use the terms bold and unapologetic a lot, so I thought we would start there. What exactly do you mean when you say bold and unapologetic? 

IC: And that’s a great question because a lot of people use those terms, and everybody seems to have a different definition of what bold and unapologetic means. And I actually use unapologetic a lot because it, people are very attracted to that.

Uh, they love it. However, it is not what people think. Unapologetic and being bold is not venting off. Our frustration is not purely self-expression. It’s not just being authentic. It’s not being honest and blunt. What it is, is being able to express ourselves respectfully, so fully express ourselves, our thoughts, our ideas, our concerns, our boundaries, our perspectives, everything that we are, you know, those, those important conversations, our feedback in a respectful way with the purpose of influence. 

So it’s not simply, let me just speak and get it out of my system. Right. And make myself heard, there’s a purpose there. There’s something that we want out of that conversation. There’s an element of influence on the other end. So it’s, it’s not about just saying whatever, or controlling other people.

AW: So I heard two, I heard many things I love there, but I heard you say respectfully. Yes. And I think that’s really important too, ’cause I agree. It’s dangerous. I talk about building your personal brand unapologetically, but that doesn’t mean you’re just not being respectful and you’re not filtering.

Right. So I think that’s important. And then you talked about with purpose or for with influence. So, I’m gonna start to think about that term, unapologetic, using those ideas as well. What about bold? How does bold fit in there? 

IC: Bold means, and here’s something that happens a lot, a lot. I see a lot of people speak tentatively with hesitation so that they can be polite and kind and nice, and that’s the opposite of bold.

Bold means speaking with conviction. Bold means speaking in a way that’s definitive, being decisive, not holding back, because we wanna be polite and make people comfortable. There are other tools to do that. There are other tools to be warm and build connection, but when it’s time to express our thoughts, our ideas, our concerns, our perspectives, we gotta be bold. We cannot try to be tentatively. Polite. 

AW: So I heard you talking about this. I told you that I watched your TED talk, which I’m gonna link to in the show notes here and recommend men that everybody else watch it. But as I heard you speaking, even before you mentioned it, I thought of psychological safety.

IC:  I’ve had 13 managers in my career before I took on a completely more entrepreneurial role, and the very best one of them for me that made the biggest impact for me in my career and my ability to be productive as well. Yes, he provided psychological safety, but he pushed me towards risk every single day in the world, the world beyond him, while I was interfacing with external vendors and supply chain client, angry customers.

Other leaders in the organization, they were not happy, and they were not giving me safety. Now, my manager gave me safety when he would push me towards the world, the dangerous world out there, make me speak up, basically coach me through it, but not protect me. And then he would be a safe space for me to come back and say, I, this did not work.

I struggled with this. How should I do better here? Amazing. And that’s how I was able to evolve and be still able to speak up and express myself in different situations and be more independent, be more autonomous, and grow and develop as a leader. You know how they say with children, sometimes overprotective helicopter parenting can be damaging to kids, and helicopter leadership can also be damaging if it’s excessive.

And sometimes, as a leader, and I’ve been there, you, we feel like we’re the mom, we’re the dad. We gotta protect from everything, all bad things. We gotta protect our, our little children, our team from any struggles, any challenges, any difficulties, any hard conversations. 

AW: So this is a nice segue, I think, to the benefits. So I’m hearing that for parents, it’s a good thing to encourage your children to take risks. For managers, it’s a good thing to encourage psychological safety and encourage your people to be bold and unapologetic. So, in the context of at work, what are the benefits of being bold and unapologetic? 

IC: So being bold and unapologetic. As assertive communication. So respectful communication. Yeah, with influence is very powerful because especially in hard conversations, you know how transformational hard conversations can be. Mm-hmm. To relationships, to business, to productivity, that actually enhances the quality of collaboration. Because often when people are collaborating, there’s some people who tend who are naturally more passive, more quiet, and they tend to step back and avoid conflict, which means they’re always compromising.

They’re compromising on their ideas, they’re compromising on their perspectives. And so that collaboration doesn’t work because the more dominant types are always, you know, getting their way, getting their point across. And we’re not leveraging the diversity of thought of that team, of that organization, to come up with the best ideas to problem solve, to innovate, because it’s not truly inclusive, because the communication in that meeting is not truly inclusive.

But if there is an environment that has psychological safety to some extent and where people, there’s an environment that, a structured environment for participation, but also people are able to communicate in a mutually respectful way with influence. Then that problem-solving ability goes up, organization’s resilience goes up, conflict reduces significantly.

People spend a whole lot of time, like about a month, a year, dealing with unproductive conflict. Festering conflict. So there and miscommunication gets reduced tremendously. And miscommunication is, is is a daily reality for most leaders. True. 

AW: So I’m hearing a lot of the same benefits that accrue for psychological safety. Right? I feel like if you’ve created an environment where people can be bold and unapologetic, almost by definition, you have an environment of psychological safety, and so that’s why you wanna encourage those things. You mentioned that some people on your team are gonna be quieter and more passive, is what you said, right?

So, to those people, what advice do you give them to encourage them to be more assertive? 

IC: So, a couple of things. One of them, one of the things that people who are confrontation, avoidance, and just, focus a lot more on preserving their relationship than winning or getting their point across, is they also feel like they need to feel confident before they speak up.

AW: Mm-hmm. 

IC: They wanna be fearless and that’s just not the order of things. That’s not gonna magically happen out of the blue without speaking up or engaging in those conversations. They’re not going to start to speak up more because they’re they just suddenly became confident out of nowhere, right? That confidence comes with experience in doing something and skill.

So I always encourage courage, and courage is something that we can also develop. To take that step beyond the comfort into a little bit of that risk, but in a measured, experimental way. Because people are often in their heads, and they project a fear and a consequence that’s much greater than reality.

And when even if they speak up and things go in the wrong direction, and here’s what happens typically. People who tend to be more passive, right? So we have assertive, aggressive, passive, and passive-aggressive are the most common. And obviously it’s situational as well, but people have a tendency to be more passive and compromise and agreeable people pleasers, they’re scared, and they tend to, when they try to be more assertive, they tend to go too far into aggression because they don’t really know what they’re doing yet.

And so when they go too far in aggression, people know them. As someone who’s, you know, always quiet and let, and letting others speak and agreeable, that causes some tension because people don’t understand, they haven’t seen this, this individual before speaking up like that. And they’re, they tend to be a little bit aggressive because they don’t know the techniques.

So being able to get the manager support and saying, Hey, or put in the development plan, personal development plan, Hey, this is something that, a skill that I wanna develop. And getting the manager to support you along the journey, knowing that you will make mistakes, and it’s just part of the process. So you can get that feedback in terms of response from people.

Think about what you’ve done well, what you could do better, and then try again, and the make that official so that people around you can support you in that mission is also critical. And then the last thing I’m gonna say is the skill piece. And when we don’t know how to speak up, obviously, the consequences of retaliation, backlash being seen as net, is difficult, as aggression go up.

However, when we upskill ourselves, when we know what we’re doing. Yeah. And how to have these conversations and the frameworks to do so, especially the harder conversations, it de-risks that conversation and it increases our influence to achieve the outcomes, to make our message land in the other end.

And when we increase the reward because people are here us to understand us, and they’re acting or responding the way we want them to respond because our influence went up and the risk goes down, then we naturally feel more inclined and more courageous and more confident to do that thing even more, which is speaking up.

AW: So it can be like a sort of a vicious downward cycle. It’s like a positive upward cycle when you start to do it. So as you were describing that, even I was imagining a continuum where at one end you have people that are paralyzingly anxious, right? Yes. And then at the other end, you have aggression, and in the middle you may have an equilibrium of the ideal level of assertiveness. Does that sound kind of right? 

IC: Yes. And the thing that most people confuse with, like they think that it’s a bit of a personality trait, but it’s something that can be very much learned and taught. I’m naturally very passive. I avoid confrontation. I am a people pleaser.

When you talk about brand, the brand I had for my, the first 10 years in my career was nice. Yeah. That was the word that people used to describe me, and I had to put in an intentional effort to develop and understand how to communicate with respect, with, yes, with kindness and empathy, but also with a bit boldness. Right. And influence to get that message across. 

AW: Yeah. So you said this, there’s this common pattern of folks that are a little bit more passive. When they try to become assertive, they may jump past assertiveness to become aggressive. What exactly is the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness?

IC: And that’s crucial for people to understand. Yeah. Because they get this wrong all the time. Yeah. So philosophically, it’s around control and aggressive. When we’re communicating aggressively, we’re trying to control others. 

And their behavior when we are assertive. We control ourselves. We’re controlling our communication so that we can influence others.

AW: Back to the influence. Okay. 

IC: Back to the influence. And so that manifests in many different ways because sometimes a lot of people, a couple things that don’t have influence. Right. That tend to be a more aggressive, very typical, in assertive training, you always find this, which is the I language versus the U language.

People use this all the time. Yeah. In aggressive communication, the very subtle things that we say, Hey, you hurt my feelings. There’s like a client that came to me and said, I was super assertive Ivna, you would be so proud of me. I had, I arranged this meeting with this person who had changed my slides last minute, all this, and I told them, you hurt my feelings.

I had to break it to them. Like, listen, you were courageous. That’s beautiful. I’m so glad you took initiative and you had the conversation. But the reality is that, you know, you hurt my feelings, is can be seen as very aggressive as opposed to when this happened. You know, I felt this or this action that you did impacted me in this way.

AW: This way, right 

IC: This way. Or another one that I see all the time is people say, you know, you made me feel disrespected or you disrespected me. Right? It sounds okay, but it’s actually, it can come across as very aggressive and judgmental, and it lacks evidence, and it’s not constructive. So there’s many different little subtle things that we say in our language that can come across as aggressive if we’re not careful.

And it’s definitely not influential, right? Right. Making someone putting, making someone defensive is not going to increase our influence. When people are asking others to change behavior, and this, most people don’t, they’ll complain, but they won’t. They won’t talk about the thing that they want different, that, that to change, right?

The requests, they’ll never bring that up. And when they do. It’s something like, you know, stop being disrespectful or stop interrupting me, or, I don’t like this. Versus a future-oriented, constructive invitation. Mm-hmm. To change something. Yeah. Little subtle things that make a huge difference, and I could spend a whole hour just on. These, these differences and how they manifest in our communication. 

AW: So one, one clear one that I heard there was saying I instead of you. Yeah. And then there’s, there’s also the one that’s a little bit closer to that, which is when you do, this is how I feel. Which might be okay. Right. But what are, are there any other little tactical tweaks that you can share in terms of our language that will keep us in the assertiveness realm and out of the aggression realm?

IC: So the deso or the desk script are very famous for assertive communication, having hard conversations. The one that I teach is a version. That goes beyond that. It has a few more elements so that it can be a, it, it can vary and be adjusted based on, uh, the power dynamics, based on personality, based on how strong a relationship you have with that person, and all those other elements based on.

You know, something that I see a lot like women struggle sometimes. A younger woman, maybe with an older man in, in those different elements. But the basic assertiveness script that can really help for these conversations is called DESO or DESC Script. 

AW: Yep. 

IC: So D is for describe the situation. You know, I noticed, in these meetings, I’m getting interrupted a lot, or I’ve been interrupted three times in the last five team meetings. The more specific we can get, the better, versus saying things like, you are always late, or you always interrupt me, or you never do this. The second step is explaining your sentiment or your feelings, or in a business context, it’s much better to talk about expressing the impact of someone’s actions on us or the team, or the client or the customer. It’s a lot more professional than just talking about our feelings. Yeah. 

AW: In the context of being productive and meeting certain objectives. 

IC: So that’s where the, when this happened, is the context, you know, I felt this, or the impact of this action was, their team lost, didn’t feel psychologically safe to express their thoughts, and we didn’t get enough discussion around this. 

Then the S stands for specifying our request. I like to call that an invitation because a request, sometimes people can  feel like it’s a act as if it’s a demand, and we don’t want that. We want it to really feel like an invitation.

So the invitation is forward-looking, and a great way to start this is, hey, going forward, because then people are more amenable to that versus the past is more blame-oriented. Hey, going forward, I would appreciate if you, you know, you let Sally or others in the team speak before sharing your ideas.

Since you’re superior to them and they might feel threatened to speak otherwise. And the last one is O for outcomes or C for consequences, which is giving people a reason to accept the invitation, right? That way, we can make sure that we get the most collaboration out of the team. We get the most ideas before we make a decision.

Right? Then getting at some level of confirmation. Does that work with you? Are you good with that? Agree. And then closing with the relationship. Once again, Hey, thank you so much for making the time to talk about this. I really appreciate your collaboration. And then you’re done. 

AW: Yep. And you sound confident and clear. You are not being aggressive. Right. And you’re trying to meet everybody’s business objectives and everyone’s personal objectives. Yeah. 

IC: Yeah. And you’re in control. You have the influence to being respectful. You have the framework, so you know the key points you wanna make. That allows you to not to make sure that they don’t derail you. Yeah. If things don’t get overly emotional. 

AW: Yeah. 

IC: So it’s very easy, very thoughtful, 

AW: And you know that I love a framework Ivna, right? Like I know you, you’re not talking about It’s not, yeah. It’s not a script, it’s a framework, and you can fill in the blanks and you’ll sound great. And it’s easy to remember.

I love it. Okay, so on this continuum from aggressiveness to assertiveness, and here we have this kind of passive apologetic maybe. Is it ever, okay, so I’m sure you get this question from your clients, like sometimes, isn’t it okay to use apologetic language or weak language? 

IC: And I get in my workshops, I get a lot of pushback on this because the group usually is primarily passive.

And, you know, and I’m encouraging, and some of them say, Hey, you know, here in the south, that’s, that’s what we do. You know, we, we, we ask for permission for everything, right? We apologize for everything. And I get it. There are cultural nuances at the same time, in a workplace context, it’s very different. If you’re in the bakery and you know, there’s someone in front of you and you cut, I mean, there’s a, it’s just a different situation.

It’s a different situation. If you’re talking to a superior and, you know, pitching an idea. Versus talking to a direct report and trying to make them feel safe and showing vulnerability. So it’s all about being intentional with that. Generally. We also wanna role model for our teams that they can be bold.

That’s okay to be bold, and it’s important to role model that as well. 

AW: Yeah. They’re watching you. Right? They’re watching. 

IC: They’re watching you both on the vulnerability, but also on being bold. Yeah. With your ideas. So being able to express ourselves, our ideas, our thoughts, our concerns, set the boundaries, whatever that is, self-expression that is respectful is, no apologies for that.

AW: Right? 

IC: No apologies whatsoever. Yeah. Now, where does it make sense? Okay, well, we make it a mistake. Even then I would, I would be cautious about. When to issue an apology, when to talk about an apology, and when to position that in a different way for which is, for example, acknowledging the impact of our actions on others and that at least for me, it would feel so much better if someone is expressing, not just saying sorry, because it feels empty. 

AW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

IC: And lacks meaning if there’s not a demonstration of understanding of empathy towards the impact that person’s mistake had on me, on my team. 

AW: Right. 

IC: And an intent to change things going forward. Right. That is way more powerful than just saying, sorry. Yeah. 

AW: I know there’s this formula that I’ve seen a million times on social media about when you’ve done something wrong and you know you need to apologize. You go up to the person, you say, I apologize for, you label what it is that you did. Then you describe, as you said, what the negative impact was that you understand, and then you say, here’s what I’m gonna do, going forward.

So you’re saying if I had to skip step one. Not, not hear the, I’m sorry. And I just had step two and three. I would be fine with that. In fact, I’d be better off. I get it. Yeah. 

IC: Better off. Yeah. I don’t care about the, sorry, apologize part. Yeah. Just show me that you’re committed to make things different and that you understand my perspective.

AW: Yeah. So I thought you were gonna go in a different direction with this, and so I wanna just share this conversation that I had with a senior client of mine. She was running for CEO of her organization, and we were talking about her communication plan, ’cause she needed to make sure she had all the stakeholders who would, who were, had input onto the decision of who the CEO was, including a board of directors and some of the senior, existing senior executives in the organization.

And she said they are very diverse, and some of them are very old school. Very hierarchically thinking, and I am the only woman contender for the CEO position, so I need to be very strategic about how I’m communicating with these folks. Never mind the gender dynamic itself. Like, never mind, like, how do I bring up the fact that I’m the only woma,n or do I bring that up?

Right? There’s the whole point of how I talk. And so we, we actually created a strategy where we wouldn’t call it apologetic language, but it was more like she would use language where she’s deferring power to the other person because that’s what they expected. And again, this is, you used the word intentionality.

She was very intentional about it, and she definitely comes across as a bold woman and a confident woman. But she said sometimes that can backfire. So I was just, that’s where I thought you were headed. So let’s go to the other end of the spectrum. I wanna ask you, have you ever had clients or even people in workshops who are like arrogant and like beyond aggressive. They’re just like, well, they’re probably aggressive and arrogant. Have you ever come across that? 

IC: They do happen, but they don’t happen often. I come across a lot more people that have the poor me victim mentality, and that’s probably harder to deal with. The arrogant types.

There are people who resist feedback, and change initially, but they tend to open up and under and understand a different perspective. So I haven’t, uh, I haven’t seen truly like arrogant people. Now, arrogant people like most other of these, you know, the, these, this dysfunctional waste of communicating.

They come from insecurity, from wanting to protect themselves, from wanting to command. I’ve had clients say, I wanna keep my edge so people respect me. Yeah. Wow. So Wow. 

AW: They don’t, I haven’t heard that one. I haven’t heard that one, but I can imagine you haven’t heard I, yeah, 

IC: Yeah. Like how do I keep my edge? And so what they don’t understand is that there’s, you know, I have actually whole talk about this, which is speak boldly, connect openly. Mm-hmm. I speak to people in a way that makes them wanna hear your power, your delivery and that conviction. And then listen to people in a way, in a way that makes them want to speak to you.

And when you combine those and you’re able to know when to use each one and how to combine them together in important conversations, then you do not lose your edge. 

AW: Yeah. 

IC: But you do not, you’re also not controlling people. Right. People are there with you because they want to be with you. 

AW: Yeah. I love that. I love that. So in the vocabulary that I use, I would say communicating with conviction and credibility. Also, having a growth mindset and genuinely being interested in what other people are saying because you have a true belief that your collaboration is gonna be more effective than you just telling them what it’s not.

You’re not delivering a monologue, right? You’re sharing your thoughts, and then you’re listening to their thoughts, so you can come up with the best solution or decision or whatever it is. I love that. Okay. Is there anything else before I get to the three rapid-fire questions, Ivna, that you wanna share? I guess the ultimate question is for the folks that are erring on the side of being apologetic or not assertive enough, so that they can land, they can maybe move along this continuum a little bit closer to the ideal level of bold and assertive communication.

IC: I am extremely passive by nature. I’m socially anxious people pleaser. That is my, that’s who I am. My tendency, however, I felt like that was my strategic strength in the past. We talk about identities. We talked about brand. I actually thought that was part of my brand. I’m just like an easygoing collaborator.

That’s who I am. Once I found the other side of, once I found the real me, nobody is authentically passive people pleaser. That’s not you. Everyone is assertive. I just haven’t hadn’t found it yet. Once I found assertive evening, oh my gosh. I’m never turning back, ever, because this evening feels empowered, feels free, feels happy. I attract the right people to my world. I can actually command people’s attention when before I couldn’t, and my self-confidence and my self-worth, we talked about self-worth all went up. Yeah, this is the real me. 

AW: Oh, I love it. So people pleasers are not pleasing themselves. It’s 

IC: I apologize for not them, they’re not pleasing themselves. Yeah. That’s not who you are. Yeah. Gotta break free and be willing to experiment. I’m all, I’m very big in social experiments, in a controlled way with the support. Try new things, figure out, learn some of these frameworks, learn how to do things so that you make fewer mistakes, how people respond, adjust, try again and people who are people pleasers tend to catastrophize the consequences of speaking up a lot more than reality. 

So when you start to get that real feedback loop from the environment you’re in and people starting to respond positively to your speaking up moments, that’s going to give you tremendous confidence, courage to start finding that new, more powerful version of yourself. 

AW: Amazing. You will be quoted on that. Okay. You ready for the three rapid-fire questions? I am. Question number one: Are you an introvert or an extrovert, and how does that affect your communication? 

IC: So I am introverted, introverted, socially anxious, and a people pleaser.

So that was me. However, none of that is static. So, when we start to expose ourselves to the thing that is uncomfortable or different, we enjoy it. When I go to conferences, I enjoy meeting new people and talking to them, but do I like to stay at home and do in solo walks? Absolutely. 

So it’s something that we can evolve into. Now, what I do say is a lot of people just don’t understand the differences between all of those things. Yeah. It’s important to understand a little bit of that, a little bit of psychology, so that we can not think that that is who we are and we can’t change that, or that it’s gonna somehow hurt us. 

AW: Right. A lot of people have a negative association with introversion, and I say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It is not a judgment. It is a way of being, and introverts typically are the best listeners. And it doesn’t mean that you are also socially anxious. You can, you know, go, like you said, go to the networking event and get out there and on stage like you’ve done.

It’s just gonna take more energy, and you can manage your energy, right? Like this is a different construct than I think a lot. A lot of people think that introversion means you’re paralyzingly shy and you can’t be around people. No, no, no, no, no. 

IC: Right. Simon Sinek is introvert. 

AW: A lot. A lot of incredible teachers are actually, yes. Okay. Question number two. What are your communication pet peeves? 

IC: One of the things a co, there’s a couple of them. One of them is really polite people. They drive me crazy because. I can’t get a good conversation. I can’t move when their politeness is disguising what they’re really thinking, and it kills conversation.

It kills the ability to find mutual value, which is what I’m always looking to explore. And so I’d rather someone be, I’d, honestly, I’d rather have someone be blunt and unpleasant than politely. Not say anything. Yeah. Politely. Boring substance. Yeah. Politely boring. 

AW: I bet. Doesn’t I have a hypothesis? I bet that as people are listening to this episode, they’ve got someone in their mind that they know I know someone.

Very well actually, who is very polite and often during and always after my conversations with her, I always think she’s so polite, and I don’t, I have no idea what’s going on in her head. I have no idea. Right. I love that. Okay. Is what else? Any other pet peeves? 

IC: Yes, yes. So something that I’ve been experiencing a lot, and maybe you do too.

From these people who call themselves who, who broadcast how nice they are, how servant leaders they are, how kind they are to people, and they ghost me. Like there’s no tomorrow what? They ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost. And I’m okay. I think there are circumstances where, you know, we, we, it’s fine to ghost people.

That’s okay, but I’m talking about. Like, we’ve had several interactions and you’re still ghosting me. Hmm. And it is a pet peeve ’cause it upsets me. However, one of the things that assertive people do, and I keep reminding myself, is to take responsibility for things. We have the power to influence communication with other people, even if they’re not being assertive.

So in all these instances, if someone’s being overly polite and expressing themselves, and if they’re ghosting me, I always have the ability to respectfully, with the right kind of questions, the right kind of action, the right kind of attitude, consistently open people up, and that’s very empowering.

AW: I’ve heard, I have to tell you, I’ve heard this theme. Being ghosted as a pretty common pet peeve. Recently, I’d say in the last year, four or five people have told me that this is their pet. Oh, really? Pet peeve. Yeah. Yeah. Seems like it. 

And there, there are we and we, I ended up getting this conversation with, with one person expert that I was interviewing, and I admitted that I used to respond to every email and LinkedIn message that I got from anyone. And then I realized so many of the unsolicited emails were coming to me, and I just, I couldn’t do it. And someone said to me, you do not need to respond to unsolicited sales pitches. Yes. That is not ghosting someone. So, you clarified when you were just talking about being ghosted, you’re not talking about pitching someone for the first time.

AW: No. You’re talking about an, you know, like a, a dialogue that suddenly stopped. Right? Yeah. 

IC: You’ve had 3, 4, 5 interactions. Yeah. You had meetings, you spent one hour together, three hours. You’re not asking, you’re not pitching anything. Mm-hmm. Explicitly. But people are scared of you. Yeah, they’re scared of us.

They’re scared when people ghost. Here’s what my interpretation of it: they’re scared of their own reaction. Inability to handle a conversation. They can’t say no. They don’t know how to say no. They don’t know how to say, well, I have concerns. They don’t know how to express or even think through, and talk about. What’s bothering them? So insecure. 

AW: Well, and that gets to your point of how to, how you can, as a communication expert, make your question a way that will help them get over that. So, okay. Rapid question number three. Is there a book or a podcast that you find yourself? 

IC: I have to recommend my own podcast.

AW: Yeah. To start with, there’s a link there. There will be a link to it in the show notes. Yes. 

IC: So speak your Mind Unapologetically podcast and actually listen to myself. As a reminder, because I do have to remind myself sometimes of what I teach. Yeah. So when I go on walks every now and then, or if I’m in the plane traveling somewhere, yeah.

I’ll put it on my own podcast and listen to what I have to say. 

AW: I think that’s really, that is really smart. I sometimes, when I haven’t heard myself for a while, I go back and I listen as well, partly because I want to keep improving. But you also wanna remember certain like frameworks or whatever you were teaching.

IC: Now I’m like, oh wow, that was really smart. That’s awesome. 

AW: I like that. That’s good. That’s good. I love that you admit that on the podcast episode. I do, I do. I’m, oh, I like that. What else? What else is in your podcast feed that you recommend? 

IC: I’m gonna give you books. Yep. Okay. So we talked about. Branding. I love the book.

Building a StoryBrand, uh, gives a great understanding of how to build that, that, that, it just gave me really a lot of, a lot to think about. Atomic Habits was a great book, and I think about building habits around communication skills as well, and that came from that book. It’s a great book. Principles from Ray Dalio.

Love Ray Dalio. Bold man. Bold thinker. If you want to have some bold thoughts on how to approach things and culture, and organization. Yeah, I really like that book. Acting With Power by Deborah Greenfield, also. Great book. I haven’t heard of that one. A Stanford professor. Okay. Really studied the whole power dynamic thing and how do you act with power, especially as a woman in a work environment.

AW: Amazing. So I’m gonna put links to all of those books in the show notes. Is there anything else that you wanna leave the Talk About Talk listeners with in terms, in terms of cultivating the ideal level of assertive, bold, unapologetic communication? 

IC: Yeah. So embrace the process of getting there. It’s not, it doesn’t happen overnight.

Surround yourself with assertive people or bold people, and that is a bit contagious as well. Uh, often when we’re not bold, we don’t feel comfortable around bold people, but I encourage you to surround yourself with that kind of people so that you can see how it works and the kind of results that it lead, it creates, and how people respond by observation, and that’s going to naturally cultivate that desire to discover how you can, and there’s no more authentic thing than being able to express ourselves fully in any environment. 

So that should lead the way. Figure out what’s most important to you and make sure that, and, and focusing on the goals that you have, the dreams is going to help overcome the fears of being able to speak up, so focus a lot on the dreams as well. Those were my little tips.

AW: Very inspiring. Thank you so much, Ivna. I really enjoyed the conversation and getting to know you. Thank you. 

IC: Thank you so much, Andrea.

AW: Thanks again to Ivna. Okay. The first thing I wanna say, did you catch the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness? I think this is important. 

Aggressive is control of others. Assertive is controlling ourselves and expressing ourselves. 

One of the simplest ways to do this is simply to say, I, not you. I have something to add. I wanna share something important. I love this disciplined focus on assertiveness versus aggressiveness. We all want to be assertive, and we want to encourage it in others. Before I let you go, I also wanna highlight the DESO or DESC framework that Ivna mentioned. This was a new framework for me.

As you probably know, if you follow me here on the Talk about Talk podcast or on LinkedIn or if you subscribe to my newsletter, you know I love a good framework. It’s not a script, it’s a guideline or a prompting sequence that you can customize and optimize for your context. This DESO or DESC framework will help you when you need to be assertive.

It’s describe, explain, specify the consequences or outcome. So you describe the situation, then you explain or express the impact. Then you specify or invite the other person to hear a message, to make a change. And last, you clarify the consequence or the outcome. This is the impact. Sticking to this framework will help you sound confident, concise, and yes, assertive.

I love this framework, Ivna. Thank you so much for our inspiring conversation. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling encouraged about being courageous. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit subscribe, and if you’re interested in learning more about how to optimize your communication at work so you can show up with confidence and credibility, then I encourage you to check out the TalkAboutTalk.com website.

There are lots of communication skills, resources for you there. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

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