Today: I share why I decided to design, create, and deliver a daily podcast (gulp!) on executive presence, what to expect, and how it will help you elevate your career. I also include a preview of the first, full episode. 

Tune in July 5 for your first of many Executive Presence Morsels! 

Your turn: We'd love to hear from you. Use the "Message" button on the Anchor app to share a story, question, or feedback related to this episode. Or email us at joe@connectioncounselor.com

Learn more: Details about the book, online course, YouTube tutorials and more can be found at www.connectioncounselor.com/executive-presence-place

Music: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License

Transcript

You know, one thing people worry about and often focus on is the looks or the outward manifestations of executive presence. So I'm going to share a story to illustrate what's important about that, and what's not as important. And what the actual mechanism is that generates executive presence.

So many years ago, our team had a meeting with an executive sponsor.

His name was Finn Meyer. He was a Danish partner at KPMG and this guy, he looked the part, I mean, tall, really well-tailored suit. Had the graying hair, just looked like you would imagine an executive of a Fortune 500 company or a partner in a large multinational firm, sort of like Jeremy Irons in Margin call, but maybe a little bit more European.

So we're having this meeting and we're pitching this project to him and he was just impressive, just sitting there at the head of the table, of course, and listening to our Team Lead and the other members sort of pitching our plan for this big project we were launching for the company.

And he was just there, so quiet and just observing, listening. He kind of had his hands in that signature sort of triangle steeple, nodding once in a while, might have asked one or two questions, but was generally just sitting back and quiet.

So we finished our presentation and at the very end of it, he said, “you guys did a great job…this is really important work,” all the things you would expect an executive to say, and then boom, he dropped the hammer on us. He said, this project will fail if you keep to this really long timeline. You need to accelerate the timeline so you can keep the attention of all the stakeholders and get this done in a certain amount of time.

And we're all just like, “but we made it as short as we could,” but he explained why it was really important to shorten it. And then, as a result, we did shorten the timeline, not tremendously, but to a point where it was a little bit more manageable and the project was a huge success.

Now, thinking back on that time and I had run into him one or two other times, you start to wonder, “how much does his outward appearance play into his executive presence?” And he really had tremendous executive presence in that meeting without hardly having to do or say anything.

So is it just the fact that he's tall, well-dressed, has a title or has a certain look about him? I believe he was a partner in the Danish firm at the time.

And what I’ve come to realize is, the trappings are just the wrappings. Right? All those things kind of send a signal to our brain, either consciously or unconsciously, that this is the type of person we're accustomed to, to having executive presence.

However, that is just the wrapping, like on a gift, right? You imagine you get a wonderful gift, this beautiful silver, gold, or bejeweled wrapping paper -- whatever you find really impressive. And then you go to open it and inside it's just a piece of junk, right? It's like a 1999, seen on TV, trinket that you know is gonna work well for about a week and is going to fall apart. Right?

Things like your height, your clothing, I would even put your title and certain things are just trappings. They're just the outer manifestation. They're not the thing that actually generates the executive presence. So in this instance, looking back, what was it that generated executive presence for Finn?

And for me, executive presence happens between two people, right? It's the space in between the two people. So for me, what it was, was he had incredible stillness, right? As he was listening, he was incredibly still, and just allowed us to talk. And he didn't feel the need to dominate the conversation or prove anything. He's just, just totally in control himself and the situation.

And secondly, he was very engaged. Even while he wasn't talking, you could tell by his posture, by the way, he would nod his head, by the way he was making eye contact and just his general mood, that he was really engaged with what we were telling him and that he was going to come with some really solid advice. Which he did.

So all this, just to demonstrate that executive presence really comes from your presence. It's not something you have, like clothing or a title. It's really the way you are in a room, are in a space and people feel for lack of a better term that, that energy or mood, that you bring to any situation.

And the most important part is that is the type of energy that inspires confidence, that that person's going to be able to lead you well. So just wanted to share that thought with you. We'll come back over the next few days with additional thoughts on different principles. So thanks. This is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor, and thank you for joining us on our very first episode of Executive Presence Morsels.

Today: Don't waste your time "trying" to get executive presence. We reveal the way that actually works to save you time and money and help get you the results you need to elevate your career. It's simple, but not easy, and frankly that's the way we like it! Join us as we explore the path to executive presence.

Transcript

Everybody wants executive presence, but no one seems to be able to teach you how to get it, which is a shame because it's the killer skill for any leader. Sure. You could take a class, but no professor or YouTube tutorial is going to prepare me to enter the ring with Mike Tyson - in his prime or even today. Nope, not gonna cut it.

You could ask someone who has it, but they will either not know or what they do know will not work for you because, well, you're not them. There's no drumming advice Tommy Lee could give me that will enable me to sit in for him at a Motley crew concert. Not even close.

Well, what about imitation being the greatest form of flattery or fake it till you make it? Nope, also non-starters.

So what will work? It's simple, but not easy. All you have to do to have executive presence is convince the person in front of you that you have the ability to lead well in the given situation. That's the simple part.

How do you do that? It depends - on you, on the other person, and on the situation. There's no silver bullet hack that anyone can give you because the variables are too many. That's the not easy part.

However, if you can, by your presence and your actions inspire that confidence, you will have executive presence. And exploring all the various ways you can do that is the goal of Executive Presence Morsels. Remember, it's not what you say, do or wear, it's how you make people feel that generates the executive presence. Nothing else matters.

Tuesday, July 22, 2021

Today: Find out the basics of how this podcast and other podcasts are made. Today we talk about how to come up with compelling content and some basic options for delivering it.

Sarah Elkins' website: https://elkinsconsulting.com/

Joe’s 1st ever podcast appearance on Sarah’s show: https://elkinsconsulting.com/sarahs-blog-podcast/2018/2/27/you-think-youre-a-good-manager

Your turn: We'd love to hear from you. Use the "Message" button on the Anchor app to share a story, question, or feedback related to this episode. Or email us at joe@connectioncounselor.com

Learn more: Details about the book, online course, YouTube tutorials and more can be found at www.connectioncounselor.com/executive-presence-place

Music: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License

“Remember, it’s not what you say, do, or wear. It’s how you make people feel that generates executive presence. Nothing. Else. Matters.”

Hi, this is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor, and welcome to another bonus episode of Executive Presence Morsels. Today, we'll be talking about making of a podcast. The content - specifically. Before we begin, I just wanted to give a special shout-out and thanks to a good friend and colleague of mine, Sarah Elkins, who’s a storytelling consultant and also a podcaster and author.

She has this great podcast about storytelling, “Your Stories Don't Define You, But How You Tell Them Will,” and I was fortunate enough to be invited to be a guest on her podcast many years ago. And after the podcast concluded, I asked her if she had some time to spare, so she could share with me a little bit about how she got started, the equipment she uses, just kind of basic things like that.

And she was very gracious, spent just a little bit of time with me. And just that additional amount of inspiration, and inspiration, gave me the boost I needed, to have the confidence and just the willingness to go through and start my own podcast, “Why It Works,” and the rest is kind of history.

So I just wanted to give a big thank you and acknowledgement to Sarah for helping me, give me that little nudge to get me on my podcasting journey. Now, for those of you who are listening, these will be some insights on the content and how to come up with content for a podcast, sort of the thought process I used for this one and all my other podcasts, as well as if you're thinking about doing something yourself, this may be helpful.

First point - topic. What is the topic that you're going to talk about? There's probably many things you could talk about. So how do you decide, which is exactly the one that you want to share in the podcast?

And there's a pretty straightforward way to think about this. What are you passionate about? What is the thing that no one would even have to pay you to talk about it? You just light up like a sun when you talk about it and people respond positively positively to you when you talk about it, because you're bringing such passion and joy to the topic.

So when you figure out what that thing is, that really helps you zero in on a great potential topic for your podcast.

Now, what you want to talk about is not all that matters, right? The audience is important too. If you're just talking to yourself and not to anyone else, you're, you're monologuing like, like a villain in a movie, right? And we don't want that.

So how do you figure out how to connect with your audience and how to engage them. And a good way to think about that, I heard this on a lot of sort of marketing type videos or coming up with content videos, and I think it applies equally to podcasts is, “What is the pain of your audience, right?”

What is the challenge, the issue, the difficulty, that they're going through? And if your content can acknowledge that pain, if what you talk about resonates with them because of that pain, and even better, if it can help alleviate and solve some of that pain, then you will have an uber-engaged audience.

So on the one hand, your topic, you love talking about it, you're great at talking about it; you bring the energy, the passion…on the other hand, your content dovetails or coincides with the pain that your audience is experiencing and what they want to hear about and, listen to you about. Then you have a really great beginnings of the content for your podcast.

So now you have the topic. You also know how it's going to engage with the audience. How are you going to deliver that content? What is the format that you want to use?

So there's two basic ways. We're going to keep it simple here, that you could do that. The first way is more of an interview format. And the second way is more, just you talking and sharing.

So both ways are equally valid and each have their pros and cons. So I'm going to talk very briefly about each of those.

Now the interview format is probably what you're more used to hearing in a podcast. You are the host or the moderator or facilitator. You have a guest come on and they share their expertise on the topic of the day.

Now, the great thing about that is you're meeting with a guest, they're providing insights, you're learning, your audience is learning. There's variety because you can have different guests on different shows.

A bonus thing is you're getting to meet those new people that you might not otherwise have a good context to meet. So it's great for networking to meet those people.

The con is you're dealing with another person and scheduling can be a problem. They may not be as much of an expert as you thought they were. All those normal kind of variables that come into play when you're dealing with another person. That's something that you have to be willing, to deal with when you're dealing with a guest.

Now the other format is when you were essentially the guest and you're sharing your information. Now, the good thing, the pro about that is, you know, your schedule, right? You're on time for the thing that you want to do, you know your expertise, you know how good of a guest you're going to be. You're not going to surprise yourself by being a much better or worse guest. So you're going to have some consistency and predictability there.

The bad thing is, you are the guest. So you have carry the entire show by yourself and you have to do it the whole time, whether it's 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes, and you have to do it from show to show. So you have to bring the variety, you have to bring the energy and you have to bring the engagement for the audience because you don't really have anyone else like a cohost or a guest to sort of lean on.

Again, both of those formats are equally valid and equally enjoyable for the audience. You just have to decide what makes the most sense for your topic, for your format.

Well, thanks for joining us again on this bonus episode of Executive Presence Morsels, Making of a Podcast. We talked about the content today.

On July 5th, we are launching our daily podcast, Executive Presence Morsels, five days a week delivered in the morning at 7:00 AM Eastern, so you have a chance to listen to it first thing in the morning, and then reflect, or maybe even use some of the things you learn during the day.

I'd love to hear from you until then. If you have any questions or suggestions for the show or any reactions to this episode, we'd love to hear from you. Just go to anchor FM, either the app or the website where you can leave a voice message.

I'd love to hear from you. And when we can, we may feature it on a future episode. This is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor. Remember, you can change your life - One connection at a time.