Tag Archives: executive speech coaching

Invest in this Superpower, Empathy, for Big Payoff

Last month, I spent some time with a client and her fiancé, who is very big in the world of the mind and mental improvement. Upon being introduced, he posed the following question: “What’s your superpower?”  Without missing a beat, I said, “Empathy.”

Normally, I get tongue-tied with questions like this. Maybe it’s because of the framing, but this felt very clear.

I started thinking about why empathy could be considered a superpower or, in my own mind, a strength, and began to flesh it out. What I realized is that without this ability, we are too often left in the dust when pursuing our interests and building our businesses and careers.

For a long time, I thought of empathy as a quality whereby someone was able to put him or herself into another’s shoes and imagine what they might be feeling. Usually applied in cases of painful feelings, the empathizer would subsequently offer a solution that could work. The problem was the solution was something that would work for the offerer, NOT the “offeree.”

Soon, I realized the trick with empathy was not offering a solution that would work for you, but what might work for the person in need of your support. This is a lot more difficult to accomplish because it takes a lot more thought and a significantly bigger investment of time and emotion. Done right, however, the payoff can be enormous.

Here’s why:

When you offer a solution that doesn’t fit the person who needs to embrace it, the problem doesn’t get fixed. It festers and worse, it gets repeated, which ultimately takes up more time and energy than if it had been done correctly in the first place. If time is money, then making it work the first time by investing more completely, there is big upside potential:

1. Work gets done.

2. People are more cheerful. thus able to pay it forward and help others.

3. Not as much complaining and whining, and related negativity.

There are three things to keep in mind when deploying your empathy:

1. Some people (like me) are actually less empathetic when facing people with problems they’ve dealt with. This seems counterintuitive, but it goes right back to being about them, not you. So watch that.

2. There are people who’ll take advantage. Being empathetic doesn’t mean being a doormat. Watch that, too.

3. Empathy should not be reserved for difficult or painful things. It should be equally deployed for joyful things, too.

I would love to know your empathy stories.

How to Use A Speaker Introduction

I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of speaking lately. It’s been a big part of my marketing plan this year and, as you may know, I love it for a lot of reasons.

Each time I am asked to speak, I provide a written speaker introduction. And each time the designated introducer receives it, without fail, they say something like, “I’m not going to read it – I’m just going to say a few words.” Translation: “I want to do it my way.”

Umm. no. It’s not about you.

Truthfully, I used to acquiesce because I don’t like making waves and it always seems to occur right before I’m about to step onto the stage. This is because, more often than not, the introducer hasn’t given little if any thought to this until just before.

So I thought it would be helpful to explain why it’s important  and how to use the speaker introduction that he or she provides, and yes, even if it sucks.

As a speaker, I manage my brand quite carefully. I’ve worked long and hard to get where I am. My bio on my website is much too long for someone to read aloud and in any event, it’s written for the eye vs. the ear. Furthermore, no one knows my accomplishments better than I do, nor can they pick and choose the ones most likely to establish credibility with a specific audience. A well-written speaker introduction sets this all up by preparing the audience for what’s to come, confirming expectations, and reassuring them their time will be well-spent.

Unfortunately, not everyone can write a good speaker introduction, so what do you do if the speaker provides an intro that is so poorly executed you might even be embarrassed to read it?

First, don’t wait until the last minute to either ask for it or review it. Just like you have to say your presentation out loud, you have to read the speaker introduction out loud to feel and hear how it exits your mouth. Any awkward wording or incorrect grammar can be changed without the speaker’s permission. If it truly sucks, you should alert the speaker and ask them to revise and resend. If it still sucks, you’re stuck and that’s on them. They will learn, trust me.

Second, read it with enthusiasm. Do not use the corporate monotone or other affects that lack variety. As the introducer, it’s your job to talk up the speaker and get your audience excited to hear him or her.

Finally, if you know the person personally, it’s ok to first say a few things about your personal relationship and then segue into the official speaker introduction by saying something like, “And now, I’m going to give you Ruth’s official introduction.”

It took me some time to create a speaker introduction that hit all the marks, was easy to read, easy to listen to, and that I could use for years (with frequent tweaks), so let me share the qualities a good one should have:

  • 100 words or less
  • Highlights of speaker’s career, especially the ones that apply to a given audience (no law says you cannot have different intros for different audiences)
  • Something fun or funny
  • 14-16 point Arial font, double-spaced for easy reading

If you would like to see my current speaker introduction, email us.

5 Steps to A Winning Performance Mindset in 2016

Ruth’s Truth: It’s no longer enough to be good at your job. Lots of people are good. The competition is fierce and the market increasingly crowded with good workers. Today, if you want to advance, you have to be great. Albert Einstein great. Oscar and Pulitzer winning great. Super Bowl and Stanley Cup great. Aretha Franklin great. You get the picture.

What you may not get is what’s necessary to achieve greatness. So here’s a secret: You do not have to be a genius or even have a high IQ. You just have to have a passion for your area of expertise and practice until you’re blue in the face. This is what every masterful professional knows. The other thing they know is most of their competitors won’t do what it takes, creating a tremendous opportunity for those who do.

Actors and athletes become skilled through repetition. 5 hours of practicing a single scene, 5 hours of a single passage, 5 hours of foul shots. Daily for weeks and months and years on end. Scientists must constantly experiment through failure after failure. Yet they persist.

But how does this type of practice translate to a more traditional workplace?

During the typical office workday, there are so many tasks it’s hard to know what to focus on. Furthermore, the distractions are legion and growing. This is where most people get tripped up (including me and no, I’m not going to give you any advice on turning off your devices. I never advise people to do things I don’t or won’t do). What I will suggest is that you focus your practice on the 2 or 3 tasks that will advance you. These fit into two categories: Technical and communication. You need the technical skills to do the job. You need the communication skills to persuade people to give you what you need to continue your pursuit of technical mastery and to teach others. In both categories, you must be willing to stretch and take risks, which is frightening. I’ve come to believe this is why most people won’t excel. They don’t want the discomfort the fear causes.

People are often surprised when I share my own experiences of getting to mastery. They often don’t want to hear that I practice constantly, read for hours, stretch myself, and scare myself half to death in the process!

There is another discomfort, too, which is the tedium and boredom that sets in when practicing a task over and over again. Progress can be glacial and it’s difficult to stick with it when improvement is so slow that you don’t think you’ll ever get there. Which brings me to the other thing: greatness takes patience. In our age of instant gratification, people have lost this ability.

Ready to be world class? Here are 5 performance mindset steps:

  1.  Identify your passions.
  2.  Select 2 technical skills and 1 communication skill you want to improve.
  3.  Practice them every day – until you’re “blue in the face” – knowing it will be tedious and boring.
  4.  Take risks, push through your fears, and deal with the discomfort.
  5.  Be patient. You will improve.

Greatness is not reserved for the pre-ordained few. It’s there for you but only if you do the work. If you want help with the communication piece of your journey, I’m here for you.