In the latest edition of Ask the Experts, we sat down with James. He is a sought-after trainer, professional speaker, mentor, and author. His keynotes, trainings, and seminars empower and inspire leaders, business owners, and teams.
(edited for publication)
Good morning. Welcome to another edition of Ask the Experts. Our guest today is James Elliot, from Unleash Your Power. James is a communication leadership and influencer trainer, speaker, and an international bestseller with over 20 years of experience. James, thank you for joining us.
My pleasure. My pleasure. Glad to be here.
Tell me a little bit. So there’s a lot on the plate. We have leadership; we have communication influencers. So tell me, for small businesses, where do we start? Yeah,
In terms of better leadership and better communication, or just taking our small business to a whole new level?
Let’s start with communication. Because we have to as small business owners, we have to speak to our clients and have staff. So let’s start with communication for small businesses.
Communication for small businesses, I mean, many people know this, and some people get it, and even less do it. But often, when people say, so what do you do? And I say, well, that’s a great question. I’m happy to share. Because you don’t want to you, want to dodge the question. You don’t want to avoid the question, but the great question, happy to share, let me make it relevant to what you do. What do you do? Tell me about you what you do. Because people, we love talking about themselves. And you’ll create a sense of trust and rapport by allowing them to communicate and share what they do, and you get they get excited people to get excited about what they do we all get excited about what we do. So puts him in an excellent state versus this hole.
Okay, what do you do? Are you going to try and tell me why you are so great? I’m at this networking event; this is kind of boring, blah, blah, blah, right? It gets him out of that state. And it’s like, well, what lights you up? What do you love to do? Who do you love to help? Who do you love to work with to change the dynamic right away? And that way, instead of just giving them an initial fire hose, you shouldn’t do that, and you should avoid that anyways, giving a fire hose. But instead of providing a fire hose or some information that they may not care about or be interested in, the best thing to do would be to ask nicely, just to make it relevant. Tell me what you do. Or, you go ahead first, what do you tell me?
First, I want to hear what you do. And then I can maybe relate it to it. And then, of course, you can make it relatable to what they’re saying. Or perhaps they’re saying, Well, I’m a real estate agent, or I sell a widget, or I have a service offering I help company A do B, C and D thinks and point what, that’s interesting. I work with many amazing individuals like yourself, and I help them have a BCD faster and save money while they’re doing it. And then there, they’re going to pick up and they that’s interesting, tell me more, versus the well, I do this and this and the firehose of stuff that may not be relevant at all to them they may not care. Especially, as I said, People care when they know you care, or they’re interested when they know you’re interested, right.
Whatever metaphor you want to use, they find you interesting; people will find you interesting when they know you’re interested in them. So that’s one of the first things where I find that most people make mistakes; we get so excited about what we do we launch almost to our new not a hard pitch, but a soft pitch. And it can turn people off very quickly. So ask them, tell me about you. What do you do? I want to see what you do. So I’m curious, is a way better way to get trust rapport and be influential?
Interestingly, you talked a bit about people launching into this dialog and not necessarily being aware of how it’s being received. I was with a client. And he was doing a presentation to his company. And he was having a great time. He was laughing; he was joking. He came off the stage. And I said, How do you think that went? And he’s like, that was great. And I was like, Were you in the same room? Because he was talking about change and change being the euphemism for consolidation and layoffs. He was pleased, joking, and laughing, yet the audience realized that some of these people would be losing their jobs. Right. So there was a disconnect between the message, particularly the messenger and the audience. How would you address that?
Well, it’s a great question. So many people were too busy pitching and launching, not reading the audience, not saying okay, what I’m talking about doesn’t look like it’s stimulating the audience. How do I shift what I’m saying? How do I shift how I’m saying it? How do I shift? How I’m explained? Do I need more visuals, fewer visuals, more entree, less, more shock value, more humor, less humor, in this case, right? And I think it’s essential just to pause and read the room and look around and read whether people are OK. It’s like people not wanting radio silence. It’s like, in the radio, you do anything except you do your mission is not to have any radio sounds.
How about when speaking or pitching or communicating? It’s okay to pause; it’s okay to take a breath. It means that people will see that you’re more confident when talking and breathing and being okay with silence. And I tell people to do it for longer than they feel comfortable. And that often gives another chance for people to respond to people to ask questions, whether it’s one on one, whether it’s in a group like this. And of course, to your point, be responsive to the group and what they need. Right? If it’s a bunch of engineers, and people or AI researchers, for example, they’re probably going to want more speeds and feed facts research data. If it’s someone more of a higher level thinker, or especially CEO or VP that thinks more high level strategically, they want that the gist of the top three or four things, and then a bit of supporting information, okay, good, do it or don’t do it, they’re not going to want all this stuff; they’re going to shut down, you’re going to lose them, especially someone like me, I’m a big picture kind of guy too. And if you send me pages and pages to read, I’ll never read it. Or if you talk on and on, I’ve probably checked out or started multitasking.
So back to your point is to make sure we read the audience, but also the material right in you can certainly talk about change in different contexts, right and maybe have it in more of an empathetic motivating way, sure, you can still speak positively about change and growth. However, you still want to empathize with your point and people. And that’s probably the number one skill of a leader, a great leader, instead, and a great speaker. And even a great influencer is to have to be empathetic, right? It’s that emotional intelligence; be understanding. Consider them versus just stuffing your message or your pitch or your changes good. By the way, we’re firing half for you. Right down the throat, I think we got to be careful, especially when we’ve had a lot of layoffs and a lot of crap happened during COVID – it’s been a tough couple of years. Even beyond a lot of the stuff in companies with layoffs, and with downturns economy, whatever, we have to be sensitive to people.
And I think that is what makes us human. And that is what causes people to want to listen to us, to be led by us. So that’s how we inspire people; he talked in the talk and walked the walk and even took responsibility to make sure things are done people successful versus abdicating on the leader on the boss, do it because it’s easy to be a boss, right? It’s, it’s easy to be a manager to tell people what to do, how to be a great leader, whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re a small business, whether you’re a CEO of a large company it’s taking responsibility for the results you want in yourself and others and the results you want in this case and their business.
So a long-winded way but reading your audience, and continuing to read your audience, knowing your audience, while half these people are going to leave their job, okay, I’m going to speak to this and maybe talk positively about it, but also have an empathetic tone versus the laughing and carrying on, maybe for a motivational speech later on, but not when it’s like, by the way, yeah, half of you guys are 30 guys are going to get laid off that did the initial question.
So one of the questions I also have is about trying to read the room for many people where fear of speaking is a concern, right? And they’re challenged by that. So many times, I’ve had this experience as well, where I’ve gone on speaking; I’m very focused on conveying whatever the points were that I want to get across. So I’m so focused on whatever my message is, and then I leave, and like, I can’t tell you what happened during those two or three minutes because it was such a blur, let alone trying to read the room. So how do we step back from whether we’re nervous or just focused on our content to have the ability to read the room?
It’s a great question and, and one tip and one tool that I give to anyone speaking, selling networking, communicating are called 478 breathing, and what you do is inhale over four seconds, 1234. You hold it for 827 seconds for seven, eight for seven seconds, and you’ll hold it, and then after seven seconds, you slowly exhale over 87654321, and you’ve, you’ve noticed my voice. I’ve slowed down, I’ve calmed down, and my voice is more profound and more powerful, more and more impactful, more connecting. And if even if one of these, let alone three or five years, can make you become a different person when you need to be on, it’ll help you be more aware help you read the room as well.
And there’s another tool I’ll give us if there’s time, but just to in terms of context is just to pause because to your point, we fear we’re nervous; a lot of times, you rationally race through it. Without pausing or taking a breath. And pauses are impactful again; they show confidence. And speaking, drill deliberately in slowly ensures you don’t lose half your audience, but 40% of your audience are kinesthetic learners and communicators. And if you start too fast, you’ll lose them. Or, if you get going quickly and talk with no pauses and time for them to digest and feel how they feel about the content entirely, you can lose them.
So that’s, that’s another thing too, is reading your audience too. And again, knowing your audience is one of the biggest things, right? And so calming down, pausing, find some way of meditating forehand. Another tool that I love to do and to use, again, calms people down very quickly, as you look high up with your eyes and keep your head straight, for a moment, look high up with your eyes. Take a deep breath in. And when you keep your eyes high, you look up to your head back. And again, you’ve heard my voice just dropped down.
And what it is, is it’s a technique to help simmer you down and bring you into a calm play, and it activates your parasympathetic nervous system to calm you the heck down. And whether it’s a good or bad message, you need to deliver whether you’re excited or nervous or scared or fearful. So it’ll make your whole delivery way more impactful. And it’ll also have you in a better headspace to be able to read the room.
Okay, these guys up front are talking to this person on their phone; these people look like they’re not getting it. These guys look like they’re not bored. What do I need to switch something up? Am I using too many visuals here? Am I using too much? Am I just reading PowerPoint? Am I not using enough visuals. And that way, visual learners the other 40% of people in the world. Again, I like visuals; I don’t like death by PowerPoint. However, I do like visuals, short clean. And even it’s a picture or a few words or a picture with a few words.
I think visuals are powerful. And visual examples. Whiteboarding is powerful. Again, 40% of learners are visual. So if you’re not giving them some sort of visuals, you’re, like, basically losing almost half your audience. So that’s another way to do it, but slowing down and reading the room. And here’s the key.
Here’s the key, it’s talking to people because you’re looking around having a conversation with Jane, Bob, and Margaret. Or maybe it’s only one or two people or three because it’s an entrepreneur. For example, you’re a small business and talking to a large company. You are talking to a panel, a group of people; make sure you’re talking to the people and not talking at them. Make sure you’re not just talking to one deal; make sure you are talking to several people, which is very powerful that people will like you and you’ll engage with them.
If you only talk to the one person before you, you’re likely to be dismissed by others. You won’t build rapport and trust with them because you haven’t talked to them. You haven’t acknowledged that we haven’t spoken to them. Right. And same thing an audience that the old advice about, oh, look at the back wall and just focus on the back wall and ignore the audience in front is the worst advice ever. Because you’re not, the worst advice ever is talking to people.
And that’s boring people hate being talked at. We want to be interactive, and like sort of with a cell phone or a human with or whatever, or just like you are. Someone who wants that and who needs this and makes it interactive is my final point that makes it interactive. Ask questions as quiet, especially when you’re pitching be asking questions more than you’re talking. Of course, if you’re giving a speech again, you’re a little nervous. So if you pause, ask questions. Hey, hands up everyone that this? Or hands up everyone that that? Or how about this? Is this of interest? Or do you gone? And both want to be able to do this? Does everyone need this? Or think this? Or how have you ever blinked? Or have you never blinked? That’s another way as well make it very interactive. And it all gets out of your head to get you out of your head, and oh, what if they like me?
And what if they don’t like me where they don’t buy my thing? I hope they like me, hope I get hired again. Whatever it is. And the problem with that is you’re making it all about you. People like, oh, well I don’t think like me, and what if I dress wrong or a dress too, from too high or just too low or whatever this and that. And I said, well that’s interesting. You’re making it all about you. When in fact, You need to make it all about them. And that’s when the love you your presentation give me imperfect; you can screw up your whiteboarding, your PowerPoint may have issues. But if you make it all about them and aim to provide them with your best and be able to stay out of your head and make it them, how can I give these people my best? What do they need from me? What do they need from me now? And what do they need for me?
Now, I guarantee you stuff can go wrong. If you’re interacting with them, you’re engaging; you’re saying, hey, what about you? Or what would you need? Or what would you want? Does that sound good? Who thinks this or who feels that you talk to them? So I can promise you 1 million things can screw up and go wrong. And if you make it about them and your desires to help them and give value to them, you really can’t go wrong. And people will forgive a lot when you make it interactive and make it about them versus just your agenda and pushing your thing in your prerogative. So just the final, final, both for your question.
And sort of tell us a bit of training and influencers? What does that entail?
Yeah, so it’s amazing. It’s a lot of fun. I love helping people who need to lead people, inspiring people to influence people. And a lot of things we talk about our How to be influential, and how some of the most natural influencers in the world, the most naturally influential and most have had training most have taken training similar or not to mine, but most have had training or had a mentor anyways. But influence is an amazing thing and teaching leaders teaching influencers teaching entrepreneurs because we’re all influencers, we’re all leaders, right?
And teaching people whether you’re a corporate leader, whether you’re an entrepreneur, I think you’re leaders, I believe we are all leaders, and teaching people how to connect instantly how to have a great rapport, how to get trust, quickly from people how to get people to trust and like you quickly how to show credibility in an interesting way versus just being looped in. Okay, this is this another SEO guy, another web guy, another trainer, another teacher, another real estate agent, whatever it is, another software company, to get that trust quickly, and that credibility is paramount. Otherwise, people can dismiss us in as little as 10 seconds. People will just shut down. It’s they get the AHA. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah, yeah. Okay, by, right, we get to shut down. So it’s amazing, amazing.
I love teaching these tools how to communicate and what modalities to use. And thus, you are influential when you do that, how to walk the talk, and how to do what you say you’re going to do. Which, again, most of us don’t do all the time. And if you do, even if you don’t want to, don’t feel like it or tired or whatever, or change your mind, if you do what you said you are going to do. Then you will have respect; you will be an influencer; you will be a leader. And so, influence is all about helping others. It’s all about tools and strategies and what humans respond to best.
One of the best examples is giving value and giving value first providing something to someone whatever that’s why a lot of the free ebooks or the webinars help you’re giving them new teaching them you’re giving them value. So find ways to give someone value. Maybe it’s in your database—Mike’s likes. Mike likes motorbikes or Mike likes; I don’t know boat racing or whatever sports cars, and if I see some, the Toronto or whatever exposition is on or the car show is on, or whatever it is, it is a boat, motorbike show or whatever. Then I can be like, Hey, I’m not sure you saw this one. So to give you a heads up, I know you like Blink. And it’ll do two things. First of all, your connection and likability and rapport are going to skyrocket because, like holy crap, James remembered that I like skydiving or motorbikes or whatever, or fishing, whatever.
Then, second of all, you’ve done something nice with Wow; thank you for thinking of me; then it can be a call and email. Hey, it’s just hey; a quick call sent you an email. I know your kids like whatever. Burnie whatever the latest kids the Paw Patrol, and heads up there’s a 50% off coupon and Paw Patrol, and it’s coming blah, blah, blah. If you buy it the next day or two, I thought it might interest you to check your email; by the way, how’s it going? What’s new, and giving value and delivering value like that is hugely influential, it’s hugely, hugely influential. So there are many things to create influence and be influential, but it’s to help people give value and help first give value.
And seek to help and then walk your talk, actually walk the talk versus just talking to talk to the biggest ways. I have many more, two of the biggest ways to be influential. Right, and I guess the third was tied. Find ways to get credibility, testimonials, customer stories, and delighting people I’m very blessed with. No, my students, my graduates from my courses, are thrilled to get on the phone with someone or email and say, Yeah, James is the real deal. He’s legit; he’s amazing. And that creates a huge amount of influence tool because it gives people that safe feeling, okay, this is safe, that safe to spend my money to invest my time, it’s safe to do this. So that’s another thing as well how people can be influential, but I saw I love teaching tools of influence. Because when your influence when you haven’t voted, you become affluent you close a deal, you enroll people; you sign people up, you have people refer to you, because people like you, does that trust rapport, you can communicate. I mean, influence is always, always not about it’s all about communicating effectively.
I love to teach; we talked a bit about it earlier to be influential. People need to hear your message; they need to get what you’re talking about. They know what the hell you’re saying. So if we’re over-communicating or under-communicating, then you fall flat. If you’re communicating in different modalities than what people learn by or communicate by, let’s say you’re just talking about something, and they need visuals, or you’re showing only visuals. They would rather talk about or be given an example or be taken through something with you; they want to do something with you experience it, then again, you’re missing out on these people.
Honestly, people are miscommunicating with up to 80% of people out there; it’s probably higher than that. But people are miscommunicating people missing your message. So up to 60 to 80% of people are missing your message. And that’s huge. That’s huge because we’re doing a lot more work and getting fewer results than we could. So that’s a long-winded answer to your question, but I wanted to tie that in with the complete boat again.
Yeah, so maybe my next question would be we’ve, a couple of years ago, I was giving a presentation, and a minute or two into the presentation, I realized it wasn’t going well. Right? And how do you save that, like so you’ve prepared this so you have your sort of monologue, but it’s not working? So what do we do when whatever we’re trying to communicate is not happening? Yeah,
Great question. And the first thing I would start to do is engage the audience first, and I would also tell them why the hell they should care. Because we often check out, they have to go to something they’re there by not by choice. Usually, they have to go to something or Okay, okay, this is a seller doing a pitch to us, right? So the first thing is to get into really the why and why they should care. And by giving them, the outcomes indicate. By doing this, you’re going to have that you’ll save time, you’ll make more money, you’ll be more efficient, you’ll have more time to travel, you’ll be enjoying what you do all day, whatever it is, whatever it’s your website will perform better your marketing your dollar your marketing dollars will go way further so you can spend less get on fewer calls with people. Yet, you’re making way more money because the right people are coming to you again, just an example.
That’s one way to give them a y giving them the Big Y okay, this is why you should listen to me. Because if you just start and launch into something, then people there, I mean 25 to 35% of people need to understand why I’m one of them. I need the why before listening to it, for the brain is engaged. Okay, you’re starting the facts speeds and feeds and telling me about this this this new mouse you have that you’re trying to sell me? Why do I care? Why do I need a mouse? Oh, this one – it gives you a hand massage, making you 25% more efficient. And it decreases carpal tunnel syndrome by 80%, and it’s lighter in the battery lasts forever. And yeah, it makes you more efficient, but vital, something like that.
And that way, you can work more efficiently and with less pain and get more done. Okay, cool. Now you got my attention? No, no, it’s okay to tell me what the most Tell me more. So that one thing is telling them why the hell they should listen to you why they should care. That’s a huge, huge part of it. And then pivot to that. Asking questions is a good pivot; if something’s not going well, asking questions and the questions can be one of two forms. Who would like to know how to blank who wants to work less? Who wants to make more money, who wants to work less and make more money? Who wants to get better results, and what do they want? Who wants to be on the phone with fewer clients yet close more?
Again, whatever it is, whatever their shtick is. Did you like this? Would you like that and get people engaged gets people raising hands. Have some fun? No, just me. Just Bob in the front here. No one else wants and play that have some fun with it too, which again, humor and comedy can have fun, but nobody might. By the way, maybe I’m wrong. And you’ll have some fun with it? Here’s my thing. And then B is is just, you know, guys, I had a schedule I had something planned to talk to you about. But I don’t want to talk to you. I want this to be enjoyable and valuable. Can you guys tell me whether you’re in a group of three or 30, or 300,000? Now to share it our hands up? What do you what is? What are the challenges right now? What would you like to know? What do you want to know about how to do better? What is getting in your way, but what’s getting in your way? What do you need, and that’s a good way to because they know you care.
People are interested and find you interesting when they know you care when they know you’re interested in them. So sometimes I’ve stopped, and I’ve almost completely thrown my talk, and I will get into the talk later, I’ll get back into it or part of it, or none of it. And it’ll just be great interaction. I mean, we’re all experts in what we do. So it’s pretty easy to just talk from the heart and give them value. Oh, well, you have no interest at all in changing a thing; I whiteboard thing your wall. You guys are all worried about keeping jobs or how to sell in a down economy. Oh, I get it. Let’s look or how to get more leads and down the economy. Well, let’s talk, let’s switch to that. Let’s get you guys more efficient. And making more money in a down economy with is that more of interest to you guys? And of course, I was like, yeah, that’s or whatever. Right?
Asking questions is great. And, as the saying goes, the first thing that gets thrown out the window in a war is the plan. Now, yes, plan. Because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail; however, in a war or battle, the first thing gets thrown in the plan. So sometimes it needs to happen and just respond to them. And it’s what do you guys want? What are you interested in? What are your challenges, worries, and goals we don’t discuss, and then apply what you do how your service can help them and connect them to what they’re interested in? Well, we ever have their interest, and you will ever hold their interest to?
You said that most of the messaging get lost or misinterpreted. So talk, can you speak a bit of the nonverbal things that are going on that interfere with your messaging?
Huge? That’s a great, great question. There are many communication styles learning techniques. Whether someone learns more visually, hears, learns more by doing, or learns by lots of facts and research and information speeds and feeds, they love that stuff; I can’t stand it. I get bored to tears in five seconds. So so, but aside from that, because that’s very important, too.
And again, you’re often missing 80% of people. Usually, what have people dismissed you and shut you down? Is too much visioning, too much fidgeting, unconscious body language, that you’re stressed or nervous, a lot of touching the face touching the eyes, fidgeting hands and pockets, hands moving in pockets in and out of pockets. Lots of things like that, the dry mouth of that. Suddenly, you’ll know that the noise in your mouth is drying and stressed, and your tongue is not relaxed as well. That distracts. I mentioned taking breaths and pausing and just going like You’re being paid for every second you feel space. If you just go go go with that. We’ll also have people dismiss you because it seems like you’re nervous and not confident. It looks like you’re overwhelmed, then you are overcoming them. You’re just like a firehose overwhelming them. It’s not ideal.
And so this is why one of the many reasons that people dismiss us. We’re nervous, yeah, body language. Sometimes we appear to close. This doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s closed off or bored. By the way, guys, that that’s just one, one body movement, we have to use context and things.
Hence, people in the audience by the way, as an aside, if people in the audience like this, it may not mean that they’re bored, they don’t like it, they may be cold this for me, this is very common for a lot of people, you lean back in their chairs, and it’s pretty comfortable. So avoid getting in your head if they have that kind of body language.
However, for yourself, you don’t want to have any blocking body language, anything behind your back, which again unconsciously shows that maybe you’re hiding something you also don’t want to cover, under the fig leaf and cover the family jewels again, shows a sign of nervousness, stress, lack of confidence as well just hands by your side and gesture without going too crazy gesture and making it out because if you like this talking about whatever for the whole time and you have pneumonic, monotonous, or no animation or no movement. So you’re still not doing anything; it gets boring.
Body language is huge; it is 50 to 60% of communication. So that’s why communicating using your body gestures facial expressions are it’s more interesting, and it’ll communicate more. Even if people aren’t necessarily getting what’s coming out of your mouth, they’re saying you make emphasis. And this is big; this is a big deal. This is important. And it takes communication to a whole new level. If you use body language effectively, instead of just doing this all the time, you don’t want to do the flapping of the wings all the time because that’s not good. You wish to gesture intentionally.
So that’s another thing on body language, and on what can distract big is too much touching face. Rubbing eyes is weather modeling noses covering your mouth to covering your mouth; people do under duress and stress and nervousness or a lack of confidence in what they’ve said. This whole pinching and lips can show that you’re withholding something again, can it be the theme. Yeah, it’s not. This means it can tell you’re withholding something or you’re a little stressed. So you want to avoid a lot of these unconscious body language and body movements. You’ll make deliberate, confident body movements, and show that you’re open, make gestures, navel ever level gestures, chest level gestures as well. And be beyond the point with what you’re doing.
Most of us aren’t very great extemporaneous speakers. So how much should we practice when we’re preparing for a speech?
So it’s a great question. And here’s a cool answer that most people like because you don’t have to practice for hours and hours and hours and hours notes. Are you doing? I would suggest practicing Yes and running through it several times. Yes. Especially is very important. Yes. However, if you make it about them, you make it more interactive. Do you focus on what do they need? How can I give them my best? What do they need at any given moment versus to be in the headspace of Oh, I hope they buy. I hope you like me, or I hope that they don’t get bored or hooked in on the phones or hope to listen to me and hope they buy my thing. And because I got to pay my bills and this and that you’re in your head, you’re not making about them.
That’s one way to be able to be communicating well, is instead of reciting something that you’ve memorized in your head, yes. Know your content, know what you’re going to say. Instead of memorizing its word forever, it is also very boring to listen to someone regurgitate it like a computer or an audiobook to know your stuff. Yes, however, be interactive as questions and Pa make pauses, and that allows you to collect yourself in Nixons? So that’s why this is so important, guys.
And do you recommend that folks videotape themselves?
You can, Yep. And that way, you can show a friend or a mentor, hey, you’re touching your face all the time. Or maybe you’ll see yourself touching, or you just drink too much. You’re just doing this all the time versus having powerful specific gestures. Of let’s see the PowerPoint here, or whatever, whatever. But this is why this is so important. This is why you need to. This is why you can connect with blah, blah, blah. Gesturing is great, but don’t go too crazy. But also, it’s great to be able to have people see what you’re emphasizing and make it more interesting interactive, right? And just your tone of voice.
Make it, guys. This is so important. Versus this is a critical topic. You guys need to understand this. Right? So that’s one thing, and yes, videotaping is great. You can watch yourself; you can have a mentor, watch you, or even a friend. Hey, what do you see? We’re talking too fast or too high or low, you look nervous, or you look rushed, or you look from pulled, or you’re Brown is this every time you say you can do this or every time you say you trust me, you can shake your head. A lot of people cancel themselves out. This is great. Or you can trust me; they’ll shake their heads. It’s funny to watch. But yeah, I think videotaping yourself is great, too, because you’ll catch your own mistakes, you’ll get better on your own as well.
This is interesting because it’s sort of like when you’re a kid, and you first heard your voice on a tape recorder, and you’re like because your voice sounds different in your head than it does in the real world. And I think that the videotape does a similar exercise because we will give feedback to folks about their presentations and their learning. And then we show them the video, and they’re like, oh,
Exactly, you didn’t take a single breath. Now, the exciting thing,
And this is one that I’ve learned from doing transcripts. And part of the exercise of the transcripts is we start to pick up on phrases that we used that are filler words. Yes. And we don’t think we’re using them a lot until we read the transcript and like, Oh my God, I know 100 times,
You can count your own. When exercising, I showed you how to count your own filler words, either by word or many, like why I have a little tally. And that’s not a good thing to your point; it shows a lack of confidence, a lack of expertise, lack of familiar Enos with the material. Now, it’s not like you’re never going to say one of those words or never say never. But if you’re doing it a lot, yes, you’ll look like an amateur. People will dismiss you; they’ll trust you that this person doesn’t know what they’re talking about. They’re not confident in what they’re talking about your degree of, of your confidence about who you are, what you do, how well you do it. And what you’re talking about will be the degree that people get it like it, trust you and say, I want to do this versus Well, that sounds good. But I’m sure as hell not working with this person. To your point, to your point, yeah,
The ah counter is an old throwback to Toastmaster days. Where we would keep track of it and figure out who had the worst of filler words and things like that, but it’s essential to sort of bring those things to people’s attention when they’re presenting. So the last thing we have is a section here for the International Best Selling Author. Tell us about that.
This is where it pays to just live in action, be in action, just do it. Like Sir Richard Branson says, screw it. Just Do It – as the shoe says. And it gets us out of our heads. It took me three years to write the book going back to the drawing board multiple times. And then when I said this is it, I don’t care what people think I’m giving my best. And I don’t care if people like it, love it, or hate it. I’m giving them my best. So this is what I’m going to do; I want to write about what I’m passionate about. And I don’t care if some people hate it; it took me two and a half weeks to write in Thailand. And that was boom done two and a half weeks.
So it was amazing. Becoming an author is a lot easier than I thought the book was, so that the books unleash your power. And I’ll stop flashing here for you because it’s a symbol of pride, something I overanalyze for years, wondering if people don’t like this. It’s a symbol of pride. And it also can create legitimacy expertise; it can create influence.
That doesn’t mean you have to write your book. It can have your podcast, you can have anything, you can have an ebook that you write and give away for free or charge or whatever, but anything, anything, any value, you give people showing your expertise, I mean, yes, a physical book is a great way to do it.
And it provides instant credibility. If you’re not a doctor or a Ph.D., this is the next best thing. And often nowadays, because everyone and doctors and all this stuff are going on pharmaceuticals, and I’ll get into it. Usually an author best selling author, multiple authors is better than being a doctor of something.
It’s a huge credibility piece, even if it’s an ebook. Yes, these books, the actual books, are more credible, something someone can’t ignore. Because it’s here you can, you can sign up for them, which means a lot, and it’s a business card they’ll never throw out. Again, ebooks are great, but they can be ignored; they can be downloaded and never watched again. And you won’t have it on your desk, and people like, well what is that Who’s James Eliot who what’s on the show power? What’s that so anyway, food for thought. The book reading experience is very humbling, exciting, something I love, and something I got a ton out of, and it was a lot of fun. And a lot of learnings on how my next book will be even better.
And it’s just a lot of fun. And it’s a cool gift you can give speaking of influence and give something that offers value. So you know what, I’d like to whatever I’m going to, I’m going to gift you a copy of my ebook on a site that gives you a copy of my book, rather than people claiming to sign a copy of my book for you. And I’m going to send it to you because I want you to be like this person, the top of the mountain. I want to be at the top there, and I want you to win too. I want you to value what you’re going to say
how is communication change because of Zoom or because of COVID?
It certainly can be less interactive, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be a lot more arduous it can be a lot more boring and less engaging it doesn’t have to be we just find the end is a great question like that we just have to be different we have to an animate ourselves more go bigger, more without being ridiculous more voice inflection and honestly if you think you’re being ridiculous, you probably aren’t because you have to go that big sometimes without being idiotic or being embarrassing. You have to go that big to engage people on Zoom. Right, and so I may not do that in Peru. I probably will do that in person anyways but go big, right?
It’s changed the landscape. So many people’s screens off or their texting while they’re a little while or whatever or their multitasking or their half and half out are people get bored a lot of fat; you have to be engaging gotta be on crate you have to give tons of value. And not a lot of filler. You have tons and tons of value to keep people’s attention. So get it and keep it on Zoom. Because people are often so busy, another Zoom call can also result in them checking out. You need to be big again – the WHY – 35 to 40% of people need to know why the hell I want to do this, why the hell should I listen, and why should I listen to you? Before they engage?
Other people sure want to know how other people don’t want to know what. However, a good majority of the population like me and many big thinkers out there need to understand why the hell I should listen. Why do I want to care why they should listen to you, and it doesn’t have to belong. It just hey, I’m the best selling author, I’m an international whatever, whatever. I’ve done this for 20 years, and I have, whatever real quick, you don’t want to bore them to death.
And guys, by listening today, it’s going to help you with pain A B C, it’s going to be transformed that you have to deal with that anymore. It’s going to allow you to work less and play more or do more of blank without doing more of this or do more of that while doing less of that and or this is going to help you do this or cannot be stopped doing this or having customers come to you more and until you say yes to more or a free more.
This is why the hell you should listen to me, and people like, oh, okay, okay Bruce is hey James are going to go up and talk about influence or NLP or persuasion communication. Great. James is here to talk about communication. Why the hell should we listen? Why should you care? Well, first of all, you know that you’re missing 60 to 80% of people with communication, so you’re wasting your time. You’re not as as as effective as you need to be, so you’re not getting the raises if you’re in corporate you want, or you’re not getting clients, and the sales and the deals you could be getting, but you’re only getting 20 to 40% of the referrals or the closed deals or the upsells.
Would you like more? Would that be of interest to have double while doing no less work or have double while doing less work and have things more fun and engaging? Is that is that of interest to anyone here? Cool? Perfect, you’re in the right room or not? Just me or Bob in the front here. Have fun with it. So why is it paramount, especially on Zoom? Why the hell you should care to make it fun interesting. Gamify things Breakout Rooms breakout Hey guys, here’s a message cool, here’s a breakout room discuss it with your partners we’ll come back and debrief that here’s take two minutes or five minutes debrief got interactive it’s got to be put people together questions answers and insist everyone answers insisted on answers. Then everyone participates, makes fun, makes it enjoyable, and makes it funny even if you’re not naturally funny. To search in Google for different jokes that are politically correct. Pick anyone off or ruffle any feathers too much that that’s the big thing and go big with your voice with your inflection your and your tonality, your pitch, your gesturing, go big guys, you got to pick, and as you see now, I’m enjoying you go big. In 10 verses, Yeah, gotta go big. You got to go big. That is different than go pink you got to do that’s the answer for you. Great question. Like,
If people want to learn more about you, or if they’re going to hire you, where can they find you?
People can find me at Unleash Your Power. Check me out on YouTube. I have a YouTube blog and mindset mind hack channel, just James R. Elliott, Unleash Your Power. So you’ll find me that way on YouTube. And, of course, just [email protected]. And look forward to speaking if this has been interesting or valuable. And you want to take your game to a whole new level. If you make a lot more money, work less, or do things more effectively. Or be more influential, persuasive, or reach more people. I love to talk to you. I love to speak with purpose-driven people. So let’s have a conversation. And thanks for letting me do what I love. Mike. Thanks for letting me show value and teach and educate.
Absolutely. James, we will make it a point to put those links down below so folks can check it out. Thank you, by all means, reach out to James changed. We appreciate your time today. And we look forward to meeting you again in the future.
Sounds good, brother. Thank you for being here. Thanks again. Thanks for having me here. I do what I love. Cool.
