Vorbereitung Archive - Page 2 of 14 - The Art of Communicating

Pretty good

You know those talks where you zone out, even if the speaker’s trying really hard? You clap at the end, maybe even smile, but once it’s over, you just… forget it. Everything goes back to the way it was.

It’s not always because the slides are boring or the talk’s too long. Some of these talks are actually pretty good. But “pretty good” isn’t cutting it. It doesn’t make you want to get up and do something different.

Now, think about those rare talks where you’re hooked from the start. You start feeling a bit restless, like you can’t just sit there. The speaker’s not just talking at you, they’re challenging you. Your old ways of thinking start to feel, well, old.

After one of these talks, going back to “business as usual” feels wrong. It’s like trying to put on a shoe that doesn’t fit anymore. Sure, you can choose to ignore what you’ve just heard, but you’ll know you’re doing it. And that choice? It’s on you.

That’s the power of a great presentation. It lights a path so irresistibly bright that doing nothing feels tougher than taking action.

PS: Check if your presentations do the job.

Becoming a leader

When people transition into a leadership position, they are regularly surprised to learn how much of their job is now communication.

And, in turn, how much of the struggles they face can be traced back to communication.

How was that journey for you?
Did you feel prepared for it?
What was the most surprising thing you (had to) learn about communication as a leader?

To Do

Some people love “to do” lists while others hate them.

Some people love the feeling of checking the next item on the list while others feel intimidated by all the things that remain unchecked.

Some people love that the list collects anything that needs to be done in one place while others hate that that list never gets down to zero … it’s just never all done.

Fun activity: Drop the topic at a networking event and you’ll find people on either side willing to dive into heated discussions about who’s right and who’s wrong.

I prefer to look at it as a choice. If you find the lists useful and feel that they help you achieve the things you want to achieve. Great. If you find the lists harmful and feel that a different approach allows you to do the things you want to achieve in a less stressful way. Also great.

Just do it.

The biggest confidence hack

The biggest confidence hack?

Find the words you truly believe in about the things you deeply believe in.

Lack of confidence mostly means lack of trust in one (or both) of these. If you don’t trust

in your words being the right words (in that moment and to that audience) or
in the thing being the right thing (in that moment and for that audience)
that’s a big roadblock for showing up with confidence. Your body senses the insecurity and will surface it in your body language and tone of voice.

The body language hacks from the last workshop don’t really help, either. Acting in contradiction to what your body wants to do is hard, even for professional actors (which is why they don’t usually do it but have developed different strategies).

It’s a different game when you first build trust in your words and the things you make. Then, everything you’ll do to boost your confidence won’t be in contradiction with what your body wants to do, anymore, but in alignment.

The key is amplifying rather than correcting your body language.

Find the words you truly believe in about the things you deeply believe in. And then amplify what your body wants to do.

Effortlessness

Looking at masterful communicators, you could get the feeling that they have a natural talent for communication, some sort of unfair advantage to find the words that always seem to nail it.

Yet, the truth is that it’s neither unfair nor a talent they were born with.

What makes it appear unfair is their will to rigorously figure things out. To not settle with confusing language or unclear messaging but instead look for ever more compelling ways to tell their story.

What makes them appear as natural born talents is the fact that their communication feels so effortless. Yet, remember that effortlessness is usually the result of an immense effort. It’s rigorous preparation that lets you appear as though you didn’t have to prepare.

I’ve written the “Leaders Light the Path” manifesto as a reminder of what you can achieve if you are willing to put in that kind of an effort.

If you find it useful, please share it with a friend.

PS: Do you have an important story to tell? I’d love to hear it.

Sorry, first ideas are sold out

I’m sorry to have to inform you that first ideas have already been taken.

Not that first ideas had ever been a good deal (except for maybe in the very early days).

First ideas are almost never the best ideas, in part because first ideas tend to be the obvious ideas. It’s very likely that if it’s your first idea then it’s other people’s first idea, too.

First ideas are what you get without digging deep.

Thanks to AI that means game over. AI will generate first ideas not only faster but better (as it can tap into all the first ideas that all the other people have previously given). Quite likely, AI’s first ideas will be much better than yours.

It’s the move beyond the first idea that remains hard. That’s where AI still needs guidance and where the will to dig deeper pays off most.

Digging deeper is where you can still make a difference.

Two comedians

Recently, I’ve been to two shows by two different comedians.

The first show was sold out in a large event hall with 1500 seats. The second show sold only 50 tickets in a hall that can easily seat 500.

What a heart crushing moment that must have been for the second comedian. The hall was basically empty – it seems like no-one was really interested, right?

And yet, that’s not how she acted. She delivered as if the hall was full. She delivered a terrific show, interacted intensely with the people who were there and got standing ovations at the end.

The first comedian, the one in the large hall delivered, too. He performed brilliantly and he, too, got standing ovations.

Two things that are easily overlooked:

First, big acts usually start small, too. The sold-out comedian had his smaller shows in front of tiny crowds several years in the past.

Second, and maybe more importantly: great performers perform regardless. They don’t care whether one person shows up or a thousand. The ones who do show up deserve their best performance. And so they deliver their best performance.

The thing is this: Although it felt like no-one was interested due to the nearly empty hall, that’s not true. 50 people were interested. They might come back – and bring some friends.

Top speakers

Top speakers excel at speaking thanks to repetition.

They deliver (basically) the same speech hundreds of times. If you listen to them multiple times in a short period of time, you’ll notice two things:

Most stories, jokes, and punchlines are the same.
They are not exactly the same.

Great communicators tweak their communication and refine it. They don’t try to come up with ever new ideas and ever new ways of saying the same things.

They try to find the best way of saying that thing. If a story works, they’ll refine it until it’s the best version of that story to make that particular point (and, of course, if a story doesn’t work they’ll look for better ones).

The best speakers speak so often that they have many opportunities to test this.

How can you create situations to test your stories and refine them?

The urgent and the important

Some things are urgent, others are important.
Some things are both, others are neither.

If you’re managing a project, spending your time on things that are neither urgent nor important can quickly turn into a disaster. Most time management tips aim at limiting – if not eliminating – time spent on non-urgent and non-important tasks.

If you’re managing your personal time, the opposite might be true. Spending no time on those things can turn into a creativity disaster.

It’s often the non-urgent, non-important tasks that provide us with unexpected insights and new ways to connect the dots.

This allows things to become important, things you didn’t even know would ever be important. Things that only in hindsight turned out to be the most crucial part of your path.

How do you manage your time when it comes to seemingly unimportant and non-urgent things? Do you allow yourself to procrastinate?

What if?

“What if we were only allowed to use environmentally friendly supply?”

“What if we had to cut the price by half?”

“What if we had to double the price?”

“What if we had no ad budget?”

“What if our account would be suspended on Instagram (or whatever platform you’re most active on)?”

“What if we had to tell the truth in our marketing?”

“What if?” is a great question to identify possible leaps. At first, it feels like you’re constraining yourself. But if you play it seriously the constraint can become a powerful creativity booster that leads to unexpected paths that allows you to leap independent of the constraint.

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