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State Before Strategy: Why You Can’t Fake Real Presence · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, thank you for hanging out here with me for part of your day.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna talk about presence and how we can't fake presence.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've seen it happen, okay?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody walks into a room, and before they say a single word, you've already decided something about them.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can't always name what you've picked up on, uh, the way that they carried themselves.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something in their eyes, it's steadiness, or maybe even a lack thereof is steadiness.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you kind of read it instantly, and so did everyone else in the room.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time they've even opened their mouth, you kind of had your own verdict formed already.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We call that leadership presence, right?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's an entire industry built around teaching it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there's this industry that says, like, stand like this, make eye contact for these many seconds, lower your voice at the end of sentences, take up space, power pose in the bathroom before the big meeting.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to offer you some uh a different way of understanding this idea of presence because I've watched a lot of capable leaders trying to install these things from the outside.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like they're trying to install this piece of hardware um software, um, and then they get really frustrated when it doesn't quote unquote fix the thing.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, meaning in the exact moment they need it, they cannot access it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why that happens is because nobody in the trainings are talking, the trainings that are talking about, you know, the power pose and how we handle voice tone, and um, and let me be clear, I coach around this too.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I coach around how we communicate, I coach around, you know, how we present in the room, the words we're choosing, the tone that we're using, the speed at which we talk, the volume we talk with, you know, those are all very important.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the piece that often gets forgotten in most of those trainings is we also have to talk about what's happening underneath, which is what's going on with our nervous system, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because presence isn't just the behaviors that we perform, it's a what is our nervous system doing and how is that acting?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's going to leak out, and that's something you can't fake.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your body can't fake those things.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to explain what I mean by this.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So everything the presence training teaches, again, it's real.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Posture matters, eye contact matters, tone matters, all of that matters.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not throwing all of that out, but the piece that misses is you know what is going on underneath all those things with the nervous system, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: The internal state gets displayed on the outside for everybody to see.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when you feel grounded and safe in yourself, your body shows up in a different way, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your shoulders are settled, eye contact happens more easily.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually just doing uh a workshop and we were having this long discussion about eye contact and how it's very difficult for some people.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the more we talked about it, the more it kind of became unveiled that the eye contact becomes an issue when somebody's nervous system might be a little wobbly, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So presence is not just about performance, it's it's also about keeping our nervous system regulated.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when you don't feel safe, when there's something underneath that's been activated, it's going to come out and how you're showing up in these meetings.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why faking it breaks down under pressure.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, we can rehearse things like vocal tone and we can rehearse things like the words we choose, and we can rehearse um, you know, the the speed at which we talk, we can rehearse all of those things.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But when the stakes feel high and our nervous system is activated, we can't fake it in those moments.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those things don't, we can't necessarily access those things because the nervous system is actually running the show, because it's on it's activated underneath.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So every technique that you've mastered almost kind of goes out the window because the nervous system is so dysregulated.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, again, because the body is actually faster than how the mind can work, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the real question isn't how do we perform presence?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's what state am I actually in and what's driving it?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where a lot of high-achieving leaders um recognize that their own survival patterns might be showing up, right?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: In those moments.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to really show you what I mean.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because when you see it, it lands a little bit differently.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So think about a leader who overexplains or who can't deliver a decision in one clean sentence.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: They keep adding justification or talks past the point, you know, that they've made their point, but they keep talking.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So from the outside, people read that as a lack of presence, uh, but it's really maybe somebody who doesn't trust their own authority, right?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're picking up on something that's true, but the overexplaining isn't a communication skills gap.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually their own survival pattern at play, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: They feel like they have to overexplain in order to stay safe because it's possible that somewhere that leader learned that being understood was the only way to stay safe.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that gap between what they meant and what somebody heard feels really scary.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So under pressure, the system floods the room with all these words trying to close that gap.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe think about a leader who can't hold still.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I, of course, can't hold still.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I talk with my hands, but you know, think about being in a meeting and um it's not just talking about with your hands, it's somebody who fidgars or fills every silence with words.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we read that potentially as just being super nervous.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're kind of right because fidgeting could be some nervousness, but it's really the nervous system overactivated, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're it the nervous system is running the show.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Also, think about maybe has this happened to you where you've had a leader who over-softens.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is they need to deliver this feedback, but it's really hard for them to deliver it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they constantly try to wrap it up in um, you know, softer using softer terms, softer words.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then what ends up happening is the message completely disappears.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, or maybe even have a leader who constantly is over-apologizing, maybe for even taking up time or having an opinion.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, maybe they've been in a meeting and they'll say, sorry, they'll say something like, I'm sorry for interrupting, but like I have this thought, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Versus just saying, hey, I'm thinking this.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that is somebody, it could be somebody whose nervous system is dysregulated and scared of speaking up.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're shrinking a little bit.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you might even notice in their posture that they're shrinking, but that's a survival strategy again that they're kind of broadcasting.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the things we diagnose as presence problems are often actually survival patterns showing up in the body when we're under pressure.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't just put in these strategies from the outside because there are nervous system things.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I this is why I often will say to people, it's state before strategy.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is why when I'm doing these workshops and I'm giving these talks, you know, I constantly am saying, like, yes, we can absolutely teach you the skills, but it's not just the skills gap.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's about noticing what's going on with my nervous system first and and dealing with that emotional regulation.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can put the skills into place because when you work on the state and you regulate that first, your presence is going to follow because you can learn those strategies, you can learn those skills, but you really can't implement them unless you've been put in, you've given yourself permission to regulate your state first.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So stop trying to look grounded and actually work on becoming grounded, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to fake it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's about actually putting into practice ways to regulate your nervous system, to slow your breath, to learn to take a pause, to feel those feet on the ground, right?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are mindfulness activities, but they are so important.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the second thing that I would say is look, really learn and also own your pattern.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: When pressure rises, what happens to your nervous system?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get flooded?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you go, do you feel cold?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel rigid?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just notice your pattern so that then you can decide what actions you're gonna take.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third thing is to reframe, you know, the idea that presence isn't just about how you look, it's also about how you are showing up in the room, right?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, looking polished, yes, that's part of it, but it's also what's happening underneath.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I want to say that um it, you know, we can't always achieve a state of um like unshakable calm.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not gonna happen.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're human beings, we're not all regulated all the time, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about giving yourself permission to slow down and to regulate yourself when you do become dysregulated.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to chat with me about how coaching could help in things like communication and how you show up in these rooms, you know, in terms of leading meetings and things like that, or anything else that you feel like coaching could help you either professionally or personally, feel free to reach out to me anytime at coachwithcomedy.com.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay well.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Username it's authenticme.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.