March 24, 2025 • 39 mins
We might be climbing up on a soapbox today—and for good reason.
In this week's upcoming episode of No More Mondays, I sit down with speaker, author, and executive communication coach Cindy Skalicky to dig into the art (and science) of impactful messaging.
If you’ve ever wondered why some presentations fall flat while others ignite action, this conversation is for you.
Cindy works with science and tech leaders to build persuasive communication skills that actually move people—whether it's pitching an idea, getting buy-in from a team, or leading through change. Together, we explore everything from rhetoric and storytelling to slide deck design, credibility-building, and the one mistake most leaders make when sharing ideas.
Cindy also shares a sneak peek of her upcoming book, Red Light, Green Light, and how her proven “HOW TO” model helps people make their message land—and last.
Whether you’re a leader, a coach, a small business owner, or just someone who wants to communicate with more clarity and impact, this one’s packed with practical gems (and a few well-earned laughs).
🎯 Spoiler alert: People don’t always need to hear what you want to say—they need to hear what will move them to act.
👉 Tune in, take notes, and maybe even grab a spot on the book waitlist while you’re at it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:02):
Angie, Good Monday morning, everybody. I am Angie
Callen your host of the No MoreMondays podcast where we believe
you can have a thriving careerand an amazing life on your
terms. So what I do is bring youstories of people who can prove
that fact and have great adviceto help you live and work more
authentically. I lovecommunicating, which shouldn't
(00:23):
surprise you. I'm a podcasthost. I love writing, I love
talking. I love recordingvideos. I like talking in
person. I like talkingvirtually. I just love it all,
because it's another opportunityfor the people lover and me to
connect and learn about peopleand build connections. But let's
be real. Not everyone approachesconversation with such gusto,
and that's why the world haspeople like Cindy school, key a
(00:45):
speaker, author and mentor toscience and tech execs. She
helps people tell stories thatstick. How much fun are the two
of us going to have? I don'tknow a lot.
Cindy works with leaders to helpbuild executive communication
skills. Work through change,create great storytelling and
communication and messaging, andit's time for us to shout into
(01:05):
the void together. So withoutfurther ado, we're just gonna
get into this thing and get onour soapbox of communications
together. So I hope you'll allwelcome. Help me welcome Cindy
schoolki to the show Cindy.Welcome to no more Mondays. Hi
Angie. Thanks for having me.What a great introduction. That
was very fun. I'm very happy tobe here. I am excited about this
because before we startedrecording, Cindy and I were
(01:26):
talking about how we crosspaths, and then realize we have,
like, 27 paths that cross, thatwe run in, kind of like adjacent
and similar communities, andalso are both, you know, women
in Colorado, which is kind of afun connection. And so it's that
makes me more excited to havethis conversation and talk about
a topic that we also overlap soabsolutely
(01:51):
storytelling and communicationand authentic human connection.
It just feels, you know, notonly is it something we both
care about, but it just feelsextremely relevant right now,
because we tend to be a littlebit more disconnected than we
realize, maybe more disconnectedthan ever. So what I want to
talk about first is kind ofmaybe why that's the case and
some of these misses, misses andmyths. So, you know,
(02:13):
particularly in the leadershipspace that you play, you know,
we know leaders are expected todeliver really concise messages,
you know, confident and beclear, but we also know that a
lot of them don't get thetraining they need to do that,
and there's kind of a gap there.And I'm curious why? Why is
there? Why is there a big gap inthe expectation versus reality?
(02:34):
Is it companies assume leaderscan do it? Do they prioritize
otherwise? Like, what's going onthere? Oh, I have so many things
to say. Okay, well, greatquestions. Angie, I think
everyone can agree we're in ahighly
starved situation whereattention is, you know, so
(02:56):
difficult to keep in ouraudiences. So we we have to as
as leaders, as people do ourbest to stay in tune with one
topic, one story, one personbefore we pick up our phones or
listen to the dings that are inour world. And so attention is
(03:16):
difficult to keep, and it's evenharder now than it was before,
and with the advent of so muchvirtual communicating happening
throughout the world after 2020that's even more difficult to
keep people's attention so butone of the things you just said
really kind of rang a bell in mybrain, because I work with A lot
(03:40):
of folks who are ofteninterviewing for higher level
positions, or I know a lot ofcolleagues in the careers space.
And one of the jokes, therunning jokes that we have is
that at the top of every jobdescription you'll ever read, it
says this person must haveexcellent written communications
(04:04):
skills, and it is table stakesfor people, but very few people
actually have it in spades. Sowhy is that? I wish I knew. I
wish that everyone had to takepublic speaking 101, or a
rhetoric class in high schoollike I did, or that more
(04:25):
companies do what good companiesdo, which is provide ample
training in how to presentthemselves and the brand, so
that we can get the buy in thatwe need to run the company
better and faster, because it'snot happening.
And I think what's interestingis you and I also have another
(04:47):
overlap in that you work a lotwith technical people, and in
the career space, I do too, andwe know I am a former engineer
who loves people, so I havesympathy for this, and I have
the understanding of working inthe environment, but I don't
have the empathy for it.
Right? Which is why they pushedme into Project Manager early,
because it was like, oh, go getthe weirdo who loves talking to
people in the office. But weknow that that's that's an
(05:08):
example, and not to pick ony'all out there who aren't
listening, but it's a goodexample of a group that doesn't
normally, if we generalize,yeah, have those natural written
and verbal communication skillsor interpersonal skills, right?
And so I think that's aninteresting thing to talk about.
As you know, we come togetheraround this idea of the lack,
(05:29):
because it seems like at theespecially in companies, that is
a huge hole that exists in likethe training or the purposeful,
intentional, proactive upskilling of people rising up the
ladder, right? Well, Angie, whenyou think about it, it makes a
lot of sense, right? You're anengineer. You are a former
(05:50):
engineer. You are still anengineer, but you are also, you
know, compassionate andpassionate about communicating
and people when, when I workwith these teams of, you know,
scientists and researchers inacademic commercialization labs,
for example, or when I work withchemists or people in
(06:14):
engineering at large companiesand corporations, it's not and I
hear from the like, Well, weneed some help. We don't have a
good onboarding forcommunicating and presenting our
ideas. Our team needs help. AndI'm like, of course they do
like, of course they they're notgood at this. They are highly
analytical thinkers. They are inlove with the lab, in many
(06:39):
cases, like to tinker. Are drawnto numbers. Of course, that's
not like, no, like, of course,they're not great at this.
That's why they chose thiscareer track. And we have to add
that the next part, of course,which is, and let's get them to
be able to share theirbrilliance, so that they're
(06:59):
awesome ideas inside the lab gettraction outside of the lab. And
so we have this thisjuxtaposition is accidental
leadership happening all overthe tech companies all over the
world, and it leads, leads andbleeds into manufacturing
companies or anything that'sreally bent on technical
(07:20):
innovation. We need theseleaders to be able to explain to
non technical people what thevalue is of their idea, their
innovation, so that people cangreen light it and say, Yeah,
let's do that. That makes a lotof sense. I get where you're
going. I understand what this isgoing to do for our business and
(07:41):
our customers, and I'm in
you hit on something that reallyresonates and
hits a hits a very long timenerve, because as somebody who
is a natural people person andloves to communicate, I observed
quite a lot of interestingthings when I was practicing
engineering. Now I am arecovering engineer. And one of
(08:01):
the things I noticed, and it'svery validating to hear somebody
say this was the that accidentalleadership, and part of it is
because that's the only careertrack that we've established in
corporate America, which is, ifyou want to grow, you have to
take on people, leadership,project Leadership, or take over
the oversight of things and andpeople, which isn't necessarily
(08:25):
the natural strengths of thatanalytical type of people, but,
but companies don't do anythingto a accommodate for the
accidental nature of thathappening. And I remember, I
remember as a young engineerseeing that firsthand, because I
could tell that no one knew howto lead me. Yeah, they
definitely didn't know how tomanage me, but they didn't know
how to lead me, and it felt likeI was sometimes just hanging out
(08:48):
there, you know, blown in thewind, trying to figure out how
to be activated, because theecosystem didn't support it. And
what I love about your approachis you found a way to almost
systematize this. So I love thisconcept of like the machine, the
well oiled gears, and how visualthat is when it comes to how to
(09:08):
develop messaging that sticks.So tell us more about that
approach. I would love to Ilearned how to say what I'm
about to say after a specificinstance with an engineer. So
let me, let me paint the picturea little bit. I was working with
teams at NREL in their energy ICorps lab about five or six
(09:31):
years ago. And I'll be honest,Angie, I went into this, this
was the first year I did it. Ithink I've done four years or so
in a row of that since then,where I'm leading a session for
PhDs and people who are bringingsome idea out of the lab and
trying to commercialize it. AndI ran some little one on one
sessions after my big session.And coming into this whole day,
(09:54):
I admit I was not sure how itwas going to go. I thought to
myself, like these.
People are so smart, they arebrilliant at all these really
technical things that I amclueless about. What in the
world am I going to bring tothem? Like this is such no
brainer stuff that I'm bringingthem right, like, 25 words on a
(10:15):
slide. This is one of my corerules for presenting slide
design. But I had this pivotalmoment at the end, when we were
moving over to the one on onestuff, and this particular PhD
came out to me, and he was justraving about the session that I
had given. And I'm standingthere and I'm like,
(10:36):
this is such, this is such breadand butter stuff to me, but
that's, that's kind of the pointAngie was like, it's, it's not
to them and them, my stuff is,like the juicy engineering
exponents and, you know, crazychalk on the chalkboard
formulas, like, they think mystuff was brilliant. And I know
(10:59):
that they are brilliant. And Ithought, wow, I think I'm
actually meeting these engineerseye to eye in a way I didn't
realize. And it was my way ofrealizing I am an engineer. I'm
just not a chemical engineer,I'm not a physics engineer, I'm
not a mechanical engineer, I'm amessage engineer. And so that's
(11:22):
kind of where I began to thinkabout, how could I explain what
I do to engineers? Well, youknow, I am a message engineer. I
look deeply at the message andthe messenger, and I figure out
which gears are funky, brokenand sad and are not, you know,
well oiled. And I find the wayquickly to unstick those gears,
so that the entire persuasiveengine is running on all
(11:45):
cylinders, and the speaker isgetting what they want from
their audience after they finishpresenting. So that was like,
there's like, three things Iwant to point out there. One is
not even about thecommunications conversation
we're having. It's about how youidentified, essentially a value
proposition or a strength basedon your natural skill set and
(12:09):
not what you assumed would bevaluable to somebody. And I
think that that's reallyimportant for anybody out there.
Don't take for granted what youhave to offer because someone
else needs it. Yeah, exactly. Imean, when you for those
listening and watching, you knowyou're in your zone of
brilliance when the work you doseems so easy to you and other
(12:35):
people are like hanging on yourevery word,
that's how you know that you'rebrilliant at it, because news
flash, not everyone is. And Ithought everybody would be at
the things that I know. And themore I did it, and the more I
worked with groups that neededthis, the more I realized, okay,
(12:56):
actually, this is reallyvaluable to people, and I
probably could even slow itdown, because they were so
ravenous to to take it in andapply the lessons, because no
one to our point earlier, no onehad taught them how to do any of
this. Yeah. And so then thesecond piece I love is you
actually ended up applying yourown framework to yourself, and
that's in a way, how theframework developed, right? You
(13:18):
reverse engineered being amessaging a messaging engineer,
of like, okay, wait, I'm lookingat this very specific audience.
How do I create a mechanism or aprocess or an approach that's
going to resonate with them? Andout of it came something that
sounds like it's actually yourfoundational approach to all of
this. Now, yeah, it has become,as you can probably tell, I've
(13:39):
memorized that, but it resonateswith everybody, because even non
engineers understand that anengineer is a deep dive person
who unders, who gets into allthe nooks and crannies and goes,
you know, to the temp layer ofthe cake of detail, versus just
skimming, you know, the frostingon the top. And that's just how
(14:01):
my brain works. It goes right inand finds all the things. So I
just So, how does this look? Howdoes a well oiled machine look?
Great. Question. A well oiledmachine is able to traverse,
what are the five like, the five
steps to message mastery. Andthis is something that anyone
(14:23):
can go find at my website.
There's a there's a tab calledmessage mastery at the top, and
if you scroll down about a thirdof the way, you'll see five navy
blue squares, and the firstthree squares from left to right
are modules, one, two and threeand those Angie are all about
(14:43):
perfecting the message. Okay,I'll talk about that in a
second, but the fourth and fifthmodules of this five part path
are all about perfecting themessenger. That's you, and we
really can't, shouldn't domodules four and five and.
We've really planted and craftedbeautifully modules one, two and
(15:05):
three. So Module One is allabout understanding rhetoric and
the theory behind persuasionitself. Which is my master's
degree and what I love to tinkerin, that's the engineer part.
Module two is our trademark, howto model which has been,
which is becoming a book, and isa podcast by a different name,
(15:26):
called red light, green light.But that's the module where
people learn how to do thisperfectly, beautifully, step by
step. It's kind of the chocolatecookie of what we bring to the
world at on point. It's whypeople come to us module two.
Module three is savvy slides,and that's like, Okay, now I've
got the storyline. So a welloiled machine, Angie has a
(15:49):
speaker who's credible andconfident. It has a storyline
that flows and is relevant andis like, you can smell it
throughout the wholepresentation. You know, it's not
like staccato and disjointed,and it has beautiful slides that
are a guide for the audience andnot dripping with every other
(16:09):
word and all these formulas andlooks like, pardon me, crap,
right? So once we get modulesone, two and three, nicely
locked, and the whole message islike, 85% there. Maybe now it's
time to start module four, whichis rehearsing. And we developed
a rehearsal Trifecta to makesure people can really embody
(16:32):
the message and stop the wheelsof thinking from turning while
you're speaking. And then modulefive is for people who are doing
a presentation where there mightbe like Q and A, and that's
mastering your Q and A session,so that you can really get a
grip on the impromptu part ofpresenting, which is the Q and
A.
I have to laugh because I'm justsitting here thinking about a
(16:54):
conversation with an engineerwhere you have to tell them not
to have 972
scientific symbols on a slide.How's that go? Um, what the data
on there? Oh, Angie, I'm stillclimbing this mountain. I mean,
I have noticed, and this istrue, there are some large
companies that I work in where II try really hard working with,
(17:16):
like the the middle to uppermanagement folks, when I get to
the level of their slide decks,and they'll take it to their
manager for approval or whatnot,after I've worked with them, so
I'm still ironing all this out.And they're like, I have to do
it this way. And I'm like, oh,okay, so who's in charge in this
big whale of a ship of the slidedeck stuff? Like, I need to find
(17:38):
that Wizard of Oz and change thewhole situation, because that's
not happening in a veryfunctional way. So I'm still
working, in some cases, onfinding the person whose idea it
is to put 974, symbols on theslide. It's true, good idea. I'm
glad you're laughing. I'mcrying. You're laughing, yeah,
(18:01):
visual, visual cue, not PhDdissertation on your slide, and
it's, I mean, I actually, Ithink a lot of people, even that
aren't engineers, tend over overyou, and I just put a big
freaking image on it. That's my,that's my MO, right? Your
script, my friends, it's not,it's for your well, and if you
give them too much to read,they're reading instead of
(18:23):
listening. Yeah,
your competitor. It's becomeyour competitor. When you don't
think about your audience, yourslide deck is competing with
you, and this is a very badthing. So I think it's so
important to go back to thisidea of knowing you have to know
the messenger. You need to knowyourself. And I like that
there's kind of this like leadin to to establishing that
(18:43):
foundation and then practicallyrehearsing and getting to know
yourself at the messenger. Butat the heart of messaging is who
is my audience, which is why Iwant to linger around this
rhetoric thing a little bit,because I have a feeling this is
where Cindy and Angie get nerdy.Okay? And so I want to hear a
little bit, I think, evenfundamentally, explain what
rhetoric is and how it appliesto this conversation about kind
(19:06):
of executive communication andpersuasion. Sure, sure. Well,
the father of persuasion itselfis the great thinker and
philosopher, Aristotle. Now I'mgoing to nerd out a little bit,
but I promise it's relevant toyou. And I'll just kind of throw
out the
(19:27):
the definition of rhetoric. Andif all of you who are watching,
driving, running, whateveryou're doing, if you could just
imagine an equilateral triangle,for me, that's all you need to
do. But Aristotle says of themodes of persuasion furnished by
the spoken word, and that meanslike, of the ways that we can
(19:47):
persuade with speaking right?There are three kinds. The first
depends on the personalcharacter of the speaker. That's
you, and that's at the top ofthe triangle, credibility, okay?
The second on the audience andputting them into a certain
frame of mind, which is veryimportant, and the third on the
proof provided by the words ofthe speech itself. So if we look
(20:12):
at the triangle, we havespeaker, we have audience, we
have message. It's like, Well,duh, Cindy. And it's like, I
know. Well, we need to applythis better everybody. So we've
got, we have ethos, pathos,logos. And so anybody who's been
in classical education of anysort probably knows those three
terms. But that meanscredibility is ethos. That means
(20:33):
for pathos, it's or pathos, it'sheart feeling. And as a speaker,
we must get our audiences tofeel something, and hopefully
it's what we want them to feelabout us and our message. And
then that leads us to message,which is logos, meaning, okay, I
got them to feel something. Igot them to care about why they
(20:55):
should invest in my startup. Forexample, they care because they
see the value of my product.Now, once I've gotten them to
care with a short story, wink,wink, now I'm going to reason
with them, and I'm going to getthem to the logical end of why
they should think about andseriously consider putting money
(21:17):
in my hand. And so that's theconvincing part. So most people
do just the convincing part, andthey just throw data down and
hope that it does all the thingsit needs to do to get somebody
to say yes and Angie, what I'velearned in the many years have
been observing persuasivecommunication is that the
(21:39):
greatest downfall of the speakeris that they over assume,
Oh, they assume.
And we all know what happenswhen we assume, well, they over.
They assume that the audiencealready knows the problem that's
(22:00):
in the industry that theirinnovation solves, that their
strategic plan, if they're in abig corporation, they assume the
audience already is on the samepage with them about how big the
problem is and they are not.
And that's why we have to startwith heart, and we have to start
(22:22):
with story. And people freak outabout this because they're like,
Cindy, I'm not a storyteller,and I don't have time to tell a
story. And storytelling isn'tthat like kind of reading, like
a novel before I get to the goodpart? And the answer to that is
also no. Like, some of the beststories I've recently helped
leaders with at big companiesare 90 seconds long,
(22:44):
and it's how we retaininformation. There's a reason
that throughout various pointsof history, storytelling has
been such a core part of how wecommunicate and pass down
information and what I so younerd out on the rhetoric side of
this, I nerd out on thepsychology side of this. That is
the missed. That is my missedboat. Okay, behavioral economics
(23:08):
is the thing I would havemajored in had I known that was
a thing 25 something years ago,
and because it is, and there'snothing when we talk about so I
want to set the record straighthere. Persuasion is not
manipulation, correct? That's inmy book. Thank you for giving a
head nod to, I didn't even know.Yeah, love. It is not
(23:30):
queued right up there, yeah, butit is not, there is, and it is
negotiating in a way. And weknow everything in life is a
negotiation, from a job offer toWhat are we having for dinner
tonight, right? That's that'sthe case. And I think that where
this goes into psychology, andwhere there's like, I feel like
there's like, seven thingscolliding here, and I'm trying
to figure because this is verysimilar to what I talk about
(23:52):
when I talk to those of you outthere who are in my coach
community and ever heard me talkthrough how to sell
this is, this is essentially theframework, because what people
usually do is go straight to theassumption that the potential
client has made about theirneed, without building the
credibility to do the duediligence, to meet them where
they're at and actually tellthem what they need, and go into
(24:14):
that advisor position from theget go and now sell into the
heart of the matter, which helpsthem come around to the buy in,
right? And so, again, this isnot manipulation. It's not icky,
but people buy almost everythingemotionally. Yeah, they do. It's
proven time and time again instudy after study. And
(24:37):
I will debunk a myth here foreverybody. Yeah, I like deepest.
I'm going to, I'm going toactually say this out loud, but
in my book, I did a lot ofresearch on this number.
That story is 22 times morepowerful than a fact. Okay? And
I've said that a lot, and I haveto walk it back, because we did
very deep research and realizedit's not 22 to.
(25:00):
Times. It is 13 times morepowerful than a fact, but it is
not, in fact, 22 so I declaretoday that it is and I have the
resource. I have the source. Ican't spit it out to you right
here, but isn't thatinteresting? Like someone out
there has led a lot of peopleanyway to believe that story is
(25:20):
22 times more powerful than afact. When irony act, it is 13
times more powerful than whichis still substantial, powerful,
exactly. And I and actually not,not to go there, but we'll just
use time and place that we aretalking right now to prove that
point. Yeah, that that, what arethey? What's, what's the term
(25:40):
like fact has become, has beenput into question because of
persuasive and, in this case,manipulative storytelling. And
so that is just a current, realworld example. Well, to prove
the 13x of how much storiesrelate, and I also want to
clarify the fact that, like,when we're talking about, you
(26:01):
know, I've gotten into theselling thing, yeah, but in a
way, if you're an executivetrying to get your team to buy
into change, buy into a newstrategy, you're selling right?
And so that word is applicableto kind of any situation where
you need to use this liketriangle, and apply it to the
way you communicate an idea, athing, an opportunity, a
(26:25):
product, whatever it is, in themost effective way it is
received by the audience, right?And if we need more people to
get into our boat, we need toget them in by using the levers
of rhetoric. And so the what dowe do with this triangle? Well,
you use it as a baseline. Andwhenever you're getting ready to
present something formal or eveninformal through a conversation,
(26:49):
we want to evaluate, who doesthe audience think that I am in
terms of my credibility and myconfidence, that's this the
speaker piece. And then, youknow, what is my what is my
message? What do I really needfrom them or want to tell them?
And then finally, and mostimportantly, who is my audience?
(27:10):
But more more more so, where arethey in relation to my idea, and
how do I meet them, where theyare and not where I am, one of
the most harsh sounding piecesof advice I have to give
frequently to clients is I don'treally care what you want to
(27:32):
tell your audience.
What is it that they need tohear from you in order to move?
And those are different things,usually, and it's not like I'm
being crass or rude, but it'slike it doesn't matter how much
detail and technical prowess youhave about your ideas and how
(27:54):
it's not about showing peoplehow smart you are. You You are
smart. We know that, but besmart enough to know that your
job is to reach your audiencewhere they're sitting, not from
where your high horse or notthat people try to do that
Angie, you know, but like wegotta start. We gotta meet them
where they are, and then bringthem with us.
(28:16):
And I think that's the wordempathy comes to mind here. I
think you have to. You have to,even if you can't directly
empathize, you have to figureout how to get yourself in their
shoes, right. There's the yourperspective, their perspective,
third party perspective, and themore you can give yourself that
well rounded view, helps thatidea of knowing maybe what their
assumptions are, right and wherethat gap is, how to get them
(28:39):
there, but also what they careabout. And I think this is
really important at an executiveand leadership level, because if
you don't truly care about whatyour team cares about, you ain't
got no business being in thatseat. Sorry. Amen, amen. Yes.
And you know that is why myphone rings. My proverbial phone
rings, because in order to dothat well, Angie these leaders
(29:03):
who want to sit in the seats oftheir audiences and figure out
the best way to communicate tothem, they're not very good at
that, and they don't really knowhow to go about it. They know
they need to like to be more intune with their audiences, but
once and so we have to slowpeople down to speed people up.
That's kind of what we do. Wehave to slow you down so that
(29:24):
you can not just know like thepsychographics and demographics
of your audience, but you needto think like they think. And
you need to do better. You needto do one more than knowing your
audience. You need to be them.And it's like, wait, what? How
do you do that? Well, you needto get up out of your chair. And
I have a whole beautifulvisualization exercise in
(29:46):
chapter two of my book to teachpeople how to do this that's
really powerful, where youliterally get up in your mind's
eye from the stage that you'reabout to speak on, and you walk
all the way to the back of theroom that you're about to speak
to, and you sit in the back of.
A row, and you look up atyourself and you start thinking
about what you need to hear fromyourself. So you're like
(30:06):
Twilight Zone kind of asituation, but very powerful,
like when you're not you and youare them, you can create a
killer message, but it's veryhard to do that, and it requires
guidance from a good coach orsomeone who really knows what
they're doing, and time to to,like, simmer and think through
(30:27):
like, Okay, now that I'm them,what do they think about me? My
idea, where are they in relationto the change I want to make,
and what story is going to hitthem between the eyes? What
stories should I tell? And so wehave a lot on story selection so
that we we don't mess that partup.
Don't be out of touch. And also,I don't know if you all noticed
(30:50):
what Cindy did, and I don't knowif Cindy knows what she just
did, but she just used the threeparts of rhetoric to make me so
super excited to read her bookthat I wish it was on a shelf
right now.
Oh, tell me, what did I do?Serious. So what you did in
about 90 seconds was buildcredibility around why we need
(31:13):
to have this visualizationexercise. You explained it in a
way that made me emotionallyconnect with wanting to do it.
And so now, logically, I wantto, I want to get the book in
order to have the exercisefantastic in real time, folks.
So now is probably a good timeto tell everybody about this
book that is coming out, becauseyou will be able to get it soon.
(31:35):
Yes, but tell us a little bitmore about it and how we can get
on the wait list and just how westay in touch with all of you in
this kind of great idea ofcommunication. Oh, thanks,
Angie. This has been a reallypowerful conversation. The way
to get on the wait list for thebook or to get a pre order and
stay in touch with us is at thewebsite page, which is on point,
(31:56):
dash communications, forward,slash book, and the book that
we'll drop it in the commentshere before the show ends. This
is my postcard of the title andthe cover. This is the cover.
It's called red light, greenlight. And it's called how top
leaders present with Polish, getbuy in and become more
(32:18):
influential. And Angie, this isall about this is this is all
about the how to model, which wedeveloped and trademarked to
help people get to stories thatstick throughout their
presentations. And so the how tomodel is is unpacked throughout
the book. Each chapter is aletter. How to is an acronym,
and it's what you're supposed todo when you're sitting in the
(32:39):
back row. Your audience in theback row is asking the speaker
these five things every timethey hear a presentation, hook
me, orient me, win me over thatyou've got the right solution.
Tell me more about this so youcan engage me logically. And O
is, offer me, offer me a way todo something. That's the ask so
(33:01):
H O, W, t o, is the five starpath, which, by the way, sits on
top of a story arc, the fivepoint story arc from Gustav Ray
tag, who came up with that arc,that story, but he did come up
with the five point arc. Butthis book teaches you why you
need to engage in heart, how todo it well, and how to get
quickly and effectively to thedata dump that you are going to
(33:24):
shine in. Because people lovethe data stuff, they struggle
big time with that first lettero, the orient me is the hardest
part. So that's one of thechapters that you do not want to
skip or miss and you might needto read a couple of times to
understand how to build theright storyline for your
audience to get into thedownward arc of the of the the
(33:47):
rest of the presentation. So shejust did it again. Everyone. You
can't help yourself. I love itso much. You're just, you're a
walking example of exactly howthis all looks. And it's I, I'm
sitting here drawing parallelsof, like, okay, now I
understand, like, why I've beenable to achieve in certain
places. Because I'm, like, doingthis without necessarily
realizing which, by the way, ifyou're good at this kind of
(34:10):
stuff, is nice and validating.But you also might get some some
real tools. So I can't, I'm, I'mgonna go sign up and be on the
book wait list. This is whatyou're done. So that's in
comments. In addition to thebook, How does everybody else
follow along to this? Like, youknow, philosophers to style
wisdom
out of you? Cindy,
(34:30):
well, I'm most I'm most presentat LinkedIn, and that's where
you can find me at. Cindyscolicki, I have a company page
where you can get quick tips andsee where we are on media like
podcasts like this. No moreMondays. I also have a podcast
that just launched in earlyFebruary called red light, green
light. So we're always excitedto share our episodes, which
(34:54):
drop Fridays at nine Eastern.And we are bringing you guys,
amazing storytellers who.
Are in the science, tech andinnovation space and sharing
their insights after more than2025, years in business, and
we're having really funconversations, just like this
one. I love it. I can't wait toto listen in for more episodes
(35:14):
of that to come out. Yeah, thisis and here's the thing we
talked about this so much in theconcept of in the context of
executive and leadership andteams. But there is, there's
great pearls of wisdomthroughout this that can apply
to a food business, at home withyour children, with your spouse.
(35:35):
This is the kind of stuff thatI'm so grateful that you're
willing to come and, like, geton the soapbox and stand in the
echo chamber about how importantit is to know how you
communicate and know how youdon't communicate, because
stepping into the authentic wayto connect with this concept is
going to resonate, and it willhelp, you, know, build a
(35:56):
stronger team, whether that's inyour personal life or whether
that's at work. Yeah. Angie, forthose could I give one final
thought to those listening whoaren't like executives and who
might be more like those smallbusiness owners trying to get
you know their their businessesforward, I would drop one
thought for all of thoselisteners, because your ability
(36:17):
To listen well and ask goodquestions will help you find out
where your prospect is, forexample, that you might want to
sell to, or your audience ofpartners is. So get really good
at asking the right questionsand and not talking so much at
(36:37):
the beginning as listening,because that's how you're going
to learn what it feels like tosit in their chair. So you can
solve their problem with yourinnovation, or whatever you've
your service, right? Yourproduct or service. So flip the
switch a little instead of, liketalking a lot at the beginning
of an encounter, ask goodquestions first, and you can use
(37:00):
G, you know, all kinds of llmsto help come up with some of
those examples, chat GPT or grokor whatever, and get some really
nice open ended questions,because people like to talk
about themselves.
I want to start a whole newepisode right now, Cindy.
Because
Cindy to come here and tell allof you that, because if you've
(37:20):
ever been coached by me inbusiness, they're sitting
people, somebody's out thererolling their eyes, like,
seriously, I got another one ofthese people who says, Ask an
open ended question and listenfor 22 minutes, pick up on the
bites, and then you've got youryou've got the actual problem,
versus the assumption, yeah,that you can, you can get to the
heart of the matter, becausethis is you even, you even took
(37:41):
the words out of my mouth that Itell people all the time, we
just want to be heard. Andrarely do we have somebody in
our life who actually listensand as a coach or as a service
provider, as a consultant, ifyou can be that person,
you just changed the game foryourself, for your engagement
and how you're going totransform that client. And all
(38:02):
of that goes back to this biggerpicture philosophy that we've
been talking about for the last35 minutes. So how's that for
Mic drop? So great. I love it. Ilove it. And then people love
their Mondays. If they canfigure out how to do all these
things
more there we tie it all in.That's right, you know how to
communicate well, get people tobuy in and kind of convert that
(38:24):
whatever that conversion needsto be. Yeah, everything becomes
a lot easier, and then you canlive and work more
authentically. How's that forjust tying in every single year
and then you look and feel likea bomb? Yes, it's great. Thank
you so much. Angie, this wasamazing. Sydney, this is
fantastic. Thank you so much forjoining us. Everybody out there,
thank you for listening intoday. I hope you got at least
(38:46):
one little piece of inspirationto light a fire under you. I
can't imagine how you would notreach out to Cindy. Get on the
wait list for her book. Link tothat is in comments. And as
always, we will see you nextweek for another edition of no
more Mondays podcast. Have agreat week. Everybody. Bye.
Angie, Good Monday morning, everybody. I am Angie
Callen your host of the No MoreMondays podcast where we believe
you can have a thriving careerand an amazing life on your
terms. So what I do is bring youstories of people who can prove
that fact and have great adviceto help you live and work more
authentically. I lovecommunicating, which shouldn't
(00:23):
surprise you. I'm a podcasthost. I love writing, I love
talking. I love recordingvideos. I like talking in
person. I like talkingvirtually. I just love it all,
because it's another opportunityfor the people lover and me to
connect and learn about peopleand build connections. But let's
be real. Not everyone approachesconversation with such gusto,
and that's why the world haspeople like Cindy school, key a
(00:45):
speaker, author and mentor toscience and tech execs. She
helps people tell stories thatstick. How much fun are the two
of us going to have? I don'tknow a lot.
Cindy works with leaders to helpbuild executive communication
skills. Work through change,create great storytelling and
communication and messaging, andit's time for us to shout into
(01:05):
the void together. So withoutfurther ado, we're just gonna
get into this thing and get onour soapbox of communications
together. So I hope you'll allwelcome. Help me welcome Cindy
schoolki to the show Cindy.Welcome to no more Mondays. Hi
Angie. Thanks for having me.What a great introduction. That
was very fun. I'm very happy tobe here. I am excited about this
because before we startedrecording, Cindy and I were
(01:26):
talking about how we crosspaths, and then realize we have,
like, 27 paths that cross, thatwe run in, kind of like adjacent
and similar communities, andalso are both, you know, women
in Colorado, which is kind of afun connection. And so it's that
makes me more excited to havethis conversation and talk about
a topic that we also overlap soabsolutely
(01:51):
storytelling and communicationand authentic human connection.
It just feels, you know, notonly is it something we both
care about, but it just feelsextremely relevant right now,
because we tend to be a littlebit more disconnected than we
realize, maybe more disconnectedthan ever. So what I want to
talk about first is kind ofmaybe why that's the case and
some of these misses, misses andmyths. So, you know,
(02:13):
particularly in the leadershipspace that you play, you know,
we know leaders are expected todeliver really concise messages,
you know, confident and beclear, but we also know that a
lot of them don't get thetraining they need to do that,
and there's kind of a gap there.And I'm curious why? Why is
there? Why is there a big gap inthe expectation versus reality?
(02:34):
Is it companies assume leaderscan do it? Do they prioritize
otherwise? Like, what's going onthere? Oh, I have so many things
to say. Okay, well, greatquestions. Angie, I think
everyone can agree we're in ahighly
starved situation whereattention is, you know, so
(02:56):
difficult to keep in ouraudiences. So we we have to as
as leaders, as people do ourbest to stay in tune with one
topic, one story, one personbefore we pick up our phones or
listen to the dings that are inour world. And so attention is
(03:16):
difficult to keep, and it's evenharder now than it was before,
and with the advent of so muchvirtual communicating happening
throughout the world after 2020that's even more difficult to
keep people's attention so butone of the things you just said
really kind of rang a bell in mybrain, because I work with A lot
(03:40):
of folks who are ofteninterviewing for higher level
positions, or I know a lot ofcolleagues in the careers space.
And one of the jokes, therunning jokes that we have is
that at the top of every jobdescription you'll ever read, it
says this person must haveexcellent written communications
(04:04):
skills, and it is table stakesfor people, but very few people
actually have it in spades. Sowhy is that? I wish I knew. I
wish that everyone had to takepublic speaking 101, or a
rhetoric class in high schoollike I did, or that more
(04:25):
companies do what good companiesdo, which is provide ample
training in how to presentthemselves and the brand, so
that we can get the buy in thatwe need to run the company
better and faster, because it'snot happening.
And I think what's interestingis you and I also have another
(04:47):
overlap in that you work a lotwith technical people, and in
the career space, I do too, andwe know I am a former engineer
who loves people, so I havesympathy for this, and I have
the understanding of working inthe environment, but I don't
have the empathy for it.
Right? Which is why they pushedme into Project Manager early,
because it was like, oh, go getthe weirdo who loves talking to
people in the office. But weknow that that's that's an
(05:08):
example, and not to pick ony'all out there who aren't
listening, but it's a goodexample of a group that doesn't
normally, if we generalize,yeah, have those natural written
and verbal communication skillsor interpersonal skills, right?
And so I think that's aninteresting thing to talk about.
As you know, we come togetheraround this idea of the lack,
(05:29):
because it seems like at theespecially in companies, that is
a huge hole that exists in likethe training or the purposeful,
intentional, proactive upskilling of people rising up the
ladder, right? Well, Angie, whenyou think about it, it makes a
lot of sense, right? You're anengineer. You are a former
(05:50):
engineer. You are still anengineer, but you are also, you
know, compassionate andpassionate about communicating
and people when, when I workwith these teams of, you know,
scientists and researchers inacademic commercialization labs,
for example, or when I work withchemists or people in
(06:14):
engineering at large companiesand corporations, it's not and I
hear from the like, Well, weneed some help. We don't have a
good onboarding forcommunicating and presenting our
ideas. Our team needs help. AndI'm like, of course they do
like, of course they they're notgood at this. They are highly
analytical thinkers. They are inlove with the lab, in many
(06:39):
cases, like to tinker. Are drawnto numbers. Of course, that's
not like, no, like, of course,they're not great at this.
That's why they chose thiscareer track. And we have to add
that the next part, of course,which is, and let's get them to
be able to share theirbrilliance, so that they're
(06:59):
awesome ideas inside the lab gettraction outside of the lab. And
so we have this thisjuxtaposition is accidental
leadership happening all overthe tech companies all over the
world, and it leads, leads andbleeds into manufacturing
companies or anything that'sreally bent on technical
(07:20):
innovation. We need theseleaders to be able to explain to
non technical people what thevalue is of their idea, their
innovation, so that people cangreen light it and say, Yeah,
let's do that. That makes a lotof sense. I get where you're
going. I understand what this isgoing to do for our business and
(07:41):
our customers, and I'm in
you hit on something that reallyresonates and
hits a hits a very long timenerve, because as somebody who
is a natural people person andloves to communicate, I observed
quite a lot of interestingthings when I was practicing
engineering. Now I am arecovering engineer. And one of
(08:01):
the things I noticed, and it'svery validating to hear somebody
say this was the that accidentalleadership, and part of it is
because that's the only careertrack that we've established in
corporate America, which is, ifyou want to grow, you have to
take on people, leadership,project Leadership, or take over
the oversight of things and andpeople, which isn't necessarily
(08:25):
the natural strengths of thatanalytical type of people, but,
but companies don't do anythingto a accommodate for the
accidental nature of thathappening. And I remember, I
remember as a young engineerseeing that firsthand, because I
could tell that no one knew howto lead me. Yeah, they
definitely didn't know how tomanage me, but they didn't know
how to lead me, and it felt likeI was sometimes just hanging out
(08:48):
there, you know, blown in thewind, trying to figure out how
to be activated, because theecosystem didn't support it. And
what I love about your approachis you found a way to almost
systematize this. So I love thisconcept of like the machine, the
well oiled gears, and how visualthat is when it comes to how to
(09:08):
develop messaging that sticks.So tell us more about that
approach. I would love to Ilearned how to say what I'm
about to say after a specificinstance with an engineer. So
let me, let me paint the picturea little bit. I was working with
teams at NREL in their energy ICorps lab about five or six
(09:31):
years ago. And I'll be honest,Angie, I went into this, this
was the first year I did it. Ithink I've done four years or so
in a row of that since then,where I'm leading a session for
PhDs and people who are bringingsome idea out of the lab and
trying to commercialize it. AndI ran some little one on one
sessions after my big session.And coming into this whole day,
(09:54):
I admit I was not sure how itwas going to go. I thought to
myself, like these.
People are so smart, they arebrilliant at all these really
technical things that I amclueless about. What in the
world am I going to bring tothem? Like this is such no
brainer stuff that I'm bringingthem right, like, 25 words on a
(10:15):
slide. This is one of my corerules for presenting slide
design. But I had this pivotalmoment at the end, when we were
moving over to the one on onestuff, and this particular PhD
came out to me, and he was justraving about the session that I
had given. And I'm standingthere and I'm like,
(10:36):
this is such, this is such breadand butter stuff to me, but
that's, that's kind of the pointAngie was like, it's, it's not
to them and them, my stuff is,like the juicy engineering
exponents and, you know, crazychalk on the chalkboard
formulas, like, they think mystuff was brilliant. And I know
(10:59):
that they are brilliant. And Ithought, wow, I think I'm
actually meeting these engineerseye to eye in a way I didn't
realize. And it was my way ofrealizing I am an engineer. I'm
just not a chemical engineer,I'm not a physics engineer, I'm
not a mechanical engineer, I'm amessage engineer. And so that's
(11:22):
kind of where I began to thinkabout, how could I explain what
I do to engineers? Well, youknow, I am a message engineer. I
look deeply at the message andthe messenger, and I figure out
which gears are funky, brokenand sad and are not, you know,
well oiled. And I find the wayquickly to unstick those gears,
so that the entire persuasiveengine is running on all
(11:45):
cylinders, and the speaker isgetting what they want from
their audience after they finishpresenting. So that was like,
there's like, three things Iwant to point out there. One is
not even about thecommunications conversation
we're having. It's about how youidentified, essentially a value
proposition or a strength basedon your natural skill set and
(12:09):
not what you assumed would bevaluable to somebody. And I
think that that's reallyimportant for anybody out there.
Don't take for granted what youhave to offer because someone
else needs it. Yeah, exactly. Imean, when you for those
listening and watching, you knowyou're in your zone of
brilliance when the work you doseems so easy to you and other
(12:35):
people are like hanging on yourevery word,
that's how you know that you'rebrilliant at it, because news
flash, not everyone is. And Ithought everybody would be at
the things that I know. And themore I did it, and the more I
worked with groups that neededthis, the more I realized, okay,
(12:56):
actually, this is reallyvaluable to people, and I
probably could even slow itdown, because they were so
ravenous to to take it in andapply the lessons, because no
one to our point earlier, no onehad taught them how to do any of
this. Yeah. And so then thesecond piece I love is you
actually ended up applying yourown framework to yourself, and
that's in a way, how theframework developed, right? You
(13:18):
reverse engineered being amessaging a messaging engineer,
of like, okay, wait, I'm lookingat this very specific audience.
How do I create a mechanism or aprocess or an approach that's
going to resonate with them? Andout of it came something that
sounds like it's actually yourfoundational approach to all of
this. Now, yeah, it has become,as you can probably tell, I've
(13:39):
memorized that, but it resonateswith everybody, because even non
engineers understand that anengineer is a deep dive person
who unders, who gets into allthe nooks and crannies and goes,
you know, to the temp layer ofthe cake of detail, versus just
skimming, you know, the frostingon the top. And that's just how
(14:01):
my brain works. It goes right inand finds all the things. So I
just So, how does this look? Howdoes a well oiled machine look?
Great. Question. A well oiledmachine is able to traverse,
what are the five like, the five
steps to message mastery. Andthis is something that anyone
(14:23):
can go find at my website.
There's a there's a tab calledmessage mastery at the top, and
if you scroll down about a thirdof the way, you'll see five navy
blue squares, and the firstthree squares from left to right
are modules, one, two and threeand those Angie are all about
(14:43):
perfecting the message. Okay,I'll talk about that in a
second, but the fourth and fifthmodules of this five part path
are all about perfecting themessenger. That's you, and we
really can't, shouldn't domodules four and five and.
We've really planted and craftedbeautifully modules one, two and
(15:05):
three. So Module One is allabout understanding rhetoric and
the theory behind persuasionitself. Which is my master's
degree and what I love to tinkerin, that's the engineer part.
Module two is our trademark, howto model which has been,
which is becoming a book, and isa podcast by a different name,
(15:26):
called red light, green light.But that's the module where
people learn how to do thisperfectly, beautifully, step by
step. It's kind of the chocolatecookie of what we bring to the
world at on point. It's whypeople come to us module two.
Module three is savvy slides,and that's like, Okay, now I've
got the storyline. So a welloiled machine, Angie has a
(15:49):
speaker who's credible andconfident. It has a storyline
that flows and is relevant andis like, you can smell it
throughout the wholepresentation. You know, it's not
like staccato and disjointed,and it has beautiful slides that
are a guide for the audience andnot dripping with every other
(16:09):
word and all these formulas andlooks like, pardon me, crap,
right? So once we get modulesone, two and three, nicely
locked, and the whole message islike, 85% there. Maybe now it's
time to start module four, whichis rehearsing. And we developed
a rehearsal Trifecta to makesure people can really embody
(16:32):
the message and stop the wheelsof thinking from turning while
you're speaking. And then modulefive is for people who are doing
a presentation where there mightbe like Q and A, and that's
mastering your Q and A session,so that you can really get a
grip on the impromptu part ofpresenting, which is the Q and
A.
I have to laugh because I'm justsitting here thinking about a
(16:54):
conversation with an engineerwhere you have to tell them not
to have 972
scientific symbols on a slide.How's that go? Um, what the data
on there? Oh, Angie, I'm stillclimbing this mountain. I mean,
I have noticed, and this istrue, there are some large
companies that I work in where II try really hard working with,
(17:16):
like the the middle to uppermanagement folks, when I get to
the level of their slide decks,and they'll take it to their
manager for approval or whatnot,after I've worked with them, so
I'm still ironing all this out.And they're like, I have to do
it this way. And I'm like, oh,okay, so who's in charge in this
big whale of a ship of the slidedeck stuff? Like, I need to find
(17:38):
that Wizard of Oz and change thewhole situation, because that's
not happening in a veryfunctional way. So I'm still
working, in some cases, onfinding the person whose idea it
is to put 974, symbols on theslide. It's true, good idea. I'm
glad you're laughing. I'mcrying. You're laughing, yeah,
(18:01):
visual, visual cue, not PhDdissertation on your slide, and
it's, I mean, I actually, Ithink a lot of people, even that
aren't engineers, tend over overyou, and I just put a big
freaking image on it. That's my,that's my MO, right? Your
script, my friends, it's not,it's for your well, and if you
give them too much to read,they're reading instead of
(18:23):
listening. Yeah,
your competitor. It's becomeyour competitor. When you don't
think about your audience, yourslide deck is competing with
you, and this is a very badthing. So I think it's so
important to go back to thisidea of knowing you have to know
the messenger. You need to knowyourself. And I like that
there's kind of this like leadin to to establishing that
(18:43):
foundation and then practicallyrehearsing and getting to know
yourself at the messenger. Butat the heart of messaging is who
is my audience, which is why Iwant to linger around this
rhetoric thing a little bit,because I have a feeling this is
where Cindy and Angie get nerdy.Okay? And so I want to hear a
little bit, I think, evenfundamentally, explain what
rhetoric is and how it appliesto this conversation about kind
(19:06):
of executive communication andpersuasion. Sure, sure. Well,
the father of persuasion itselfis the great thinker and
philosopher, Aristotle. Now I'mgoing to nerd out a little bit,
but I promise it's relevant toyou. And I'll just kind of throw
out the
(19:27):
the definition of rhetoric. Andif all of you who are watching,
driving, running, whateveryou're doing, if you could just
imagine an equilateral triangle,for me, that's all you need to
do. But Aristotle says of themodes of persuasion furnished by
the spoken word, and that meanslike, of the ways that we can
(19:47):
persuade with speaking right?There are three kinds. The first
depends on the personalcharacter of the speaker. That's
you, and that's at the top ofthe triangle, credibility, okay?
The second on the audience andputting them into a certain
frame of mind, which is veryimportant, and the third on the
proof provided by the words ofthe speech itself. So if we look
(20:12):
at the triangle, we havespeaker, we have audience, we
have message. It's like, Well,duh, Cindy. And it's like, I
know. Well, we need to applythis better everybody. So we've
got, we have ethos, pathos,logos. And so anybody who's been
in classical education of anysort probably knows those three
terms. But that meanscredibility is ethos. That means
(20:33):
for pathos, it's or pathos, it'sheart feeling. And as a speaker,
we must get our audiences tofeel something, and hopefully
it's what we want them to feelabout us and our message. And
then that leads us to message,which is logos, meaning, okay, I
got them to feel something. Igot them to care about why they
(20:55):
should invest in my startup. Forexample, they care because they
see the value of my product.Now, once I've gotten them to
care with a short story, wink,wink, now I'm going to reason
with them, and I'm going to getthem to the logical end of why
they should think about andseriously consider putting money
(21:17):
in my hand. And so that's theconvincing part. So most people
do just the convincing part, andthey just throw data down and
hope that it does all the thingsit needs to do to get somebody
to say yes and Angie, what I'velearned in the many years have
been observing persuasivecommunication is that the
(21:39):
greatest downfall of the speakeris that they over assume,
Oh, they assume.
And we all know what happenswhen we assume, well, they over.
They assume that the audiencealready knows the problem that's
(22:00):
in the industry that theirinnovation solves, that their
strategic plan, if they're in abig corporation, they assume the
audience already is on the samepage with them about how big the
problem is and they are not.
And that's why we have to startwith heart, and we have to start
(22:22):
with story. And people freak outabout this because they're like,
Cindy, I'm not a storyteller,and I don't have time to tell a
story. And storytelling isn'tthat like kind of reading, like
a novel before I get to the goodpart? And the answer to that is
also no. Like, some of the beststories I've recently helped
leaders with at big companiesare 90 seconds long,
(22:44):
and it's how we retaininformation. There's a reason
that throughout various pointsof history, storytelling has
been such a core part of how wecommunicate and pass down
information and what I so younerd out on the rhetoric side of
this, I nerd out on thepsychology side of this. That is
the missed. That is my missedboat. Okay, behavioral economics
(23:08):
is the thing I would havemajored in had I known that was
a thing 25 something years ago,
and because it is, and there'snothing when we talk about so I
want to set the record straighthere. Persuasion is not
manipulation, correct? That's inmy book. Thank you for giving a
head nod to, I didn't even know.Yeah, love. It is not
(23:30):
queued right up there, yeah, butit is not, there is, and it is
negotiating in a way. And weknow everything in life is a
negotiation, from a job offer toWhat are we having for dinner
tonight, right? That's that'sthe case. And I think that where
this goes into psychology, andwhere there's like, I feel like
there's like, seven thingscolliding here, and I'm trying
to figure because this is verysimilar to what I talk about
(23:52):
when I talk to those of you outthere who are in my coach
community and ever heard me talkthrough how to sell
this is, this is essentially theframework, because what people
usually do is go straight to theassumption that the potential
client has made about theirneed, without building the
credibility to do the duediligence, to meet them where
they're at and actually tellthem what they need, and go into
(24:14):
that advisor position from theget go and now sell into the
heart of the matter, which helpsthem come around to the buy in,
right? And so, again, this isnot manipulation. It's not icky,
but people buy almost everythingemotionally. Yeah, they do. It's
proven time and time again instudy after study. And
(24:37):
I will debunk a myth here foreverybody. Yeah, I like deepest.
I'm going to, I'm going toactually say this out loud, but
in my book, I did a lot ofresearch on this number.
That story is 22 times morepowerful than a fact. Okay? And
I've said that a lot, and I haveto walk it back, because we did
very deep research and realizedit's not 22 to.
(25:00):
Times. It is 13 times morepowerful than a fact, but it is
not, in fact, 22 so I declaretoday that it is and I have the
resource. I have the source. Ican't spit it out to you right
here, but isn't thatinteresting? Like someone out
there has led a lot of peopleanyway to believe that story is
(25:20):
22 times more powerful than afact. When irony act, it is 13
times more powerful than whichis still substantial, powerful,
exactly. And I and actually not,not to go there, but we'll just
use time and place that we aretalking right now to prove that
point. Yeah, that that, what arethey? What's, what's the term
(25:40):
like fact has become, has beenput into question because of
persuasive and, in this case,manipulative storytelling. And
so that is just a current, realworld example. Well, to prove
the 13x of how much storiesrelate, and I also want to
clarify the fact that, like,when we're talking about, you
(26:01):
know, I've gotten into theselling thing, yeah, but in a
way, if you're an executivetrying to get your team to buy
into change, buy into a newstrategy, you're selling right?
And so that word is applicableto kind of any situation where
you need to use this liketriangle, and apply it to the
way you communicate an idea, athing, an opportunity, a
(26:25):
product, whatever it is, in themost effective way it is
received by the audience, right?And if we need more people to
get into our boat, we need toget them in by using the levers
of rhetoric. And so the what dowe do with this triangle? Well,
you use it as a baseline. Andwhenever you're getting ready to
present something formal or eveninformal through a conversation,
(26:49):
we want to evaluate, who doesthe audience think that I am in
terms of my credibility and myconfidence, that's this the
speaker piece. And then, youknow, what is my what is my
message? What do I really needfrom them or want to tell them?
And then finally, and mostimportantly, who is my audience?
(27:10):
But more more more so, where arethey in relation to my idea, and
how do I meet them, where theyare and not where I am, one of
the most harsh sounding piecesof advice I have to give
frequently to clients is I don'treally care what you want to
(27:32):
tell your audience.
What is it that they need tohear from you in order to move?
And those are different things,usually, and it's not like I'm
being crass or rude, but it'slike it doesn't matter how much
detail and technical prowess youhave about your ideas and how
(27:54):
it's not about showing peoplehow smart you are. You You are
smart. We know that, but besmart enough to know that your
job is to reach your audiencewhere they're sitting, not from
where your high horse or notthat people try to do that
Angie, you know, but like wegotta start. We gotta meet them
where they are, and then bringthem with us.
(28:16):
And I think that's the wordempathy comes to mind here. I
think you have to. You have to,even if you can't directly
empathize, you have to figureout how to get yourself in their
shoes, right. There's the yourperspective, their perspective,
third party perspective, and themore you can give yourself that
well rounded view, helps thatidea of knowing maybe what their
assumptions are, right and wherethat gap is, how to get them
(28:39):
there, but also what they careabout. And I think this is
really important at an executiveand leadership level, because if
you don't truly care about whatyour team cares about, you ain't
got no business being in thatseat. Sorry. Amen, amen. Yes.
And you know that is why myphone rings. My proverbial phone
rings, because in order to dothat well, Angie these leaders
(29:03):
who want to sit in the seats oftheir audiences and figure out
the best way to communicate tothem, they're not very good at
that, and they don't really knowhow to go about it. They know
they need to like to be more intune with their audiences, but
once and so we have to slowpeople down to speed people up.
That's kind of what we do. Wehave to slow you down so that
(29:24):
you can not just know like thepsychographics and demographics
of your audience, but you needto think like they think. And
you need to do better. You needto do one more than knowing your
audience. You need to be them.And it's like, wait, what? How
do you do that? Well, you needto get up out of your chair. And
I have a whole beautifulvisualization exercise in
(29:46):
chapter two of my book to teachpeople how to do this that's
really powerful, where youliterally get up in your mind's
eye from the stage that you'reabout to speak on, and you walk
all the way to the back of theroom that you're about to speak
to, and you sit in the back of.
A row, and you look up atyourself and you start thinking
about what you need to hear fromyourself. So you're like
(30:06):
Twilight Zone kind of asituation, but very powerful,
like when you're not you and youare them, you can create a
killer message, but it's veryhard to do that, and it requires
guidance from a good coach orsomeone who really knows what
they're doing, and time to to,like, simmer and think through
(30:27):
like, Okay, now that I'm them,what do they think about me? My
idea, where are they in relationto the change I want to make,
and what story is going to hitthem between the eyes? What
stories should I tell? And so wehave a lot on story selection so
that we we don't mess that partup.
Don't be out of touch. And also,I don't know if you all noticed
(30:50):
what Cindy did, and I don't knowif Cindy knows what she just
did, but she just used the threeparts of rhetoric to make me so
super excited to read her bookthat I wish it was on a shelf
right now.
Oh, tell me, what did I do?Serious. So what you did in
about 90 seconds was buildcredibility around why we need
(31:13):
to have this visualizationexercise. You explained it in a
way that made me emotionallyconnect with wanting to do it.
And so now, logically, I wantto, I want to get the book in
order to have the exercisefantastic in real time, folks.
So now is probably a good timeto tell everybody about this
book that is coming out, becauseyou will be able to get it soon.
(31:35):
Yes, but tell us a little bitmore about it and how we can get
on the wait list and just how westay in touch with all of you in
this kind of great idea ofcommunication. Oh, thanks,
Angie. This has been a reallypowerful conversation. The way
to get on the wait list for thebook or to get a pre order and
stay in touch with us is at thewebsite page, which is on point,
(31:56):
dash communications, forward,slash book, and the book that
we'll drop it in the commentshere before the show ends. This
is my postcard of the title andthe cover. This is the cover.
It's called red light, greenlight. And it's called how top
leaders present with Polish, getbuy in and become more
(32:18):
influential. And Angie, this isall about this is this is all
about the how to model, which wedeveloped and trademarked to
help people get to stories thatstick throughout their
presentations. And so the how tomodel is is unpacked throughout
the book. Each chapter is aletter. How to is an acronym,
and it's what you're supposed todo when you're sitting in the
(32:39):
back row. Your audience in theback row is asking the speaker
these five things every timethey hear a presentation, hook
me, orient me, win me over thatyou've got the right solution.
Tell me more about this so youcan engage me logically. And O
is, offer me, offer me a way todo something. That's the ask so
(33:01):
H O, W, t o, is the five starpath, which, by the way, sits on
top of a story arc, the fivepoint story arc from Gustav Ray
tag, who came up with that arc,that story, but he did come up
with the five point arc. Butthis book teaches you why you
need to engage in heart, how todo it well, and how to get
quickly and effectively to thedata dump that you are going to
(33:24):
shine in. Because people lovethe data stuff, they struggle
big time with that first lettero, the orient me is the hardest
part. So that's one of thechapters that you do not want to
skip or miss and you might needto read a couple of times to
understand how to build theright storyline for your
audience to get into thedownward arc of the of the the
(33:47):
rest of the presentation. So shejust did it again. Everyone. You
can't help yourself. I love itso much. You're just, you're a
walking example of exactly howthis all looks. And it's I, I'm
sitting here drawing parallelsof, like, okay, now I
understand, like, why I've beenable to achieve in certain
places. Because I'm, like, doingthis without necessarily
realizing which, by the way, ifyou're good at this kind of
(34:10):
stuff, is nice and validating.But you also might get some some
real tools. So I can't, I'm, I'mgonna go sign up and be on the
book wait list. This is whatyou're done. So that's in
comments. In addition to thebook, How does everybody else
follow along to this? Like, youknow, philosophers to style
wisdom
out of you? Cindy,
(34:30):
well, I'm most I'm most presentat LinkedIn, and that's where
you can find me at. Cindyscolicki, I have a company page
where you can get quick tips andsee where we are on media like
podcasts like this. No moreMondays. I also have a podcast
that just launched in earlyFebruary called red light, green
light. So we're always excitedto share our episodes, which
(34:54):
drop Fridays at nine Eastern.And we are bringing you guys,
amazing storytellers who.
Are in the science, tech andinnovation space and sharing
their insights after more than2025, years in business, and
we're having really funconversations, just like this
one. I love it. I can't wait toto listen in for more episodes
(35:14):
of that to come out. Yeah, thisis and here's the thing we
talked about this so much in theconcept of in the context of
executive and leadership andteams. But there is, there's
great pearls of wisdomthroughout this that can apply
to a food business, at home withyour children, with your spouse.
(35:35):
This is the kind of stuff thatI'm so grateful that you're
willing to come and, like, geton the soapbox and stand in the
echo chamber about how importantit is to know how you
communicate and know how youdon't communicate, because
stepping into the authentic wayto connect with this concept is
going to resonate, and it willhelp, you, know, build a
(35:56):
stronger team, whether that's inyour personal life or whether
that's at work. Yeah. Angie, forthose could I give one final
thought to those listening whoaren't like executives and who
might be more like those smallbusiness owners trying to get
you know their their businessesforward, I would drop one
thought for all of thoselisteners, because your ability
(36:17):
To listen well and ask goodquestions will help you find out
where your prospect is, forexample, that you might want to
sell to, or your audience ofpartners is. So get really good
at asking the right questionsand and not talking so much at
(36:37):
the beginning as listening,because that's how you're going
to learn what it feels like tosit in their chair. So you can
solve their problem with yourinnovation, or whatever you've
your service, right? Yourproduct or service. So flip the
switch a little instead of, liketalking a lot at the beginning
of an encounter, ask goodquestions first, and you can use
(37:00):
G, you know, all kinds of llmsto help come up with some of
those examples, chat GPT or grokor whatever, and get some really
nice open ended questions,because people like to talk
about themselves.
I want to start a whole newepisode right now, Cindy.
Because
Cindy to come here and tell allof you that, because if you've
(37:20):
ever been coached by me inbusiness, they're sitting
people, somebody's out thererolling their eyes, like,
seriously, I got another one ofthese people who says, Ask an
open ended question and listenfor 22 minutes, pick up on the
bites, and then you've got youryou've got the actual problem,
versus the assumption, yeah,that you can, you can get to the
heart of the matter, becausethis is you even, you even took
(37:41):
the words out of my mouth that Itell people all the time, we
just want to be heard. Andrarely do we have somebody in
our life who actually listensand as a coach or as a service
provider, as a consultant, ifyou can be that person,
you just changed the game foryourself, for your engagement
and how you're going totransform that client. And all
(38:02):
of that goes back to this biggerpicture philosophy that we've
been talking about for the last35 minutes. So how's that for
Mic drop? So great. I love it. Ilove it. And then people love
their Mondays. If they canfigure out how to do all these
things
more there we tie it all in.That's right, you know how to
communicate well, get people tobuy in and kind of convert that
(38:24):
whatever that conversion needsto be. Yeah, everything becomes
a lot easier, and then you canlive and work more
authentically. How's that forjust tying in every single year
and then you look and feel likea bomb? Yes, it's great. Thank
you so much. Angie, this wasamazing. Sydney, this is
fantastic. Thank you so much forjoining us. Everybody out there,
thank you for listening intoday. I hope you got at least
(38:46):
one little piece of inspirationto light a fire under you. I
can't imagine how you would notreach out to Cindy. Get on the
wait list for her book. Link tothat is in comments. And as
always, we will see you nextweek for another edition of no
more Mondays podcast. Have agreat week. Everybody. Bye.
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