July 17, 2025 • 50 mins
Co-Host Dr. Laura Sicola (https://mountaintoppodcast.com/sicola) VIDEO VERSION: https://mountaintoppodcast.com/youtube My returning guest is Dr. Laura Sicola, TEDx speaker and author of Speaking To Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice. The last time she was on, we meant to talk about how to master your leadership voice, but instead ended up talking about how your name matters in dating and attraction. So as promised, she's back to cover what we had originally planned. What's the first step to using your voice to get ahead in your career, and indeed in life? Find out about what Laura calls "the linguistic glass ceiling" and how to blast through it. What are the special communication skills that are unique to leaders? How can high IQ guys fall into traps that are uniquely set for them? As it turns out, the way to make people think you're smart and competent is very similar to how to make them think you're a cool guy. Laura explains that in detail, including how the "dance of communication" ties into it. How do we pigeonhole ourselves into poor leadership communication, simply by overlooking the nuanced finesse required in most situations? Better yet, how do we fix that? How do you adjust both the objective and subjective elements of your communications style based on who exactly you're leading, and in what context? How can you earn respect through your communicative leadership rather than demanding it? What's the real relationship between what you say and how you say it? (Hint: It may not be what you've heard in the past.) How can you "match the energy" of the person you're talking to in a way that builds respect and rapport? What are the big mistakes that even major companies make when attempting to communicate to their customer base in a way that creates admiration and goodwill? Get in on the new VIDEO version of the podcast at https://mountaintoppodcast.com/youtube
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You can find the video version of this episode at mountaintoppodcast.com front slashYouTube.
you
Live from the mist and shrouded mountain top fortress that is X and Y communicationsheadquarters You're listening to the world famous mountain top podcast and now your host
(00:24):
Scot McKay Greetings gentlemen, welcome to yet another episode of the world famousmountain top podcast.
I am your host Scot McKay You can find me all over social media tick tock on X on YouTubeum And on the other one that I always forget
Scot McKay and at real Scot McKay on Instagram and threads, but gentlemen, please don'tuse threads.
(00:47):
It's just a cesspool.
It's awful It's just a bunch of people bitch slapping each other and just I don't knowabout you But I like to go through my life bitch slap free now that we're doing video here
to go with the audio And I have a great pace for audio podcasting if you guys haven'tnoticed already So if you're listening to the audio feed of this, you're probably doing
(01:09):
yourself a big favor, but hey
YouTube is present they're taking over and so hey here we are looking all spiffy onRiverside FM doing our podcast and Accidentally totally.
This is a complete coincidence.
I completely honest with you.
That's the way it is Dr.
(01:29):
Laura, so Cola is my returning guest who on the other hand looks great on video as you cansee She is a veteran of Riverside FM.
So she's been like
talking me through the baby steps here of getting started, but I think we're doing prettygood.
mean, we're looking, looking all decked out here with our frame that says mouth and toppodcasts and everything.
Last time when you were on, first of all, welcome Laura.
(01:53):
We're glad to have you back.
so great to be back, Scot.
Thanks for the invitation.
Yeah, for sure.
How do you feel about being, uh, what I first termed a crash test dummy.
And then you were looking for a more complimentary term.
So I went with guinea pig and you're like, I don't think that's the one I said, all right,well, how about test pilot?
sounds really brave.
Yeah.
Okay.
So test pilot is it is you are usually a cohost.
(02:16):
Now you are my co test pilot.
So there's two of us in this cockpit, which is probably appropriate.
Uh, last time we talked about your Ted talk.
I sort of hijacked the show.
You know, something's gonna get hijacked, that's the way to do it.
It was a great conversation, which is why I'm back again.
I had so much fun the first time around.
Especially if you're co-pilots in the cockpit, that's the only way to get hijacked.
(02:37):
You don't want to go old school with the hijacking if you're two pilots in the cockpit.
So keeping it virtual, right?
Yes.
We're going to talk about talking like a leader, because last time we got just mightilyderailed talking about your TED Talk, which has got 7 million views.
I think it's always more fun to have uh more views than dollars in your bank account.
(02:58):
That's, I think, what we're all shooting for.
um I don't know if that's case.
I challenge that.
Give me $7 million and let me compare.
And you won't need YouTube anymore.
You'll have the seven million large.
There you go.
But it was such a great show because you were talking about how your name matters.
(03:20):
after the hundreds of shows, yeah, I mean, hey, I'd like to have as many dollars in mybank account as I have episodes under my belt.
That'd be great.
500 Sounds Good.
And it was a great show because it was so original.
But...
You know the guys watching and listening are probably going to be greatly entertained bythis That wasn't the plan I completely you know knocked you off the rails and It was
(03:47):
supposed to be about talking like a leader which yes admittedly is a fantastic Fantastictopic and that's what we're to talk about today.
So let me formally introduce you to these guys.
Dr.
Laura.
So Cola is from Philadelphia uh
home of the Super Bowl champs.
Good for you.
Not next year.
(04:09):
My Ravens are coming up I-95 for you.
You mean you weren't teaching them how to talk like a leader and that translating ontofield success?
If there's a WAC credit for it, I will send them my bill.
Being a special consultant for the Philadelphia Eagles would have at least as nice a ringto it as leadership communication and Influence coach, right?
(04:31):
Yeah.
Okay.
So now you have a special way of kind of uh Helping people access wrap their head aroundwhat you do for a living and you just said that before could you repeat that for these
guys?
I mean, by background, Scot, I'm a cognitive linguist.
That's the PhD part.
my job really is to work with leaders and help them close the three inches between yourbrain and your mouth.
(04:54):
That's something like a cunning linguist, is it?
That is a different skill.
Okay, gotcha.
For a different podcast.
Most definitely.
So you're closing the three inch gap between your right here.
Yeah, did you ever have one those moments Scot where you're talking and you suddenly thinkto yourself that sounded better in my head?
Never.
But, I've had moments where I've been urged to close this 3 inch gap.
(05:18):
That's called my mouth.
So somebody else gave you the benefit of the doubt perhaps that what came out of yourmouth may have sounded better in before it came out.
That's really an interesting take because I'm might be a total sick puppy and a weirdo,but it's usually the other way around for me.
Well, the first time I.
(05:38):
Spit out a thought.
It's usually the most best perfectly worded version of it ever.
So if I don't write it down, it's gonna sound awkward the second and third time.
You know what it's exactly like?
Back in the day when we had D used to record voicemails and you didn't know whether youwere gonna hit like the two or get me able to hit, you know, pound two and erase and
re-record and it would just send it, which has become meme worthy in movies, right?
(06:03):
It's like a Hollywood.
Very much right out of swingers.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But it works for him in the end anyway.
So I'm one of those guys who was trained in that generation that I better get this rightthe first time.
And the incredibly funny part, at least to me, because I like to make fun of myself, I'm aself-deprecating sort of dude when necessary, is I could never do that.
(06:31):
Now I can sit here on a podcast and, you know,
be pithy and witty and all that stuff.
But when it comes to leaving a voicemail or recording your own voicemail prompt, right?
Yep.
No way.
It wasn't gonna happen the first time.
And I don't know if you're like me, but the more takes I have to attempt, the worse itgets.
(06:54):
just might.
I start pressuring.
you got it.
no, go ahead and add, yeah, see, as well as I know how to talk, I can't even pronounce theword elaborate.
uh That's why I'm gonna let you elaborate instead of me go ahead and tell us a little bitmore or a lot bit more about what inspired your book speaking to influence mastering your
(07:15):
leadership voice and uh Talk to me about your version of the story in terms of reallyTightening what you say and wishing it would come out different.
That's all very interesting
Sure.
You can only go so far up the career ladder based on your technical expertise, right?
Whether you're an engineer, you're in finance, you're in design, you're in something else.
(07:39):
Then you hit what I call a linguistic glass ceiling.
And if you want to get above that ceiling into the higher leadership, the more executiveranks, the senior spaces, then there's this lateral shift that you have to make.
And it's no longer about how well you execute the tasks that you've been priding yourselfon your skills for so long.
(08:00):
Now, suddenly, it's about how you communicate and how you lead those people who are nowdoing the job that you were doing for so long and everybody else.
So maybe you were in finance, but now you have to lead the finance people and communicatewith the tech people and with the sales people and with the marketing and whoever else and
(08:20):
the HR people.
You got to be able to translate that genius, that vision, that expertise so that no matterwhat kind of person you're talking to, they get it.
Because they don't think like you think.
So can you translate it or are you going to sit there and keep staring at each other andgoing, why don't you get it?
I said it in a way that was perfectly clear.
(08:41):
What's wrong with you?
It doesn't get you up past that linguistic glass ceiling and into the senior ranks.
Do you remember the Chi-Chi's restaurant chain?
They were wonderful if you were a gringo and lived up North, because you thought you wereeating Mexican food, but really you were just eating really delicious Mexican version of
Olive Garden, basically.
Got it.
It was tasty, but it wasn't Mexican.
(09:02):
It was one step up from Taco Bell.
But I remember when Chi-Chi's opened in 1983 in Baltimore.
There's a reason why.
It was the only Mexican restaurant.
in Baltimore.
Got it.
No one had ever eaten Mexican food before.
That was the first.
The lines were around the corner.
(09:24):
So was wildly popular.
So popular that I thought I would be popular if I went and got a job there.
Okay.
Well, it was my first job ever.
Basically, I worked as a bus boy or a service assistant.
They used to call it an essay, you know, back at house called it that at, um, at Chi Chi'sin Timonium, Maryland.
which has been raised and it's probably now a car dealership now that's already been torndown, terrible.
(09:50):
And they gave me a boss who was hired because I think at the time she was probably theonly Mexican lady in the entire city of Baltimore.
So she got the job, know, cultural appropriation, let's hear it for that.
And I remember one time she got mad at us and fired a couple of us because we wouldn't dowhat she told us to, we wouldn't do what she told us to do.
(10:11):
But she didn't realize, we finally, know, as sheepish as we were, went to the GM and said,well, she sort of yells at us in Spanish.
And no hablamos, you know?
And when we said no hablamos, because I actually was taking Spanish in school.
That's where part of the brownie points were going to be, because I could come back andgive reports to all the cute girls in my Spanish class about what it's like to work in
(10:34):
basically, Ursa, Mexico.
And he was like, well,
If you can say no a blum, well, she can listen to what she knows, what she's telling you.
And then we were like, no, we really can't, but she kept her job and we didn't.
So that's my, that's my chichi story.
But you know, that's really ineffective to go and talk to someone in a language they don'tunderstand and expect them to follow you.
(10:56):
That would classify as poor leadership.
Don't you think?
And that's literal and figurative.
if you're a finance person and you're talking to the engineers in all sorts of financedetail and you're going, they're not all excited about the details as you are, it's like,
okay, or if you're in tech and you're all lost in the features and all the bells andwhistles of this and somebody in sales is going, I care about this, why I just need like
(11:20):
four features, I needed to do this.
Just tell me what button to push.
Don't tell me why it works.
I don't care why it works.
So can you translate to the people in a way that they will understand it?
And it is, it's their job to listen.
Look, communication is two ways.
So you have to be an open-minded listener, but at the same time, you got to recognize,okay, how do I make sure that I'm speaking in a way that they will understand?
(11:45):
That all makes perfect sense, you know, even if it's not something we're activelyself-aware enough to be doing in our daily lives right now, it sounds perfectly loud and
clear to me that, that, that the point you're getting across makes sense.
What also is loud and clear to me right now is guys drilling in the background in yourhouse.
So this is going to be a really nice test.
(12:08):
Actually, usually I'm really fastidious about this.
was afraid of that.
we need to reschedule, we can reschedule.
No, no.
Okay.
(12:32):
Scheduled yesterday.
My husband told me up five o'clock yesterday by the way, the guys are come tomorrow to putin a new air conditioning unit and I went you're telling me now I Got two podcasts like on
the books for tomorrow afternoon
remarkably perky and in a wonderful mood for someone who's been told their HVAC system hasto be replaced.
(12:52):
That would knock me off my game for a few weeks grumbling about that one.
Fortunately, it's not going to be, God willing, it's not going be a few weeks.
Don't put that out into the universe, I will not appreciate that.
Okay.
Hopefully, it's just one and done.
We get it done today and all systems are go for tomorrow.
Well see you might really have $7 million in your bank account if you're not worried aboutreplacing the HVAC system.
(13:13):
The rest of us peasants, mean if the HVAC has to be replaced in our house, you know, we'reeating ramen noodles for six months.
happy about it.
I'm still not happy about that.
There are plenty other things I would like to do for that money.
if thank us, the thing dollar source.
You know if I ever went into another career and I was selling things because I know you'retalking to the sales guys out here as well as the engineers and everybody else but I mean
(13:37):
first of all as a little bit of a tangent if you're a sales guy and you don't know how totalk like a leader you're not going to be leading the sales team
Ever.
close with any division.
Right, it goes for negative division, but you're also not going to be closing a lot ofdeals.
That's correct.
And park that thought for a second.
But, you know, I hear lot of drilling in the background and every time I hear drilling, Ithink of the movie American Sniper.
(13:59):
So that's the mental image I've got right now as we go through this podcast.
So let's hope I can stay equally perky.
Well, and that nobody comes busting through my door with one of those drills.
So at least now I've got a witness.
Well, didn't narc to the American soldiers as an Iraqi, did you?
I don't think you're set up for that.
(14:20):
All right.
So what you're talking about in terms of talking like a leader is all very objective sofar.
Now you've kind of hinted that there's a subjective side to it.
Sure.
Yeah.
So mean, back in my day, in my day, when I used to work for Lucid Technologies, that's howlong ago it was.
(14:41):
We used to bring very, very smart people in from Bell Labs, know, Sheldon Cooper IQs whoreally had no social skill.
And I could go on and on with stories about what it was like just to hang out with some ofthese guys.
It was crazy.
Sometimes it was creepy.
Okay.
And they would get together with the guys who were the brainiacs over at SBC at the time,now back being AT &T, standing in front of millions of dollars worth of computers and
(15:08):
networking systems.
and they would talk shop with each other.
And they were able to understand each other.
I mean, they were probably their own little echo chamber of people who actually got eachother on planet earth.
So it was like a happy dance when they were together, right?
Me, I got paid more than those guys.
(15:29):
Why?
Because what you're talking about.
I actually in my first online dating profile ever when I still worked there.
they would ask you these basic questions that you were expected to answer, you know, likea fifth grade essay, know, exciting times in the online dating world.
And uh everybody's had generic cookie cutter, you know, who am I and what am I lookingfor?
(15:51):
So I said, I want to be different.
I understand.
I got to stand out.
And I put my job is to translate engineer-ish into English for decision makers.
And, you know, women would ask me, what do you mean by that?
And that's exactly what I mean by that.
I would sit in those meetings and buy them lunch and these guys were like, why is this guygetting paid so much just to buy lunch and smile and wear a tie?
(16:12):
Because I would go back to the guys who were gonna pull the trigger on the actual deal andtell them everything that happened in that meeting in terms they could understand and how
it was going to increase the profit for SBC in the future if they went with our product.
And these guys would be like, oh, McKay, I'm so glad you showed up and made that all clearfor me.
I feel so much better now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
They would thank me profusely.
(16:34):
for articulating that information to them in terms they could understand.
So what you're talking about is not to be underestimated.
It's extremely powerful.
No, you can underestimate it if you want to stay where you are and not progress in yourcareer.
Exactly, exactly.
But it is it is a skill you have to learn.
Yes, and you know, I hate the term soft skills because the irony is soft skills are hard.
(16:55):
There's nothing easy about them, which is why I have a job.
we're, some of us are happy about that, but the, it's, you know, you've got age boxes andthat's for sure.
But you know, you mentioned a whole bunch of things that I just jotted down theobjectivity versus subjectivity, you know, the, the,
(17:16):
Universal laws of physics are kind of objective, they happen, but how, what they look likein different contexts changes, right?
So, you know, when you're talking about, you know, the guys who are scary smart, who arecoming in and need to learn to translate, I mean, I'm a, I like to call myself a
recovering academic.
(17:37):
I was not, I never intended to be an executive coach.
I didn't even know that was a thing until, you know, something, an opportunity came acrossmy desk, uh
15 years ago or so.
coming out, I was a professor.
So that was my world, the academic space.
was like, they beat into my head for a decade, how to write, how to speak.
(17:58):
It's like if half of your words didn't have at least four syllables in it, you weren't cutout for this world.
you got to keep, you know, you to write in a way that was publishable in the whateverjournals.
So this was a badge of honor that I had earned that I could write like them, talk likethem, be part of those conversations.
Like you talk about those physics physicists or whoever they were, those engineers whowere, they could talk to each other.
(18:23):
No one else understood them, but they got it.
And that's where I was coming from.
So, but when I shifted into the business world, like what people would get when I firststarted talking was like, okay, Laura, we've learned one thing, you're smart.
That doesn't help us.
So in other words, had Salman Rushdie as your dating coach and I'm sorry, your writingcoach and speaking coach, not Ernest Hemingway.
(18:47):
Yeah, it was just, I had to learn to translate.
And it was, in some ways it was painful because it's like, you just spent 10 yearslearning how to do this.
And now you're in a new audience that says, yeah, we kind of don't like it.
We don't like having to carry our pocket thesaurus with this everywhere we go to cola
Exactly.
And I'm going, well, you don't, do mean you don't have this vocabulary?
Why don't you have this vocabulary?
(19:11):
Exactly.
Exactly.
I don't want to obfuscate the meaning all the time.
You should just have the sesquipedalia and the vela.
So it's, I had to learn and it's not about dumbing it down.
It's about, and here's one of the most counterintuitive points that I can offer is thatthe best way to make people think you are smart is to be able to explain your point in
(19:33):
ways that are so
crystal clear to them that they go, oh, that makes sense, and it makes them feel smart.
If you can make them feel smart through the way that you communicate with them, they willthink you are smart.
And that's really not as easy to do as most people would think.
(19:53):
Well, you know what analogy comes to mind immediately is a absolute world-class athlete.
It depends on the sport, but a world-class athlete can make an incredibly difficultactivity look easy.
Like figure skaters and motocross racers.
(20:15):
Here's an analogy for you because you know, I'm I love to dance.
I, know, in my single days was doing a lot of swing dance was my favorite Lindy hop andstuff at salsa the second I am not an athlete.
But I moved to the verbs where they didn't have the access anymore.
Unfortunately, that's one of the things that I But the, you know, originally it was kindof funny because, you know, as a woman, you generally are the follow on the dance floor.
(20:41):
The guy's supposed to lead.
That's just the way it goes.
And I was a little miffed by that.
dynamic at first.
like, what are we still in the 50s?
But actually learned to like it because it's the one place in the world where I didn'thave to think.
I didn't have to make decisions.
I just got to enjoy the ride.
but what I realized was that no matter how novice or intermediate whatever I was, thedifference between a woman who can dance on the dance in those kinds of partner dancing
(21:05):
and a woman who can't is a good lead because I could dance with a guy who I'd never metbefore in a dance.
style Foxtrot or something where I'd had all of like, you know, three experiences anddidn't know beyond step number two.
But if he was a good lead, could follow him.
(21:26):
It was intuitive.
It was easy.
And people are like, my gosh, you're really good at this.
And I went, actually, well, thank you.
But no, he's a really good lead.
He could translate what he needed me to do.
And I could understand just through the body language, what it was doing.
He was really good at translating that, at communicating.
through the nonverbals.
And that's what it took.
(21:46):
He made me feel smart.
He made me look and feel like I knew what I was doing.
And that was great.
Those are the kinds of people you want to dance with.
Well, I would argue that men are crappy at dancing unless they know how to And that women,well, I guess it does, but uh in general, women are able to dance with a man who can lead.
(22:14):
And I don't think men can just get out there and dance, even if the woman leads them.
I think there's something primal there.
Yes, well, you, the men's supposed, if you're supposed to lead, you have to know whatyou're doing for yourself and then know how to translate what you have to know what you
want your partner to do and be able to convey it.
And that's tough.
I think it is definitely harder on the partner dance floor, not like club dancing whereeverybody's just doing their own thing.
(22:36):
I'm clueless on that front, but the...
Ironically, because that's the easy part.
Not to me.
See, that's where I feel self-conscious because I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't have the intuition for it.
I don't have the natural gift.
But on a partner dance floor, know, big band and swing or whatever it is, that's a lot offun.
But I don't have to think about it.
I could just go with the guy.
And if he's an elementary dancer, okay, you know, we'll do basic steps.
(22:59):
If it's what somebody really knows what they're doing, we can have so much fun and it'schallenging, but I can feel like I'm a lot better than I am.
You guys definitely, if you're a lead on the dance floor, it is a much harder place to bebecause
you have to know what you want both people to do and be thinking two steps ahead.
That's definitely tougher.
Well, for example, a very, very visceral general example is when men and women hold hands,I don't think we think about it much, but men almost always take the overhand position and
(23:28):
women take the underhand position.
I've only seen one couple in my entire life walking hand in hand where it was theopposite.
One.
Well, because the man's leading the woman.
he's taller.
It's really hard for me.
My husband's significantly taller than I am.
If I try to put the overhand position, my shoulder and my elbow have to go up like thisbecause his hand is up higher than mine.
(23:52):
It's like if a kid is holding an adult's hand, it's not about who's leading whonecessarily.
It's not physically comfortable.
You can't reach.
If you try to hold your kid's hand who's shorter than you and you do the underhand, youcan't do it.
but it's so universal.
I mean, I don't want to get into an argument about it, but I've just never seen, the onlycouple I've ever seen.
then it doesn't matter but
(24:13):
had that happen a lot because I'm not a very tall guy.
Never been an issue.
But I'll tell you what is an issue is when you're holding hands and one of those whoops,let's table that literally for the next time.
I'm like you, I'm from these coasts.
So I talk with my hands, especially now that we're on video.
And so I just knocked something over on my desk.
That'll come through nicely, especially on audio.
(24:35):
But
You know, I've gone to a lot of church services at evangelical churches in my day.
And you get into those weird prayer circles whereby holds hands and praise.
And you always have two men staying next to each other, forced to hold hands and they'reboth fighting for that over hand.
They're fighting for it.
(24:55):
And the only couple I've ever seen actually opposite, she was owning that guy.
She was wearing the pants in that relationship.
You know, it was, it was like, come here, follow me, let's do this.
And he was like, yes, dear, yes, dear with his tail between his legs.
So all of that's long for, I understand that if you're in a leadership position, how youaffect that leadership has to seem natural and it has to seem like it comes easy to you.
(25:22):
The phrasing of it that just keeps coming to mind.
It has to look, it has to be, it has to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I was going to say that the.
phrasing that comes to mind for me is has to be confidence inspiring.
Yes.
Which leads me to my next question and you know, I'm not sure where you're gonna takethis, but
(25:47):
oh I'm braced.
Okay.
It's okay.
It's not gonna be anything scary.
Not like the drilling.
You're talking a lot about very objective ways to talk to people, make it sound simple.
And another thing I would add to making people sound smart by helping convey perhapscomplex or complicated thoughts in simple language is anytime you make someone feel better
(26:15):
about themselves, you know, there's a trait reversal mechanism where they think you'rethat person too.
So the secret to being a cool guy.
is to make everybody else feel cool.
And a lot of people fumble that the same way they fumble trying to be the smart guy.
You don't bully people into submission with your brain power and make them think you'resmart.
(26:38):
They'll think you're an idiot or they'll wish you were an idiot.
So they'll project that upon you.
Well, I think most people realize when you're trying too hard to prove that you're smarterthan everybody else or whatever, it's like, dude, what are you compensating for?
Are you really that insecure on some other aspect of life that you just need to keepreminding us all semi-passive aggressively that you have this, that, or the other thing?
(27:03):
Okay, know, stuff shirt, do me a favor, take it someplace else.
You know, a key earmark of that, right, would be the person who uses those big 25 centwords incorrectly.
Right?
My style is pervasive, you know, that kind of thing.
Like Mike Tyson.
uh But anyway, the cool guy will make other people around him or her, cool gal too, right?
(27:27):
uh Feel cool, especially children.
Like, that is the coolest bike I've ever seen, man.
I wish I had a bike that cool, right?
That's always the cool dad.
So anyone who makes people feel better about themselves seems better to the people they'reaffecting that emotion in.
So everybody who goes around and, know, a lot of men are guilty of this, having a pissingcontest with other guys and, you know, playing one upmanship.
(27:52):
Well, that's nothing.
I used to do this and I'm better than you.
They just come off like a douche.
know, douchebags to me are best defined as people who think they're cool when they're not.
You know, that is fit every douchebag person I've ever met.
tries to prove it um
Yeah, terrible.
So, unless I come off that way, I want to ask you this next question.
(28:15):
you
I'll you.
the host.
it.
It's show.
All right.
So I know you're doing great.
You're very cool.
I like you and very smart and good looking too.
I mean, you know.
That's why they gave me the degree.
wasn't really because I wrote anything useful.
Well, was just hoping to come off in all those ways by saying so, you know, I was eatingmy own dog food over here, um, which is a terrible image for a video podcast.
(28:39):
It won't happen.
Don't throw milk bones at me.
It ain't going to happen, captain.
All right.
So like I said, we were talking about, um, this being very objective.
It's the words you choose to say, making it simple, Hemingway versus Salman Rushdie.
And yet I would, I would hope and trust.
(29:00):
that there's a huge big old subjective side of this also.
How you carry yourself, cetera.
Sure.
Well, and beyond that, honestly, what's objective are the simple principles of things likedon't talk over people's heads.
Don't try to prove that you're smarter than they are.
Don't...
Those...
Make sure that you're translating your argument, your rationale, your expertise in waysthat they can understand.
(29:28):
Those are all basic universal objective principles.
of good communication, of good leadership.
But all the rest is subjective.
you know, that's the finesse part is understanding.
we tend to – I hear a lot of false binaries, places where we pigeonhole ourselves and weend up limiting our own success because we just stuff like, well, I can be nice or I can
(29:53):
be strong.
And I tried being the other one and it didn't work and that's why I stay here.
Or I can be, you know,
whatever it happens to be, we set out these black and white choices for ourselves.
Finesse is all in the gray.
Diplomacy, leadership is all about the combinations.
(30:16):
think about it this way.
If uh you need to give constructive feedback to somebody at work, maybe the person youneed to give constructive feedback to is somebody who's really sensitive.
who's a little concerned about their performance.
know bonuses are coming up at the end of the year.
They took some heat for something previously, so they're a little on edge right now.
(30:40):
Or maybe the person that you are talking to has the feeling like, don't care, just give itto me straight.
If I need to fix it, I'll fix it.
I don't care.
I mean, I'll do it.
Just F and tell me.
So those two people might be on the same team, but you need to give that same criticalfeedback.
to those two people in very different ways.
(31:03):
You have to read the room.
Yes.
And it's how you give that feedback that changes everything because you don't want tocrush the one guy's soul and you don't want to have the other guy feel like, are you
afraid to tell me?
You're my boss.
If I made a mistake, tell me, I'll fix it.
Pull up your big boy pants and let's just move on.
got other stuff to do.
(31:23):
Stop coming in hot.
Right.
So neither is right.
It's just a matter of if you are the boss, you need to be able to address both in waysthat does two things.
Because diplomacy or tact is the strategic ability to balance two things.
It's the ability to honor the integrity of the relationship and honor the integrity of themessage.
(31:50):
So can you be clear, so it's unambiguous what needs to happen and why, and
still not have this person feel like you're either a total wimp or a total sledgehammer ofa human being.
So if you can do that both, a shorter version is the tact is the ability to make a pointwithout making an enemy.
(32:12):
You know, you're Italian.
think the term is al dente, can be applied to personality type tender, but firm.
Yeah.
That's the art of dancing that on that tight rope between, well, I've heard it applied inthis.
Yeah.
Uh, if you're an al dente person, you're tender, but firm.
(32:32):
Right.
And you're, you're able to be truthful short of being blunt.
You're still kind of nice about it.
Not being Mr.
Nice Guy, you're at least still likeable after you drop the hammer.
Yes.
And they may not like what your ultimate message is, but they don't feel disrespected as ahuman by hearing it.
(32:56):
And I think that's important.
They've saved face.
They don't feel like they're ashamed to come in and show you their face tomorrow, or theydon't hate you as a result and call you to borrow a term from you, the douche who they
have to report to every day.
Hey, I coined the term douche
Take a playbook from somebody's real right so in this podcast I can give this informationand I talk about this stuff on a lot of different podcasts I think I can safely say that
(33:24):
in the hundreds of shows I've been on not even including the hundreds of shows of my ownthat I've run uh This would be officially the first time I've ever used the word douche
But you know audience and that's okay
It's a huge faux pas to be a douchebag.
If you want to talk like a leader.
It's very counterproductive.
(33:45):
It will have the exact opposite effect you're hoping it'll have, which really reflects onyour judgment, your wisdom level, all those things that contribute to you looking like a
leader.
uh Talk to me about elocution, pronunciation, uh the cadence with which you use yourwords, the tone.
(34:06):
and your body language, even your facial semiotics.
Sure.
I think that all
That's a lot of big words in that question, Scot.
Well, you know, I have to consider who I'm dealing with and who my audience is.
I'm talking to you in terms you can easily understand.
words like elocution, I think about my audience and I end up saying douche.
See what I did there?
right.
(34:26):
No, I, I'm, I'm actually being serious.
I'm matching your energy, which I think is a hallmark of what you're talking about also.
And you're, you are smart and you love to banter in these ways.
So I'm meeting you where you're coming from.
I'm a Jersey Italian, so you gotta try a lot harder than that to offend me.
Well, I'm- I'm unoffendable.
(34:47):
Right.
safely in the gray.
Yeah, I feel like you and I go way back at this point, so what the heck.
But I think a lot of times guys lack the self-awareness, and we're talking to a maleaudience.
They lack the self-awareness to realize how they're coming off.
But, you know, do a few of these video podcasts and watch yourself post-production andyou're going to learn a of lessons real quick like.
(35:10):
I recommend that to all my clients, by the way, is that they do little mini videorecordings of themselves on their phone because I can't coach you until you see and hear
what I see and hear.
Otherwise, I know what you actually said and how it actually sounded and looked.
You know what you meant.
I guarantee those are not the same movies.
(35:31):
And if you don't believe me, ask your mother, ask your siblings, ask whoever, they'll tellyou the truth about
Or just compare CNN.com to FoxNews.com and you realize you can have two different moviesreally quickly.
Well, those are a whole different level of the D word again.
So I'll stop saying it loud, but I'll write it in that space.
Well, that's wonderful.
(35:52):
uh So what tips would you give these guys if they wanted to escalate their level of comingoff like a leader, maybe help escalate themselves up the corporate ladder or, you know, in
whatever their career is, this is going to be beneficial.
I can't uh imagine any career where it wouldn't be, even if you're a classroom teacher,professor.
(36:16):
Especially in the military is kind of trained in baked into the training
Yes, like executive presence, leadership presence, command presence, there's all differentterms for it.
And I think what's important, the one little nuance there is notice command, if we'regonna go with that military angle of it, the command presence, there is a massive
(36:39):
difference between commanding respect and demanding respect.
For sure, If you have to demand respect, you will never command it.
Yeah, you're probably not really being respected.
No, you're not exactly because they're going through the motions.
to demand it in the first place.
But it's something about how you do an awful lot of things, frankly, that have diminishedpeople's respect for you.
(37:00):
So you need to earn it again.
But the, so back to your original question, let's start with a key question that I oftenget, which is, which is more important, what you say or how you say it, right?
And the answer is neither as far as an either or.
That goes back to the
false binaries that we set up.
(37:21):
What's most important is that they integrate seamlessly.
What you say and how you say it have to match.
Because if they don't gel, your instinct, the listener is going, something's weird.
It's a lack of trust.
seems it's a crepey.
Yeah, it's just off.
(37:43):
And when something in your gut feels off, it doesn't matter that your brain's going, well,I understand the words, but
your guts going, yeah, but I'm not buying it.
So on things like even when we started the show today, you welcomed me on it.
And I'm glad to be here.
I loved talking to you the first time around, glad to have the second opportunity.
But if I had said to you, yeah, Scot, glad to be here too.
(38:05):
Thanks for inviting me back.
There's entire comedy movies written around that whole schematic.
Sure, but the words that I said are perfectly nice, know, on paper, they're wrong with it,but the energy doesn't match.
The energy completely undermines the credibility of that message.
(38:25):
Now, that being said, it's not just in that case, sure, it's the way you said it thatscrewed things up, but it works the other way too.
If I'm giving you feedback on this and, you know, I said to you, you know, it's got a, Imean,
Thanks for the invitation.
mean, I think you're a douche, but it's all good.
You're like, what the?
That's not, I mean, I know we used that word on the show, Think.
(38:49):
Was not.
It's like, but I said it nicely.
I was smiling when I said it.
isn't it more important how you say it more than what you say?
No, because what you say is the foundation of the message.
If you're a construction, if you do construction, you have the foundation of your housemust be solid first.
Otherwise, it doesn't matter what you build on it.
(39:10):
What you build on the foundation is the delivery.
So you've got to have both structures strong.
Important, you have to choose your words carefully, not being too technically detailed,not talking over people's heads, not being insulting and calling the names, not being, you
know, whatever it is.
And your delivery has to be appropriate for the audience and for the message and for thecontext at the same time.
(39:35):
When you can find that match.
That's where your leadership image is naturally elevated.
That's where you command the room and you command respect.
think that was an extremely well articulated version of X percent of communication isnonverbal.
(39:55):
Yes.
And so there's a uh really bastardized stat out there.
Well, you know, 55%, 80%, 90%, 90%.
So it's again, those numbers, if you ever hear like 7 % of all communication is, was wordsand everything else is not.
There's a study from the 1960s that was like this big, this itty bitty little study.
(40:16):
And it was so narrow.
That's in the moment, the number they came up with, it is not translatable.
to the rest of the world.
What the big takeaway from that study was is exactly what I just said.
When what you say doesn't match how you say it, your credibility is shot.
That's the takeaway from that.
(40:37):
uh you do need to have both solid what and solid how.
Good words and good voice and body language.
Well, we've already alluded to watching oneself on video or listening to oneself on audio.
You'll, if you take away the video component of it, which is ironic for me to say, causewe're actually adding the video component of this podcast, even as I'm suggesting
(41:00):
otherwise, but watching yourself talk is different than simply listening to yourself.
Cause you'll pick up a lot more.
It's kind of like a blind person's sense of hearing is heightened.
You'll give yourself your own window into that, which is probably a weird analogy.
But uh I follow exactly what you're saying.
I also think a lot of guys probably should slow down, especially if they come from wherewe come from, the East Coast.
(41:24):
uh Entire companies have gone bankrupt because they hired their entire inside sales forcefrom Boston.
And as soon as they started talking to Ohio and Arizona, these guys were like, I don'ttrust these people, click.
You have to have a lot of self-awareness.
So all that is very true, very real.
And I'm so glad you articulated it.
(41:45):
have you ever met someone who, while you're talking to them, you feel stupid?
Like you don't know how to talk or like, you're not very clear, but really you get backand you say to someone you trust, have you ever talked to that person?
I felt like I had really awkward social skills talking to that person.
Like I'd lost them all.
(42:05):
They are just all flown away from me after all these years.
And the person says to you, no, no, no, it's not you.
It's them.
Did you know someone like that?
Every now and then you encounter somebody, who lacks social cues or just is a total pokerface and you can't tell if they're hearing you, understanding you, think you're nuts, are
looking for the Acme trapdoor button so that the floor also opens under you to make you goaway.
(42:29):
Every now and then there's somebody who just, yep.
I'm not as quick as a road runner.
So sometimes I get caught flat-footed there.
Um, but yeah, it seems like there are these people out there, um, who, if you have aconversation with them, everything is a non-sequitur that comes back.
Like where are we going with this conversation?
Like I was talking about oranges and you're talking about apples and responses.
(42:52):
If we were always talking about apples, I don't feel too smart or cared for here in thisconversation.
And I've noticed those people are almost never leaders.
It is definitely, or if they are, it's not on a healthy team.
Ha
A very confused team.
Aren't frustrated because they don't frequently feel heard.
(43:12):
Well, I think this has been a fantastic conversation.
I'm glad we finally had it.
And what I want to do Dr.
Laura Sicola is uh send these guys, of all, to mountaintoppodcast.com front slash Amazon,where they'll find your book right at the top of the storefront there.
That's a dedicated storefront with all the books from all the authors that I've had on.
(43:35):
yeah, you're welcome.
And you guys who are listening to this show within a few days of it being released.
You're going to find that book right at the top.
And once again, it's called Speaking to Influence, Mastering Your Leadership Voice.
And you know that Laura is very smart.
And so you're probably already extrapolating that information to infer that she is also anexcellent writer as well.
(43:58):
I try to make it conversational.
It's the first main book that I wrote that was absolutely not intended for an academicaudience.
I actually felt a little dirty doing it because there weren't footnotes and biographiesand all sorts of stuff on every other page.
It was rather liberating as a matter of fact.
Good because we don't want to read all those erudite
Did I?
So it was, it's a lot of stories, anecdotes from clients, from my relationship with myhusband, with my kids, with whatever else.
(44:25):
Because the principles apply, whether it's at work or at home, social or professional,it's just, again, a matter of how they apply.
What are the, the nuanced details and how do you need to address each person individually?
Also, I want to send guys to mountaintoppodcast.com from slash Cicola S I C O L A, whichI'm sure you get this all the time.
(44:49):
C Cola.
I do get that every now and then I'll tell people they'll say, is that how you pronounceit?
the cola.
Yeah.
It's like Pepsi cola without the pep.
I'm the pep.
Hey, that's even better than the cough drop gig.
Yeah, fantastic.
Yeah.
Right.
You could do the Pepsi challenge.
You can do my challenge.
(45:10):
Well, there is a blind spot challenge in the book, every chapter.
the great part is that what I did was I took everything that I train, everything I coach,and I put it into this book with the idea of being that if you actually went through it
chapter by chapter, at the end of each chapter, there's a little challenge, exercise,recording, analysis, whatever it is.
that's why I was coaching you myself.
(45:32):
Just do it.
And by the time you get to the end, I guarantee you'll have at least one of these moments.
We're going, oh, that's why they weren't so thrilled with me afterwards.
Or that's why they're not giving me the response that I'm looking for.
okay, note to self.
Because I can't coach you again until you see and hear what I see and hear.
And this is a way to make sure that we both are watching the same movie.
(45:52):
Well, anybody who's ever done salesforce.com training in the business world, that'sexactly how they do it.
They give you something that's really incredibly tedious and draining, but they're tryingto make it sound fun.
And they give you two questions at the end, just to make sure your reading comprehensionis spot on.
Then boom, you got a badge onto the next one.
Remember that?
I had never had to do that, so we'll take your word for it.
(46:14):
Oh, 50 % of my audience is going, thank you for bringing that one up.
That's a painful.
No, not no, no, no, because they know how to communicate like a leader.
There's no twitching in leadership.
No twitching in leadership, please, not in public.
Right.
Okay.
So when men go to you guys listening or watching go to mountaintoppodcast.com front slashC Cola or Pepsi Cola without the pep product placement there.
(46:40):
Welcome guys.
Pepsi co.
Yeah.
Right.
What are they going to find when they get to your website?
My website is laurasacola.com and they will find all sorts of resources, lots of videos,of uh blogs and articles with all these kinds of tips and stories.
(47:03):
And there are resources in addition to the book, if they're looking for something likevideo or audio programs to help step them through different things, uh tons of information
there that you would love to hear from anybody.
You can also reach out on LinkedIn.
Life is an open book.
Quite literally, look at this.
Hopefully, guys will open your book and read about you and your book.
(47:27):
Exactly.
That's the most important part.
Heck with us.
It's all about them.
Well, wonderful.
Laura, thank you so much for returning.
It was fun to have you on the first time.
I would argue this has been even a more fun show, and I certainly appreciate you being on.
It was a great opportunity, Scot.
Always enjoy the conversation.
Absolutely.
And gentlemen, be sure to go to mountaintoppodcast and give some love tomountaintoppodcast.com that is, and give some love to our sponsors, Jaco Willinks Company,
(47:54):
Origin and Main, the Keyport and the guys at Hero's Soap.
When you use the coupon code mountainten, you'll get a 10 % off your order, matter whichone of our fine long time sponsors you do business with.
And guys check it out.
Some of you need to get on the phone and call me.
What you see is what you get.
Scot McKay has written on my passport.
I'm not playing a fictional character here.
(48:14):
I mean if I was I'd be doing a really bad job wouldn't I love
on the intention.
Right, exactly.
We're also really good job because I come off so authentic, one or the other.
But fortunately for everybody involved, we don't even have to worry about that because Ijust am who I am.
And when you get on the phone with me, having scheduled that time atmountaintoppodcast.com, you're gonna realize we can talk about what you got going on.
(48:38):
If you have ideas for the show, tell me what you think about the video version.
Maybe some of you went straight back to the audio, don't know.
Sounds like that to me.
This was a little more fun a little more humor came out on video I think this will be agood trend But whatever's on you guys might especially when it comes to you guys getting
better Relating to women in your life and maybe getting back out there after a divorce orsomething like that.
(49:00):
Hope you'll get on the Schedule talk to me for 25 30 minutes for free at mountaintoppodcast calm lots of other goodies there for you as well And until I talk to you again
real soon.
This is Scot McKay from X and Y communications
San Antonio, Texas Be good out there
you
(49:21):
you
Mountain Top Podcast is produced by X and Y Communications, all rights reserved worldwide.
Be sure to visit www.mountaintoppodcast.com for show notes.
And while you're there, sign up for the free X and Y Communications newsletter for men.
(49:44):
This is Ed Roy Odom speaking for the Mountain Top Podcast.
Peace.
oh
You can find the video version of this episode at mountaintoppodcast.com front slashYouTube.
you
Live from the mist and shrouded mountain top fortress that is X and Y communicationsheadquarters You're listening to the world famous mountain top podcast and now your host
(00:24):
Scot McKay Greetings gentlemen, welcome to yet another episode of the world famousmountain top podcast.
I am your host Scot McKay You can find me all over social media tick tock on X on YouTubeum And on the other one that I always forget
Scot McKay and at real Scot McKay on Instagram and threads, but gentlemen, please don'tuse threads.
(00:47):
It's just a cesspool.
It's awful It's just a bunch of people bitch slapping each other and just I don't knowabout you But I like to go through my life bitch slap free now that we're doing video here
to go with the audio And I have a great pace for audio podcasting if you guys haven'tnoticed already So if you're listening to the audio feed of this, you're probably doing
(01:09):
yourself a big favor, but hey
YouTube is present they're taking over and so hey here we are looking all spiffy onRiverside FM doing our podcast and Accidentally totally.
This is a complete coincidence.
I completely honest with you.
That's the way it is Dr.
(01:29):
Laura, so Cola is my returning guest who on the other hand looks great on video as you cansee She is a veteran of Riverside FM.
So she's been like
talking me through the baby steps here of getting started, but I think we're doing prettygood.
mean, we're looking, looking all decked out here with our frame that says mouth and toppodcasts and everything.
Last time when you were on, first of all, welcome Laura.
(01:53):
We're glad to have you back.
so great to be back, Scot.
Thanks for the invitation.
Yeah, for sure.
How do you feel about being, uh, what I first termed a crash test dummy.
And then you were looking for a more complimentary term.
So I went with guinea pig and you're like, I don't think that's the one I said, all right,well, how about test pilot?
sounds really brave.
Yeah.
Okay.
So test pilot is it is you are usually a cohost.
(02:16):
Now you are my co test pilot.
So there's two of us in this cockpit, which is probably appropriate.
Uh, last time we talked about your Ted talk.
I sort of hijacked the show.
You know, something's gonna get hijacked, that's the way to do it.
It was a great conversation, which is why I'm back again.
I had so much fun the first time around.
Especially if you're co-pilots in the cockpit, that's the only way to get hijacked.
(02:37):
You don't want to go old school with the hijacking if you're two pilots in the cockpit.
So keeping it virtual, right?
Yes.
We're going to talk about talking like a leader, because last time we got just mightilyderailed talking about your TED Talk, which has got 7 million views.
I think it's always more fun to have uh more views than dollars in your bank account.
(02:58):
That's, I think, what we're all shooting for.
um I don't know if that's case.
I challenge that.
Give me $7 million and let me compare.
And you won't need YouTube anymore.
You'll have the seven million large.
There you go.
But it was such a great show because you were talking about how your name matters.
(03:20):
after the hundreds of shows, yeah, I mean, hey, I'd like to have as many dollars in mybank account as I have episodes under my belt.
That'd be great.
500 Sounds Good.
And it was a great show because it was so original.
But...
You know the guys watching and listening are probably going to be greatly entertained bythis That wasn't the plan I completely you know knocked you off the rails and It was
(03:47):
supposed to be about talking like a leader which yes admittedly is a fantastic Fantastictopic and that's what we're to talk about today.
So let me formally introduce you to these guys.
Dr.
Laura.
So Cola is from Philadelphia uh
home of the Super Bowl champs.
Good for you.
Not next year.
(04:09):
My Ravens are coming up I-95 for you.
You mean you weren't teaching them how to talk like a leader and that translating ontofield success?
If there's a WAC credit for it, I will send them my bill.
Being a special consultant for the Philadelphia Eagles would have at least as nice a ringto it as leadership communication and Influence coach, right?
(04:31):
Yeah.
Okay.
So now you have a special way of kind of uh Helping people access wrap their head aroundwhat you do for a living and you just said that before could you repeat that for these
guys?
I mean, by background, Scot, I'm a cognitive linguist.
That's the PhD part.
my job really is to work with leaders and help them close the three inches between yourbrain and your mouth.
(04:54):
That's something like a cunning linguist, is it?
That is a different skill.
Okay, gotcha.
For a different podcast.
Most definitely.
So you're closing the three inch gap between your right here.
Yeah, did you ever have one those moments Scot where you're talking and you suddenly thinkto yourself that sounded better in my head?
Never.
But, I've had moments where I've been urged to close this 3 inch gap.
(05:18):
That's called my mouth.
So somebody else gave you the benefit of the doubt perhaps that what came out of yourmouth may have sounded better in before it came out.
That's really an interesting take because I'm might be a total sick puppy and a weirdo,but it's usually the other way around for me.
Well, the first time I.
(05:38):
Spit out a thought.
It's usually the most best perfectly worded version of it ever.
So if I don't write it down, it's gonna sound awkward the second and third time.
You know what it's exactly like?
Back in the day when we had D used to record voicemails and you didn't know whether youwere gonna hit like the two or get me able to hit, you know, pound two and erase and
re-record and it would just send it, which has become meme worthy in movies, right?
(06:03):
It's like a Hollywood.
Very much right out of swingers.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But it works for him in the end anyway.
So I'm one of those guys who was trained in that generation that I better get this rightthe first time.
And the incredibly funny part, at least to me, because I like to make fun of myself, I'm aself-deprecating sort of dude when necessary, is I could never do that.
(06:31):
Now I can sit here on a podcast and, you know,
be pithy and witty and all that stuff.
But when it comes to leaving a voicemail or recording your own voicemail prompt, right?
Yep.
No way.
It wasn't gonna happen the first time.
And I don't know if you're like me, but the more takes I have to attempt, the worse itgets.
(06:54):
just might.
I start pressuring.
you got it.
no, go ahead and add, yeah, see, as well as I know how to talk, I can't even pronounce theword elaborate.
uh That's why I'm gonna let you elaborate instead of me go ahead and tell us a little bitmore or a lot bit more about what inspired your book speaking to influence mastering your
(07:15):
leadership voice and uh Talk to me about your version of the story in terms of reallyTightening what you say and wishing it would come out different.
That's all very interesting
Sure.
You can only go so far up the career ladder based on your technical expertise, right?
Whether you're an engineer, you're in finance, you're in design, you're in something else.
(07:39):
Then you hit what I call a linguistic glass ceiling.
And if you want to get above that ceiling into the higher leadership, the more executiveranks, the senior spaces, then there's this lateral shift that you have to make.
And it's no longer about how well you execute the tasks that you've been priding yourselfon your skills for so long.
(08:00):
Now, suddenly, it's about how you communicate and how you lead those people who are nowdoing the job that you were doing for so long and everybody else.
So maybe you were in finance, but now you have to lead the finance people and communicatewith the tech people and with the sales people and with the marketing and whoever else and
(08:20):
the HR people.
You got to be able to translate that genius, that vision, that expertise so that no matterwhat kind of person you're talking to, they get it.
Because they don't think like you think.
So can you translate it or are you going to sit there and keep staring at each other andgoing, why don't you get it?
I said it in a way that was perfectly clear.
(08:41):
What's wrong with you?
It doesn't get you up past that linguistic glass ceiling and into the senior ranks.
Do you remember the Chi-Chi's restaurant chain?
They were wonderful if you were a gringo and lived up North, because you thought you wereeating Mexican food, but really you were just eating really delicious Mexican version of
Olive Garden, basically.
Got it.
It was tasty, but it wasn't Mexican.
(09:02):
It was one step up from Taco Bell.
But I remember when Chi-Chi's opened in 1983 in Baltimore.
There's a reason why.
It was the only Mexican restaurant.
in Baltimore.
Got it.
No one had ever eaten Mexican food before.
That was the first.
The lines were around the corner.
(09:24):
So was wildly popular.
So popular that I thought I would be popular if I went and got a job there.
Okay.
Well, it was my first job ever.
Basically, I worked as a bus boy or a service assistant.
They used to call it an essay, you know, back at house called it that at, um, at Chi Chi'sin Timonium, Maryland.
which has been raised and it's probably now a car dealership now that's already been torndown, terrible.
(09:50):
And they gave me a boss who was hired because I think at the time she was probably theonly Mexican lady in the entire city of Baltimore.
So she got the job, know, cultural appropriation, let's hear it for that.
And I remember one time she got mad at us and fired a couple of us because we wouldn't dowhat she told us to, we wouldn't do what she told us to do.
(10:11):
But she didn't realize, we finally, know, as sheepish as we were, went to the GM and said,well, she sort of yells at us in Spanish.
And no hablamos, you know?
And when we said no hablamos, because I actually was taking Spanish in school.
That's where part of the brownie points were going to be, because I could come back andgive reports to all the cute girls in my Spanish class about what it's like to work in
(10:34):
basically, Ursa, Mexico.
And he was like, well,
If you can say no a blum, well, she can listen to what she knows, what she's telling you.
And then we were like, no, we really can't, but she kept her job and we didn't.
So that's my, that's my chichi story.
But you know, that's really ineffective to go and talk to someone in a language they don'tunderstand and expect them to follow you.
(10:56):
That would classify as poor leadership.
Don't you think?
And that's literal and figurative.
if you're a finance person and you're talking to the engineers in all sorts of financedetail and you're going, they're not all excited about the details as you are, it's like,
okay, or if you're in tech and you're all lost in the features and all the bells andwhistles of this and somebody in sales is going, I care about this, why I just need like
(11:20):
four features, I needed to do this.
Just tell me what button to push.
Don't tell me why it works.
I don't care why it works.
So can you translate to the people in a way that they will understand it?
And it is, it's their job to listen.
Look, communication is two ways.
So you have to be an open-minded listener, but at the same time, you got to recognize,okay, how do I make sure that I'm speaking in a way that they will understand?
(11:45):
That all makes perfect sense, you know, even if it's not something we're activelyself-aware enough to be doing in our daily lives right now, it sounds perfectly loud and
clear to me that, that, that the point you're getting across makes sense.
What also is loud and clear to me right now is guys drilling in the background in yourhouse.
So this is going to be a really nice test.
(12:08):
Actually, usually I'm really fastidious about this.
was afraid of that.
we need to reschedule, we can reschedule.
No, no.
Okay.
(12:32):
Scheduled yesterday.
My husband told me up five o'clock yesterday by the way, the guys are come tomorrow to putin a new air conditioning unit and I went you're telling me now I Got two podcasts like on
the books for tomorrow afternoon
remarkably perky and in a wonderful mood for someone who's been told their HVAC system hasto be replaced.
(12:52):
That would knock me off my game for a few weeks grumbling about that one.
Fortunately, it's not going to be, God willing, it's not going be a few weeks.
Don't put that out into the universe, I will not appreciate that.
Okay.
Hopefully, it's just one and done.
We get it done today and all systems are go for tomorrow.
Well see you might really have $7 million in your bank account if you're not worried aboutreplacing the HVAC system.
(13:13):
The rest of us peasants, mean if the HVAC has to be replaced in our house, you know, we'reeating ramen noodles for six months.
happy about it.
I'm still not happy about that.
There are plenty other things I would like to do for that money.
if thank us, the thing dollar source.
You know if I ever went into another career and I was selling things because I know you'retalking to the sales guys out here as well as the engineers and everybody else but I mean
(13:37):
first of all as a little bit of a tangent if you're a sales guy and you don't know how totalk like a leader you're not going to be leading the sales team
Ever.
close with any division.
Right, it goes for negative division, but you're also not going to be closing a lot ofdeals.
That's correct.
And park that thought for a second.
But, you know, I hear lot of drilling in the background and every time I hear drilling, Ithink of the movie American Sniper.
(13:59):
So that's the mental image I've got right now as we go through this podcast.
So let's hope I can stay equally perky.
Well, and that nobody comes busting through my door with one of those drills.
So at least now I've got a witness.
Well, didn't narc to the American soldiers as an Iraqi, did you?
I don't think you're set up for that.
(14:20):
All right.
So what you're talking about in terms of talking like a leader is all very objective sofar.
Now you've kind of hinted that there's a subjective side to it.
Sure.
Yeah.
So mean, back in my day, in my day, when I used to work for Lucid Technologies, that's howlong ago it was.
(14:41):
We used to bring very, very smart people in from Bell Labs, know, Sheldon Cooper IQs whoreally had no social skill.
And I could go on and on with stories about what it was like just to hang out with some ofthese guys.
It was crazy.
Sometimes it was creepy.
Okay.
And they would get together with the guys who were the brainiacs over at SBC at the time,now back being AT &T, standing in front of millions of dollars worth of computers and
(15:08):
networking systems.
and they would talk shop with each other.
And they were able to understand each other.
I mean, they were probably their own little echo chamber of people who actually got eachother on planet earth.
So it was like a happy dance when they were together, right?
Me, I got paid more than those guys.
(15:29):
Why?
Because what you're talking about.
I actually in my first online dating profile ever when I still worked there.
they would ask you these basic questions that you were expected to answer, you know, likea fifth grade essay, know, exciting times in the online dating world.
And uh everybody's had generic cookie cutter, you know, who am I and what am I lookingfor?
(15:51):
So I said, I want to be different.
I understand.
I got to stand out.
And I put my job is to translate engineer-ish into English for decision makers.
And, you know, women would ask me, what do you mean by that?
And that's exactly what I mean by that.
I would sit in those meetings and buy them lunch and these guys were like, why is this guygetting paid so much just to buy lunch and smile and wear a tie?
(16:12):
Because I would go back to the guys who were gonna pull the trigger on the actual deal andtell them everything that happened in that meeting in terms they could understand and how
it was going to increase the profit for SBC in the future if they went with our product.
And these guys would be like, oh, McKay, I'm so glad you showed up and made that all clearfor me.
I feel so much better now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
They would thank me profusely.
(16:34):
for articulating that information to them in terms they could understand.
So what you're talking about is not to be underestimated.
It's extremely powerful.
No, you can underestimate it if you want to stay where you are and not progress in yourcareer.
Exactly, exactly.
But it is it is a skill you have to learn.
Yes, and you know, I hate the term soft skills because the irony is soft skills are hard.
(16:55):
There's nothing easy about them, which is why I have a job.
we're, some of us are happy about that, but the, it's, you know, you've got age boxes andthat's for sure.
But you know, you mentioned a whole bunch of things that I just jotted down theobjectivity versus subjectivity, you know, the, the,
(17:16):
Universal laws of physics are kind of objective, they happen, but how, what they look likein different contexts changes, right?
So, you know, when you're talking about, you know, the guys who are scary smart, who arecoming in and need to learn to translate, I mean, I'm a, I like to call myself a
recovering academic.
(17:37):
I was not, I never intended to be an executive coach.
I didn't even know that was a thing until, you know, something, an opportunity came acrossmy desk, uh
15 years ago or so.
coming out, I was a professor.
So that was my world, the academic space.
was like, they beat into my head for a decade, how to write, how to speak.
(17:58):
It's like if half of your words didn't have at least four syllables in it, you weren't cutout for this world.
you got to keep, you know, you to write in a way that was publishable in the whateverjournals.
So this was a badge of honor that I had earned that I could write like them, talk likethem, be part of those conversations.
Like you talk about those physics physicists or whoever they were, those engineers whowere, they could talk to each other.
(18:23):
No one else understood them, but they got it.
And that's where I was coming from.
So, but when I shifted into the business world, like what people would get when I firststarted talking was like, okay, Laura, we've learned one thing, you're smart.
That doesn't help us.
So in other words, had Salman Rushdie as your dating coach and I'm sorry, your writingcoach and speaking coach, not Ernest Hemingway.
(18:47):
Yeah, it was just, I had to learn to translate.
And it was, in some ways it was painful because it's like, you just spent 10 yearslearning how to do this.
And now you're in a new audience that says, yeah, we kind of don't like it.
We don't like having to carry our pocket thesaurus with this everywhere we go to cola
Exactly.
And I'm going, well, you don't, do mean you don't have this vocabulary?
Why don't you have this vocabulary?
(19:11):
Exactly.
Exactly.
I don't want to obfuscate the meaning all the time.
You should just have the sesquipedalia and the vela.
So it's, I had to learn and it's not about dumbing it down.
It's about, and here's one of the most counterintuitive points that I can offer is thatthe best way to make people think you are smart is to be able to explain your point in
(19:33):
ways that are so
crystal clear to them that they go, oh, that makes sense, and it makes them feel smart.
If you can make them feel smart through the way that you communicate with them, they willthink you are smart.
And that's really not as easy to do as most people would think.
(19:53):
Well, you know what analogy comes to mind immediately is a absolute world-class athlete.
It depends on the sport, but a world-class athlete can make an incredibly difficultactivity look easy.
Like figure skaters and motocross racers.
(20:15):
Here's an analogy for you because you know, I'm I love to dance.
I, know, in my single days was doing a lot of swing dance was my favorite Lindy hop andstuff at salsa the second I am not an athlete.
But I moved to the verbs where they didn't have the access anymore.
Unfortunately, that's one of the things that I But the, you know, originally it was kindof funny because, you know, as a woman, you generally are the follow on the dance floor.
(20:41):
The guy's supposed to lead.
That's just the way it goes.
And I was a little miffed by that.
dynamic at first.
like, what are we still in the 50s?
But actually learned to like it because it's the one place in the world where I didn'thave to think.
I didn't have to make decisions.
I just got to enjoy the ride.
but what I realized was that no matter how novice or intermediate whatever I was, thedifference between a woman who can dance on the dance in those kinds of partner dancing
(21:05):
and a woman who can't is a good lead because I could dance with a guy who I'd never metbefore in a dance.
style Foxtrot or something where I'd had all of like, you know, three experiences anddidn't know beyond step number two.
But if he was a good lead, could follow him.
(21:26):
It was intuitive.
It was easy.
And people are like, my gosh, you're really good at this.
And I went, actually, well, thank you.
But no, he's a really good lead.
He could translate what he needed me to do.
And I could understand just through the body language, what it was doing.
He was really good at translating that, at communicating.
through the nonverbals.
And that's what it took.
(21:46):
He made me feel smart.
He made me look and feel like I knew what I was doing.
And that was great.
Those are the kinds of people you want to dance with.
Well, I would argue that men are crappy at dancing unless they know how to And that women,well, I guess it does, but uh in general, women are able to dance with a man who can lead.
(22:14):
And I don't think men can just get out there and dance, even if the woman leads them.
I think there's something primal there.
Yes, well, you, the men's supposed, if you're supposed to lead, you have to know whatyou're doing for yourself and then know how to translate what you have to know what you
want your partner to do and be able to convey it.
And that's tough.
I think it is definitely harder on the partner dance floor, not like club dancing whereeverybody's just doing their own thing.
(22:36):
I'm clueless on that front, but the...
Ironically, because that's the easy part.
Not to me.
See, that's where I feel self-conscious because I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't have the intuition for it.
I don't have the natural gift.
But on a partner dance floor, know, big band and swing or whatever it is, that's a lot offun.
But I don't have to think about it.
I could just go with the guy.
And if he's an elementary dancer, okay, you know, we'll do basic steps.
(22:59):
If it's what somebody really knows what they're doing, we can have so much fun and it'schallenging, but I can feel like I'm a lot better than I am.
You guys definitely, if you're a lead on the dance floor, it is a much harder place to bebecause
you have to know what you want both people to do and be thinking two steps ahead.
That's definitely tougher.
Well, for example, a very, very visceral general example is when men and women hold hands,I don't think we think about it much, but men almost always take the overhand position and
(23:28):
women take the underhand position.
I've only seen one couple in my entire life walking hand in hand where it was theopposite.
One.
Well, because the man's leading the woman.
he's taller.
It's really hard for me.
My husband's significantly taller than I am.
If I try to put the overhand position, my shoulder and my elbow have to go up like thisbecause his hand is up higher than mine.
(23:52):
It's like if a kid is holding an adult's hand, it's not about who's leading whonecessarily.
It's not physically comfortable.
You can't reach.
If you try to hold your kid's hand who's shorter than you and you do the underhand, youcan't do it.
but it's so universal.
I mean, I don't want to get into an argument about it, but I've just never seen, the onlycouple I've ever seen.
then it doesn't matter but
(24:13):
had that happen a lot because I'm not a very tall guy.
Never been an issue.
But I'll tell you what is an issue is when you're holding hands and one of those whoops,let's table that literally for the next time.
I'm like you, I'm from these coasts.
So I talk with my hands, especially now that we're on video.
And so I just knocked something over on my desk.
That'll come through nicely, especially on audio.
(24:35):
But
You know, I've gone to a lot of church services at evangelical churches in my day.
And you get into those weird prayer circles whereby holds hands and praise.
And you always have two men staying next to each other, forced to hold hands and they'reboth fighting for that over hand.
They're fighting for it.
(24:55):
And the only couple I've ever seen actually opposite, she was owning that guy.
She was wearing the pants in that relationship.
You know, it was, it was like, come here, follow me, let's do this.
And he was like, yes, dear, yes, dear with his tail between his legs.
So all of that's long for, I understand that if you're in a leadership position, how youaffect that leadership has to seem natural and it has to seem like it comes easy to you.
(25:22):
The phrasing of it that just keeps coming to mind.
It has to look, it has to be, it has to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I was going to say that the.
phrasing that comes to mind for me is has to be confidence inspiring.
Yes.
Which leads me to my next question and you know, I'm not sure where you're gonna takethis, but
(25:47):
oh I'm braced.
Okay.
It's okay.
It's not gonna be anything scary.
Not like the drilling.
You're talking a lot about very objective ways to talk to people, make it sound simple.
And another thing I would add to making people sound smart by helping convey perhapscomplex or complicated thoughts in simple language is anytime you make someone feel better
(26:15):
about themselves, you know, there's a trait reversal mechanism where they think you'rethat person too.
So the secret to being a cool guy.
is to make everybody else feel cool.
And a lot of people fumble that the same way they fumble trying to be the smart guy.
You don't bully people into submission with your brain power and make them think you'resmart.
(26:38):
They'll think you're an idiot or they'll wish you were an idiot.
So they'll project that upon you.
Well, I think most people realize when you're trying too hard to prove that you're smarterthan everybody else or whatever, it's like, dude, what are you compensating for?
Are you really that insecure on some other aspect of life that you just need to keepreminding us all semi-passive aggressively that you have this, that, or the other thing?
(27:03):
Okay, know, stuff shirt, do me a favor, take it someplace else.
You know, a key earmark of that, right, would be the person who uses those big 25 centwords incorrectly.
Right?
My style is pervasive, you know, that kind of thing.
Like Mike Tyson.
uh But anyway, the cool guy will make other people around him or her, cool gal too, right?
(27:27):
uh Feel cool, especially children.
Like, that is the coolest bike I've ever seen, man.
I wish I had a bike that cool, right?
That's always the cool dad.
So anyone who makes people feel better about themselves seems better to the people they'reaffecting that emotion in.
So everybody who goes around and, know, a lot of men are guilty of this, having a pissingcontest with other guys and, you know, playing one upmanship.
(27:52):
Well, that's nothing.
I used to do this and I'm better than you.
They just come off like a douche.
know, douchebags to me are best defined as people who think they're cool when they're not.
You know, that is fit every douchebag person I've ever met.
tries to prove it um
Yeah, terrible.
So, unless I come off that way, I want to ask you this next question.
(28:15):
you
I'll you.
the host.
it.
It's show.
All right.
So I know you're doing great.
You're very cool.
I like you and very smart and good looking too.
I mean, you know.
That's why they gave me the degree.
wasn't really because I wrote anything useful.
Well, was just hoping to come off in all those ways by saying so, you know, I was eatingmy own dog food over here, um, which is a terrible image for a video podcast.
(28:39):
It won't happen.
Don't throw milk bones at me.
It ain't going to happen, captain.
All right.
So like I said, we were talking about, um, this being very objective.
It's the words you choose to say, making it simple, Hemingway versus Salman Rushdie.
And yet I would, I would hope and trust.
(29:00):
that there's a huge big old subjective side of this also.
How you carry yourself, cetera.
Sure.
Well, and beyond that, honestly, what's objective are the simple principles of things likedon't talk over people's heads.
Don't try to prove that you're smarter than they are.
Don't...
Those...
Make sure that you're translating your argument, your rationale, your expertise in waysthat they can understand.
(29:28):
Those are all basic universal objective principles.
of good communication, of good leadership.
But all the rest is subjective.
you know, that's the finesse part is understanding.
we tend to – I hear a lot of false binaries, places where we pigeonhole ourselves and weend up limiting our own success because we just stuff like, well, I can be nice or I can
(29:53):
be strong.
And I tried being the other one and it didn't work and that's why I stay here.
Or I can be, you know,
whatever it happens to be, we set out these black and white choices for ourselves.
Finesse is all in the gray.
Diplomacy, leadership is all about the combinations.
(30:16):
think about it this way.
If uh you need to give constructive feedback to somebody at work, maybe the person youneed to give constructive feedback to is somebody who's really sensitive.
who's a little concerned about their performance.
know bonuses are coming up at the end of the year.
They took some heat for something previously, so they're a little on edge right now.
(30:40):
Or maybe the person that you are talking to has the feeling like, don't care, just give itto me straight.
If I need to fix it, I'll fix it.
I don't care.
I mean, I'll do it.
Just F and tell me.
So those two people might be on the same team, but you need to give that same criticalfeedback.
to those two people in very different ways.
(31:03):
You have to read the room.
Yes.
And it's how you give that feedback that changes everything because you don't want tocrush the one guy's soul and you don't want to have the other guy feel like, are you
afraid to tell me?
You're my boss.
If I made a mistake, tell me, I'll fix it.
Pull up your big boy pants and let's just move on.
got other stuff to do.
(31:23):
Stop coming in hot.
Right.
So neither is right.
It's just a matter of if you are the boss, you need to be able to address both in waysthat does two things.
Because diplomacy or tact is the strategic ability to balance two things.
It's the ability to honor the integrity of the relationship and honor the integrity of themessage.
(31:50):
So can you be clear, so it's unambiguous what needs to happen and why, and
still not have this person feel like you're either a total wimp or a total sledgehammer ofa human being.
So if you can do that both, a shorter version is the tact is the ability to make a pointwithout making an enemy.
(32:12):
You know, you're Italian.
think the term is al dente, can be applied to personality type tender, but firm.
Yeah.
That's the art of dancing that on that tight rope between, well, I've heard it applied inthis.
Yeah.
Uh, if you're an al dente person, you're tender, but firm.
(32:32):
Right.
And you're, you're able to be truthful short of being blunt.
You're still kind of nice about it.
Not being Mr.
Nice Guy, you're at least still likeable after you drop the hammer.
Yes.
And they may not like what your ultimate message is, but they don't feel disrespected as ahuman by hearing it.
(32:56):
And I think that's important.
They've saved face.
They don't feel like they're ashamed to come in and show you their face tomorrow, or theydon't hate you as a result and call you to borrow a term from you, the douche who they
have to report to every day.
Hey, I coined the term douche
Take a playbook from somebody's real right so in this podcast I can give this informationand I talk about this stuff on a lot of different podcasts I think I can safely say that
(33:24):
in the hundreds of shows I've been on not even including the hundreds of shows of my ownthat I've run uh This would be officially the first time I've ever used the word douche
But you know audience and that's okay
It's a huge faux pas to be a douchebag.
If you want to talk like a leader.
It's very counterproductive.
(33:45):
It will have the exact opposite effect you're hoping it'll have, which really reflects onyour judgment, your wisdom level, all those things that contribute to you looking like a
leader.
uh Talk to me about elocution, pronunciation, uh the cadence with which you use yourwords, the tone.
(34:06):
and your body language, even your facial semiotics.
Sure.
I think that all
That's a lot of big words in that question, Scot.
Well, you know, I have to consider who I'm dealing with and who my audience is.
I'm talking to you in terms you can easily understand.
words like elocution, I think about my audience and I end up saying douche.
See what I did there?
right.
(34:26):
No, I, I'm, I'm actually being serious.
I'm matching your energy, which I think is a hallmark of what you're talking about also.
And you're, you are smart and you love to banter in these ways.
So I'm meeting you where you're coming from.
I'm a Jersey Italian, so you gotta try a lot harder than that to offend me.
Well, I'm- I'm unoffendable.
(34:47):
Right.
safely in the gray.
Yeah, I feel like you and I go way back at this point, so what the heck.
But I think a lot of times guys lack the self-awareness, and we're talking to a maleaudience.
They lack the self-awareness to realize how they're coming off.
But, you know, do a few of these video podcasts and watch yourself post-production andyou're going to learn a of lessons real quick like.
(35:10):
I recommend that to all my clients, by the way, is that they do little mini videorecordings of themselves on their phone because I can't coach you until you see and hear
what I see and hear.
Otherwise, I know what you actually said and how it actually sounded and looked.
You know what you meant.
I guarantee those are not the same movies.
(35:31):
And if you don't believe me, ask your mother, ask your siblings, ask whoever, they'll tellyou the truth about
Or just compare CNN.com to FoxNews.com and you realize you can have two different moviesreally quickly.
Well, those are a whole different level of the D word again.
So I'll stop saying it loud, but I'll write it in that space.
Well, that's wonderful.
(35:52):
uh So what tips would you give these guys if they wanted to escalate their level of comingoff like a leader, maybe help escalate themselves up the corporate ladder or, you know, in
whatever their career is, this is going to be beneficial.
I can't uh imagine any career where it wouldn't be, even if you're a classroom teacher,professor.
(36:16):
Especially in the military is kind of trained in baked into the training
Yes, like executive presence, leadership presence, command presence, there's all differentterms for it.
And I think what's important, the one little nuance there is notice command, if we'regonna go with that military angle of it, the command presence, there is a massive
(36:39):
difference between commanding respect and demanding respect.
For sure, If you have to demand respect, you will never command it.
Yeah, you're probably not really being respected.
No, you're not exactly because they're going through the motions.
to demand it in the first place.
But it's something about how you do an awful lot of things, frankly, that have diminishedpeople's respect for you.
(37:00):
So you need to earn it again.
But the, so back to your original question, let's start with a key question that I oftenget, which is, which is more important, what you say or how you say it, right?
And the answer is neither as far as an either or.
That goes back to the
false binaries that we set up.
(37:21):
What's most important is that they integrate seamlessly.
What you say and how you say it have to match.
Because if they don't gel, your instinct, the listener is going, something's weird.
It's a lack of trust.
seems it's a crepey.
Yeah, it's just off.
(37:43):
And when something in your gut feels off, it doesn't matter that your brain's going, well,I understand the words, but
your guts going, yeah, but I'm not buying it.
So on things like even when we started the show today, you welcomed me on it.
And I'm glad to be here.
I loved talking to you the first time around, glad to have the second opportunity.
But if I had said to you, yeah, Scot, glad to be here too.
(38:05):
Thanks for inviting me back.
There's entire comedy movies written around that whole schematic.
Sure, but the words that I said are perfectly nice, know, on paper, they're wrong with it,but the energy doesn't match.
The energy completely undermines the credibility of that message.
(38:25):
Now, that being said, it's not just in that case, sure, it's the way you said it thatscrewed things up, but it works the other way too.
If I'm giving you feedback on this and, you know, I said to you, you know, it's got a, Imean,
Thanks for the invitation.
mean, I think you're a douche, but it's all good.
You're like, what the?
That's not, I mean, I know we used that word on the show, Think.
(38:49):
Was not.
It's like, but I said it nicely.
I was smiling when I said it.
isn't it more important how you say it more than what you say?
No, because what you say is the foundation of the message.
If you're a construction, if you do construction, you have the foundation of your housemust be solid first.
Otherwise, it doesn't matter what you build on it.
(39:10):
What you build on the foundation is the delivery.
So you've got to have both structures strong.
Important, you have to choose your words carefully, not being too technically detailed,not talking over people's heads, not being insulting and calling the names, not being, you
know, whatever it is.
And your delivery has to be appropriate for the audience and for the message and for thecontext at the same time.
(39:35):
When you can find that match.
That's where your leadership image is naturally elevated.
That's where you command the room and you command respect.
think that was an extremely well articulated version of X percent of communication isnonverbal.
(39:55):
Yes.
And so there's a uh really bastardized stat out there.
Well, you know, 55%, 80%, 90%, 90%.
So it's again, those numbers, if you ever hear like 7 % of all communication is, was wordsand everything else is not.
There's a study from the 1960s that was like this big, this itty bitty little study.
(40:16):
And it was so narrow.
That's in the moment, the number they came up with, it is not translatable.
to the rest of the world.
What the big takeaway from that study was is exactly what I just said.
When what you say doesn't match how you say it, your credibility is shot.
That's the takeaway from that.
(40:37):
uh you do need to have both solid what and solid how.
Good words and good voice and body language.
Well, we've already alluded to watching oneself on video or listening to oneself on audio.
You'll, if you take away the video component of it, which is ironic for me to say, causewe're actually adding the video component of this podcast, even as I'm suggesting
(41:00):
otherwise, but watching yourself talk is different than simply listening to yourself.
Cause you'll pick up a lot more.
It's kind of like a blind person's sense of hearing is heightened.
You'll give yourself your own window into that, which is probably a weird analogy.
But uh I follow exactly what you're saying.
I also think a lot of guys probably should slow down, especially if they come from wherewe come from, the East Coast.
(41:24):
uh Entire companies have gone bankrupt because they hired their entire inside sales forcefrom Boston.
And as soon as they started talking to Ohio and Arizona, these guys were like, I don'ttrust these people, click.
You have to have a lot of self-awareness.
So all that is very true, very real.
And I'm so glad you articulated it.
(41:45):
have you ever met someone who, while you're talking to them, you feel stupid?
Like you don't know how to talk or like, you're not very clear, but really you get backand you say to someone you trust, have you ever talked to that person?
I felt like I had really awkward social skills talking to that person.
Like I'd lost them all.
(42:05):
They are just all flown away from me after all these years.
And the person says to you, no, no, no, it's not you.
It's them.
Did you know someone like that?
Every now and then you encounter somebody, who lacks social cues or just is a total pokerface and you can't tell if they're hearing you, understanding you, think you're nuts, are
looking for the Acme trapdoor button so that the floor also opens under you to make you goaway.
(42:29):
Every now and then there's somebody who just, yep.
I'm not as quick as a road runner.
So sometimes I get caught flat-footed there.
Um, but yeah, it seems like there are these people out there, um, who, if you have aconversation with them, everything is a non-sequitur that comes back.
Like where are we going with this conversation?
Like I was talking about oranges and you're talking about apples and responses.
(42:52):
If we were always talking about apples, I don't feel too smart or cared for here in thisconversation.
And I've noticed those people are almost never leaders.
It is definitely, or if they are, it's not on a healthy team.
Ha
A very confused team.
Aren't frustrated because they don't frequently feel heard.
(43:12):
Well, I think this has been a fantastic conversation.
I'm glad we finally had it.
And what I want to do Dr.
Laura Sicola is uh send these guys, of all, to mountaintoppodcast.com front slash Amazon,where they'll find your book right at the top of the storefront there.
That's a dedicated storefront with all the books from all the authors that I've had on.
(43:35):
yeah, you're welcome.
And you guys who are listening to this show within a few days of it being released.
You're going to find that book right at the top.
And once again, it's called Speaking to Influence, Mastering Your Leadership Voice.
And you know that Laura is very smart.
And so you're probably already extrapolating that information to infer that she is also anexcellent writer as well.
(43:58):
I try to make it conversational.
It's the first main book that I wrote that was absolutely not intended for an academicaudience.
I actually felt a little dirty doing it because there weren't footnotes and biographiesand all sorts of stuff on every other page.
It was rather liberating as a matter of fact.
Good because we don't want to read all those erudite
Did I?
So it was, it's a lot of stories, anecdotes from clients, from my relationship with myhusband, with my kids, with whatever else.
(44:25):
Because the principles apply, whether it's at work or at home, social or professional,it's just, again, a matter of how they apply.
What are the, the nuanced details and how do you need to address each person individually?
Also, I want to send guys to mountaintoppodcast.com from slash Cicola S I C O L A, whichI'm sure you get this all the time.
(44:49):
C Cola.
I do get that every now and then I'll tell people they'll say, is that how you pronounceit?
the cola.
Yeah.
It's like Pepsi cola without the pep.
I'm the pep.
Hey, that's even better than the cough drop gig.
Yeah, fantastic.
Yeah.
Right.
You could do the Pepsi challenge.
You can do my challenge.
(45:10):
Well, there is a blind spot challenge in the book, every chapter.
the great part is that what I did was I took everything that I train, everything I coach,and I put it into this book with the idea of being that if you actually went through it
chapter by chapter, at the end of each chapter, there's a little challenge, exercise,recording, analysis, whatever it is.
that's why I was coaching you myself.
(45:32):
Just do it.
And by the time you get to the end, I guarantee you'll have at least one of these moments.
We're going, oh, that's why they weren't so thrilled with me afterwards.
Or that's why they're not giving me the response that I'm looking for.
okay, note to self.
Because I can't coach you again until you see and hear what I see and hear.
And this is a way to make sure that we both are watching the same movie.
(45:52):
Well, anybody who's ever done salesforce.com training in the business world, that'sexactly how they do it.
They give you something that's really incredibly tedious and draining, but they're tryingto make it sound fun.
And they give you two questions at the end, just to make sure your reading comprehensionis spot on.
Then boom, you got a badge onto the next one.
Remember that?
I had never had to do that, so we'll take your word for it.
(46:14):
Oh, 50 % of my audience is going, thank you for bringing that one up.
That's a painful.
No, not no, no, no, because they know how to communicate like a leader.
There's no twitching in leadership.
No twitching in leadership, please, not in public.
Right.
Okay.
So when men go to you guys listening or watching go to mountaintoppodcast.com front slashC Cola or Pepsi Cola without the pep product placement there.
(46:40):
Welcome guys.
Pepsi co.
Yeah.
Right.
What are they going to find when they get to your website?
My website is laurasacola.com and they will find all sorts of resources, lots of videos,of uh blogs and articles with all these kinds of tips and stories.
(47:03):
And there are resources in addition to the book, if they're looking for something likevideo or audio programs to help step them through different things, uh tons of information
there that you would love to hear from anybody.
You can also reach out on LinkedIn.
Life is an open book.
Quite literally, look at this.
Hopefully, guys will open your book and read about you and your book.
(47:27):
Exactly.
That's the most important part.
Heck with us.
It's all about them.
Well, wonderful.
Laura, thank you so much for returning.
It was fun to have you on the first time.
I would argue this has been even a more fun show, and I certainly appreciate you being on.
It was a great opportunity, Scot.
Always enjoy the conversation.
Absolutely.
And gentlemen, be sure to go to mountaintoppodcast and give some love tomountaintoppodcast.com that is, and give some love to our sponsors, Jaco Willinks Company,
(47:54):
Origin and Main, the Keyport and the guys at Hero's Soap.
When you use the coupon code mountainten, you'll get a 10 % off your order, matter whichone of our fine long time sponsors you do business with.
And guys check it out.
Some of you need to get on the phone and call me.
What you see is what you get.
Scot McKay has written on my passport.
I'm not playing a fictional character here.
(48:14):
I mean if I was I'd be doing a really bad job wouldn't I love
on the intention.
Right, exactly.
We're also really good job because I come off so authentic, one or the other.
But fortunately for everybody involved, we don't even have to worry about that because Ijust am who I am.
And when you get on the phone with me, having scheduled that time atmountaintoppodcast.com, you're gonna realize we can talk about what you got going on.
(48:38):
If you have ideas for the show, tell me what you think about the video version.
Maybe some of you went straight back to the audio, don't know.
Sounds like that to me.
This was a little more fun a little more humor came out on video I think this will be agood trend But whatever's on you guys might especially when it comes to you guys getting
better Relating to women in your life and maybe getting back out there after a divorce orsomething like that.
(49:00):
Hope you'll get on the Schedule talk to me for 25 30 minutes for free at mountaintoppodcast calm lots of other goodies there for you as well And until I talk to you again
real soon.
This is Scot McKay from X and Y communications
San Antonio, Texas Be good out there
you
(49:21):
you
Mountain Top Podcast is produced by X and Y Communications, all rights reserved worldwide.
Be sure to visit www.mountaintoppodcast.com for show notes.
And while you're there, sign up for the free X and Y Communications newsletter for men.
(49:44):
This is Ed Roy Odom speaking for the Mountain Top Podcast.
Peace.
oh
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