May 1, 2025 • 25 mins
Writing Your Book with Leadership Energy | Lead with Voice, not Perfection
➡️ Want to write with authority and impact in your nonfiction book? Grab our FREE Guide: From Overwhelmed to Writing here: http://authornation.online/writing
📖 In this video, we’ll show you how to start writing your book with leadership energy so you can lead with voice, not perfection.
If you want the full breakdown, check out the blog post here: https://authornationtube.com/writing-your-book-with-leadership-energy
📌 Here’s what you’ll learn:
✅ Why writing with confidence starts by owning your message
✅ How to stop editing and start writing with clarity
✅ What “command, connect, and close” means for authors like you
➡️ Want to write with authority and impact in your nonfiction book? Grab our FREE Guide: From Overwhelmed to Writing here: http://authornation.online/writing
📖 In this video, we’ll show you how to start writing your book with leadership energy so you can lead with voice, not perfection.
If you want the full breakdown, check out the blog post here: https://authornationtube.com/writing-your-book-with-leadership-energy
📌 Here’s what you’ll learn:
✅ Why writing with confidence starts by owning your message
✅ How to stop editing and start writing with clarity
✅ What “command, connect, and close” means for authors like you
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Author Nation Interviews, where nonfiction authors come to grow,
get inspired, and amplify their voices. Today we're diving into
something every author faces, that frustrating moment when your ideas
feel powerful in your head, but nothing's coming out seems
to make any sense. It's really hard to translate that
some time. So we're going to explore how to move
(00:34):
past that block, bringing clarity to your message and fully
stepping into your authority as a writer and as a
thought leader. I'm Melody and your host, and this is
Author Nation Interviews, and I'm here to help you write
with confidence, share your expertise, and make an impact with
your book, because that's what you want. You want to
(00:54):
have an impact with your book. So whether you're tuning
in with your morning coffee or maybe just whinding down
after a mad writing session, get cozy because this conversation
could change how you show up on the page and beyond.
My guest Dora, Dora, I'm trying to put into one word.
(01:15):
Doctor Laura Scola is a leadership, communication and influence experts
speaker and author of Speaking to Influence, Mastering Your Leadership Voice,
and the host of the Global Top one Percent podcast
speaking to Influence Communication, Secrets of the c Suite, and
(01:38):
the podcast Alpha Whisperers Genesis. Her mission is to transform
executives into confident, inspiring leaders. A cognitive linguist by background,
she has trained and coached executives at Fortune five hundred
companies and nonprofit leaders from around the world. And I think,
most excitingly, Laura's tedex talk Want to Sound Like a Leader?
(02:00):
Start by saying your name right has nearly seven million views.
That is so impressive.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Laura, welcome, Thank you so much for having me. I'm
really looking forward to our conversation today.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Me too. So I just want to start with the
idea that you've helped so many people find their leadership
voice and authors. You know, they they also want to
be leaders and thought leaders, So why is it so
important for them to find that that true voice.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's interesting when you think about voice and authorship, because
there's the author's voice of sorts, which of course is
your style of writing, your point of view, et cetera.
But eventually that has to translate to what comes out
of our mouths. Because you want people to ask you
about your book, right, You want to be asked to
come on to podcasts like this one and talk about it.
(02:50):
You want to be invited to conferences, You want to
be speaking at bookstores or on webinars or wherever it
is for your expertise. So it's not enough just to
be able to go from brain to pen or to keyboard.
We really do have to find our ability to translate
our thoughts, our passion, our expertise in a way that's
(03:13):
going to be relatable, be digestible, be comprehensible to anybody
else or whoever is Ideally you're a target audience, but
more importantly beyond that, because you want to have more
influence on more people, to bring them over to your space.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yes, exactly, because you know, I work with nonfiction and
why they're writing a book is they want to transform people.
They want to make change, They want to be change
makers in the world. Right, So when there's this gap
between you know, what we think we're saying and what
other people are receiving, that just that just shuts down
(03:52):
the impact that we can make. So how does this
idea apply to two authors struggling to express themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's very much like I'm guessing that most of your audience,
most of the writers out there have done some workshopping.
At some point, you know, you take a chapter or
an excerpt and you share it with someone and you
ask for feedback, whether they're your significant other or asking
a mentor or a colleague, or people with different degrees
(04:21):
of connection to your topic or to the top whatever
you're writing about. Expertise in the space. So the ability
to have the humility to listen to receive the input,
because we're all in love with our topics right where
you are all we want to make the difference, but
(04:43):
we want people to read ourself and go, oh, that's brilliant,
thank you so much. It's all clear now, And that
doesn't always happen. So it's really important to ask good questions,
not just what do you think? That's too broad, Ask
a good focus question and then sit back, take a
deep breath, and receive whatever they say. And I find
(05:07):
that the narrower we can ask a question, the more specific,
actionable and easy to receive is nature of the content
we will get. So the difference between what do you
think about this versus the section in here? Was the
analogy effective? Was there a way? Did I miss any details?
(05:28):
Was it too detailed? Like? Help them analyze and give
you meaningful feedback. Because people are afraid to tell you
that they think something isn't good, or that it's too
broad of a comment anyway, but they're not afraid to
tell you, like a very specific piece of information that
(05:49):
you have asked for, that's different from levying a general opinion.
Most people won't do it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, now that's really good advice. And what I find is,
you know, as humans, we're pulled in two directions. One,
we want reassurance that we're okay, we want validation that
our ideas are good, We want all of this, and
yet we also want that honest feedback so we can
improve ourselves. Right, So we can be really challenging to
(06:16):
let go of that ego or let go of that
that you know, that need for reassurance and become vulnerable
in order to get the feedback. And I love that
you say, ask really specific questions. And I think that
really works whether you're creating a course, whether you're developing
a talk for stage, or whether you're about to send
(06:36):
your book to beta readers, right right, and so okay,
So when when you're trying to be vulnerable, when you're
trying to ask these really specific questions, and it gets
really scary and you become frustrated and you want to
kind of run back to reassurance and validation and hide.
How can we reset ourselves?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I think it's important to take stock of explicitly have
a little sort of out of body experience where you
can imagine your your brain floating or your mind floating
up outside of your brain and you're looking outside of
it into yourself and saying, Okay, what am I really
feeling here? Ask yourself and name the emotion. What am
(07:21):
I feeling and why? Well, I'm feeling defensive, I'm feeling frustrated,
I'm feeling under time pressure. Oh my gosh, I'm telling
you I got to fix this and tomorrow's my deadline.
Well maybe you shouldn't have wait un till the day
before it. Ask with the feedback, but that's a separate issue,
you know. But why am I hearing my father's voice
in my head? And it's not my father? And I
shouldn't project my father onto this person or I love
(07:42):
your dad, has nothing new to my father, but hypothetically,
you know, so, But taking stock and tingrette what am
I feeling? Where am I feeling?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
In my body? Am I feeling a tightness in my throat?
Am I feeling my heart kick in? Am I feeling
a not in my stomach? Am I feeling my legs
start to bounce a little bit on top of my foot?
What's going on? Okay, where's it coming from? And why
I acknowledge it? And then say, Okay, I need to
put that aside. What's this person's intention? What did I
(08:11):
ask for? And how can I approach with gratitude to
this person making themselves vulnerable by asking the question, by
answering the question that I have asked, how do I
receive that graciously and humbly? And if you can redirect that,
remind yourself, they're not saying they don't like me, They're
not saying this book's a stupid idea. Don't overgeneralize, and
(08:34):
then it helps you to sort of bring down the
adrenaline and redirect.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah. I really love how you talked about recognizing the
other person's vulnerability. We often see our own vulnerability and
we think everyone else around us has no vulnerabilities. It's
just me. So really thank you for talking about recognizing
that that in that communication, we're both vulnerable. I think
that's incredibly powerful. Okay, So if you want to learn
(09:02):
more about Laura, you can go to her website, Laura
Scola at no not at no address. What was I thinking,
Laura cla at dot com. So I had, you know,
I really want to get into the like the meat
of what you do. This is leadership presence, right this
(09:25):
you're bringing the best of our leadership. And you were
talking earlier about the three seas of leadership presence? Can
you just go over those again for our audience?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Absolutely, and they are one hundred percent as relevant for
authors as for corporate executives, which is typically my client
demographic for training and coaching. But the three seas are
very simply the ability to command the room, to connect
with the audience and close the deal. So if we
break those down real quick, commanding the room means, from
(09:58):
the very beginning, something about the way you walk in,
something about the way that you appear. When you first
log into a meeting and turn on your camera. Do
you turn your camera on? Are you hiding in the dark?
So where when you show up, is there something that
makes the that compels the other people to set up
(10:20):
and take notice, to focus, to pay attention, it's not
that you're walking in there and saying, hey, look at me,
extrovert extrovert attention hog attention hog. No, it's all about me.
But there's something It can be a very quiet presence
and being, but having that some that energy that just
compels people. There's a difference between demanding respect and commanding it.
(10:43):
And if you can command it with your presence, you
will never have to demand it verbally. So that's the
first one that's command The second, see is connecting with
the audience, and this is and of course both of
these are just as important in your writing. Right, you
have to capture their attention right away with something powerful
(11:04):
and then, no matter how different your world is from
the person you're writing to. I mean, I could be
reading about a a surf in ancient China or whatever
it happens to be, probably not in a nonfiction book. Whatevertheless,
I need to be able to empathize or to imagine
or to picture myself there on some level. When you're speaking,
(11:27):
you want to be able to establish at least one
point of connection where you and the audience are both
thinking on that particular level. You understand me and I
understand you. If nothing else on this one thread, we're
going to go on this journey together. And then number
three is closing the deal. And this does not have
(11:48):
to mean a sales moment signing on the dotted line.
We like those, we're not going to say no to those.
But more broadly, it's about when you're driving the point home,
do you come to an agreement together? Do we both
have a mutual understanding? Are we moving the needle forward
one step at a time, one conversation at a time,
(12:11):
one page at a time. Are we going to continue forward?
So that's the closing the deal part, And if you
can consistently cyclically do all three of those, that's where
your leadership, presence, that mastery comes through and people want
to follow that leader.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, no, I love that's that's excellent. But it really
it's this beautiful segue into my next question, which is
about imposter syndrome, because I can imagine people are out
there listening to you, and as they're listening, half of
them are saying, oh, i'd love that. That would be wonderful,
That's what I want. On the other half is saying,
who are you to expect that you could have that?
(12:49):
So can you talk a little bit about as you
go through this journey of finding your leadership self, when
imposter syndrome comes up, how can we deal with that
inner critic?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Sure, and of course, to anybody out there who is
not familiar with the term imposter syndrome directly, you mentioned
inner critic, that's very much one of one of the
components of it. I think the simple definition of imposter
syndrome is the fear of being exposed as a fraud.
To your earlier point, you know, who am I to
write this? You somebody's going to look at me and say, Laura,
(13:23):
who are you to write about X? What do you know?
You're you're an executive coach, but yet you were never
in the executive ranks? You know, who are you to
do these kinds of things? Right? But I have this lens,
and those out there who need my lens aren't going
to get it from anybody else. And there is that niche.
I'm not the coach for everybody, but for this group
(13:45):
we click. And so I think the I have what
I like to call my forward secret to confident public speaking,
and I think you can apply this to writing just
as well. And those four words melody are very simply,
it's not about you. It may be your story that
you're sharing, it may be some of your experiences you're sharing,
(14:09):
but it's because and I think this is one we'll
go back to number two, connecting with the audience. I'm
going to guess that this is a uniting principle for
everybody out there, who's listening, who's tuning in today. But
we're all doing it because we want to make a difference.
We have some experience, some knowledge, something that we feel
compelled to share with the world to help people. So
(14:32):
if we're focusing on speaking on writing with that north star,
I want to help people. I know this is going
to help someone. Then that is your truth and there
is no one who can challenge that. That is not imposter,
that's you, that's not fraud. Your experience is your experience.
(14:53):
So if you just lead with that, and look, there's
always going to be somebody who doesn't like your stuff.
There's going to be somebody who disagrees. What's Taylor Swift's line,
The haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, whatever. So and
it's look, you mentioned my ted talk, which has done
very well, but if you read the comments, some people
are just mean they don't like my shirt, they don't
like the way I quoted Darth Vader at one point,
(15:15):
they don't like I mean people have nothing to do.
Some people have nothing to do and no way to
feel better about themselves unless they're just tearing somebody else down.
It's the crab pot theory. Have you heard the crab
pot theory?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah? Go ahead, don't don't leave us with have you
heard about it? Without explaining an words? O?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So fifteen second version is if you ever see, if
you've ever gone crabbing, and you see a bucket of
crabs at a fishmonger or something. Every now and then
one crab will manage to like grip the top of
the bucket and try to pull itself out, and the
ones that are below it will reach up and grab
the legs and pull it back in. So, when you
think about that circle of people around you, who are
(15:55):
the naysayers? When's going you'll ever write a book? I
don't know who do you think you are? You're not
an author, you're not special, you're not this and that
it's because they don't believe they are. They don't believe
they have the capability and to see you rise and
succeed will make them feel underachieving or less than. So
they need to pull you back down to their level
so they feel better about themselves. That's how I have
(16:16):
to look at the people who don't like my ted talk,
the people who disagree with this and that they're going
to have their opinions, and you know what, that's okay.
Those are not the people I seek to serve. Those
who seek to serve I seek to serve are the
ones who are right there with me and saying thank
you for doing all that you did to bring this
to us. And it's the same for everybody else out there.
You will have your contributors who will say thank you
(16:37):
for your contribution.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Exactly beautiful. And I just want to stop for a
moment and say that go check out speaking to influence
the book. I've put the link right in front of
you right now, because everything we're talking about and more
is there for you. Okay, As we're wrapping up, I
want to talk about perfectionism because I think that impost
(17:00):
syndrome and perfectionism are the evil twin sisters.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, yes, and so the is there a specific question
you want to be an answer just to entress the
concept now.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I want to address because I'm not gonna ask you
a specific question because because they're so linked, I just
want to give you the opportunity to to kind of,
you know, deal with them together, or or move on
to perfectionism. So you're the extra give us what we need, Laura, Well,
I'm the expert only in so far as I'm having
(17:35):
experienced it. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
If that, if experience is expertise, send it. Sure. I
can speak from there. And perfection is the enemy of
the done, frankly, And that's something that I learned fifteen
years ago when I was working on my PhD. Because
you can sit there and edit and always read another article,
and always add this, and always add that, and always
feel like it'll never be good enough. At some point
(17:57):
you have to be done in two years, right a
second edition, or write a follow up book, or do
something else. But there is no such thing as perfection.
And if you find your erasing more than your writing
because it's not perfect yet, you'll never get off of
page one. Just get the ideas down and keep working
(18:17):
through it. I think there's a lot of people in
a melody we talked a little bit before their show.
I do a lot of public speaking coaching for my clients,
and people tend to gravitate to one extreme or the other.
Either they want to script it out and memorize it
so it's perfect, so there's no question, there's no risk involved.
(18:38):
They just hope nobody asks a question or interrupts them,
because then they're screwed if they got off track or
they're like, ah, I can't memorize. Oh, I don't want
to do that. I want to be authentic. I want
to be free. I want to be me, and but
authentic and free and me don't mean sloppy and unprepared
and completely off the cuff. There you can do preparation
(19:02):
and still move forward. So I think it's about finding
a level, deciding for you what is going to be enough,
not too much, not too little. There's a time and
a place for extemporaneous, and there's a time and a
place for really tightly structured. You know, you have to
put something on LinkedIn. You got three hundred characters, you
got to be tight on that. But at the back
of your book you only have a few but fifty
(19:24):
words one hundred words has to be tight. But all
things considered, just get stuff down you can refine later.
Don't worry about perfect I think that's the key.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for that perspective.
Really appreciate it. One of the things we like to
do is as we end, is give our audience some
actionable items, because it's really lovely to just sit and
listen to a podcast and then wander off feeling good
about it. But it's another thing to have, you know, three,
I can do this. Now, here's something I can actually implement.
(19:57):
You to give our authors three things that they can
walk away with and actually do the first one.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And this can go with writing, but also with anything else.
Time blocking. You have to block your calendar, whether it's
from four to five in the morning, four to five
in the afternoon, a three hour block, a twenty minute block.
If there's something that you need to do, you have
to schedule the time. Now you should also honor the time.
I am the queen of blocking time to do certain tasks,
(20:27):
and then stuff can tend to eat into it. But
even if fifty percent of my time blocks are honored,
that's a whole lot better than none. So get the
time blocks on the calendar, especially for so here's where
number two. When you know, and I'm also the queen.
As you've just outlined of things like going to a
(20:49):
seminar or to a workshop or to a training or
listening to a podcast and taking truckloads of notes and
then not doing anything with them, they don't translate out.
It's like, right, there are a lot of action steps
I was supposed to do along those lines. So if
I know that one of those events is coming up, proactively, preemptively,
(21:11):
I will then set a block of time on my
calendar or two to just go through those notes as
soon as possible when it's done the next day or
later the same day, and just see where I've highlighted.
I always used two and so maybe this is my
third one, but I always use two highlighting colors when
I'm taking notes on something. Look at that a couples.
(21:31):
I'm not sure where that came from, but where, So
I highlight in yellow something that's an important point for
me to remember, just took a food for thought, useful
and greener action items. So when I'm looking through, you know,
if I'm in a workshop for a day or a
four day or something super intensive, there's a lot of
takeaways after that, I don't want to go through twenty
pages of notes lined by line. I want to be
(21:53):
able to find all of my green line items and
then condense those onto a one sheet and or put
those write on the calendar, or into an email or
something else, take action stuff with the green items, so
then at least you can get rid of that and
move forward and know that it doesn't just stay as
passive knowledge without effect.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love that. One thing I tend to do is
if I'm having a meeting with somewhere, I'm going to
an event, I don't just block that time. I blocked
that time plus yes exactly, it's set up in my
calendar to automatically say, okay, you're doing this, and then
you have time afterwards because I want to write a note,
I want to write a follow up email. I want
to do all these things to be this, you know,
(22:36):
the person I want to be. And if I don't
time block that, it doesn't happen, and then later I
feel badly because I didn't send the thank you email
and I didn't follow up, and then you know, what's
the point of that. So thank you, Laura for all
of this. This has been really brilliant. Where can we
find you? And can we get a couple of chapters?
(22:58):
I think you told me earlier that you have a
couple of chapters people can read, So can you talk
about where we can find that?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Absolutely, as you mentioned earlier, you can just find out
more about me at my website, which is Laurasacola dot com.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. If you
do reach out to connect, tell me that you met
me here on Melody's show. I love knowing where connection
requests come from, and that definitely makes me want to
say yes. But you can also go to Speaking to
(23:25):
Influence dot com. That's the website for my book and
my podcast, and I think we've got a QR code
up here that you can scan if you're looking at
the video otherwise, I believe Melody you said you would
put it in these show notes, but I have a
link that will offer you two free chapters, the first
two chapters of my book of Speaking to Influence, Mastering
your Leadership Voice. So if you enjoyed some of the
(23:45):
tips that I shared today, We've got lots and lots
more where they came from, lots of stories, personal anecdotes,
personal and professional spaces. I would love to hear any
feedback that you have to offer, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Thank you so much, Laura. I've really appreciated having you
on the show today.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
It was such a joy.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Thank you for the opportunity, absolutely, and thanks so much
for joining us today at author Nation. I hope this
conversation has sparked interest, cleared some creative cobwebs, and have
given you some real steps to reclaim your voice right
with conviction speak as a leader. Now, don't forget to
visit authoration dot online for tools and guidance to support
(24:24):
your nonfiction author journey no matter where you are. And
if this episode has brought you value, I'd love for
you to review it, share it with that author you
know needs to hear it, reach out and let us
know what you'd like to hear next. And remember, keep writing,
keep showing up, and own your voice because the world
(24:47):
needs your story.
Welcome to Author Nation Interviews, where nonfiction authors come to grow,
get inspired, and amplify their voices. Today we're diving into
something every author faces, that frustrating moment when your ideas
feel powerful in your head, but nothing's coming out seems
to make any sense. It's really hard to translate that
some time. So we're going to explore how to move
(00:34):
past that block, bringing clarity to your message and fully
stepping into your authority as a writer and as a
thought leader. I'm Melody and your host, and this is
Author Nation Interviews, and I'm here to help you write
with confidence, share your expertise, and make an impact with
your book, because that's what you want. You want to
(00:54):
have an impact with your book. So whether you're tuning
in with your morning coffee or maybe just whinding down
after a mad writing session, get cozy because this conversation
could change how you show up on the page and beyond.
My guest Dora, Dora, I'm trying to put into one word.
(01:15):
Doctor Laura Scola is a leadership, communication and influence experts
speaker and author of Speaking to Influence, Mastering Your Leadership Voice,
and the host of the Global Top one Percent podcast
speaking to Influence Communication, Secrets of the c Suite, and
(01:38):
the podcast Alpha Whisperers Genesis. Her mission is to transform
executives into confident, inspiring leaders. A cognitive linguist by background,
she has trained and coached executives at Fortune five hundred
companies and nonprofit leaders from around the world. And I think,
most excitingly, Laura's tedex talk Want to Sound Like a Leader?
(02:00):
Start by saying your name right has nearly seven million views.
That is so impressive.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Laura, welcome, Thank you so much for having me. I'm
really looking forward to our conversation today.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Me too. So I just want to start with the
idea that you've helped so many people find their leadership
voice and authors. You know, they they also want to
be leaders and thought leaders, So why is it so
important for them to find that that true voice.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's interesting when you think about voice and authorship, because
there's the author's voice of sorts, which of course is
your style of writing, your point of view, et cetera.
But eventually that has to translate to what comes out
of our mouths. Because you want people to ask you
about your book, right, You want to be asked to
come on to podcasts like this one and talk about it.
(02:50):
You want to be invited to conferences, You want to
be speaking at bookstores or on webinars or wherever it
is for your expertise. So it's not enough just to
be able to go from brain to pen or to keyboard.
We really do have to find our ability to translate
our thoughts, our passion, our expertise in a way that's
(03:13):
going to be relatable, be digestible, be comprehensible to anybody
else or whoever is Ideally you're a target audience, but
more importantly beyond that, because you want to have more
influence on more people, to bring them over to your space.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yes, exactly, because you know, I work with nonfiction and
why they're writing a book is they want to transform people.
They want to make change, They want to be change
makers in the world. Right, So when there's this gap
between you know, what we think we're saying and what
other people are receiving, that just that just shuts down
(03:52):
the impact that we can make. So how does this
idea apply to two authors struggling to express themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's very much like I'm guessing that most of your audience,
most of the writers out there have done some workshopping.
At some point, you know, you take a chapter or
an excerpt and you share it with someone and you
ask for feedback, whether they're your significant other or asking
a mentor or a colleague, or people with different degrees
(04:21):
of connection to your topic or to the top whatever
you're writing about. Expertise in the space. So the ability
to have the humility to listen to receive the input,
because we're all in love with our topics right where
you are all we want to make the difference, but
(04:43):
we want people to read ourself and go, oh, that's brilliant,
thank you so much. It's all clear now, And that
doesn't always happen. So it's really important to ask good questions,
not just what do you think? That's too broad, Ask
a good focus question and then sit back, take a
deep breath, and receive whatever they say. And I find
(05:07):
that the narrower we can ask a question, the more specific,
actionable and easy to receive is nature of the content
we will get. So the difference between what do you
think about this versus the section in here? Was the
analogy effective? Was there a way? Did I miss any details?
(05:28):
Was it too detailed? Like? Help them analyze and give
you meaningful feedback. Because people are afraid to tell you
that they think something isn't good, or that it's too
broad of a comment anyway, but they're not afraid to
tell you, like a very specific piece of information that
(05:49):
you have asked for, that's different from levying a general opinion.
Most people won't do it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, now that's really good advice. And what I find is,
you know, as humans, we're pulled in two directions. One,
we want reassurance that we're okay, we want validation that
our ideas are good, We want all of this, and
yet we also want that honest feedback so we can
improve ourselves. Right, So we can be really challenging to
(06:16):
let go of that ego or let go of that
that you know, that need for reassurance and become vulnerable
in order to get the feedback. And I love that
you say, ask really specific questions. And I think that
really works whether you're creating a course, whether you're developing
a talk for stage, or whether you're about to send
(06:36):
your book to beta readers, right right, and so okay,
So when when you're trying to be vulnerable, when you're
trying to ask these really specific questions, and it gets
really scary and you become frustrated and you want to
kind of run back to reassurance and validation and hide.
How can we reset ourselves?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I think it's important to take stock of explicitly have
a little sort of out of body experience where you
can imagine your your brain floating or your mind floating
up outside of your brain and you're looking outside of
it into yourself and saying, Okay, what am I really
feeling here? Ask yourself and name the emotion. What am
(07:21):
I feeling and why? Well, I'm feeling defensive, I'm feeling frustrated,
I'm feeling under time pressure. Oh my gosh, I'm telling
you I got to fix this and tomorrow's my deadline.
Well maybe you shouldn't have wait un till the day
before it. Ask with the feedback, but that's a separate issue,
you know. But why am I hearing my father's voice
in my head? And it's not my father? And I
shouldn't project my father onto this person or I love
(07:42):
your dad, has nothing new to my father, but hypothetically,
you know, so, But taking stock and tingrette what am
I feeling? Where am I feeling?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
In my body? Am I feeling a tightness in my throat?
Am I feeling my heart kick in? Am I feeling
a not in my stomach? Am I feeling my legs
start to bounce a little bit on top of my foot?
What's going on? Okay, where's it coming from? And why
I acknowledge it? And then say, Okay, I need to
put that aside. What's this person's intention? What did I
(08:11):
ask for? And how can I approach with gratitude to
this person making themselves vulnerable by asking the question, by
answering the question that I have asked, how do I
receive that graciously and humbly? And if you can redirect that,
remind yourself, they're not saying they don't like me, They're
not saying this book's a stupid idea. Don't overgeneralize, and
(08:34):
then it helps you to sort of bring down the
adrenaline and redirect.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah. I really love how you talked about recognizing the
other person's vulnerability. We often see our own vulnerability and
we think everyone else around us has no vulnerabilities. It's
just me. So really thank you for talking about recognizing
that that in that communication, we're both vulnerable. I think
that's incredibly powerful. Okay, So if you want to learn
(09:02):
more about Laura, you can go to her website, Laura
Scola at no not at no address. What was I thinking,
Laura cla at dot com. So I had, you know,
I really want to get into the like the meat
of what you do. This is leadership presence, right this
(09:25):
you're bringing the best of our leadership. And you were
talking earlier about the three seas of leadership presence? Can
you just go over those again for our audience?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Absolutely, and they are one hundred percent as relevant for
authors as for corporate executives, which is typically my client
demographic for training and coaching. But the three seas are
very simply the ability to command the room, to connect
with the audience and close the deal. So if we
break those down real quick, commanding the room means, from
(09:58):
the very beginning, something about the way you walk in,
something about the way that you appear. When you first
log into a meeting and turn on your camera. Do
you turn your camera on? Are you hiding in the dark?
So where when you show up, is there something that
makes the that compels the other people to set up
(10:20):
and take notice, to focus, to pay attention, it's not
that you're walking in there and saying, hey, look at me,
extrovert extrovert attention hog attention hog. No, it's all about me.
But there's something It can be a very quiet presence
and being, but having that some that energy that just
compels people. There's a difference between demanding respect and commanding it.
(10:43):
And if you can command it with your presence, you
will never have to demand it verbally. So that's the
first one that's command The second, see is connecting with
the audience, and this is and of course both of
these are just as important in your writing. Right, you
have to capture their attention right away with something powerful
(11:04):
and then, no matter how different your world is from
the person you're writing to. I mean, I could be
reading about a a surf in ancient China or whatever
it happens to be, probably not in a nonfiction book. Whatevertheless,
I need to be able to empathize or to imagine
or to picture myself there on some level. When you're speaking,
(11:27):
you want to be able to establish at least one
point of connection where you and the audience are both
thinking on that particular level. You understand me and I
understand you. If nothing else on this one thread, we're
going to go on this journey together. And then number
three is closing the deal. And this does not have
(11:48):
to mean a sales moment signing on the dotted line.
We like those, we're not going to say no to those.
But more broadly, it's about when you're driving the point home,
do you come to an agreement together? Do we both
have a mutual understanding? Are we moving the needle forward
one step at a time, one conversation at a time,
(12:11):
one page at a time. Are we going to continue forward?
So that's the closing the deal part, And if you
can consistently cyclically do all three of those, that's where
your leadership, presence, that mastery comes through and people want
to follow that leader.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, no, I love that's that's excellent. But it really
it's this beautiful segue into my next question, which is
about imposter syndrome, because I can imagine people are out
there listening to you, and as they're listening, half of
them are saying, oh, i'd love that. That would be wonderful,
That's what I want. On the other half is saying,
who are you to expect that you could have that?
(12:49):
So can you talk a little bit about as you
go through this journey of finding your leadership self, when
imposter syndrome comes up, how can we deal with that
inner critic?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Sure, and of course, to anybody out there who is
not familiar with the term imposter syndrome directly, you mentioned
inner critic, that's very much one of one of the
components of it. I think the simple definition of imposter
syndrome is the fear of being exposed as a fraud.
To your earlier point, you know, who am I to
write this? You somebody's going to look at me and say, Laura,
(13:23):
who are you to write about X? What do you know?
You're you're an executive coach, but yet you were never
in the executive ranks? You know, who are you to
do these kinds of things? Right? But I have this lens,
and those out there who need my lens aren't going
to get it from anybody else. And there is that niche.
I'm not the coach for everybody, but for this group
(13:45):
we click. And so I think the I have what
I like to call my forward secret to confident public speaking,
and I think you can apply this to writing just
as well. And those four words melody are very simply,
it's not about you. It may be your story that
you're sharing, it may be some of your experiences you're sharing,
(14:09):
but it's because and I think this is one we'll
go back to number two, connecting with the audience. I'm
going to guess that this is a uniting principle for
everybody out there, who's listening, who's tuning in today. But
we're all doing it because we want to make a difference.
We have some experience, some knowledge, something that we feel
compelled to share with the world to help people. So
(14:32):
if we're focusing on speaking on writing with that north star,
I want to help people. I know this is going
to help someone. Then that is your truth and there
is no one who can challenge that. That is not imposter,
that's you, that's not fraud. Your experience is your experience.
(14:53):
So if you just lead with that, and look, there's
always going to be somebody who doesn't like your stuff.
There's going to be somebody who disagrees. What's Taylor Swift's line,
The haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, whatever. So and
it's look, you mentioned my ted talk, which has done
very well, but if you read the comments, some people
are just mean they don't like my shirt, they don't
like the way I quoted Darth Vader at one point,
(15:15):
they don't like I mean people have nothing to do.
Some people have nothing to do and no way to
feel better about themselves unless they're just tearing somebody else down.
It's the crab pot theory. Have you heard the crab
pot theory?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah? Go ahead, don't don't leave us with have you
heard about it? Without explaining an words? O?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So fifteen second version is if you ever see, if
you've ever gone crabbing, and you see a bucket of
crabs at a fishmonger or something. Every now and then
one crab will manage to like grip the top of
the bucket and try to pull itself out, and the
ones that are below it will reach up and grab
the legs and pull it back in. So, when you
think about that circle of people around you, who are
(15:55):
the naysayers? When's going you'll ever write a book? I
don't know who do you think you are? You're not
an author, you're not special, you're not this and that
it's because they don't believe they are. They don't believe
they have the capability and to see you rise and
succeed will make them feel underachieving or less than. So
they need to pull you back down to their level
so they feel better about themselves. That's how I have
(16:16):
to look at the people who don't like my ted talk,
the people who disagree with this and that they're going
to have their opinions, and you know what, that's okay.
Those are not the people I seek to serve. Those
who seek to serve I seek to serve are the
ones who are right there with me and saying thank
you for doing all that you did to bring this
to us. And it's the same for everybody else out there.
You will have your contributors who will say thank you
(16:37):
for your contribution.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Exactly beautiful. And I just want to stop for a
moment and say that go check out speaking to influence
the book. I've put the link right in front of
you right now, because everything we're talking about and more
is there for you. Okay, As we're wrapping up, I
want to talk about perfectionism because I think that impost
(17:00):
syndrome and perfectionism are the evil twin sisters.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, yes, and so the is there a specific question
you want to be an answer just to entress the
concept now.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I want to address because I'm not gonna ask you
a specific question because because they're so linked, I just
want to give you the opportunity to to kind of,
you know, deal with them together, or or move on
to perfectionism. So you're the extra give us what we need, Laura, Well,
I'm the expert only in so far as I'm having
(17:35):
experienced it. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
If that, if experience is expertise, send it. Sure. I
can speak from there. And perfection is the enemy of
the done, frankly, And that's something that I learned fifteen
years ago when I was working on my PhD. Because
you can sit there and edit and always read another article,
and always add this, and always add that, and always
feel like it'll never be good enough. At some point
(17:57):
you have to be done in two years, right a
second edition, or write a follow up book, or do
something else. But there is no such thing as perfection.
And if you find your erasing more than your writing
because it's not perfect yet, you'll never get off of
page one. Just get the ideas down and keep working
(18:17):
through it. I think there's a lot of people in
a melody we talked a little bit before their show.
I do a lot of public speaking coaching for my clients,
and people tend to gravitate to one extreme or the other.
Either they want to script it out and memorize it
so it's perfect, so there's no question, there's no risk involved.
(18:38):
They just hope nobody asks a question or interrupts them,
because then they're screwed if they got off track or
they're like, ah, I can't memorize. Oh, I don't want
to do that. I want to be authentic. I want
to be free. I want to be me, and but
authentic and free and me don't mean sloppy and unprepared
and completely off the cuff. There you can do preparation
(19:02):
and still move forward. So I think it's about finding
a level, deciding for you what is going to be enough,
not too much, not too little. There's a time and
a place for extemporaneous, and there's a time and a
place for really tightly structured. You know, you have to
put something on LinkedIn. You got three hundred characters, you
got to be tight on that. But at the back
of your book you only have a few but fifty
(19:24):
words one hundred words has to be tight. But all
things considered, just get stuff down you can refine later.
Don't worry about perfect I think that's the key.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for that perspective.
Really appreciate it. One of the things we like to
do is as we end, is give our audience some
actionable items, because it's really lovely to just sit and
listen to a podcast and then wander off feeling good
about it. But it's another thing to have, you know, three,
I can do this. Now, here's something I can actually implement.
(19:57):
You to give our authors three things that they can
walk away with and actually do the first one.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And this can go with writing, but also with anything else.
Time blocking. You have to block your calendar, whether it's
from four to five in the morning, four to five
in the afternoon, a three hour block, a twenty minute block.
If there's something that you need to do, you have
to schedule the time. Now you should also honor the time.
I am the queen of blocking time to do certain tasks,
(20:27):
and then stuff can tend to eat into it. But
even if fifty percent of my time blocks are honored,
that's a whole lot better than none. So get the
time blocks on the calendar, especially for so here's where
number two. When you know, and I'm also the queen.
As you've just outlined of things like going to a
(20:49):
seminar or to a workshop or to a training or
listening to a podcast and taking truckloads of notes and
then not doing anything with them, they don't translate out.
It's like, right, there are a lot of action steps
I was supposed to do along those lines. So if
I know that one of those events is coming up, proactively, preemptively,
(21:11):
I will then set a block of time on my
calendar or two to just go through those notes as
soon as possible when it's done the next day or
later the same day, and just see where I've highlighted.
I always used two and so maybe this is my
third one, but I always use two highlighting colors when
I'm taking notes on something. Look at that a couples.
(21:31):
I'm not sure where that came from, but where, So
I highlight in yellow something that's an important point for
me to remember, just took a food for thought, useful
and greener action items. So when I'm looking through, you know,
if I'm in a workshop for a day or a
four day or something super intensive, there's a lot of
takeaways after that, I don't want to go through twenty
pages of notes lined by line. I want to be
(21:53):
able to find all of my green line items and
then condense those onto a one sheet and or put
those write on the calendar, or into an email or
something else, take action stuff with the green items, so
then at least you can get rid of that and
move forward and know that it doesn't just stay as
passive knowledge without effect.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love that. One thing I tend to do is
if I'm having a meeting with somewhere, I'm going to
an event, I don't just block that time. I blocked
that time plus yes exactly, it's set up in my
calendar to automatically say, okay, you're doing this, and then
you have time afterwards because I want to write a note,
I want to write a follow up email. I want
to do all these things to be this, you know,
(22:36):
the person I want to be. And if I don't
time block that, it doesn't happen, and then later I
feel badly because I didn't send the thank you email
and I didn't follow up, and then you know, what's
the point of that. So thank you, Laura for all
of this. This has been really brilliant. Where can we
find you? And can we get a couple of chapters?
(22:58):
I think you told me earlier that you have a
couple of chapters people can read, So can you talk
about where we can find that?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Absolutely, as you mentioned earlier, you can just find out
more about me at my website, which is Laurasacola dot com.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. If you
do reach out to connect, tell me that you met
me here on Melody's show. I love knowing where connection
requests come from, and that definitely makes me want to
say yes. But you can also go to Speaking to
(23:25):
Influence dot com. That's the website for my book and
my podcast, and I think we've got a QR code
up here that you can scan if you're looking at
the video otherwise, I believe Melody you said you would
put it in these show notes, but I have a
link that will offer you two free chapters, the first
two chapters of my book of Speaking to Influence, Mastering
your Leadership Voice. So if you enjoyed some of the
(23:45):
tips that I shared today, We've got lots and lots
more where they came from, lots of stories, personal anecdotes,
personal and professional spaces. I would love to hear any
feedback that you have to offer, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Thank you so much, Laura. I've really appreciated having you
on the show today.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
It was such a joy.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Thank you for the opportunity, absolutely, and thanks so much
for joining us today at author Nation. I hope this
conversation has sparked interest, cleared some creative cobwebs, and have
given you some real steps to reclaim your voice right
with conviction speak as a leader. Now, don't forget to
visit authoration dot online for tools and guidance to support
(24:24):
your nonfiction author journey no matter where you are. And
if this episode has brought you value, I'd love for
you to review it, share it with that author you
know needs to hear it, reach out and let us
know what you'd like to hear next. And remember, keep writing,
keep showing up, and own your voice because the world
(24:47):
needs your story.
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