Leading People
Gerry Murray talks to leading people about leading people. Get insights and tips from thought leaders about how to bring out the best in yourself and others.
Leading People
Discover the Secret to True Leadership Presence
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This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision-makers who want to bring out the best in themselves and others.
What if you could unlock the secret to true leadership presence, not through charisma, but by embracing authenticity and intention?
Join us as Caroline Goyder, a TEDx speaker, coach and author, shares her transformative journey from an early career in acting to mastering gravitas, and how you can begin your path toward genuine leadership.
Through her personal stories and insights, discover how failure can be a stepping stone to growth, drawing inspiration from thinkers like Samuel Beckett and Dan Gilbert. Caroline's journey, including her experiences while writing "The Star Qualities", offers valuable lessons on developing effective communication and leading with purpose.
Explore the profound impact of intentionality and storytelling in leadership with Caroline, as we discuss how these elements can shift a leader's presence from doubt to dynamic passion. Gravitas, often misunderstood as mere charisma, is unpacked as a grounded presence aligned with one's values.
- Hear stories of community leaders who embody this quality, serving causes greater than themselves, and reflect on how such leadership transcends personal ambition.
- Be inspired by role models whose stories illustrate the power of leading authentically and with a shared purpose.
- Gain insights into overcoming imposter syndrome in presentations through preparation and presence.
Whether you're looking to cultivate gravitas, enhance your presentations, or simply lead with greater impact, this episode equips you with practical tools and strategies to elevate your leadership journey.
Finally, we preview the Leading People conversation with my next guest, Marie-Hélène Pelletier, author of “The Resilience Plan – A strategic approach to optimizing your work performance and mental health”.
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Wide Circle
Welcome to Leading People with me Gerry Marais. This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision makers who want to bring out the best in themselves and others. Every other week, I sit down with leading authors, researchers and practitioners for deep dive conversations about the strategies, insights and tools that drive personal and organizational success. And in between, I bring you one simple thing short episodes that deliver practical insights and tips for immediate use, Whether you're here for useful tools or thought thought-provoking ideas.
Speaker 2:Leading People is your guide to better leadership.
Speaker 1:How do you develop the kind of presence that inspires trust, connection and action? Carolyn Goider, a TEDx speaker with over 10 million views and author of three books Gravitas, find your Voice and the Star Qualities joins me on Leading People to share how leaders can unlock their inner confidence and connect authentically with their teams. In this conversation, Caroline reveals why Gravitas isn't about charisma and how to cultivate your Gravitas the transformative power of intention and storytelling in leadership and practical tools to find your voice and lead with purpose.
Speaker 2:Get ready to rethink what it means to truly lead with presence.
Speaker 1:Caroline Goiter welcome to Leading People.
Speaker 3:Gerry, it is delightful to be here.
Speaker 1:So, caroline, for the benefit of our listeners, you've published several books and we'll get to these shortly. And just before we came on, we were just reminiscing that our paths crossed almost 20 years ago in the world of neurolinguistic programming, or NLP, and we were just sharing some stories from that. But first, so our listeners can get to know you better, how did you get to where you are today? Was there like a person, place or thing or an event or an epiphany moment? And why did you choose this career that you have today?
Speaker 3:really, in this with the Gravitas method, I guess I must be quite stubborn because I fell into this path because I wasn't very good at it. I trained as an actor and I found, although I was excited about training as an actor, I wasn't naturally great at it. And they said to me you've got no presence, you're not centered, your alignment is off, you're not breathing the right way, and because I'd never thought about any of these things, it was a horrible shock. But why I say I must have been quite stubborn is because I didn't let it set me back permanently and I really had to unlearn old habits and learn new ones. And now I can say they wouldn't say that to me if I went to drama school now and my life's work, I guess, is to share that epiphany with other people, that when someone says you don't have enough gravitas or presence or you're not centered, it's not permanent, you can change it and I love people getting that same epiphany. That's why I do what I do it's interesting.
Speaker 1:You say that I was yesterday. I do this regular webinar at the EU called learning to learn, and somebody asked a question yesterday and you might laugh at the this one was how do I mean, how do I deal with failure? Um, and you know, we have that wonderful concept that we embrace in in the world of nop, which is there's no failure, only feedback, and so it was an opportunity to to reframe, and actually what you've just kind of articulated here is actually not a bad example, of other people might have just said, oh well, that's it, and you decided no, that's not it, I'm going to find another way to do this, is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really was that, and something in me wanted to get better. And I go back to Samuel Beckett you you know a great Irishman who said fail, fail again, fail better. And I think at some level I knew that that's what I was doing, although if you'd asked me all those years ago I was pretty lost and I was pretty upset about it. Now it was, as you say, a hugely useful lesson.
Speaker 1:I think most people in any artistic endeavor would identify with what you said. Um, I don't know any. I actually I do know some amazing, like musicians, for example, who are really at the pinnacle of the really at the top of their career and they still think they have to get better and the rest of us are in awe. So it's uh, it's good, but it's a part of the growth mindset thing it's about, you know, continuously learning and improving and you know we're never done. I think dan gilbert, the famous psychologist in america, said human beings are a work in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I have no sense of being finished in any way.
Speaker 1:Great so, so, um, and I've been tuning into your work on and off, particularly these last couple of years, and I've been incredibly impressed, for example, with your TED Talk that you did and we also shared some stories there that took some work. Caroline Walker talk and literally should watch that TED talk. It's full of wonderful, wonderful techniques and ways of engaging audience and you mentioned theatre and you know a lot of what you've. I think your was was your first book, this one here, was it?
Speaker 3:It was indeed Wow, my first child my first child is just.
Speaker 1:I just held up for the listeners the star qualities, which seems to be a bit like a modeling exercise you did with people who really were good at this. Would you like to just start off talking about your books? Maybe mention that one first and then how it evolved to where you are today and what you're actually focused on with this gravitas myth?
Speaker 3:It's funny because I was working at Central School of Speech and Drama and I had a coach I mean, you and I both know the power of coaching and my coach said if you want to step out of the shadow of this drama school, you should write a book. Seemed utterly terrifying. And so she said and if you want to write a book, you want to talk to actors. And she said, because you work at Central, you can get to some really top actors. So I started writing to actors because I thought I want to, as you say, model confidence, and A-list actors know about finding confidence. And she said to me don't just write to someone on East Enders, you need to write to the A-list. And she gave me the most useful advice that I have taught to leaders all over the world since, which is, if you want to get to someone, google the three things that they talk about that are most valuable to them, the deepest values, and find out how they correlate with yours. And when you get to the center of that Venn diagram, put those three values in the first line of the email, because why would we say no to something that speaks to our deepest values?
Speaker 3:In the first week I had Helen Mirren, cate Blanchett and Cate Winslet, and then of course you can write to agents and you can write to other actors. So I wrote to literary agents and said I have these three actors and she said don't write to any old agent, write to the top agents. So I wrote a letter to Johnny Geller at the time, who now runs Curtis Brown, and I knew that he had been an actor, so there was some intelligence there in terms of this project might interest him. He comes back same day. I like the sound of this Come in. So it was in some ways incredibly fast. But the lesson in it was if you speak to people's deepest values and you are congruent about how they mesh with yours, why would anybody say no? And that lesson has kind of been with me ever since and it led to gravitas and then find your voice.
Speaker 1:But none of it would have happened without that really elegant piece of coaching and I suppose to anybody trying to decode that it's a little bit the what's in it for me. You, you, once you get to the values level with people, uh, it tends to resonate and they, they really see how you would uh connect well with them, right the why of who they are, rather than the what this project is about yeah, too often people promote themselves to try and build.
Speaker 1:I suppose they're trying to build credibility, but, as you say, often you want to first connect before you try to build credit credibility. You, you found that magic for me, so I'm going to take a note of that. I hope our listeners are taking notes of that. It because it, yeah, and it makes sense. Um, so you went on from the a-list and and then you, would it be fair to say you, you, you focused in on a particular area of of this presence and and centering and with which? With the voice. But finding your voice is not just about the, the, the vocal quality. It's got to do with a lot of other things. So maybe you can unpack that for our listeners on leading people.
Speaker 2:The goal is to bring you cutting-edge thought leadership from many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in leadership today. Each guest shares their insights, wisdom and practical advice so we can all get better at bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share a link with friends, family and colleagues, and stay informed by joining our leading people LinkedIn community of HR leaders and talent professionals and talent professionals.
Speaker 3:It's something that increasingly, I am almost annoyed about. Maybe annoyed is the wrong word, but it frustrates me that in a culture where we talk a lot about mindfulness and we talk a lot about things like centeredness and presence, I hear breathing experts you know people who teach breathing as a job not making the connection between the out-breath and speech or song, and I think there's a huge missing link for us globally around the voice as exhalation, because if the exhalation is voice, then a pause is an in-breath and suddenly you're into the whole of the somatic wealth that we have as humans. And because most of us are completely unconscious about how speech works, we're just not harnessing that and it really frustrates me. I think that awareness will come, probably soon, but there might be a reason in education why it's not taught.
Speaker 1:If I'm being a little bit cynical, okay, um, it's interesting you say that, um, one of one of the breathing techniques that I was taught, uh, 15, 16 years ago, was based on huna. You know the hawaiian. One of the things that we paid attention to there was when you breathe out, you're actually breathing energy. Uh, into the world. Gorgeous, and and and where it comes from, apparently, is when somebody wasn't well, they did. They defined this in their culture that there was something wrong with their energy and that people would get together and sit around a bed, for example, if somebody's not well, and breathe what you know, focus on positive thoughts and breathe in and breathe out positive energy, lovely, help the person heal and in some ways it may not be quite the exact same thing, but, as you say it's. It's like what's happening when we breathe in, what's happening when we breathe out. It's not, it's not just a mechanical in and out thing that keeps us alive. There's other stuff there.
Speaker 3:It's soul. I mean, it's harnessing soul. There's a beautiful word in Welsh which I am going to not pronounce correctly, so those who are Welsh natives or speak Welsh forgive me. It sounds, I think, like hul, and it comes from the Anglo-Saxon idea of a boat with a mast and a sail that's billowing out. You know the boat is moving swiftly and if you think of a wonderful Welsh choir people standing tall, the mast is strong, the breath is full, the sound is powerful I think for all of us, we could all learn to harness that better, because when we find our voices we are powerful. You know, on so many levels and so much of modern life staring at phones, hunched over, sitting at desks you know that as a musician, it takes that power away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as a musician, actually I have four daughters and every one of them sings and plays instruments and it's just the most amazing. We really don't appreciate how beautiful the voice is. One of my colleagues in the band used to say he was a violin player. So violin players have to be very. They don't have frets on the violin, you know to know where to put their fingers, but he wants. He used to say the most powerful and beautiful instrument of all is the voice. And actually it is so true In so many cultures where they couldn't afford musical instruments, they used the voice or combinations of voices to create beautiful music. And maybe that's where the Welsh choir thing grows out of. You know, obviously maybe a classical tradition of harmonizing, but it's hard to beat.
Speaker 3:Oh, powerful, yeah, and it changes us. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:Let's go beyond just the vocal aspect of this. And what does it mean to find your voice? And then how does that lead into gravitas and all the great things that come out of that. So you know, at a more metaphorical level, what does it mean to find your voice.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go to a client I was working with yesterday actually, who obviously I would not name and I won't even name where she works. She's a very senior leader and she said to me they've gone through a lot of transformation. I have big, all hands and I get onto the call and I feel like I'm in an exam. I have a script and I say it and when she walks into the room with you she's full of presence, she's carries herself beautifully, her voice is powerful and we watched one of her all hands and she was hunched over her laptop, sounding like it wasn't really her words and it it was.
Speaker 3:There's something about the pressure of a script, a performance, or being judged, because maybe you're taking people through a transformation that is difficult, that they're not enjoying. It was like she had slightly shrunk and the journey we went through in a half day coaching session was to help her find the intention, because I don't know about you, jerry, but I feel that a lot of powerful performance is about intentionality. I said what do you want them to feel? And she was really surprised by that question because she thought what do I want them to think? So we set her intention.
Speaker 3:We thought about story, because story, I think, is a really beautiful way to tap into things that matter to you. And I said what are the stories of the green shoots, of success in this transformation? And she started to tell me a story and I said we need to use that, because stories will help change the audience's mindset from the pain of transformation to the potential. Yeah, and so she used a story as a metaphor for change, and then we mind mapped it with lots of colorful sharpies on a big piece of a3 and she suddenly could see that this was fun, it was creative, that it wasn't an essay anymore, and she went in three hours from someone small and hunched and flat on a team's meeting to someone who I know, when she does it, will be standing passionate, full of energy and persuasive, and that was always in her. But you know, as you know, good coaching is really just about going to someone. I trust you've got this.
Speaker 1:Let's draw it out it's almost like you have the key and you can unlock that little part, that door that they never sort of opening because they just thought, well, that that door's key and you can unlock that little part, that door that they never saw opening because they just thought, well, that door's locked.
Speaker 1:I can't do that I can't do it. Yeah, I have at least two or three stories came into my head of similar experiences with people who were being scripted and basically threw the script away and said if you were to just tell me now over a coffee what it is you want people to take away, what would it be? And then they find their voice. In that way, they flow. Say what stops you from saying that? Say, well, I've been told I have to follow the script and you go. Is it you? And they go.
Speaker 1:No, that's why you're having challenges. And you get back to values again. It's not. And you get back to values. Again, you know it's not congruent with who they feel they are. And then, of course, I suppose people would say you know, if you have to script these messages to that degree, you know, is everything really working the way the organization wants it to work, if they have to do that? So anyway, I'm now curious to evolve into the concept of gravitas, which I think probably flows naturally from this world of voice and presence. So gravitas is a very, very interesting word linguistically. I'm not even sure if some languages could translate it. I live in a very multilingual world. So why Gravitas and what's the goal of what you're trying to communicate with that word?
Speaker 3:It's funny because it came about because clients were asking me for the word. They would say you know, I think of a big telco. They would say one or two of our executives need more gravitas. And so I got really curious about it. I had a sense of what it means. It means, you know, barack Obama. It means someone who has a kind of gravitational pull. They have a magnetismism, they're grounded. But when I went back to the ancient world it was a roman virtue. It connotes seriousness and dignity, but of course newton hadn't come along at that point. And newton comes along much later and coins it for his universal force, which gives it much more weight. That's the real yeah literally before gravity.
Speaker 3:did we see gravitas in the same way? Probably not, and that's it's interesting to me what it means now, having written a book 10 years ago and you know, as you know, we, I would write it differently now, but the the depth of it is still really true, which is that it is about a grounded presence. It is about being congruent, centered, true to your values. But I think the most important thing about it is that what differentiates this grounded presence of gravitas from charisma is that it's not all about you, right? Common purpose, people who speak to a common purpose, something bigger than them, some serving something bigger than them. The football coach, the person who runs the school choir you know the community um leader, those people who runs the school choir, you know the community leader, those people are often the people with the most gravitas, not the people in the public eye, because that's often there's often. I mean, we can think of any number of recent political leaders who are highly charismatic, but do they have gravitas?
Speaker 1:Jury's out yeah, and we will not. Um, we will not put any of them on trial today, even though some of them have already been through that process in some countries, but like, we'll leave that one for for another day. Uh, so so I was actually there for one of the questions I was going to ask you about. Is this concept of role modeling, because you know this is called leading people. You know, really inner leadership and self-leadership precedes really standing up, and I guess that's wrapped into this gravitas thing. And you, you just talked about community leaders and you talked about other people. I grew up in a small village in Ireland and some of the most remarkable people did, you know, on the on their day-to-day jobs, just did very ordinary jobs, but boy could they get things done oh yeah boy, could they, you know, go in?
Speaker 1:and there's one guy he's actually a family relative saw an opportunity to take a big field and turn it into four football pitches. Wow, so so that the main pitch would be protected from training. And that, and not only did it's, did it create a training facility so that, you know, didn't have to use the main pitch. It spawned ladies football. Uh, it's unbelievable how many teams, how many young people can go there and develop.
Speaker 1:And and this is this is somebody who, for the early part of his career, I think he drove a lorry for a while and then he, he built, he got into building houses, and that I would not see himself, as you know, the the archetypical leader, but a man who could just get so much done in the, in the community, just by going out and setting example and being convinced and, as you say, connecting into this common purpose. It was something that people could rally behind. So maybe let's elaborate on that a bit. And what you've seen outside of the big corporate world I mean, you work with very high-powered people. I know that. What else are you seeing out there that says, you know, even those high-powered people could learn from some of those, let's say, people working those normal kind of community-type roles, trying to get people on board to improve the local society.
Speaker 1:You're listening to Leading People with me, gerry Murray, and my guest this week is Caroline Goider. In the next part of our conversation, caroline shares practical tools to unlock your gravitas, engage your audience and lead with authenticity.
Speaker 2:Plus, discover her tips for overcoming imposter syndrome and mastering that all important first minute of any presentation and stay tuned for her special offer just for you.
Speaker 1:Now back to our conversation.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think that's it. I can't remember who says this the eulogy virtues it comes from a wonderful book and I will track it down and send you the author. But I think it is the people who, when you hear their eulogy, you hear the depth of how they've been serving those around them, and a lot of the people who impress us on a superficial level could learn a great deal from the ability of those people to deeply listen. I mean, and the thing with great corporate leaders is the truly great corporate leaders marry both right. They are both people who have a deep sense of value and a sense of congruence and a sense of empathy, you know, for the people who work for them and the people they serve.
Speaker 3:But I think the trouble with corporate life is that the pressure of it and the pressure of these jobs is insane makes us very fight or flight, and fight or flight is tunnel vision. It locks down empathy. It locks down our ability to really, when someone else smiles, to smile back to hear the depth of what someone is saying. So one of the things I will say to those leaders in corporate life a lot is there are moments where you're going to need to put the brakes on. You know, I know the business is going at a thousand miles an hour at the moment. If you want to lead, you need to be able to slow down for people sometimes. Slow down for people sometimes, and I think corporate leaders can learn a lot from community leaders, who just take more time. And it's a note I say to myself, because I'm a city dweller and you know people in London love to rush around, but actually just stop, slow down, be there, be with people.
Speaker 1:Take your time. I mean it's neurologically necessary. I mean this is the fascinating thing. You talked about some of the things about the voice not really being taught what happens when you breathe in, breathe out. At school level there's nothing taught about how our brains work. I mean it might be referred to in biology class, but you know this is such a fundamental part of how we run, how we operate. It's our kind of operating, whatever you want to call it system processing unit, whatever analogy you want to use and yet you know it's always, since I got into neuroscience about 10 years ago, I kind of go what?
Speaker 1:What's stopping educators from actually teaching young kids and and I know, teenagers and adults about just the basics? You know, because if you try to I mean one of my guests that will be coming out around maybe before or after your podcast has written a book about workaholism. You know, and you know it's really done some powerful research into this and you know this idea that you just can keep going as Superman or Superwoman, diminishing returns, is a natural phenomenon. The more you try to work, the less effective you're going to be, and leaders need to be able to step back because they need judgment, judgment, and there's lots of research saying if you don't put the brakes on, as you say, and take time to just observe and think and listen, you're likely your decision making is likely to deteriorate 100 just the way it is. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1:You talk, you talked a lot about, um, you talked a lot about I've noticed in some of your videos even centering internal dialogue and presence, and you mentioned there the whole thing about fight or flight and the whole tunnel vision thing. They're quite related, aren't they? So this idea of the voice inside the head, the tensing of the muscles, the foveal vision, tunnel vision thing, tunnel vision thing, um, what, what have you been able to develop as techniques and tools to help people, uh, counter that and deal with it and maybe reverse that tendency that they might have?
Speaker 3:this is a funny one and it might not be the answer that people are looking for, in that I trained as a mindfulness teacher last year and before. Before that, I'd done a couple of retreats with this teacher, angus Forbes Robertson, and had realized that I was just like I was saying, just like the leaders I was talking about wired, I was adrenal, I was rushing my inner voice, my head was so noisy and one of these retreats was obviously so powerful that I got really ill afterwards. I got that horrible hundred day cough and I think it was a bit of a wake up call. And so ever since then I've been meditating every morning, you know, sometimes compassion meditation, sometimes four seasons breath, sometimes gratitude, something 15 minutes every day.
Speaker 3:And I've learned the deep truth that it's not the exercises I teach, it's the presence I bring, because when I've meditated, it's absolutely what we're saying about the kind of resonance of our presence, our voice. It changes other people's presence in the room and that's partly vocal. I think it's partly how I show up physically. So my invitation to anybody who's wanting to play with gravitas is that a little bit of mindfulness meditation every morning we are. What we repeatedly do, as Aristotle tells us is the thing that is going to make the biggest difference. Simple as that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use that as a moment to rewind back 20 years. One of the core things that a lot of people don't appreciate this about NLP is it's really about state management at the. At its core, it's like how do we manage our thoughts and our physiology and our various emotions to be in this, the most useful, resourceful state we can be in to achieve what we want to achieve? Um, and what you're talking about in so many ways is is really about if you can't get your, if you can't be in the state that's most useful in that moment, and states are contagious. So what happens is you're going to show up with a presence that is not so useful for you, but it's not going to be useful for other people either, is it?
Speaker 3:not going to be useful for other people either, is it? And I think the thing that's most interesting to me is that our brains are not good at assessing state, and so we can think I'm calm.
Speaker 3:The practice is all just a lot. I mean and musicians know this way better than I, right, my dad is a saxophonist, a jazz saxophonist, you know, it is just show up every day, show up every day. Don't try, just show up, just do it, just do it, just do it. And if you keep just doing it, something changes at a cellular level yeah and it's not something that the brain can rationalize, because it's it's unconscious it is, uh, it's more autonomous nervous system that's doing this.
Speaker 1:And if we were to explore it further, what we've been exposed to, uh, during our life is conditioning how our brains have evolved to this. So we've been around people who are constantly agitated and impatient, etc. Yes, there's nothing wrong with agitation and impatience. In some context you might need it. It just may not be the most useful thing. But if that's your default behavior and that's why the mindfulness in the neuroscience, the mindfulness activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is our ability to sort of kind of rationalize and take stock of what's going on in the rest of our body.
Speaker 1:Whether we're in fight or flight or we can be overexcited, our reward systems can be creating impulsivity and all sorts of crazy stuff on the other side of the equation but it's that I was teaching it yesterday actually. So, basically, you know how do we put the braking system on? What mindfulness is doing is saying just take a moment to take stock and and no judgment just like what's? What's, what's just happening at this moment, and is this what I want? I mean, you can ask yourself is this useful for what I want to do next? It's not that complicated, it's hard, it's not that easy to do physically. The concept is quite simple to understand, isn't it?
Speaker 3:And I think that's where I got to is that I had thought I was doing it until I got to the deeper level and went oh okay, that's it. And probably if I keep going in 10 years I'll go. Oh, no, no, that's it. And probably if I keep going in 10 years I'll go oh no, no, that's it. But what's quite nice is that, you know, as we get older, there is, there are deeper layers, and I think that's quite a nice thought, that there's more to find.
Speaker 1:So the Buddhas need to move over Caroline's on her way.
Speaker 3:I think I'm some way off that.
Speaker 1:In my next life.
Speaker 3:My next life maybe or the life after that. Perhaps.
Speaker 1:Okay, so why is it so important for leaders to master the gravitas? I want to come back to this again, like why is it so important, particularly in today's world, that we know this fast-paced, technologically crazy place we're living in, this world we're living in? Why is it so important for leaders to master this?
Speaker 3:it's everything you've already said, jerry, in the sense that if you are standing in front of a group in a room or on teams, you are creating state, and what you make people feel, as any ad person, any marketeer knows, is what happens first before they validate, justify through logic. So, for a leader to have a presence to their own state and an ability to move others into a more productive state Once they've got the strategy and the business, once they've done the MBA, I can't think of anything more important than helping those you are talking to get into a productive state, can you?
Speaker 1:No, no, and having done an MBA, I also know what that feels like. They didn't teach much about states or anything. I don't even know if Goldman had published his book on emotional intelligence yet at that stage. That's how long ago it was for me. You talk about overcoming imposter syndrome. So how does that manifest itself then when you're working with somebody? Is this sort of a part of a realization, before they can embrace the gravitas, or just explain, perhaps for our listeners, how imposter syndrome relates to the work you're doing in terms of gravitas method?
Speaker 3:It's fascinating, it's funny. Actually, on Monday I ran a session pretty much on that subject for a big media company and we can talk about where we got to with that, my feeling, with imposter syndrome, which is that sense of they're going to find me out. I'm not good enough. I think we all have it beyond you know the dark triad of a few psychopaths and narcissists maybe don't, but I think it's a. It's a human condition. I notice it in myself because that's all we can ever really go on when I'm adrenal, when my head is noisy, when I'm out there in the world. In comparison, which I think fight or flight, you know it's a survival mechanism, isn't it? Who's bigger, who's better, who's faster? Who do I punch? Not literally. I hope you realize. Yes metaphorically.
Speaker 3:Yes, metaphorically so for me, when I'm working with a leader who says, oh, I mean this client yesterday, it wasn't named, but there was a feeling of they're going to find me out. The two antidotes that I think for any of us who feel it. I had a big gig in the US in the summer and just before I walked out on stage the night before, I got a huge dose of imposter syndrome and I go two ways with it. The first one is I really step into service. How can I help this audience? What have they asked for? What's the one thing?
Speaker 3:Because one of the things that goes on in my head is there's probably 10 other people in America who could do this, maybe better, right, and that's really useless. That's not helpful. So what? So? What can? Well? What, caroline, can you bring then? What's the thing that you bring that no one else can lead with that?
Speaker 3:And then the other thing that really helps me is just to quiet my nervous system, because I know that when I walk out in front of the audience or if it's for someone doing a team's all hands when you log in, there's going to be a spike of adrenaline because we care about it if your head is quiet and your body and breath are calm. When you meet that spike of adrenaline, as any musician knows, it spikes performance. But if you're too adrenal, if your head head is too noisy, when you meet that adrenaline, it will damage your performance, it will make you rush, it will make you stutter, you will respond in a reactive way. That is not productive. So step into service, think how can I help? And then just get quiet. Now that presupposes that you have done a shed load of preparation before that. So this is not a wing it charter ever.
Speaker 1:prepare like a pro, get it absolutely ready that you can walk on stage and be quiet and so that that does bring me to uh, you you mentioned somewhere I've seen mentioned, that you pride yourself on providing practical, simple tools that are immediately useful, and let's just play with the one you've. Lots of people probably can identify with what you've just described there, that sort of oh my God, why am I here? And oh, my whole system is overreacting in that Because I also teach some of this stuff and I've noticed a lot of things over the years. So the preparation thing uh, let's just clear up one or two things on that. If you have slides, it doesn't mean reading your slides 10 times, it means actually doing it.
Speaker 1:But what I wanted to get to was the importance of that first minute or two would in any presentation. Could you talk? I'm I'm pretty sure you've thought a lot about this and you've taught it many times that first minute or two that you, when you go out, what, what's the advice for people? Because I, once you my experience as a musician or anything, once the first two minutes go and you get into the zone, you're, you're pretty much set for the rest of it. But tell it, tell our listeners, a little bit about how to do that.
Speaker 3:I mean, I I think you've got to start right at the top of the rehearsal process and think about intentionality why have I been invited here? And what's in it for the audience. Because if you're beginning nailing, a really great start is everything, isn't it? And so in your preparation, to really be clear on what the audience need and to really have a strong first two or three minutes that you're really excited about.
Speaker 3:I often work with comedians, stand-up comedian directors. You know I've occasionally worked with brilliant Neil Malarkey at the Comedy Store, because I'm no comic, you know, I will never be, perhaps in one of those next lives. But I know that comedy directors are absolutely the best you get to really give you a sharp start, because great comedy I'm in awe of, awe of. I mean, it's such an art form is the, it's almost poetic in its editing. And so if I've got a big, daunting, scary gig, I just make sure that those first three minutes are razor sharp.
Speaker 3:And then, as you walk out and then you know any musician knows this it's a lot about as you walk out on stage, air on face, clothes on skin, quiet mind, you know presence to each step you get out on stage there's a moment where, like a rocket ship taking off, there's a stillness, a quiet, because most people rush, that moment they see the audience and they goically and off they go. It's a kind of defensive, aggressive reaction. If you can stop, breathe out, really see them as old friends, let the breath come back in, easy, relaxed. My coach said to me like you're standing at your fireside with a glass of cognac, then your nervous system goes, you're safe and if you're prepped, it's fun.
Speaker 1:At that point even as an introvert, I can say it's fun yeah, yeah, because it's the interesting thing, um, is your relationship with time, would you? You can experience that extra 20 seconds as as like two minutes. The audience is probably getting curious. They're really anticipating and that's a fantastic state for them to go into. Um, and it is really nailing those, and I I get people to really learn almost those two or three sentences off by heart, everything, and rehearse it Now, if we get that right, and then what goes in between goes in between because sometimes we forget stuff and whatever the next piece, the next important piece, is always how do you leave them in that last minute? So what's the trick for that? Because you want to walk off. The way our brains work actually is it's probably more likely to remember that last impact at the emotional level than anything else. So what advice do you give people on that one?
Speaker 3:I learned a lot from Chris Head, who was. I had a couple of coaches for the TED Talk, but Chris Head really really came in and helped me nail the framing and he said to me you need a stronger finish Because I think good comedy he's a stand-up comedy director he said, you know, it's not quite sharp enough. And so what we did? We set up an opening which was opening up a loop of what's the secret to great speaking. And then there was a closed loop at the end which was the surprising secret to public speaking is knowing when to shut your mouth and there's a build-up to it through the talk.
Speaker 3:But it's, it's both, it's paradoxical, it they've been waiting for the close and there was a kind of meta thing which it felt quite fun to be that playful with it, so that I knew that I was going to land the plane. If I think, if you think about the takeoff and then the landing, I knew that I could land the plane really neatly and enjoy that flourish. And I've slightly got addicted to that strong beginning, strong finish. If I'm a bit honest, I've got into a habit of opening up a loop of the beginning of a story and closing the loop of the end of a story, which I think is becoming an overused habit. But for those of you who are not overusing that habit, you can open up a story and then wait through the presentation to tell them what happened. I think I'm using it too much at the moment, but that's a whole other story.
Speaker 1:Those of you who can remember the heyday of Billy Connolly will know that Billy Connolly would start and you'd have about five different stories before the punchline and every one of them was probably comical and that's the impact of it. And, of course, if you're hanging out with comedians, as you say, they have mastered the art of. There's no one better, because because, because the comedy profession is, is, is deadly. I mean you, you, you, you know the way. The comedy store and that, or was it the comedy store in london I think I went to a few times, like you, if you weren't really there and making the impact, within two minutes somebody walk on and say off, off, you go, mate, that's it, you've, that's your comedy career over.
Speaker 1:It was brutal, um, and and yet they learn. Most comedians are committed, that want to be successful, will come back again. They get knocked down and they go. I need to get better at this. How do I walk out there in such a way that that first thing I say just hooks that audience? And and how will I be remembered when I walk off the stage, which of course makes it difficult for the next comedy comedian coming on, who you know? But all comedy comedians know this, that that the guy on before is likely to deliver a great punchline at the end, so I need to make sure I can walk out and match it.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, a lot of people out there don't realize you might get the opportunity to do a TED or a TEDx talk, and it's a fantastic experience, as Caroline will no doubt endorse, and it's really, really hard work to get prepared for it. It's grueling if they're adhering to the guidelines and yet you come out the other end feeling like you've broken through.
Speaker 1:So that's what I felt Like even though I think if I went back and did it again, I would probably be able to do it much better, et cetera, et cetera. I would say to everybody out there, go watch caroline's ted talk and then you'll know what she's talking about, because it was. It's incredibly good, it's very, very good. So, caroline, coming to the end, let's pull a lot of this together now. So, thinking about the concept of self-leadership, and, and, and, therefore that translating into leading others and getting others to follow you, uh, what three insights or takeaways would you like to leave our audience with? Uh, that they could basically take from this conversation we're having today?
Speaker 3:I think, if we start with the idea of intentionality, that there's a lovely I do love a bit of ancient world, unless you know what harbour you're sailing to. No wind is the right wind.
Speaker 1:Seneca.
Speaker 3:That is what good communication is all about.
Speaker 3:Then I suppose we get to Marcus Aurelius we cannot lead others until we first lead ourselves, until we first lead ourselves, manage your own state, whether that's going for a run, going for a walk, sitting quietly for 10 minutes before that meeting, learning to meditate, whatever it is. And the final piece, which is Horace I think I hope I'm right Whatever I feel they feel, the voice is, as you say, the most powerful instrument that there is. It can make people feel a billion different states, and you, as a speaker, have the ability to take them on a journey. So start to notice people who take you on a journey when they speak, and then start to be curious as to when you do it for others, because that the you that's gonna move an audience, and there's reason. You know, I say this as an introvert who was very, very awkward for a long time. There is no more lovely feeling than knowing you've helped and moved an audience.
Speaker 1:It's, I think it's, what life's about really and maybe just to qualify this, because people, obviously we talked about the TED talking and all this stuff the audience it can moving an audience of one, can't it?
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 1:Gravitas is not just uniquely for walking out and doing those showcase gigs, no, no. It could be that one or two people that you have to or you walk up to in a business or court situation and at the end of it you walk away and they feel wow.
Speaker 3:I think it's back to that you know, community leader piece as a parent, as a friend, as you know that your ability to be with someone so they feel heard and listened to and understood, that's what this is about. It's not about impressing people. It's not about being clever. It's not about being clever. It's not about doing a great big talk. It's about show up and make people feel seen and heard and help them move through things through your own presence. That's that's what it's about and through your own presence.
Speaker 1:That's the greatest present you can give them that's it.
Speaker 3:That's the ending we wanted, thank you well, I just made that one up.
Speaker 1:I didn't rehearse it so. So, caroline, what's next for you?
Speaker 3:I am in the midst and I say this with a slight sense of these. Things always take longer than you think. We've created a course called master your speaking, which takes everything I learned from doing a tedx and turns it into a one-hour self-paced course. So if you are having to do a presentation or a speech and you need quickly to pull your stories, your intentionality, your energy together, this course is designed to help you do that and we're very excited about launching it. It's taken a while to produce. Lots of love and care has gone into it and it is coming out in a couple of weeks very good and, um, how can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 3:and I do believe that, maybe related to some of this, you may even have something as a special offer or gift for people who reach out immediately to this yeah, if anybody links in with me, caroline goida, g-o-y-d-e-r, we can send you a gravitas course, a free gravitas video course, which is basically blinkist for the book gravitas, and we can also send you a full set of gravitas audios. So just message me on linkedin and we will sort it out for you yeah, so the?
Speaker 1:so the first couple of people who reach out to you on LinkedIn and say they listen to this podcast, of course, and you will kindly grant them that wonderful offer of that course.
Speaker 3:It'll be our pleasure.
Speaker 1:So, caroline, as ever, thanks for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with me and my listeners here today.
Speaker 3:It's been a complete delight, Gerry. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 4:A key misconception that people have about resilience is that we think it's a personality trait. We think that, look, I've gone through all these things, I've managed through all these demanding phases, I've led large teams through this, whatever I've done. Therefore, it's who I am, it's part of my personality. And here's the trap because I'm thinking it's part of my personality, inherent to me. Of course I don't need to take any action about it, because that's who I am and that's a trap. It's not a personality trait.
Speaker 2:My next guest is Marie-Hélène Pauletier, a psychologist and resilience expert and author of the Resilience Plan A Strategic Approach to Optimizing your Work Performance and Mental Health optimizing your work performance and mental health.
Speaker 1:Maria Lynn shares her strategies for creating a personalized resilience plan and how leaders can foster resilience not only in themselves, but also in their teams and organizations. This conversation is packed with insights to help you thrive, no matter what challenges you face.
Speaker 2:You won't want to miss it and remember before our next full episode, there's a One Simple Thing episode waiting for you A quick and actionable tip to help you lead and live better. Keep an eye out for it wherever you listen to this podcast Until next time.
