How to Build Executive Presence, One Dimension at a Time

Most people are waiting to be noticed. The people with executive presence make it impossible not to notice them.

Part two of Phil and Pen's Executive Presence series is here, and this time it is all about the tools. The practical, immediately usable things you can do in your next meeting, your next conversation and your next online call to start commanding the room with confidence.

Because here is the thing: Executive presence is not something you are born with. It is something you build. And in this episode, Phil and Pen give you exactly what you need to start building it today.

From the four dimensions of executive presence and a tool for each one, to the authority trap and why levelling the playing field with more senior people is not about losing respect but about showing up as an equal, this episode is packed with tangible, real world tools that will change how people experience you the moment you walk into a room.

And here is something worth sitting with. We often compare our internal experience to what we see in other people's external appearance. They are not the same thing. Not even close. Everyone in that room is carrying something. The difference is who has learned to own the space anyway.

In this episode you'll discover:

• The SCRIPTS framework and how the way you use your voice is shaping your executive presence more than you realise
• The three things tool and why this one simple structure will instantly make you look more confident, credible and in control
• How to take up more space physically and why your gesture levels are one of the most underrated executive presence tools there is
• Why arrogance and defensiveness are both the enemy of executive presence and what to do instead

By the end of this episode, we want you to try one thing. In your very next meeting, notice your gesture levels, get your voice in the room early and ask yourself this question: If people could not hear me, would they still want to look at me? 

Because presence does not build itself. But with the right tools, it absolutely can be built.

Haven't listened to part one yet? Head back and start there first.

Transcript

Arrogance, Ego, And A Hot Start

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Arrogance and defensiveness, I think two of the biggest obstacles to executive presence as well. And that is also tied up with the ego. I mean they're both defence because arrogance is a defense as much as justifying or you know defending your position. That's where the ego will take you, and it completely crushes executive presence. Please don't think that this is something that you're kind of just born with. There's plenty of examples, and I'm sure you also know people, but you can shift and change how you how you show up. We're gonna give you a load of tools today to follow up on our first episode, and today's gonna be a really practical application. And absolutely pick the ones that are gonna work for you. We often compare our internal experience to what we see in other people's external appearance, and they are not comparable. It's like, you know, trying to compare a dog and a bag of oranges. It's just not the same. That is an analogy. Hello, my name's Philip Walla. My name is Penelope Waller, and we are two of the directors at 4D Human Being. And welcome to the 4D Human Being podcast. What's it all about, Pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships, it's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life, and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So fully human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills. Anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings, 4D Human Being are here to help. We're gonna take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are gonna help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being. So that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you. How are you, Philly? Very good actually. Yes, I know we should join the complaining about the weather, and there are many reasons, but I'm enjoying it. I mean, other than other than I did pick up the hose pipe today to give my dusty dogs a wash, and I had it in my hand and I suddenly went, Oh, can't do that. I can't do that. And I looked at them and I went, you got lucky, you only get a hairbrush, not a hose down. They'll be happy, but as we spoke about yesterday, there are some exceptions in terms of sort of well-being and vulnerable. There are, but I just don't think dusty dogs come into that list, sadly. Do you not think? They should. They should! I mean, gold goldfish come on the list. I think it's that's more life and death, isn't it? That's fair, yeah. That is to be fair, you know, if it was oxygen for dogs, we'd definitely make a case. I did like the fact that I discovered, and I'm I'm pretty sure this is true because it was on a very well-renowned podcast, that new plants planted is an exception. Yes. Which I quite like that. Well, and I nearly did plant new plants, and my dear gardening partner, I say partner, I am less of an active partner in that. Um, but she she did say you will have to water them a lot all summer, and if we if we get a hot summer, that is gonna be a lot of work, and if we get a hose pipe ban, well, that is gonna be a lot of work. Yeah. And I said, Do you know what? I think we'll wait until the autumn, and I'm very pleased I did because I thought that and she said they wouldn't have survived. But as you said, there is an exception for new plants, but it would have been quite edgy wandering around my garden, hosing away when neighbours, you know, well, because it's quite borderline, isn't it? Because you go, well, that plant wasn't new, but all the rest are, do you do you leave that one? Do you leave that plant? Who's auditing that for would be my question? How old your plants are. It's my challenge. And also I was thinking that those rules, I mean, if this continues and this continues year by year, those rules will probably have to change. And then you get in a whole philosophical debate about what the priorities are in terms of water usage. So, you know, the morals and ethics is gonna be very interesting. Well, can I do a little bit of a wedgie super segue there? In terms of priorities, that we are all different, all unique, and as much as you might have different priorities in terms of water usage, you will have different priorities in terms of executive presence. So we're gonna give you a load of tools today to follow up on our first episode, and today's gonna be a really practical application, and absolutely pick the ones that, if they were your hose pipe list, are the most important to you. So 100%. It's all about what's gonna work for you. Yeah, and I would say on that, Phil, that absolutely, similar to water usage, just to play out the super segue analogy, yeah, we will all have different priorities, we'll all have things that are more important to us. And I would re-emphasize that as per water, this is this is relevant for all of us. And it's it's really interesting because I had a conversation with a client this morning talking about brand, brand new graduates stepping into the office in the workplace for the very first time in a couple of weeks. And I have to be honest, I think it is the first time. You correct me if this is not the case for you, that I've had a client ask for executive present and personal branding, executive presence and personal branding for graduates. It's very often a thing that people think about a little bit later down the line in terms of. Yes, and they might talk about impact or communication, yeah. But the idea of presence, I'm gonna stretch that water analogy even further. Because water is essential, isn't it though? And actually, the other thing about water is when it's not there, boy. Do you you really notice it? Yeah, you really notice it and you really value it. Well, I'm gonna stretch it even more for we need some water because you are on fire! Because you are on fire, I'm on fire, and also every meeting needs a sprinkling. I mean, I could go on and on. I mean, this this is the metaphor that is gonna keep on giving, isn't it? Right.

Why Executive Presence Matters

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Okay, so first of all, yeah, listen to episode, listen to episode one where we spoke much more about why executive presence is important. And also we spoke particularly about those sort of internal blockers to executive presence, the kind of intangibles that you may not realise are there, that are stopping people from from looking at you in a way that feels like, yeah, well, they could, you know, they could step up to the next level. Um, so we've really spoken a bit more about the psychology behind what's playing out between us, why we see people in a certain way, what beliefs we hold about ourselves and how that plays out in how we show up. I am gonna talk a little bit more to that in terms of tools, because I've actually, since since we had our notes for this episode, I've added a few. I did think you might have done. Well, it's the internal piece because you're so right. We can give these tools of how you show up, but if you don't at some level, and I will talk to, of course, we're all human, but if you don't at some level connect with your own strengths and your value and believe that you have the right to be there, when that gap opens up and you're trying to sell executive presence but you don't really believe it, it's very, very painful and it won't last, it will crumble. So you're absolutely right. We do, it does start with the internal narrative. And it doesn't mean we all have to be some kind of uber, I don't know, you know, top of the charts CEO material. We're all human, but you've earned your place and you have to know everything. And I'm we're gonna talk about that. Okay. Yeah. As well as some very, very practical, as well as some very tangible walk-in to the room tools. Something very interesting. I've been listening to the rest of his history. I don't know if you've been listening to it about the Elizabethan period and um Sir Francis Drake, who I didn't know was the son of a yeoman in Devon. So very sort of humble, humble backgrounds. But he was compared in the in the podcast, and I think this is true, to the if anyone has seen the Black Adder series, Black Adder 2, which was set in the Elizabethan period, he was he sort of compared to Flash, is it Flash Heart? Yeah, which is a very sort of flamboyant, charismatic character. And there were some really interesting elements in that story where he gained that sort of confidence and presence where he could hold his own in the court of Elizabeth I, despite his humble backgrounds. So there are some wonderful examples in history about how we can transform ourselves. So, for anybody out there, please don't think that this is something that you're kind of just born with. There's plenty of examples, and I'm sure you also know people. Yeah. Uh, it's some people perhaps are born with it, but you can shift and change how you how you show up. Well, it's the artist Darley's story, isn't it? And he was quite an introvert, and he said, I want to be one of the most, I want to be the most famous painter in the world and artist in the world, and somebody said to him, start acting like it, you know. So I mean, I mean, you and I, we want to close the gap, you know. You've got to, in DALI's case, I believe it. You've got you've got to have the skills to go with it. But both is great, you know, you create a brand and you know, a sort of iconography. Okay, so we're gonna talk about what gets in the way of having executive presence. We're gonna look at the four dimensions, and originally, of course, we had four tools, one for each dimension, as I said, have added to that, and I know you've added to that as well because we're looking at the environment and the relationships as well, which is our two contexts. We're gonna give um some bonus tools to think about that hierarchy. So we want to talk about the authority trap, and then we're gonna talk about that, um, putting it into practice, making a plan, and having a personal commitment. So, why doesn't executive presence just happen? Why do we find ourselves not feeling like, yeah, I own this room? Well, because you are the one internally carrying around all the other stuff, all the other history, all the other parts of yourself that are not the executive, the leader, the business founder. You are carrying around yourself who didn't have an argument with your friend or your partner uh before work. You're the one carrying around the fact that you couldn't get your kid to tie their shoelaces up this morning. You're the one carrying around your 14-year-old self who, I don't know, got suspended from school for smoking or something. Like, you've got so many parts of self, and you're sitting in an office trying to make a massive sort of transformation decision, and everyone else is seeing that executive. You're thinking, oh, they're probably seeing Yeah, they're probably exactly. I don't know. Well, do I know? I don't know everything. So old patterns run, you know, keep running. They run on autopilot, they're there all the time, and they will often keep running the show because there's a lot of them for all of us. None of us were most of us, none of us were born into a boardroom. I know. I suspect one or two people have ever, but it's not usual. So these patterns will not just unlearn themselves all the time. You're sort of thinking, why won't that just stop? It won't. We have to put new patterns in place. We've said this a million times. It's like any search engine, it's no good just leaving it blank and hoping that it stops, it will just keep churning up the same stuff. It won't know that you want to look for something else. No, that's right. So don't give your brain a different instruction, it will keep doing the same thing. That's right. It's all right. And as we said last time, again, be really generous to yourself because you've been encouraged to think about yourself in a certain way. You know, there's lots of reasons why when we're younger, both as children and young adults, that we are encouraged by society to comply, be well behaved, be humble. Lots and lots of these sort of qualities and behaviours are seen by society as a good thing. Makes life a lot easier in schools if there is some compliance and some respective hierarchy and all of these kind of things. And as you said, Phil, it takes some awareness, some decisions, some choice to start shaping and changing some of those patterns. It's not necessarily it's going to happen automatically, but it is important because what we're talking about is that executive presence, the seniority, the way that you're seen, and you've been taught to be seen in a different way. So it's important, it's important to take control of it. Yeah, you've you've often been taught that um, you know, if you work hard and do your job and you know answer the questions given to you, that you'll um get promoted, and that will go to a for a certain extent, but but the but you hit you will hit the wall and you've got to start owning the room. Um, the ego, the ego can resist visibility, it can resist getting things wrong, it can resist not knowing, because as you say, it's often felt punished for that in the past. Uh, I cannot tell you how many uh executives and leaders I work with who are frightened of being judged still. It's so entrenched often in us, even if it's not really in evidence, particularly, that that's not really the experience. The fear will keep running. So the the ego is doing a lot of that self-limiting for us. I was going to say counterwork. It the it's interesting, the ego, isn't it? Because it's so interesting that we talk about, oh, you know, you know, they're so egotistical or they're so full of ego. And yet the ego is often ex working hard to keep us from being seen too much in a way, from being our full selves. It's trying to keep us safe. So often the ego is is working to reduce us, to minimize us, to criticize us, to keep us small. So it's got a real other side to it, the ego. There's two sides of this. I'm gonna talk about this a bit more later, but arrogance and defensiveness are the two, I think, two of the biggest obstacles to executive presence as well. And that is also tied up with the ego. I mean, they're both defence because arrogance is a defence as much as justifying or you know, defending your position. But that's where the ego will take you, and it it completely crushes executive presence. I cannot tell you how many times you and I have seen interviews or people in kind of panels, or I've just watched a piece of learning recently. They were actually medical professionals, nutritionist professionals, and they got asked a couple of questions by the audience which were tricky for them. And one of them was arrogant and one of them was defensive. And I was like, ah, it's sort of done, and and I like the content and I took it away, but the credibility was sort of was was sort of over. So we have to watch the ego because if you let it drive things and you think it's gonna help you because it's gonna keep you big, it's actually doing the complete opposite. So we'll talk a bit more about that. It's complicated. I would highlight particularly defensiveness in that because I I think tell me if you think this is unfair, Phil, but I think some systems can just slightly reward a bit more arrogance as a as an alternative, if you like, to executive presence. Whereas defensiveness, I think, is very, very tricky in terms of how you grow and you're side. I agree. But it feels kinder, it feels like, well, I'm being the nice one in the room. Yeah, I think I agree. Although, with arrogance, and we all know we all know some world leaders like it, you can't see it from within. But a big percentage of your audience are watching you knowing that you're vulnerable when you're being arrogant, but you don't, you can't see it. Yeah. So it's a really sneaky

Hierarchy Traps And Old Beliefs

SPEAKER_00 16:38

one. Yeah. Okay, hierarchy, and this ties in with your um comments earlier on patterns. Hierarchy carries old beliefs. As you said, it can be very useful. It's very useful in things like the teaching profession to an extent, the military. That, you know, there are some organizations that it's really, really useful. So it carries these old beliefs that kind of self-promotion or standing your ground is somehow defying authority or rude or dangerous, or you know, any of those of us who see a police car coming up behind us and feel our heart rate going. Like that's the old hierarchy patterns. But again, we need to level the playing field, and that's gonna be one of our bonus tools around adult to adult rather than that kind of hierarchical trap, because we have to let that go at some point. Yeah. And do you know something that I've really been thinking about since our last conversation on this that is linked to that hierarchy piece, is that when we are in school, we are not necessarily taught to make things easy for the teacher. So if we're asked to answer a question or whatever it might be, our first thought is I'm gonna say sort of as much as I know, I want to get as many points as I can, and I'm gonna try and be right and make sure that I'm, you know, I've read the book, whatever it might be. We don't think I'm gonna make it easy for Mr. Jones to understand what my messaging is. And I think very often we are assuming that the directions is the sort of instructions are coming from the teacher or the more senior person. And I hear it time and time again in the court in the corporate world that junior people don't necessarily always feel that it's their responsibility to make it easy for the senior person, they feel it's more their responsibility to inform them as much as they can in terms of as much as they know. And it's not that it's not their their role to keep their their senior people informed, but when you talk about level of the playing field, for me part of that is making it easy for them. Don't just assume that because they're senior and more knowledgeable, that they are going to kind of unpick and find out what you're talking about. Exactly. Make it easy in terms of how you communicate information, but yeah, but but also the taking care that what you know what if you look up executive presence, I mean, and we don't talk to this as much, I mean it's one of the things, maybe it gets a smaller bit piece, but but one of the things that comes up time and time and time and time again is do not open up a problem without having a solution. And the thing about that is that's not about you being the boss and having all the answers, it's exactly as you say, it's about you being the manager or the project lead or whatever it is. And when you're communicating a challenge to your CEO or whoever it is, that you level the playing field there, that you take care of them. And I think we forget that executive presence is also about I'm not just gonna own the space so that people think I'm amazing, I'm gonna own the space to take responsibility here and and take care of the project, the situation, other people, and my leader. And that that is how you level the playing field. Environment. I mean, we've said it so many times. We really aren't gonna, we're not gonna go into this too much, but but if you've got, if you are backlit and you are sitting at the bottom of your screen on a video call with just your head showing, and you're not really looking, your eye contact isn't a camera because of the way your tech is set up. I mean, it's done. I mean, how do you think you're going to have executive presence when you're a tiny head shadow not looking at the camera? I mean, honestly, Fen. You know, it's the the visuals are not a nice add-on. They are so primal for us. I guess I just I I the only reason I sound a bit, a bit sort of is I just feel like sometimes we say it again and again and again. And then when finally it's heard, you they and the realization that actually that's your starting point. You know, I had an interesting conversation with a client about this the other day, and again, I'll go, I'll go back to we are not given this information when we are young. So, you know, when we are young, we walk into our classroom, I mean, slightly different university, although I think patterns remain, we have an allocated seat on a desk that is often lower than the than the teacher. I mean, the thought of sitting at a different desk, I mean, you just I mean, you just wouldn't, you can't imagine what disruption would ensue. And so, you know, I actually get asked, what do you think is a is a good, where's a good place to sit at the board table or at the meeting table? Like, hey, you know how because we don't we don't think about these things environmentally. So, you know, I'll often talk about the fact that if there's a table in between you, that's not always great in terms of what the dynamic is, or you know, a simple thing like just slightly touching your chair beforehand, you take ownership of that. These tiny kind of environmental tricks that we don't get taught, in fact, we get taught the opposite, we get taught sort of comply to whatever the environment is that you're presented with, and it has a huge impact where you sit in the room. I mean, it just does. Yeah, it does, absolutely. I mean, we had a meeting the other day and we walked in, and the people we were having a meeting with had put their things on the table facing the window, so that we would have our backs to the window, and that is very focusing because if you put delegates or people that you're having a meeting with, if you if you put them facing a a window or a TV screen, you're probably gonna get they're probably gonna be more distracted. So it's yeah, and also do you want to sit together? And if you do. Then don't risk people coming in and splitting you up as a team. Like you need to think about these. Oh, well, try try having a team meeting without a table. I mean, people are not gonna have their laptops in front of them. So yeah. Okay, so those are some of the things. I mean, there's so many things that get in the way, and obviously the internal narrative. But so we're gonna kind of crack on with some tools because none of this means that executive presence cannot be built. It can, and it can at any age. And I'm gonna say one quick thing here on feedback, because we talk about this a lot in the room, and I'm not sure how often we say it here. If you want to try some of these tools, and if you've been in your role for a while, or you've been in your company for a while, and you feel like, oh god, people are gonna go, people are gonna think, who is that? Why is why is Bob suddenly behaving like that? Remember, people want to keep you the same, or they expect you to be the same. So we have to be really courageous and aware that when we try something new, somebody who doesn't know you would simply see somebody with more executive presence. But somebody who knows you and can see the jump would might think, oh, crikey, that's not that's not Bob, that's how not he normally turns up. And those people are not always the most useful in terms of feedback. Sometimes they are because they can give you the gap, but don't let them hold you back because often people close to us will notice tiny changes much more. But like when you and I walk into a room and train people and some somebody tries a much higher energy, for example, and we go crikey, that is much more impactful. One of their colleagues might say, Oh god, that's not Bob. He never behaves like that. But actually, you want to say, Well, he hasn't up until now, but actually it looks great. So I just want to put that caveat in to making those changes.

Regulate Yourself Before You Lead

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So, Penn, I'm just gonna put a couple of my extra before we go into the uh a tool for each of the four dimensions: physical, intellectual, emotional, and intentional. The first thing I want to say for executive presence is regulate your nervous system. So I don't know if we spoke to this in the last one, but I just want to put it in as a tool. If you are finding some something or somebody stressful, if you feel the heat rising, the heart rate goes up, the hands are clenching, the palms are sweating, and you're getting angry, you have got to prioritize regulating your nervous system. I don't care if it's an emergency, if you've got 10 minutes to make a decision, take two of those minutes to regulate your nervous system. Because if you cannot lead your central nervous system, how the hell are you leading a project or a business or other people? So I just want to put that as the absolute foundations. Take a break, take go walk up to the coffee station, drink a glass of water, make pretend to make some notes, do anything you can, breathe out for longer than you breathe in and get your nervous system regulated because you cannot have executive presence when you're shouting and screaming or flapping. Interestingly, Phil, this came up with the conversation with the client this morning, in as much as you know, some people will walk into a new role and have a have a sense of self-care, have a sense of yes, I need to absolutely do a brilliant job, and this is the priority in terms of looking after myself, setting boundaries, whatever it might be. Some people won't have that, and there's a whole kind of sliding scale there. And what's interesting about, I mean, aside from exactly as you said, well-being, regulating the nervous system, of course, that does feed into your executive presence because people who find it very difficult to set boundaries and take care of themselves are much more likely to be seen in a way that is potentially not a senior or not as strong. So, so boundaries, self-regulation, self-care, you are allowed to take care of yourself. And actually, when we when we talk about that ceiling, it's a really interesting one because there are lots of reasons why you might feel you hit a ceiling and what and why aren't you breaking through? But one of them, and it's such a paradox, will be the kind of passion and what we would call red energy that has got you to where you've got to because of that drive, that determination, that energy that we are doings. I don't care, everybody get on board. And that can get you, especially if you're in something like sales, that can get you to a certain level, but it's probably not gonna get you to being the vision communicator for the whole, you know, strategy, the whole organization. It's a very different quality that you're looking for, except in turnaround. We know leaders who uh in 18 months, two-year turnarounds can have that kind of energy. Okay, I'm gonna talk to the internal narrative as well as the internal regulation, self-worth. Anchor in your strengths. We all have struggles, we all have areas that we could be stronger on, all of us. My dog is just stretching out there one of his strengths. I was listening to a podcast this morning, and it really spoke to this. I don't know if you listened to it. It was Johnny Mercer, who um is an ex-military, used to be an MP, and um Alistair Campbell on The Rest is Politics leading, doing an interview. And they shared a part of the conversation was around how they both felt about their mental health struggles, one of them uh dealing with OCD and one of them um dealing more with depression. And Alistair Campbell responded, Johnny Murr said, I don't really talk about this very often because I feel such a sense of shame, which I think a lot of people do, but I know it's important. But he said, I still feel, you know, like sort of other people don't deal with this. Other people, you know, seem to be on top of things. But I know that's not true and I know it's important to communicate it. And Alistair Campbell said, it's really interesting. He said, because I've got to a place where I feel really proud that I can I I get through this, I've managed it, I've I've dealt with it, I've been honest about it, and I'm really proud of myself. And I thought it's what's really interesting about that conversation is that as they acknowledged, most people are dealing with something. But that narrative around, you know what, I do have this challenge, and we're talking here about particular challenges, but it could just be lack of confidence or finding it difficult when you don't know the answer or whatever it is. But actually, to have a kind of pride in, I know that that's difficult for me, and I still do what I do and I manage it or I deal with it. So there's something about how we own the narrative of it. Nobody doesn't have something. Yeah, we often compare our internal experience to what we see in other people's external appearance, and they are not comparable. It's like, you know, trying to compare a dog and a bag of oranges. It's just not the same. That is an analogy. It's brilliant. In our previous podcast, we'd call this a dog and a bag of oranges. So you've earned your place, you have earned your place. Don't defend it, own it. Own it with all of you. Yeah. And anchor in your strengths. Don't try not to focus so much on the things that you find difficult. I can get overwhelmed, I can get, you know, anxious and stressed and check my emails 10 times a day or whatever, a million times a day. Anchor in your strengths. I'm really responsive. I'm very quick to give answers. I know people can rely on me to get back to them. So anchor in the strengths. That's just a quick one about internal. If I can give a tip around this, because we do have a very strong negative bias, most of us as human beings, so we will tend to go to the things that aren't working about us or that we feel nervous about. And something I've been I sort of spoke to my own coach this morning about it is when those things come up, whatever they might be, take just take a moment to imagine that it's a coin, and on one side is the thing that you don't think you're very good at. And then on the other side, there is always, always, always something that's really, really positive. So, you know, I might say, well, I, you know, I I really like to have things under control and nailed down. I was saying it probably annoys people sometimes. But on the flip side, I have quite a complex sort of system in my life. Boy, I can organise the hell out of it because of that. So there's always two sides to things, and that's a really good way to think about your the things that perhaps you feel a little shame or exactly. Busy brain, crazy head, lots of ideas very quickly, come up with something. So there we go. Okay, but so let's so let's now do our four dimensions, four tips for uh executive presence. And we're gonna start with the physical and very simply take up more space. We are gonna talk about gesture levels to kind of give you a tool around this. In really simple terms, though. If I did one thing with a lot of my coaching clients, it's get them to take up more space. I mean, just that is it. Because you and I have talked about this. The primal brain is reading the physical environment. When you walk into a room, no one's kind of going, oh, I wonder what ideas they have. They're just sensing how you walk into the room and what house how you take up space. Who's seen

Take Up Space With Your Body

SPEAKER_00 30:53

you here? And that all they've got to go on is your is your posture, your movement, maybe what you're wearing. But you know, if I'm kind of sort of just squished in a bit and going, oh, you know, I remember doing this, I'm sure I've said this before with an audition candidate some post-drama school. And of course, they were so excited because they it was their first audition for the RSC or whatever it was, and they put their head around the door and go, Oh, hello, and all sort of squeezed in and like, oh, it's me. And I was like, Yeah, that's how it feels for you, but that is the least interesting thing that you can show the audition panel because they're like, you're just another candidate. So walk in with hi, great to be here. Um, give them the confidence before you've even opened your mouth. So we talk about gesture levels. You can put your hands down by your thighs, then up to waist height, then shoulder height, and then right up in the air. So those are the four gesture levels. And you can think about that from sort of enigmatic at your thighs, empathetic at the waist level. That's you know how you might really sort of be open and truthful. Energizing here at the shoulder height level. You can use that much more than you think in meetings, hands above the desk, and then of course, up there we'd call it. Particularly virtual because of course. Exactly. You are literally stimulating the motor regions of the brain and the other person, you know, if we think about neurocoupling, you're literally stimulating different parts of the brain. And so you are stimulating areas of their brain that makes them feel like they're physically engaged and energized. So take up more space. And at a really base level, the levels of testosterone are rising when you take up more space. And if you think about how status is communicated in many of the sort of animal species, it is by the one, two, three males, often, not always, in the system that are taking up more space, and that's the signal. Ah, okay. That's how they choose the leader, isn't it? Yeah, it's it's big puffy, puffy chest, arms up. Yeah. My final comment on this, it slightly sways into the environmental, but you know, sort of going back to, you know, walking into a room, very often what we'll do is we'll see a chair and we'll we'll go over and we'll sit in that chair. Now, my offer would be take up some space in the room before you take your chair. So if you're walking into a room and there's a couple of senior people that you haven't met or there's an important person, walk around to their side of the table, shake their hand before you sit down. You've you've your presence, your literally your presence has just filled the room a little bit more than it would have done if you'd just sort of slowly slowly dipped into your chair. Absolutely. And you can use some of the um environment tools in a meeting, in an interview as well. So in a meeting, put your tablet or your notebook down on the desk, then go and uh and maybe just then push it an inch forward and then go and talk to people, then come back, move your seat out an inch before you. All of these little gestures, territorial, are saying, my space, take up, I'm taking up my space. So there's so many small things you can do that are just signaling in an interview space. If you go in and put uh, you know, if you sit away from the desk, for example, they've put the chair, you know, a metre or so from the desk, yeah, and you just sit in it, you're in the space that they've created for you. If you go in and put your notebook or your CV or whatever you've taken in onto the desk, take hold of the chair, pull it in slightly, angle it slightly and sit on it. You've just said, this is my half of the room. I'm here to meet you on a level. So many tips you can do on environment. Own the space physically. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just in someone else's room. You've literally just walked onto someone else's page. It's like we talk about in presentations, isn't it? Yeah. If you come on, if if if you come on from as you face a stage, if you come on from the right, so it would be your left, you're kind of walking onto their space. It's like you're walking into their page. If you come on from the left as you face the stage or right as you're on the stage, you're sweeping a new page. There's lots of these little physical, um, the way that we uh interpret space that you're signalling my space. Yeah, very, very important. So that's that's physical. The main one, as you said, is around the gesture levels. I will just say it again: remember to use your gesture levels when you are operating online, they tend to disappear, and then we've lost all of our physical presence. Um, that is one of the big things, the big giveaways in terms of your status, your reputation, your your presence. It just becomes content. Yeah, exactly. So that is your physical gestures, gestures, gestures. The next one, the emotional dimension. So we could spend, I mean so many things here, but I do like, I do like what we're looking at on this one. Yeah, so we're really thinking about voice here, and it kind of straddles the physical and the emotional because obviously the the vocal choices you're making are produced physically. Boy, the impact of the voice hits you really emotionally. I just don't think it's understood. I just I I just think people on both sides of it, leaders and you know, thought

Vocal Authority With Scripts

SPEAKER_00 36:05

leaders, as much as people who are, let's say, voting for politicians or liking bosses or whatever it is, or wanting to work with people, I think on both sides, neither side really consciously often puts the their reason for liking somebody or their reason for being successful or not successful down to the voice. And it is much more often that's going to be a big impact than you think. Yeah, 100%, 100%. So, a few things we can talk about in here. At 4D, we use a framework called the Scripts Framework. So this is a series of seven tools that we look at in 4D. I guess let's try and whiz through them all, Phil. I I have my I have my preferences, but let's let's headline them and then we can we can talk about one or two of them. Yeah, because it's a whole piece, obviously. So scripts, we love an acronym, especially one from the theatre world. Uh so the S is for strength, this is volume and power and projection, clarity, articulation and precision. Uh, range, this is your pitch, the range up and down of your voice. Inflection, this is one of my favourite ones. So this is emphasis and energy on in your voice. Uh, pause, another firm favourite, particularly in the world executive. Probably the top one in this one, yeah. Yes, I love what you put here, Phil. Strategic silence. Um, and we might come back to that because there's a very good reason why we sometimes don't allow that strategic silence. Uh, tone is the emotional quality of your voice. I could be speaking to you like this, or I could be speaking to you like this, so that's a tone. Yes, I think it's quite different if you say, I'd like to talk about next year's exact strategy. Exactly. Tone has a real impact. Real impact. You want to talk about next year's strategy? Yeah, totally changes the impact and interpretation of a message. And speed, this is another big one in the world of executive presence. Pace, pace, pace, pace, pace. Very often, very often, too quickly will reduce your executive presence. Obviously, too slowly is not great. Yeah. But lots of us speak very quickly for a number of reasons, and we can particularly do that when we get nervous or when we've got a lot of content to get through. Uh, it's not usually helpful unless you're using it in a really energizing or comedic way. It's often not useful around executive presence speed. Yeah, very high speed. The speed, the speed can be saying, I don't want to waste too much of your time. Yeah, exactly. Uh when we slow it down, we're saying I'll take as much time as I need. 100%, 100%. So let's look at a couple of these, Pen. I would like to talk about pitch. Pitch is one I think we don't often think about. We just think, well, that's my voice. Uh, having had a drama school training and having an identical twin sister, um, I know that it's not because I know that we can change our voices. So you want more flexibility, really, and most of us probably want more flexibility. So when we have a lower range that can feel very solid, we have to be careful around being monotonous if it's low and it's the same pitch all the time, then it's uh we can get fall asleep. But a lower voice is gonna feel more solid, more anchored, and a higher voice is gonna feel more sort of exciting and um you know, adventurous, and you know, something's gonna happen. And we want all of those, so we pay much more money to our sopranos and tenors in opera and singing because they really they carry the emotion, they carry the emotion, it's the drama, the trauma, the tragedy, all the love and the excitement of you know, of new love or whatever it is. What we have to be really careful of, particularly, I speak, as a female, is being stuck in a in one range. So being stuck in a higher pitch, yeah, it's gonna be really great, and there's no anchor to that voice, it's all kind of top level, it's not really connected, but you know, honestly, it's gonna be really great. And it goes small, it goes a bit mini mouse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and also it's just not, it's just not heard, it's not processed in the brain in the same way. So it feels really weird for people. I know we've tried we've coached it so often, and when people have a higher voice and we ask them to really talk from their belly, sometimes I ask people to almost talk from their feet and get their voice down. It feels weird because it feels unfamiliar. It is worth stretching that vocal range. We've all got range, we've just been caught in a pattern. And equally, if you've got a very low voice, sometimes you want a little bit more, a little bit more range in it, a little bit more excitement. So we just want you want to think about a kind of roller coaster of a voice that's moving through. You know, this is really important. I really, really need you to hear this. And you know what? We're also gonna have an off-site and we're gonna have a lot of fun. So you want range in your voice to communicate how you want people to think about. Something you demonstrated beautifully there, Phil, was if we do have a slightly higher-pitched voice, which can often be a female, not always, using something else like emphasis to make sure that we are landing on the end of every word or every sentence can really mitigate the impact that perhaps the higher pitch is having in terms of our seniority and our status. And I just want to go back to something that you said earlier, which is that there has been research. I mean, we we can sometimes feel it's very unfair if we don't get heard or people don't listen to us. And there has been research that that higher pitched voices are processed in a different part of the brain, in the musical part of the brain, and it starts to be processed as background noise, which is how we process music. You know, we listen to it to relax, we don't have to think linguistically, what we're listening to is in the background. So if our pitch is making different parts of the brain switch on and off, then you can understand why some people's messages are just landing much better and their voices are getting in the room. And like you said, both are really useful. It's just if if we are in one zone or the other, we might need to either temper the pitch and/or use some different tools so that we're grounding the voice or giving some more excitement in those in those lower ranges. It's just really useful to be aware more than anything. Exactly, exactly. My big one, Phil, is probably oh, I've got two that I want to do, but uh, I would probably go back to the emphasis. I would I would probably go back to if you don't have enough emphasis in your words and in your message, it just starts to feel unimportant. So I often give the example of, you know, oh I cooked a really nice egg for breakfast this morning, it was really, really nice. I cooked a really nice egg this morning, it was absolutely lovely. So I'm pushing the voice out, which can make a really a banal message sound like, oh my god, I better listen to this. Yeah, or it's I cooked a root. And I'm thinking, oh, right, you don't usually cook eggs, or I cooked a really nice egg. Yeah. And then you're saying, oh, right, it was an egg this morning, it's not usually an egg. So you're communicating a lot with with your emphasis, and you're really, you know, we often say this in communication, make it easy for your audience. Demonstrate to them the bits that they should be listening to. None of us can listen to 100% of a message or a presentation. Make it easy. And demonstrate the importance of it. If you've got no emphasis in your voice, then it's it's very hard to come across as important. So that would be one of my points. Uh so I'm just gonna mention the pause again. It again, it feels weird. It feels like time passes longer for you than for other people. It just does. So you've got to be very courageous with the pause. So, you know, before you speak, after you've said something important, you know, we are gonna be hitting, you know, 20%. Stop talking. Because it might feel like tumbleweed to you, but it's it's time for everybody to really know that you mean it, understand how important it is, and to digest what you've said, or else it just becomes more words, more words, more words. And And that slightly ties in with brevity. Uh, less is more for executive presence. You've probably often been brought up through a career with lots of information being rewarded and the more data and talking quickly, so you can give as much information as you can. When you, you know, for executive presence, less is definitely more. You want to come across as I've done all the thinking, I've listened to all the answers. Here's what I think. Nice and simple. Well, I'm going through, I'm not going through, my daughter is going through uh GCSE past exam papers for her English language GCSE, which she's sitting in November. And of course, in some ways, you sort of do get more points the more you write down. So you're sort of encouraging, you know, you get all these extra sheets at the back of the exam paper, and you sort of think, well, I've got nothing to look at. Yeah, I should fill them. But of course, it can be the worst thing you can do. More room for mistakes. You know, it's true though. It's like it's the same with the same with talking, yeah. Um, and I'm gonna add one more bit on that, which is try to cut jargon. Jargon, I think, can often, other than obviously the acronyms, maybe you you always use it in your company that are just shortcuts. Um, but jargon can actually feel like things to hide behind. Yeah. So again, you just come across as much more confident when you name the thing in normal language um and don't hide behind jargon. Yeah. So you have you've super segued Phil onto the intellectual dimension tool. Yeah, I'm gonna give this to you because this is one of your favourite tools. I love it. So so this is this is really about conciseness, but it does a lot more than conciseness. So this is the three things tool. So it's a structure, and it's about verbalizing your your structure, your language to the other person to do a number of things, to frame what you're saying, to make it easy for them to understand and interpret your message. What it also does is it makes you look super, super confident and

Sound Decisive With Three Things

SPEAKER_00 46:04

in control. And the way the three things tool works is whether you've been asked a question or whether you are giving some information to somebody, if you start your sentence with there are three things I want to tell you about gardening. Number one, boy, it's been a hot year for gardening, we need to choose our plants. Number two, watch out for the hose pipe bands and you know, can you recycle your water in the house? And number three, you really want to choose the right plants for the sunny and the shady locations in your in your garden. Now, I have walked you through those three things. So you'll know you're getting the three things, you'll know how long I'm going to be speaking for, and it's much more likely that you'll remember them. The other thing is that as far as you're concerned, I am an expert on gardening and I have given you the most important three things to think about. Now, of course, that that's not true, but the way that I've used that structure makes it appear much more sort of solid, important, and credible. So it's a really, really brilliant tool for sort of slightly tricking the audience into thinking that you are very in control, very confident, and know quite a lot about this subject. Um, it's also really good for yourself as well. It can calm the nervous system because you your brain is then just trying to find three things rather than jumping all over the place. It does. I think this is also this is incredibly useful for QA's when people ask you open questions, or what should we be expecting from you as our new, you know, CIO? Right. Well, there are three things you can expect from me this year. Great, done. It's great for summarising. So you've just had a meeting, all your leaders have fed in, they've given, you know, all of their updates, and you summarise. Okay, there are three things that I can really hear at the priority here. So you can use that in so many ways, or there are three things, you know, as your new CEO, there are three things I want you to know about me. You can just use it in so and once you once you know this tool, you just hear it everywhere. And even where even though you know it and we know it and we use it a lot and we t we coach it a lot, it still works. It still works, even when you know it and you hear somebody saying, you know, I've just heard people talking about, you know, being working in the whatever, you know, globally and the UN or trying to do peace negotiations, whatever it is. And they say, Well, there are three things we talked about, and it works, it just works because none of us want 10 things. We we haven't we can't hold that, so it works, and none of none of us want somebody to start talking, and as the audience, we we have no idea when this is gonna end. That's right, and we've no idea if it is ten things, no, and that is like ah um for some reason it just does an enormous amount for your status, it really, really does. Yeah, it's like a chapters in a book, you know, just look at the chapter list before you read the book. You're right, okay, I know what, yeah, I I know what this is about, and I know what I want to focus on here. You just give people a much easier time. You look so confident, so together, so organized, and able to distill it's that systems thinking, it makes you look like you can distill complex thoughts and ideas into much more simple communication. Well, it's definitive as well, isn't it, Phil? Because I think often one of the, I just did it there, I think, one of the things that can reduce executive presence is by kind of slightly hedging your bets, if you like, with the information that you're giving. Yeah. So it could be something like, I think, could start a sentence. So I'm not saying this is definitive or fact, but I think this is kind of uh protecting me a little bit. What the three things tends to do is make it definitive and fact. Yeah. Rather than, well, I think maybe. And that did that kind of definitive approach to our language can really raise that executive pressure. Exactly, exactly. Uh, okay, so number four is the intentional, and very simply, I'm gonna use the ego grid here, is to really notice whether you've gone into what we call the unhealthy ego, which is either victim or reactive, and that can be defensive or attack. And that's your fragile, unhealthy ego. And your healthy ego will be when you're either open, accepting, and calm, that's your kind of lower energy, smaller ego, but healthy, or you're in that curious front foot, even in conflict, I'm okay with this. And that's your really healthy ego, curious, curiosity. And the reason that this is in intention is because it's a really good way to check in on do I have a clear conscious intention here, or am I reacting through fear or concern or insecurity or whatever it might be? So using that idea of the ego, am I feeling under attack or needing to defend or attack other or blame others, or do I have a clear intention that is a more collective? So a really easy, a really easy cut through here is to change your language. If you find you're using I and you, you can switch it for we and get a clear intention around, I think what we really need to do here, what I'd really love for us all, my intention here for this project group is to really check in with do I have a clear intention here? What do I really want? And if your answer to that is I really, really, really want to defend myself from criticism and attack other people, then when you've named it, you can then choose. Can't you? And no, we always say nothing's right and wrong. But if you find that my intention actually, what do I really want here? Well, I I really want us to get to solution and be able to work together, and I'm caught on blaming at the moment, so you can reset your intention. So that's probably again one of the foundational pieces along with that physical is do you have a clear intention or have you been, has your ego been hooked? And it really ties into something we spoke about on the last episode around that internal, external locus of control, which is around the unhealthy ego is very reliant on the other person's position or opinion, whether that's attacking it or defending it or apologising for it. Whereas the healthy ego, regardless of what other people's opinions are, which are all very, very interesting, and I'll take it on board, but it's solid in itself and its own choices that it's made. So it doesn't, it doesn't need to be sort of arrogant or defensive, or it doesn't need to apologize. And also, this is just such a great way to cut through and have executive presence in, let's say, times where that really compares to other people who are not in that space. So if you've got a meeting going on, even if you're not the most senior in the room and people are sort of arguing or blaming, or well, you didn't do this, and you didn't do that, and you cut through and name it and say, I can really, I can really see how much this is impacting people, and how much people are uh caring about this and how challenging some of these situations have been. I know that we all really want to find a way to make this work. Let's go through, blah, blah. So you can you can start hosting from that space a very no one, not blaming anybody, just naming that it's impacting, that people find it challenging, and that you can hold it and you can name it. And that confidence is just incredible. And then get into that healthy ego space with curiosity. Let's all ask one thing of each other that's gonna help us all move forward. Exactly. So it's such a it's one of the big ones. Yeah. Um, okay, Penn, I'm gonna hand over to you for a little bit of level the playing field. So this is about the authority track. Yeah. We spoke last time about the parent-adult child model. So that the the sort of the underlying, very often unconscious, hello, Humphrey, very often unconscious belief system that we have around our status in a room compared to compared to other people that we might be working with. And really, what we want to do when we're thinking about executive presence is we want to level out the status because all the time that we think that other people in the room are more senior and more important than us, it's gonna be difficult for us to have as much presence as we otherwise otherwise could. And this is not about losing respect, it's absolutely not about that, it's about treating people adult to adult. So if we think about the status dial, let's call it, there are lots of things that we can think about here and a couple of tips that that I will give. So, one is try to get your voice in the room early. It's very often the senior people, the host that will speak, even if they don't speak for very long, they'll their voices will tend to be in. It's very often, not always, but it's very often the more junior people that will hold back and perhaps wait to be invited. And I very often advise uh younger clients or clients that have kind of just very recently stepped up into a new role. It doesn't matter if you ask a question, it doesn't matter if you say hello to somebody, just get your voice in the road. Or agree, actually agree with somebody in one of the easiest ways. You know, yeah. Dave, I love that you said that. I I really agree with that, and thank you for bringing it up. You don't have to cut come in with some kind of groundbreaking piece of information, exactly. But you the but the longer you leave it, yeah, the harder it is to take it. The harder it is, and the more, and the more you're not necessarily seen as a key player in that particular meeting. So try just try to get your voice in as quickly as you can. The other one I would uh think about there's there's two of our core tools at 4D. So one is energy, how much energy you're taking into a room. Just be careful of very low energy. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say go crazy energy, kind of jumping all over the place, but that very, very low energy can sometimes be difficult to get your presence felt. So really think about the energy you're taking in. The exception to that I would say is if I think this is probably rarer now, particularly online, but if a meeting has got very heated, then a slower energy level four or five, not one or two, but four or five, might cut through it. That's that that's the time that you can use that lower energy. Yeah. I just wonder if we take a beat here. Yeah. And let's pause. Exactly. But make sure it's high enough to get to get heard in the space. And then the other one that we that we talk about quite a lot with status levelling is the attitude, the intention that you said, the word in the head that you're taking into a space. Now, again, this is not the true for everybody, but for some of us who are, you know, maybe we when we were more junior in our roles, or there's very senior people that we haven't met, or we'll very often take an intention of, I hope I do a good job, I hope they think I'm all right, I hope I get it right, all of these kind of things. And all of those kind of intentions will encourage us, consciously or subconsciously, to communicate, behave, and relate with other people in a certain way. There are some words that can be more useful to take into a space. So, yes, we might be nervous about our presentation, yes, we might be nervous about an interview and what people are gonna think about us. It's probably more useful to go in with a word such as, I'm gonna be friendly, I'm gonna be warm, I'm gonna try to get to know them a bit better. Like anything that's in that kind of friendly, warm area is very often a quick status leveler versus either up the top of I'm going to be very direct and very clear about what they need to know, or slight, slightly under status-wise, I hope they think I'm okay. I wonder if I'll do a good job. So try and stay in that friendly space. You're much more likely to meet adult to adult in that space. Absolutely. It's again the the friendly one's a game changer. It's that that's a really good word to use when you're a little bit more junior, um, where that kind of hosting feels more challenging, but friendly. Actually, you can be friendly to anybody, exactly. Okay, so you want to choose one of those tools. So we've looked at the physical in terms of taking up more space. We've looked at the emotional in terms of scripts, your vocal tone, and uh all the dynamics of your voice, also brevity, clarity. Um, we've looked at the intellect, the three things tool, and that nice sort of clear, crisp, concise, which also looks very confident. And then finally, that intention. Is your ego running the show, or do you have a clear intention? We've sprinkled this with other tools around how you're using the space, the table, walking around the room, taking up the space in the actual room itself, leveling the playing field in terms of the um authority. And I'm gonna add to that that you don't have to be something that you're not.

Daily Practice, Virtual Presence, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 58:59

You but you do have to own where you are. And I want to go back to that defensive or arrogance, and those that both those dynamics are not quite comfortable with what is actually the truth. The arrogance is trying to puff it up, and the defensiveness is trying to barricade, sort of keep other people out or barricade it or protect it, who you are. You don't need either of them. You simply need to be in your own truth. This is what I do know, this is what I've got. There's plenty that I don't know, and I can be curious about that and open and take up that space and ask those questions. And from there, you're much more stable and strong. We're only really vulnerable when we have sort of puffed ourselves up to be something else, and then people can see that we're not that, and then now we're vulnerable. Whereas if you say, actually, this is not my area of expertise, there's one thing I'd really love to know who's got the answer. That confidence isn't about knowing stuff. That's so true for owning where you are. Don't defend where you are, own where you are. Yeah, and this this is absolutely one of the so interesting you say that because I've been making some notes for a programme I'm designing on executive presence. And one of the pieces I'm gonna do is exactly that, which is if somebody says to you, can you tell me a bit about yourself or what are you doing at the moment, or anything like that, can you can you kind of timeline it so that you're saying, well, this is who I am, this is what I do, and and do you know there's a couple of things I've really love and I'm really interested in, will do so much in terms of your status, your presence, and the impact that you have. The other thing I would just want to say on this is please, please, please don't think that virtual meetings don't count. You know, please don't think it's either too hard or I'm just in a little box in the corner. It doesn't matter. But when I Well, how can I have executive presence because we're not really present with each other? Yeah. And I'll wait until that meeting when I'm gonna see that that executive face to face. No, no, no, no, no. You do have to work harder online. It is so important, particularly because we spend so much time online. So, yes, you're gonna have to work harder to get that presence. It is possible, and please don't, please don't limit this topic, if you like, to when you're in the room, like every day, every day. Yeah. Well, I said to you the other day, you know, I heard somebody saying more about politicians and anybody running for office, that it was an American sort of pundits talking about this, that as they kind of go they're in the sort of primaries and the candidates are coming up for the midterms. And the idea now that somebody can really run and you know, really lead out front without being an excellent communicator is over. And you've got to be standout. And so, you know, what we're talking to is really worth your attention because, yes, of course, gain the knowledge and read the books. Ultimately, we are in the age of the communicator, and online, on camera, on TikTok, Instagram, wherever it is, you've got to cut through now. You know, this is this is what it is now to be a leader. It's not just sitting in a room having the knowledge and handing out dictates, we know, not all, you know, certainly not in perhaps a kind of modern Western society. So we do need to be great communicators. So have a think about some of the tools that we've uh just recapped just at the end of this episode. Notice one moment a day where you have a choice of how you can dial up your executive presence physically, emotionally, intellectually, intentionally. Use your three words at least once a day in an email or in a meeting. Pick one of those script vocal habits, scripts, vocal habits. Just choose one to which one do you know would make the biggest impact for you? And the easiest thing you can do right from the moment you get up in the morning is change a gesture level. Yes. Dial up a gesture level when you get online. If you do nothing else, don't let your arms disappear in the next meeting. In fact, you've got to ask yourself this question: if I if people couldn't hear me, would they still want to be engaged? Would they still be stimulated to look at me because I'm moving, I've got movement going on. Get some feedback from a colleague, particularly one who maybe uh thinks, oh, something happened there, you changed. Get some feedback from them from them on your impact. And yeah, choose one dimension that you're just gonna keep on shifting and keep working on. Presence doesn't build itself, patterns will keep playing out. You can really change this. And this in itself, executive presence, if you put even a little bit of focus on this, it's like a not a betting person pen, but but but this this this is a bit like this is true, but this is a bit like putting a really small amount of money on a startup or a kind of uh, you know, a sort of um what I wouldn't call it like long odds, I don't know what you'd call it, when it's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna pay off necessarily, but actually the the win is gonna be huge. So you can put quite a little bit on this bet and you're gonna get a huge amount out. Probably more than you know, and probably more than the part of you who believes if you just keep working and gaining knowledge, you'll keep getting promoted. Actually, this is where to put your focus when you start hitting that ceiling. Yeah, yeah. Have a play. So, like Philip said, try one thing in every meeting, do yourself a little score chart. What worked? What was the impact? You know, did I get heard more? So, I if you haven't already, listen to episode one. There are two episodes in this series on executive presence. It's a hot, hot, hot, hot topic at the moment, and we'll continue. It really is, and we'll continue to be. I have no doubt about that. Enjoy, enjoy the tools. For more on this, of course, you can go to our website 4dhumanbeing.com, go to 4D on demand, and there's a free level, as we always say, Essentials 4D on demand. You've got a lot of digital content there on impact and personal profile. And you can then also, um, for not very much money, you can buy the full series and just gain an absolute wealth of tools on impact personal profile. You've got all of the vocal piece in that impact series as well. So it's all there for you on our website. We wish you well. Go try it out, dial up your executive presence and uh enjoy the results. Take care. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human Being Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools, and tips because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become. And I I love that phrase, Pen. I do too. And please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human Being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings online, in-person, conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on-demand platform for your whole organization, and we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools, and tips. So do get in touch with us. If you'd like to hear more, we cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.