0:00

Have you

0:13

ever wondered how some people just seem to have

0:16

a way with words? They have

0:18

this spark that lights you up when you're near

0:20

them. They have the if

0:22

factor and while most

0:24

people think it's something that only a few are

0:26

born with, I believe that you

0:28

can find it so it

0:30

can become your super power to grow

0:33

your business. It's about

0:35

you bringing your brand to life by

0:37

becoming a magnetic communicator in

0:39

person and on camera, showing up

0:41

with confidence, authenticity,

0:43

and inspiration. So,

0:46

are you ready to become magnetic? I

0:48

thought so. I'm Heather Sager and

0:50

I'd like to welcome you to finding your

0:53

it factor .

1:00

guys, we're here. We're finally here

1:02

for the first episode of finding

1:04

your it factor and I say finally because I

1:06

have been dreaming about doing a

1:08

show for years

1:11

and it wasn't up until very recently that I finally

1:13

got the courage to

1:15

actually do it and probably

1:18

for a variety of reasons. Also probably a lot

1:20

of reasons why you maybe are a little shy of

1:22

the camera or sitting in front of an audience.

1:24

We all have our own doubts

1:27

and thoughts around why we should

1:29

or shouldn't do something, but the reality

1:31

is we still just got to do it anyways.

1:34

That's when the good stuff happens, so we're

1:36

here and if about me, let's talk

1:38

about you and why you're here. I

1:40

know that first episode

1:42

of any podcast , it's an audition.

1:45

Let's be honest here. It's an audition. You want to know who

1:47

the heck is this chick? What does she

1:49

know? What is she going to teach me?

1:51

Am I really going to commit the next

1:54

bit of my time to listening to

1:56

her and at my hope is

1:58

he ? Yes. I'm hoping we're going to have a lot of fun.

2:00

I'll make you laugh and sure

2:02

as heck you're going to learn something today

2:04

that'll help you in your pursuit

2:07

of wanting to become more magnetic in your

2:09

communication. If you listened to the trailer,

2:11

you know that my jam is helping people

2:14

with their communication skills. You see, I

2:16

think that we all take for granted

2:18

this gift that we all have and being able to

2:20

communicate with one another. It's like

2:23

breathing. We don't think about it. We just

2:26

breathe in and out and our bodies just

2:28

do it on autopilot. And the

2:30

end of the day , I think our voice is a lot

2:32

like that because we, for the most part

2:34

all can speak and

2:37

hear . Although I mean full caveat disclaimer,

2:40

I had a hearing loss and we'll talk about that at another time

2:42

so I can kinda hear , uh , but

2:44

this idea that we can, we can communicate back and forth

2:46

with one another. We take it for granted. And

2:49

I say that because we, we just do

2:51

it on autopilot for the most part in our personal

2:54

lives and also in our career. And it's, it's

2:56

not really until we have a very significant

2:59

moment, a really important conversation

3:02

or we're giving a big talk

3:04

or we have a really important

3:06

sales call that we're, we're getting

3:08

on, or maybe we're pulling

3:11

up a microphone or a camera to shoot a video.

3:13

It isn't until those moments that we actually

3:15

put some thought into, oh

3:17

my gosh, what am I going to say? And

3:20

hopefully, how am I going to say

3:22

it? And here's

3:24

how I, this is my pure belief. If you

3:27

can train for those big

3:29

significant moments with more

3:32

strategy and more intention,

3:34

and you can show up in those most

3:36

difficult moments as the best

3:38

version of you, so that audience gets

3:40

your best, whoever your audience is, right? It could be a big

3:42

ass audience, it could be a little audience. If

3:45

you can do in those moments and

3:47

you show up and put the energy into it,

3:50

just imagine how much more

3:52

impactful everyday conversations

3:55

would be conversations with

3:57

your significant other or with your kids

3:59

or with your coworkers, with

4:01

your boss, with your clients, with, with

4:04

, uh , just on social media. How

4:06

much better would every single one of those

4:08

interactions go if you practiced

4:11

good old fashioned communication skills

4:13

to become better at being articulate

4:16

and empathetic and energetic

4:18

and compassionate or whatever the skills are that

4:20

you want to bring to the table. If you trained

4:22

for the Marathon, a 5k would

4:25

be a piece of cake, right? You'll

4:27

learn about me. I'm a, I'm a runner. I'm getting back into

4:29

running. So I might have some running analogy. So if you're

4:31

not, I think you'll still get the analogy

4:33

and we'll be just fine uni. But

4:36

today, why we're here. I want you to really

4:38

think about on this first episode, we're going to

4:40

start at the most important thing

4:43

and that is becoming more intentional

4:46

with yourself and how you show up.

4:48

So follow me in

4:50

this thought process for just a moment. I

4:53

want you to imagine that you have just

4:55

had the most amazing conversation

4:59

with your dream client, with

5:01

your dream client. Now side note, if you

5:04

are not a business owner and you're listening, let's say

5:06

you're an employee in an organization, I

5:08

want you to think about you having

5:10

an incredible conversation with

5:12

a still, it could be a client or a

5:15

prospect, whatever that translates for

5:17

your job. So you've just had the most

5:20

incredible interaction at this

5:22

conversation. And you

5:24

walk away feeling, I

5:26

mean, just elated. You feel like you nailed

5:28

it, you're going to close the deal, whatever that

5:30

next step would be for you. And

5:33

let's say I am hanging out over in the little corner

5:36

and I walk up to that person you

5:38

just spoke to and I ask them, hey,

5:41

how would you describe

5:44

that person? Meaning how would

5:46

they describe you? I

5:49

know that's really crazy to think about and we're not

5:51

supposed to speculate around what other people think

5:54

about us, but come on oil, do

5:56

it. And I don't want you to get caught up in like

5:58

worrying what other people think about you. But for

6:00

a moment, I want us to be mildly

6:02

scientific here. And think for

6:05

a second. How would that person

6:07

describe their interaction

6:09

with you? Would

6:12

they say you had positive

6:14

energy where you charismatic? Were you empathetic?

6:17

Were you compassionate? Were you

6:19

, uh, open where you vulnerable?

6:22

Were you witty? Were you

6:24

intelligent? What, what would they say?

6:27

And I want you to really stew and speculate

6:29

on that for just a moment. If you had the

6:31

best engagement with your ideal client,

6:34

how would you show up? How would they

6:36

perceive you? And

6:39

if we all think about our

6:42

best days and the most

6:44

positive, amazing version of ourselves,

6:46

I mean we can give ourselves a pat on the back for that. But

6:49

the question we have to ask is, do

6:51

we bring that same level

6:54

of us, that best version of us? Do

6:56

we bring that in every single interaction

6:59

in our business or in our personal lives every

7:01

single day? And

7:03

I think we would be fully in ourselves if we said

7:05

yes, we all know we have good days and bad days.

7:08

But I think we also need to be real

7:10

with ourselves. That we,

7:13

we bring more intention

7:16

to higher stakes conversations

7:19

than we do everyday conversations.

7:22

And when you think about

7:24

your business, especially if you're a personal

7:26

brand, every

7:28

single interaction that you have

7:30

with your audience or if you're an employee,

7:33

every single interaction that you have with your coworkers

7:35

or , uh, the people that are

7:37

above you in the organization, in

7:39

executive roles or whatever else , um,

7:41

every interaction that you have leads back

7:44

to how people perceive you.

7:46

And you can either

7:49

just let this happen and

7:51

hope that people see the best version

7:53

of you or you

7:56

can become far more intentional

7:58

around your reputation and how others

8:00

see you. Start associating

8:03

yourself with the things that you want people

8:05

describing you as. Because

8:07

when you can have more control

8:09

over your brand, meaning how

8:11

other people perceive you, you

8:14

can unlock so many opportunities

8:16

for you to work with the people that you want

8:19

to work with, not just the people

8:21

that are showing up and connect

8:23

with what they see. I hope

8:25

that makes sense. It's this idea about being much

8:27

more intentional with who you attract

8:30

and if you think about the word persona,

8:32

what does it mean? Well, a quick Internet search tells

8:35

us that persona is the

8:37

aspect of someone's character that is

8:39

presented to or perceived by others.

8:42

That is our public persona. And another way

8:44

to look at it is our reputation. And the

8:46

reason why I want to focus on this topic

8:49

before we go into any other

8:51

aspect of communication on future episodes

8:54

is when we are more

8:56

clear about who we are and

8:58

how we want to show up for others,

9:00

we can become far more intentional

9:03

for showing up on

9:05

video or walking into an

9:07

interview or a showing

9:09

up on a Webinar or a live presentation

9:12

or whatever. The , the important

9:14

moment is when we are clear

9:16

around who we are, we

9:18

can be, we can be really strategic

9:21

and how we position ourselves and our

9:23

personal brand. So today

9:26

we're gonna talk about that. We're going to talk about why

9:28

it's so important that we have that persona.

9:30

I'm going to beat that dead horse because it's really

9:32

important to consider. And then I'm going to walk

9:34

you through exactly how

9:37

do you identify what your persona

9:39

is so that you can use it to become

9:41

more intentional. Sound good? All right, let's

9:43

do it. Okay. If we want to become more

9:45

intentional in how we communicate.

9:48

First we have to recognize how are we

9:50

communicating right now

9:53

today. And I want you to think

9:55

about how you show up

9:57

as a dial. So imagine

9:59

really imagine in front of you right now is a giant

10:01

knob like a dial

10:04

and you can turn it to the left and you can turn to the

10:06

right. And on that dial I want you to consider

10:08

there's a version of you

10:11

that you bring forth into the world. So

10:13

I'll give you an example. Uh , there's

10:16

a version of me when I get on a stage

10:18

and talk in front of c suite executives

10:21

what I'm going to wear , the type

10:23

of vocabulary that I use in my presentation,

10:25

the types of stories

10:27

that I use. Um, just the

10:29

overall way I hold my posture

10:32

and my body language. It's

10:34

very specific.

10:37

It's the, let's call it the Sunday best

10:39

version of me where it's

10:41

still 100% me, but I'm a little

10:43

bit more polished in my word choices.

10:45

I might use a little bigger words for that

10:47

audience. I definitely going to keep

10:49

my language shorter, more

10:52

concise because their tolerance level

10:54

for long stories is much, much

10:56

lower. I'm definitely going to wear

10:58

my best clothes, my higher end

11:01

clothes. I'm gonna wear a most likely gonna

11:03

wear a blazer. I'm telling you all

11:05

this because what I want you to consider this

11:07

, it's still me still my

11:10

clothes still my hairstyle, still my words,

11:12

but it's my Sunday best. And

11:15

then on the other end of the spectrum,

11:17

I have ratty

11:19

sweat pants version of Heather.

11:22

I have what my husband and my two

11:24

kids see on Saturday morning when

11:26

I'm hanging around the house drinking coffee with no

11:28

bra and my ratty sweats that have

11:30

paint stains all over them

11:33

because I love them and they're cozy on the inside.

11:36

Still me, just a very,

11:39

very dialed back, very raw

11:41

version of me. And

11:43

each of us have, I

11:45

would say that same version. It's The Sunday

11:48

best contrast to these Saturday morning

11:50

coffee that you would be totally and

11:53

terrified if the doorbell rang

11:55

and you had to figure out how to answer the

11:57

door. Is

11:59

that just me? I don't know. Sometimes

12:01

I hide and I don't actually answer the door

12:03

when that happens. True story,

12:06

but the reality is is those,

12:09

if you saw that person that me

12:11

and my sweats versus me and my Sunday basket

12:13

and ready to talk to c suite executives, here's

12:16

what I know to be true. You probably

12:18

would look at it and be like, Woo

12:20

, that's a stark contrast. But

12:23

also you would see it's the exact

12:25

same person and

12:28

that is the dial that I want you

12:30

to consider is when you think

12:32

about how you show up to

12:34

your audience, you have

12:36

to be completely, authentically

12:39

yourself. Designing

12:41

your own brand persona isn't about

12:44

you saying you're going to be, you're

12:46

going to be one way versus another

12:48

with different audiences because that's

12:50

fake. That's not, that's not authentic.

12:53

You have to understand who you are at

12:55

your core to be able to

12:57

understand, whoa , like what

12:59

is that dial in its entirety. And

13:01

then you can adjust that dial

13:04

based around the audience that you're speaking

13:06

to. So let's apply this to

13:08

business. So you know me, I'm an

13:10

entrepreneur. I work with entrepreneurs, primarily

13:13

personal brand based entrepreneurs online

13:15

and I've had to go through quite a

13:17

shift over the last 12 months because moving

13:19

from a corporate world where

13:22

business communication is a little bit more polished,

13:25

a , you use a little different

13:27

words in your email and your writing skills

13:30

and in your conversations in meetings

13:32

and in classrooms versus

13:36

working with entrepreneurs that have lifestyle

13:38

brands for the most part , uh , it's way

13:40

more conversational. You actually

13:43

type wanna instead of

13:45

want to in an email, you

13:47

can clean up what you talk about. Uh,

13:49

on social media, showing up in Instagram stories,

13:52

I can wear a messy bun and

13:54

it wouldn't be perceived me as being disheveled.

13:56

It would be B being an entrepreneur or working

13:59

at home on my laptop with sweatpants on.

14:01

So me understanding

14:04

that who my audience is and how

14:06

I've transformed and how I show up

14:08

for my audience , um, has been really

14:10

interesting. But the, the common

14:13

line between both

14:15

is a couple things and I wanted to share these

14:17

with you. When I think about my brand

14:20

persona, there's some things that are really, really

14:22

important to me. And it , again, it

14:24

doesn't matter if I'm on stage in front of c

14:26

suite executives or I'm in a classroom

14:28

talking to Grad students, or

14:31

I'm talking to multimillion

14:33

entrepreneurs or nonprofit. Like

14:35

it doesn't matter who I'm talking to. These are the things

14:37

that ring true for me. Uh,

14:39

I want people to perceive me as being

14:42

, uh , having really strong common sense

14:45

that I actually speak to people

14:47

like a person. I am relatable.

14:50

Uh, I'm real authentic. I don't

14:52

try to pretend that I'm perfect, that

14:54

I embrace the imperfections, the stumbles

14:56

in my language , uh, the, the mess

14:59

ups. If I, if I have them, I acknowledge them.

15:01

I laugh at myself. I want

15:03

to make people laugh and

15:06

when appropriate, I want to make people

15:08

cry because to me, the contrast

15:10

of the two of actually sharing very open and

15:12

vulnerable stories or things about myself,

15:15

I feel like that is something

15:17

that is signature to me. And my story is telling

15:19

storytelling style. And

15:21

I think it's important to help people feel

15:24

something so they're compelled to do something.

15:26

I want to be seen as

15:29

stylish. That's important

15:31

to me. If you know me, you know,

15:33

a fun, interesting fact about me as I

15:35

competed in the Miss America program in my teens

15:37

slash early twenties. And

15:40

uh, I learned a lot about myself, but I definitely

15:42

care about my appearance and how I look

15:45

and not because I want other people

15:47

to think I'm pretty or whatever

15:49

else like that. That's not the case.

15:51

I actually feel better when I show up and I feel

15:53

like I look good. I always wear heels

15:55

when I present because I feel like I

15:57

stand up a little bit straighter and have better posture

16:00

and it allows me to have better hand gestures

16:02

when I have better posture. It's like a

16:04

super, super specific reference, but it's

16:06

totally 100% true for me. I

16:09

also feel far better when

16:11

I wear eyeliner, really,

16:13

really specific. But something that I know about myself.

16:15

Uh, you know the question, if you

16:17

were ever to be deserted on an

16:19

island, if you were to be on a deserted

16:22

island, whatever the phrase is, you're on an island, you have no

16:24

one around you and you could take one thing. My

16:26

answer to that question was always my

16:28

eyelash curler, which is

16:30

super weird and again, oddly specific,

16:33

but I just feel like a whole new person when I

16:35

have my eyelashes curled. And

16:37

if you're a man listening to do this, this is not

16:39

probably relatable to you. However,

16:41

I want you to imagine for a second or what

16:43

are the things about you that

16:46

just make you feel like

16:48

a million bucks? You feel like you can show

16:50

up and be the best version of you. To

16:52

me, I want to be stylish, but

16:54

approachable and not stuffy. And these

16:56

are all things that I think about when it comes to me

16:58

and my brand. They're important

17:00

to me. It's part of my brand persona. And

17:03

when I say persona, it's not this

17:05

fictitious thing. It's the WHO I am.

17:08

But it also comes back to the definition of

17:10

persona. And remember that was around this aspect

17:12

of someone's character that's presented or perceived

17:14

by others. So me understanding

17:17

how I want to be perceived as others is

17:19

in direct alignment with me wanting

17:21

to be true to myself.

17:23

These things are important to me

17:25

and my image of myself. Therefore,

17:28

I'm able to be more intentionally with how I project

17:31

that into my videos,

17:34

my social media , uh, my live

17:36

presentations, my client conversations.

17:38

These are all very important things. Oh , uh , I

17:40

forgot to mention one of the other really important

17:42

things for me is compassion and empathy of

17:45

being vulnerable so that I can

17:47

encourage other peoples to be vulnerable real.

17:50

So I share with you all these things cause I think it's

17:52

really easy for us to think about our

17:54

brand as a style

17:57

guide. If you're an entrepreneur,

17:59

you've gone through the process where you've had

18:01

a style guide created, you have the

18:03

fonts, you have the colors, you have the textures,

18:06

you have the logo, you have all of those

18:08

things. And maybe you even taken it a step further

18:10

to consider. Okay, what's Your

18:13

Voice Guide? Meaning for your written copy on

18:16

your emails and your website

18:18

and your social media, what does that look

18:20

like? And all of those things are

18:22

so important. But when we think

18:25

about how we engage with other people,

18:27

I want you to consider that your brand

18:29

has two facets. I

18:31

think about this. Your brand has the curated

18:34

part and then it has the live

18:36

and candid part. And let me break that down

18:38

for a second here. The curated piece,

18:41

this is content that you bring up that's

18:43

curated. These are social

18:46

posts there , the copy on your

18:48

website, it's the content

18:50

on your website, it's your graphics.

18:52

It's the things that you choose to

18:54

like and share online. It's your prerecorded

18:57

videos, things that you have

19:00

premeditated, like predesigned and

19:02

you release it. So there's intention behind

19:04

that. So you can apply your style guide and your tone

19:06

of voice and all those things to it, but,

19:08

and you and you can be intentional and work on those

19:10

things. But then you also

19:12

have these more live candid

19:15

aspects of your brand. These are

19:18

on social media would be your Instagram stories

19:20

or your Facebook live streams or

19:23

you speaking up on a Webinar.

19:25

You've actually doing a Webinar, your

19:27

client calls, your prospect calls,

19:30

going to networking events and talking

19:32

to peers, a schmoozing with

19:34

your coworkers or employees

19:37

in your business , uh , actual live presentations

19:40

or talks. All of these

19:42

interactions have a live impromptu

19:44

element and they all require you

19:48

and your voice. And

19:50

what's fascinating to me

19:52

is how much time and energy

19:55

we put in being

19:57

intentional with the curated content.

20:00

Again, the website, the prescheduled,

20:03

social media posts, the predesigned

20:06

videos, all those types of things.

20:08

But on the other hand,

20:10

how little little

20:13

planning or intention we put behind

20:15

the live interactions. When you

20:18

consider what you,

20:20

what resonates with you as a

20:23

listener or watcher or per user

20:25

, online, whatever word resonates

20:27

with you best there. I sure

20:30

the curated stuff is fine, but what we

20:32

really love are the stories

20:35

or in a, at a conference.

20:37

We love the interactions with people.

20:40

You know, it's so funny thinking about live events

20:42

here for a moment. The organization that I work with.

20:44

We were huge on live events and my team produced

20:47

and we always got

20:49

such great feedback about the content we created.

20:52

But beyond that, whenever we asked

20:54

what was the number one value that

20:56

people received out of those conferences, it was

20:58

always the interactions with

21:00

their peers, with each other.

21:03

And I'm learning this to be very

21:05

true. Attending conferences myself, I've gone

21:07

to some incredible conferences here and

21:10

uh, it's always about the interactions

21:12

with other people. So for a moment, think about

21:14

you being someone who is attending a conference,

21:16

networking with other people. How

21:19

much time or energy do you spend thinking about

21:22

how you're going to show up in those conversations,

21:24

how you want people to perceive you,

21:26

what is your persona that you're bringing to

21:28

the party? We don't

21:31

spend time and energy thinking

21:33

about how we're going to show up and how

21:35

we're going to be perceived by other people. And

21:37

that has a huge miss because

21:40

if you want to attract people into your

21:42

business or if you want to ascend

21:45

in your career, if you work at an organization,

21:47

if you want people to think about you as

21:49

being the most logical,

21:51

obvious choice for them to

21:54

promote you or you want to be

21:56

the like, hello, Duh, I

21:58

want to work with this person. If people

22:00

are consuming your content online as an entrepreneur,

22:03

like you have to be crystal

22:05

clear around how you want other people to see

22:07

you do . We have far

22:09

more control over that than we give ourselves credit

22:12

for it . But it's because we spend so much time

22:14

on the curated content, the planned

22:16

content, the kind that

22:18

we can spend our time finessing and

22:20

tweaking and perfecting. That's

22:23

where we spend our energy. But what if we were just

22:25

to put even a fraction of that energy into the

22:27

live real engagements with people?

22:29

Like how much more magical would

22:31

it be to have people connect

22:34

with you real in the moment? So

22:37

that's what we're going to focus on is the how do you

22:39

bring more intention and strategy into

22:41

those live interactions? So people

22:44

are attracted to you, to

22:47

, to you as a brand, to you as a person

22:49

and therefore they want to follow you and

22:51

work with you and

22:54

ideally become excited

22:56

and enthusiastic ambassadors of your

22:58

brand and bring their friends to the party.

23:01

That's really what this is all about. So

23:03

let's dive in and talk about some questions

23:06

that you can explore to start

23:08

understanding what is your brand

23:10

persona so that you can be more intentional

23:13

with how you bring that persona

23:15

into your interactions. I've already shared with you some

23:18

of the things that I think about and my persona and

23:20

if those resonate with you, totally steal

23:22

those and use them for yourself. Uh

23:24

, but let's help you identify

23:26

yours. So here we go. I have , uh,

23:29

I have about five or six questions here

23:31

that you can ask yourself. And as we get going here, I

23:33

might think of a couple more, but let's

23:35

dive into them. And these are questions that I really

23:37

want you to think about. You're probably in the

23:40

car driving and or maybe on a walker or run.

23:42

So when you have a moment , uh , I

23:44

also have these posted on

23:46

the show notes so you can head over there and

23:49

actually print them out and journal on

23:51

these. I think that'd be a really great episode. But for now,

23:53

hopefully this will give you some thoughts

23:55

to start provoking your thinking a little bit more and as you need

23:58

to just pause this and let

24:00

your mind flow and see where

24:02

it takes you. Because the more that you can, you

24:04

can dream up on this, that the more

24:06

you can bring your ideas

24:08

into action when it comes to designing

24:11

your interactions with other humans.

24:14

I mean that's what this is all about. Okay.

24:16

So question number

24:19

one, and it goes back to the initial question

24:21

I asked you at the top of this episode. I want you

24:23

to imagine that you are

24:25

having an interaction with,

24:28

you can do this how you want, but I , I would say

24:31

with your existing

24:34

clients, you just have an interaction

24:36

with them. When they are done

24:38

with that conversation, what are the words

24:40

that they would use to describe you? So

24:42

let me rephrase that. After

24:45

you have a conversation with a client, what

24:48

are the words that they would use to describe their interaction

24:50

with you? How are

24:52

they describing their their experiences? Now,

24:55

if you are an entrepreneur and you're already

24:57

getting surveys from people, you actually might have

24:59

some information that you can pull from on this, but

25:01

if you're not, you need to speculate for a moment.

25:04

If you're a team member, you can ask

25:06

yourself the question, if you work with clients,

25:08

whoever your end client is that you work with

25:11

on a daily basis, think about the last

25:13

conversation you had or maybe the ideal

25:15

conversation that you, you would like

25:17

to have is how would people feel

25:19

and how would they describe that conversation?

25:22

That's a really great starting point because for

25:24

most of us, for far more,

25:27

well , you fit into two camps. You either might

25:29

be instantly seeing all of the great,

25:31

wonderful things and if that's

25:33

the case, good, keep going, write those

25:35

down. But if you're on the side

25:38

of things where you're tend to be a little bit more critical

25:40

with yourself, I want to stop.

25:43

You're just right there for a moment and encourage you

25:45

to focus more on that side of your strengths.

25:48

Don't worry about what you're not doing

25:50

or , uh , getting on your , on

25:52

top of yourself because you're not doing it how

25:54

you would like to do it. So if you were describing that ideal

25:57

scenario and you started going, oh, I'm not doing

25:59

that yet, or I need to be better at consistently doing that

26:01

and stop, cut that out, like stop that.

26:03

That's not what this exercise is about. We're focused

26:05

on how do you ideally want to

26:07

show up and the how you

26:09

do it. We'll focus on that a little bit later

26:12

on . But for now, I want you to focus on your strengths and your positivity.

26:15

So that first question really start thinking

26:17

about in your actual interactions you have

26:19

with your clients today, how would they describe

26:21

you? What are your strengths? How are

26:23

you coming across? Okay,

26:26

let's go to question number two. I

26:29

want you to dream up a little bit in the

26:31

future. Think

26:33

about where you want to be. Let's

26:35

not go to distant the future. Let's go a year from

26:37

now. Think about where you want to be in a

26:39

year from now and what do

26:41

you want to be known for

26:45

when someone says your name, what

26:47

do you want to be known for? And

26:51

I want you to think about two different things here, right?

26:53

You can think about your craft. So

26:55

what do you want to be known for? While for me,

26:58

I want to be known for

27:01

teaching people to be better communicators.

27:04

Like that's not a sexy way to say it, but that's really

27:06

what it is. What it comes down to. People

27:08

who want to become better communicators

27:10

to attract their ideal audience. I want to be known

27:12

for that. So helping people give live presentations

27:15

and showing up on video. I want people

27:17

to know me for that. They want to come to me

27:19

for that. But beyond

27:21

that, I want you to think about the secondary piece.

27:23

It's not just about what you do, it's

27:26

also about who you are. So

27:29

how do you want people to think of you? What

27:31

do you want to be known for? I

27:33

want to be known for being a little silly,

27:36

but wicked smart. I

27:38

want to be known for being

27:41

funny. I think I'm funny.

27:43

Hopefully you will develop my

27:46

style or you'll develop a taste for

27:48

my sense of humor as we get to know each

27:50

other a bit. But

27:52

what do you want to be known for? Like how do you want people

27:54

to know you, a describe you. It's

27:57

not just about what you do, but it's also who you

27:59

are. I want you to chew on that for a

28:01

few minutes. Okay.

28:04

Question number three, how

28:07

are you right now?

28:10

So we talked a little bit about thinking

28:12

more aspirationally in the future.

28:15

Now I really want you to be tough and

28:17

real with yourself of how you're showing

28:19

up right now. When you

28:21

think about the good and

28:23

you think about maybe the not so great

28:25

moments, what are the things

28:27

that really stand out for you? Are you

28:30

great with being empathetic?

28:33

Are you really good at asking questions?

28:36

Are you super relatable? Do

28:39

you have a tendency to talk over

28:41

people? Do you have a tendency to interrupt?

28:45

Do you have a tendency to not

28:47

speak up? Do

28:49

you have a tendency to shy away from difficult

28:51

conversations? Do

28:54

you have a tendency to clam up on camera

28:58

in live presentations? Do you get

29:00

more focused on how you feel versus

29:02

your audience? I

29:04

want you to take a second and just explore for a moment.

29:07

How do you actually show up today

29:10

and start really

29:13

strict , understand or are speculating

29:15

real quick for a moment around what

29:17

is the difference between how you're showing up right

29:20

now versus

29:22

those first few questions around how you

29:24

want to show up in the future. Taking

29:28

a couple minutes to to start understanding

29:30

that the contrast between these two

29:32

things and if you're, if

29:34

the gap between the two is not very

29:37

large, that's incredible.

29:39

Good for you. Now we need to about how do

29:41

we actually crank up that dial so that

29:44

your bringing the best version of you in more conversations.

29:47

But if you're sitting there going, oh, there's

29:49

these things that I keep doing, like

29:52

interrupting people or

29:54

a , I mess up on words so

29:56

often that now I've developed this fear

29:58

of speaking that I don't speak up in those higher

30:00

level meetings because I don't want to sound dumb

30:03

. Or maybe you have this

30:05

hesitation on camera where all

30:07

the sudden you know the phrase, the camera

30:09

adds five pounds. While there's also

30:11

a, I believe there is this a thing that happens

30:13

with the camera that makes us all go dumb, dumb,

30:16

like the vibrant and charismatic,

30:18

personable versions of ourselves. When the camera

30:20

hits us, we just become very bitter

30:23

. Like you have to bring more energy to the camera.

30:25

But if that , if that's you, just recognizing

30:28

that and knowing maybe where the opportunity

30:30

lies for you to start focusing

30:32

on bringing more of you into

30:35

that interaction. That's a really powerful

30:37

thing. If you want to be somebody

30:39

who is more charismatic or you want to bring your humor

30:41

into conversations and you're struggling

30:44

to be able to get more comfortable on camera,

30:47

well how powerful it is it if you know

30:49

that, hey, you're funny, hey,

30:51

you're personable. Hey, you don't have to be perfect.

30:53

Those are strengths of yours. Bring

30:56

that on camera and don't worry about

30:58

trying to get it perfect or to sound smart. So

31:01

you can start using your strengths and your aspirational

31:03

areas into those areas that make you

31:05

a little nervous or a little more self conscious.

31:08

And that's bringing your brand persona

31:11

to life with really, really strong

31:13

, uh , intentional , um , focus.

31:17

Okay . Exploring this idea around

31:19

, uh, who you are and starting

31:22

to develop an understanding for who is your

31:24

brand persona when it comes to your communication

31:27

style. Uh, another way that you

31:29

can look at this. Here's the fourth question

31:31

is look at the people who

31:33

you follow online, the people that

31:35

you admire, and ask yourself,

31:38

why do you follow them? What

31:40

is it about them that attracts you

31:43

to them and start

31:45

writing out? What are those things? A

31:48

lot of times you'll notice the people that you follow

31:50

online as you love them. Yes, for their content.

31:52

The fact that they always show up and have something

31:55

to say and it feels like they're talking directly

31:57

to you. You feel like they're

31:59

open, they're honest, they're vulnerable, they share the

32:01

good with the bad. Maybe you

32:03

love them because they're unapologetically

32:06

themselves. They don't try

32:09

to adapt who they are for you

32:11

or anyone else. They just show up as them.

32:14

So thinking for a moment about who

32:16

you follow online and why you're so

32:18

attracted to them, oftentimes

32:20

we're attracted to those things because

32:23

we, we see something in

32:25

there in them that either

32:27

we have a glimmer of to or

32:29

we really would like to be more like

32:32

those things. So those

32:34

specific characteristics speak to you for

32:36

a reason and it's because most

32:38

likely you would like to have those qualities

32:40

too or what? I actually think as you

32:42

have, you have a little sense of

32:44

that quality. You seem to draw it out of you more,

32:47

so really exploring who you follow online,

32:49

who your mentors are. It'll help you start

32:52

getting more clear around what your brand

32:54

persona is. Let's leave

32:56

it with that four questions. I think that's

32:58

quite a bit for you to start exploring

33:00

and going through the exercise of starting to think

33:02

about how do you want

33:04

to be perceived by others.

33:07

Getting a list of those things. What I want

33:09

you to do from here is as I go through those questions

33:11

and come up with a list of all of those

33:13

qualities, you're probably going to come up with 30

33:16

different qualities or things that surface

33:19

and start working through

33:21

those and if you boil those down to

33:24

10 things and then down to five

33:26

things, you'll start getting a lot more clarity

33:28

around how you want to

33:30

show up as a

33:32

communicator online in your business

33:35

or you'll, if you're an employee, you can be

33:37

a lot more clear on how do you want others

33:39

to perceive you in your

33:41

role in your organization and

33:43

when you're clear around who you are,

33:45

you can be far more clear around how

33:48

you show up in situations that are stressful

33:51

or in everyday conversations

33:53

that might not seem to have a lot of weight

33:55

behind them. But remember every

33:58

touch point that others have with you,

34:00

it's all of those touch points together that sum

34:02

up who you are as a brand. That sums

34:04

up your reputation. So you don't want to undervalue

34:07

those little seemingly meaningless,

34:10

seemingly meaningless. You

34:13

know what I'm trying to say? There, but those moments

34:15

don't undervalue them. And if you, if

34:17

you know how you want to be in the big moments, you

34:19

can definitely knock it out of park and the little moments.

34:22

I really believe that the secret to being authentic

34:25

is knowing exactly who you are

34:27

and exactly who you're not. And

34:30

when you get clear on this,

34:33

you can be far more effective

34:35

and attracting people into

34:37

your world and attracting opportunities

34:40

into your career and in your business

34:42

that you're far more excited about. And

34:45

when you attract people into your universe,

34:47

you're going to have a heck of a lot more fun building

34:49

your business or building your career. So

34:53

I want you to consider this your brand persona.

34:55

Once you get clear around what are those

34:57

core things of who

34:59

you are. And again, for me it was common

35:01

sense speaking like a person

35:04

being real on authentic, sharing

35:06

the good and the bad, making people laugh.

35:09

Also getting emotional and it's okay if

35:11

we cry together , uh , being

35:13

stylish. I want to feel good about

35:16

how I show up to my audience because when I feel

35:18

better, I feel more

35:20

confident. And more competent. These are just some

35:22

of the things that, again, I come back within my

35:25

persona, but remember once you pull

35:27

those things together, they become aspects

35:29

of your dial and

35:32

you get to choose how you show up

35:34

and level of formality depending

35:36

around the audience that you're working

35:39

with. But at the

35:41

end of the day, your persona persona is always

35:43

there. You're always being true to who you are,

35:45

and therefore you can be more intentional

35:48

with how you practice

35:50

your communication skills depending

35:53

on the format in which you're communicating. So

35:55

maybe you have a live presentation coming up or maybe

35:57

you're wanting to get better on camera, or maybe

35:59

you want to be more compelling and increase

36:01

your conversion rates in your sales conversations. You

36:04

can't get tactical and do all those things

36:06

until you are super clear around

36:09

how you want others to perceive you.

36:12

Because if you start trying to

36:14

acquire those skills and work on all

36:16

those other things without having clarity around who you

36:18

are, what will happen is you'll

36:20

start seeing other people who

36:22

you like and then you'll start

36:25

copying them intentionally

36:27

or not. But what you'll do is you'll start borrowing

36:30

other people's scripts or borrowing other

36:32

people's way of doing that thing,

36:34

that tactic, and you'll try it on

36:37

and sure it might work, but

36:39

it's not going to feel quite right

36:41

for you. It's gonna feel inauthentic.

36:44

And that mismatching of borrowing

36:46

a , an online personality who is really

36:48

good at video versus an online personality who is

36:51

really good at Instagram or somebody

36:53

who's really good at live presentations. When you start

36:55

borrowing from all these different people, it starts

36:57

feeling kind

37:00

of okay. You know, you know when

37:02

you're trying to , uh , do

37:04

some interior design on your house. If

37:07

you're a good interior designer right now, this, this analogy

37:10

does not apply to you. But for the rest of us who

37:12

really don't have an aesthetic eye

37:14

for design, here's what happens. We

37:16

go to the store and we pick out a pillow that we

37:18

think looks cool and then we pick out a pattern

37:20

of a curtain that we think looks cool

37:23

and then we pick out a rug

37:25

and all these things individually are super cool.

37:27

And then we bring them together and

37:30

house looks terrible. Like it

37:32

just is a mishmash where you've, you've meshed

37:35

all these different patterns and

37:37

designs together that don't really

37:39

come back and you've spent all

37:41

of this money and time and you don't

37:44

love it. Maybe

37:47

that's just me. My husband and I have this experience

37:49

where , um, we call it the argument

37:51

of the curtains where , uh

37:53

, this is like a total tangent here, but for years

37:56

in our very first house we bought like, I dunno

37:58

, 10 years ago, maybe more , uh , we

38:01

argued over the pattern of

38:03

the curtains and we couldn't agree

38:05

on it. I had the , I think I

38:07

wanted something like Paisley and he wanted these really

38:09

weird contemporary circles that I strongly

38:12

felt looked like they were like circa 2001

38:14

and we argued over it. So we settled

38:16

on something that we didn't both

38:18

love. And

38:21

then I made him change the curtains, I swear

38:23

like six times over the course of

38:25

living in our house , that house for a year. And

38:27

we never felt like we were in love with

38:29

the house. Okay. And I bring this up. Coming back to you

38:32

is I consider this

38:34

idea not when you're not

38:36

clear around what your

38:39

specific style is. When you're

38:41

not clear of exactly who you are

38:44

and exactly who you're not, you

38:47

cannot be authentic, so

38:50

borrowing other people's styles, their

38:52

scripts, their processes, it

38:54

doesn't work if you don't start with you

38:56

being clear on you, and

38:59

that's why I cannot impress

39:01

the need for going

39:03

through this initial work that we've talked

39:06

about today. Those questions, they might sound super

39:08

simplistic, but the, the

39:10

impact of exploring your own

39:12

thoughts and your own identity and how you want

39:14

to be perceived by other people, it

39:17

is a mentally

39:20

impactful. If you want

39:22

to position yourself as someone who

39:24

attracts their ideal

39:26

clients, their ideal projects

39:28

are ideal opportunities into their universe

39:31

to pick up the pace on accelerating

39:33

your success. That's what

39:35

this is about. So don't skimp

39:37

on this. Don't be like, Oh yeah, yeah, I know

39:39

I'm already gonna do the work on this. Spend

39:42

an hour, spend 10 [inaudible] , five

39:44

minutes thinking about this for a moment. Any work that you

39:46

would do in on this now is

39:48

going to accelerate any

39:51

work we do later on helping you become

39:53

an even warm , magnetic communicator on

39:56

any facet we talk about when it comes to communication.

39:59

So, okay, if you love today's

40:02

conversation , would you please, please do me

40:04

a huge favor, take a screenshot of

40:06

wherever it is that you're listening, post

40:09

it on Instagram or Facebook and tag me,

40:11

I'm at the Heather Sager and shoot

40:13

me a message. I would love to know what really

40:15

stuck with you today and what are you going to do? What

40:17

are the characteristics, the persona that

40:19

you're looking to embody? Please tell me

40:21

I would love the feedback beyond

40:24

that. I can't wait to connect with you

40:26

again next week as we are on the journey

40:28

of finding your it factor and bringing

40:30

it into so many dynamic

40:32

conversations in your business. So until

40:34

then, I hope you have an incredible week and I'll

40:36

see you next week. Same time, same place.