Six skills for more effective leadership.
Six skills to win interviews and gain greater self-knowledge.
Six skills you need now.
Guest Michelle Holden is an author, corporate coach, and “self-esteem architect” who works with individuals and corporations to develop the talent within. She shares a six pack of skills that have helped her clients achieve their leadership goals.
Stop asking, “what if?” and start asking, “what next?” Listen now!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Michelle Holden: I’m gonna tell you that when you have stress, anxiety and panic, you know you’re in trouble when you start speaking these two words to yourself: what if.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome, everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and some call me the vibrant coach, and I am here today with none other than Michelle Holden. Let me tell you all about her. She is a professional speaker. She is a communications consultant. And a, don’t miss this, don’t miss this, a self esteem architect. Her forte is working with individuals and corporations to develop talent within like inside every human she works with. She acts as a corporate coach to organizations performing 360’s, 9 blocks and talent reviews and her clients gain self knowledge, create meaningful goals and a roadmap for getting there. Michelle is the author of The Six Pack, everybody write that down, a collection of six tools that will immediately improve your quality of life. Michelle, I want to hear all about the six pack. But first of all, I want to say hello, how are you?
Michelle: Hello, it’s good to be with you. The six pack is very cool. We do so many different things. But what I started to figure out when I was talking with people of all ages, by the way. These could be people that are 18 and 19, to 20s and 30s. All the way up to Baby Boomers, I started realizing that there were things that were missing from people’s toolbox they just hadn’t ever been taught it. And I started scratching my head saying, why aren’t we teaching people? They’re in middle school. They’re learning about gym class and medicine balls and soccer and everything else? Why aren’t we teaching them how to get and give feedback without being mortally wounded by it? Why aren’t we teaching people how to speak effectively? Why don’t we teach them about body language? Which is 93% screaming at you every time you’re talking? Why aren’t we teaching them about interviewing?
And I’m not just talking about the kind where you’re sitting down trying to get a job. I’m talking about when you’re meeting someone that you’re interested in? That’s a mini interview. What about when you’re trying to get into a sorority or fraternity? Or you’re trying to get the next job at work? You’re interviewing all the time. Why aren’t we teaching people how to do this effectively? Also, I know there’s been tons of information written on time management. But really, we need sound bites, just short, simple ways to teach people how to manage their time without having to spend hundreds or 1000s of dollars going to a class.
And then my favorite, and this is a house favorite no matter where I go. Teaching people how to overcome stress, anxiety and panic. The debilitating 40 million people in the world who struggle with stress, anxiety and panic. And one of the reasons why we can’t get over it is because we actually don’t know what it is. We don’t know how it affects our body. And we think it just automatically comes out of nowhere. And once you start to learn what it is, you can control it. But since I’m on this podcast with you, I’m going to give one little baby giveaway, Nicole. I’m going to tell you that when you have stress, anxiety and panic, you know you’re in trouble when you start speaking these two words to yourself: what if. What if this doesn’t happen? What if I don’t get this? What if I mess up?
As soon as you say the words what if, a red flag should be going off in your mind saying oh, wait a minute, I’m in a problem situation. Normal stress and I won’t spend our time together talking about this whole thing. But normal stress can be very good. It’s normal, somebody pops out of a closet and goes surprise. That’s normal stress, your heart’s gonna start racing. What’s not normal is you’re walking or driving down the road and out of nowhere, you get these palpitations, you get this panic feeling. That’s not normal. What if this never goes away? Boom. The what if word, that’s when you need to start shutting it down right there. But anyway, this is all part of the six pack. And I really put together the six pack to make up for all of the things that we are never taught growing up that we need. They’re life skills and we’re just not taught them.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Well, you know, we we definitely want you to cover this six pack. But you know, the first thing I want to ask you Michelle is what is your definition of leadership? I’m collecting definitions. I’m you know, I’m doing research. Tell me what your definition of leadership is.
Michelle: Nicole, this is my master’s degree. This is my certifications. This is what I do all day long, this is not a simple answer, because I could talk about it for eight hours. My definition if I have to give you one would be a person who has a clear and compelling vision. They can share that vision articulated clearly where other people have a desire to get on board with you. They say that you’re a leader, if you’re leading someone, if you turn around, and no one’s behind you guess what you’re not leading. I like people to know what their marching orders are before they start marching. I need somebody if they’re going to be a leader to me, I have to respect you. Which means that you have to be a compassionate person, you’ve got to be ethical. I’m not getting behind anyone that’s not ethical.
You’ve got to be honest, you’ve got to be trustworthy. These are your basics for being a really good leader. And I don’t envy leaders in today’s day and age as CEOs of companies because we are in turbulent, chaotic times. And you have to be so nimble, so flexible, so agile, and you have to have the people behind you believe that you love them. I could have said a leader is somebody who loves well, but everybody listening to this might have started rolling their eyeballs and saying, oh, she’s one of those touchy feely types, okay, whatever. I’m not going to listen to the rest of this. But the truth is, everybody wants to be loved. Your internal clients want to be loved. Your external clients want to be loved. And you have to have a person who’s a really good person at the helm. That’s my vision of a leader. That’s my definition of one.
Nicole: So I love it. I love it. Yes so somebody who has a clear and compelling vision, who can articulate that, get people on board, and you make people believe that you love them, and you truly do love them. It’s not just a fake thing, alright? It is like a real, real deal.
Michelle: Yes, you have great emotional IQ.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great. Okay. All right. So earlier, you kind of rattled off your six pack, so you’re fast, you’re furious. So tell me what the first thing, number one in the six pack is? Tell me what it is. And then let’s dive into that and go through the six pack.
Michelle: Okay, they are in no particular order. But the first one is self knowledge. And this one I really dive into deeply because it’s amazing. We get to be whatever age we are. You know what the truth is, Nicole, we don’t know ourselves. We know ourselves superficially, I can say I’m a tall, thin redhead. I’m X years old. I mean, we know ourselves superficially, we might even know a few things we’re allergic to. But the truth is, we don’t know what crushes us. We don’t know what we really care about. And I do this thing that unfortunately, we don’t have time to do here, but I call it whiteboard drills. And what I do, Nicole is I’ll say to people, I give them a little warning a little heads up about what this is. I get out a whiteboard. And I get out markers. And I say I’m gonna give you two minutes.
And I want you to write down every adjective, you can think about yourself, the ones you think about yourself, the ones that other people say about you, the ones you want people to say about you. I want you to write for two minutes. And it’s really funny, people start sweating, they get very nervous over this activity. I assure them, it’s going to be okay, I’ve got a plan, I will lead you out of it. I go ahead and I say are you ready? We’re going to start. And I turn the timer on. And people start writing. And then they’re slowing down. And I say we’re only 15 seconds in, let’s go. And they just can’t think of anything else to write about themselves. Now this is you. It’s yourself and you can’t think of anything to write. And I give them a few prompts. What about this? What about this? Are you fast or slow? Are you a morning person? Are you a night person?
I’ll come up with anything. Sometimes I don’t know these people well, so I can’t do a deep dive with them. Some people I know well, and I can help them out tremendously. Here’s what’s interesting. When the two minutes which can be excruciatingly long for some people is over. I look at the board and I’ll say let’s take a look at the words that are up here. And let’s put them in categories. We’re gonna go mind, body, spirit let because three legged stool, we’ve got to be balanced in life. Let’s see what’s up here. Let’s see what’s important to you. And you know what’s amazing, Nicole, the way people look at this board, as if they’re looking at some book that they’ve never seen before, or some person they’ve never seen before. And they’re saying, yeah, sometimes I get people going, oh, we’ll take off that word. That one’s not right. And I always smile at them and say I won’t be taking that word off because I didn’t generate it. You did.
We’re not going to be, and by the way, you wrote it twice. You know sometimes people write the same word twice. And it’s a word that they want me to take off the book. And maybe it’s fear. I’m not a fearful person. In fact, I’m fierce. I mean, I’m incredible. And they’re seeing things that they don’t really like about themselves, or maybe that they’ve kept pushed down so far, that they don’t want anyone to know about it. And these meetings can be very cathartic. Every once in a while some tears are produced, but people are getting to know who they are. I think self knowledge is so important. Because how can you take a job with a company if you don’t know that it’s not going to match your culture? How can you find a spouse or a significant other? How can you volunteer or give back when you don’t even know what you care about? Self knowledge is deeply important. So that’s one of them.
Nicole: Yeah, so you know, the thing about self knowledge is this. You’re asking people, you know, write down words about yourself. I don’t know about you, Michelle. But when I was growing up, I got told all sorts of messages, like, you know, don’t think too much of yourself. You know, be humble. My dad would say this, he’d say, you know, children are second class citizens. Meaning that, like, adults are important, you know, you know, so you know, really kind of sometimes making us small, and I think some of us feel guilty if we invest any kind of time in self reflection, but it is absolutely essential to your point. So you got to kind of think about your conditioning coming up what you were told. So we’re not talking about navel gazing here, are we.
Michelle: No, in fact, I will say to you that it’s a very dangerous thing, because exactly what you’re talking about is something I talk with clients about constantly. You know, you and I could be having conversation right now. But in the back of my head, I could be having another conversation that says, you’re fat, you’re ugly. You’re unintelligent, why are you doing this podcast. I could be having a whole conversation with myself that you actually know nothing about. And what we do 24/7 is we actually brainwash ourselves, because it’s the tape that goes on all the time. And if you’ve been sent bad messages, and sometimes they’re accidental bad messages, you can say, well, my husband used to say this to me accidentally, but he would say to me, well, you’re not very detail oriented. So make sure when the plumber comes that you ask him about XYZ. Now, my husband is a type A lawyer, dot the i, cross the t, he does everything. He doesn’t forget anything. It’s amazing, really.
And I am like that, but not to the extent he is. But you know what I would say to him all the time, okay. And then I thought about it one day. And I said, why do I accept that language that I’m not detail oriented? I’m highly detail oriented. But you don’t shoot the messenger? Because we’re all learning, right? So what I would do is, I would say to him, actually, I’m very detail oriented. Now, what is it, you wanted me to say to the plumber? Redirect the message. Picture wet concrete, and someone puts their hand in it. You’ve seen that before where a dog runs over concrete, you see a little paw there? Well, it’s there forever. And the only way you can change the messaging is to pour new concrete. Start telling yourself after you do an exercise like I’m talking about, what adjectives are correct for you, and then start to educate your friends and your family about correct adjectives to use for you. That’s how you stop bad messaging.
Nicole: Yeah. And I’m also hearing that part about you’re having a conversation back here is managing your self talk, you know, is what you’re talking about there. And some people just spend all day beating themselves up. So I totally think this exercise and don’t miss this everybody. You have a timer on your iPhone, your Android, you can do the exact same exercise and take a really good look at yourself and figure out what’s going on with you. So it could be a whiteboard drill you do for yourself and or of course call Michelle, she’ll coach you through the process. All right. The other thing she said is I don’t want everybody miss this is how do we how do we erase the bad things, is we have to redirect the message. So we’re going to pour new concrete, we got to decide what it is we’re going to tell ourselves. And I also heard you say we have to decide what we’re going to allow other people to tell us about ourselves. We have a proper boundary. Okay. So a lot of good juice in that. All right, so that’s just one. We got five to go. So we got to hurry up. Tell me the next one.
Michelle: I know, I know. Time management, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go very quickly on time management. We all have the same 24 hours in the day. You’ve got 24 hours, I’ve got 24 hours. And yet some people will say there’s not enough hours in the day. Well, they’re the same 24. It’s called budgeting and managing your time and prioritizing, and I’m not going to kill this subject because everybody looks into time management at some point or another when you run out of time. You’re looking for ways to manage it, but you have to manage your time and a lot of times that means and this goes back to being a leader, it goes back to delegating. And delegating is a fabulous training tool. It’s very hard and you learn this, if you’re a mom with young children, I’ll just do it. I’m faster, it’ll just get done.
We’re in a hurry here. And that comes to another point, which is manage the talk that you’re saying out loud. Hurry up, go get, go get this, if you can do this, I’ll be there in a minute. This quick, quick hurried talk that we give ourselves all the time, when we give the people around us start to calm down. Time management is you prioritizing and maybe even delegating, and sharing, hey, I don’t have time to do this today. But if you do this, barter for services, I will do this. Start to barter a little bit so you can get a little bit more time in your day. I will leave you with one thing that’s really important about time management. Anyone that knows me and anyone that I coach, I have what I call a non negotiable. I don’t care how busy you are. I don’t care if you’re a CEO of fortune 500.
Everybody can do what I’m about to say. And anyone listening to this, who knows me will be laughing. Non negotiable time is a half hour every day that you get twice and no one’s allowed to interrupt it. First thing in the morning, my negotiable, ny non negotiable is that I want to Chai tea latte, that’s extra hot, I want to sit with myself. I want to be quiet and I want to get creative. Nobody interrupts that time. I don’t allow anything to interrupt that time. That’s why it’s called non negotiable. At night, I might say to my clients, what is it that you really love, and someone will say, I just love reading, but I don’t have time to do it. And when I say to people is your non negotiable, say, you know, you have to get up at six o’clock in the morning. You can’t do anything unless you have proper rest.
That means you have to work backwards. If I want seven or eight hours sleep, that means I’m going to bed at 11 o’clock at night. I gotta get my non negotiable in. That means at 10 o’clock, maybe I want a little cup of tea. I want a little piece of chocolate. I want to read Jane Austen, whatever it is I want to do, it’s my non negotiable. But you must tell people that oh, I have a hard stop at 10. If you’re going to call me it has to be before 10. And people at first will, okay, it’s 10:30. Can you take the call? Well, no, I can’t because my non negotiable was at 10. So I’m not even, phone’s not even near me. I’m not answering the phone. I’m not getting it. So you start to train the people around you about your non negotiable time.
Nicole: Yeah, I love that. Okay, so in this time management, here’s what here’s what she laid down. So please pick it up. Prioritizing, delegating, and this is this is a very, very, very good strategy. Calm down. Because we get, so I’m going to use a word that my grandma would use. Okay, Grandma Mert. That was the name. She would say, don’t get in a tizzy. Yeah. And I’m kind of hearing you say it’s because you waste so much energy and time being in the tizzy when you could actually go ahead and get your head in the game about bartering, delegating, prioritizing, and figuring out what your non negotiable is. Alright, so really great stuff. So let’s, let’s review real quick. So the first part of the six pack is self knowledge. Second part is your time. Just imagine if you had proper boundaries in place, you know who you were, you had your time and place. Life is getting better already. Thank you, Michelle Holden. Okay, so number three. What’s number three in our six pack.
Michelle: And by the way, it builds confidence. And what I get a lot, believe it or not from men is I have confidence or I had confidence, how do I maintain it? That’s another topic. The next one is how to give and get feedback. I hear this, what I’m going to tell you that whatever your problems are at home, they are probably they’re at work and vice versa. Because if you have a certain personality at home, you’re not stopping it when you get to work. One of the problems with feedback is we have a tough time getting it when we’re getting that annual review at work. And we start sweating and saying oh my gosh, what are they going to say? Or when somebody at home gives you feedback and you don’t like it?
And first thing you want to do is push back and tell them why it’s not so. With feedback, there’s some very simple rules to me. The first one is what is the source of this feedback. Now, if it’s your boss, obviously you have to sit and listen to it. But sometimes you get feedback that’s unsolicited, that you didn’t ask for. And it’s from someone you don’t even respect. If you get that kind of feedback, ignore it. Because sometimes you don’t know what the other person’s agenda is. Maybe they were jealous of you. Maybe they wanted to shut you down. That way they wouldn’t feel badly. You don’t know what someone’s agenda is when they’re just giving you random feedback.
The second thing is stop having it run through your bloodstream and be your skin, the largest organ in our body. It’s affecting, my entire day is ruined, you hear people say is I can’t get over it. It happened last week, it’s still affecting me. And I do want to say get over it. First of all, create a little barrier between you and the feedback, a little baby barrier that says, is this true? You know, sometimes we get feedback. And Nicole, it’s true. Don’t fight somebody, if it’s true, correct it. Say, you know what, I apologize to you. You’re correct. And I’m going to work on that. If someone gave you feedback, and it’s not good feedback, but it’s true, tag you’re it. You have to do something with that, you know.
Take action, don’t continue doing behaviors that are annoying other people. And the other thing is, I always think of Ed Koch, he was mayor of New York at one time, and he would walk down the streets in New York and go, New York, how am I doing that? You can imagine in New York, some people would say you suck. Some people be like, we love you, Ed. And people close to him would say, Ed, why do you do that? Why do you ask the people of New York what they think of you? And he said, because they’re the only ones that will tell me and he would hear things and then he would adjust and tweak. But feedback is something that you have to decide if it’s true, who it came from? Do you respect them?
One of the things I used to say to people, and especially my kids when they were little, and they would hear some feedback at school that maybe they didn’t like, I’d say, what do you think of me, and I want every woman and man listening to this to think about how insane this would be. Would you go into a grocery store, walk up to a total stranger and say, hey, excuse me? Do you have medically put down the peach? What do you think of me? That would be a crazy thing. But we do it all the time? We’re constantly looking on Instagram and on Facebook? Do I get enough likes? How should I feel about myself? Tell me how I should feel about myself. How about you tell yourself how you should feel.
And when you get feedback that’s constructive from somebody that you respect, take it. Last thing on feedback is you need to have in your life trusted advisors. Not necessarily a spiritual adviser, some people confuse the two, you need to have an advisor that you trust. Somebody that you know, they love you. They’re going to shoot you straight and tell you how it is. I have a couple of business friends and we love getting together. This is something that we say, well, you know, they’re like us. And you know what that means? We’re allowed to be honest, we’re allowed to give feedback.
And we can bounce back from that feedback and still be friends and still move on. Have trusted advisors. In the Army, Navy, I think every branch, they have what they call after action reviews. And everyone takes off whatever their insignia is, they drop it in a basket, they go inside, they sit down, and they’re allowed to say what just went wrong with that last mission, or what went great with that mission. And they’ll say pilot one did XYZ, pilot two did this. They don’t call people by names. It’s not personal, it’s fact gathering. Get your facts and move on set, the next group isn’t killed or doesn’t have something bad happen to them. That’s our whole point.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah. So I’m picking up a little thread in the six pack. That what I’m what I’m really noticing is this idea of boundaries. So when you talk about self knowledge, you said you got to really have a good boundary about what you say to yourself? Yes. Right. And so there’s a proper boundary, like I don’t ever go past here, or I stay within here, whichever direction we’re moving. I heard that in time management. I have non negotiable barriers, boundaries. And then I just heard, I have to put a boundary up or a barrier up between me and the feedback to check and see if it’s true. So they’re just kind of like this bubble or something that’s around the leader.
Michelle: You’re so wise. You’re so wise to be picking up on that because I give a talk called boulders, burdens and boundaries, your three B’s. And I talk about these boulders in life, they’re huge. And you really need people in your life. It could be a death, a loss of a job, but most of us don’t live our entire life in the land of boulders, but when you have a boulder you really need a lot of support. But then there’s burdens in life, which is just like each one of us picking up our own backpack and reaping what we sow. But if you not only have other people stepped in your boundaries, but if you get in other people’s you might be stopping them from getting a reap and sow lesson that they really need to have. So the borders and the boundaries, they’re not just for me, they’re also for you. I have to be careful that I don’t have a set of rules for myself, but not from Nicole. Nicole can only come this far she can’t tell me something that I don’t want to hear. But I can tell her anything I want to say. It works both ways.
Nicole: 100% 100%. That’s fantastic. Okay. All right. So what is number four? So far we’ve had work on your self management, your time management, giving and receiving feedback. What is the fourth in your six pack?
Michelle: Okay, winning interviews. And I get into way too much detail on that one to cover here other than to say, I get into everything from dressing and dining like a diplomat, and you being able to go to a steak dinner and do just fine, to you having lunch or dinner during an interview. It could be me talking about telephone etiquette, which by the way, nobody has any more. It could be how you dress and the different types of dress in today’s marketplace. Because sometimes we’re confused. We go to business casual, is that the same as dressy casual? What’s the difference between formal and black tie? I get into what you should wear what you shouldn’t wear for different events. And that could be from the time you’re going golfing to the time you’re meeting the President of the United States.
But there’s a whole thing on dress code. Also, why are there four forks at the table? Which one is my bread plate? If someone eats off my bread plate, do I just eat off the other person’s bread plate? It gets into a lot of etiquette, but also how to quickly assess and what some of the basic behaviors are for an interview. How do I walk in? How do I do small talk? You and I are both Toastmasters. So we know how to do this. How do I do those two minutes, those one minute, those awkward when someone says hey, tell me about yourself? What do I say? How do you have that one to two minute prepared? And I will tell you I say this to everybody that I teach interviewing skills to, almost nothing I say, although it will sound extemporaneous is extemporaneous.
There’s only so many questions people can talk to you and ask you about, you should have answers for those. Why is this a surprise to you that somebody is going to say, tell me about yourself. And you have to be very clever about what you’re telling them. I should be able to tell a one minute story. Because adult learning is storytelling, everyone loves a good story. But in the course of my answering their question, I should also be telling them something about my morals, my ethics, my values. Don’t waste this nonsense time talking about the fish that they have on their wall. And that’s what people have to realize, you only have a few minutes to tell people who you are.
And that means you have to be very clever about your adjectives, you have to be very clever about what you want them to know about you. That way when you leave, and someone says, tell me about Michelle Holden, I can truly say, I think I have her number. I think when I know what she’s all about. And if you don’t get the job, they might know something that you don’t know, which is you’re not going to fit into their culture. Don’t boo hoo. Sometimes if you don’t get the job, it might be a blessing.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. So this idea of winning interviews and interview skills, the thing that I love the most about what you just said, is when somebody says, tell me about yourself, that you know, don’t miss on the six pack. The first one was that you’re gonna sit down and have self knowledge. Right? So you’re gonna figure out what to say if you do exercise number one, which is self knowledge, you’re gonna discern, these are the right words to say in the interview. And then I love what you said about sprinkling in your morals, your ethics. A lot of times, I think leaders aren’t very clear, or individuals aren’t very clear, on like, what their life philosophy is. Like, this is what I believe about life. This is what I believe about work. This is what I believe about teamwork.
This is what I believe. But if you can kind of get those things together and get them you know, like you said, everything is not you know, we we prepare, it’s not extemporaneous. But you get that prepared. And they say, tell me about yourself. Well, I’d like to tell you what I believe about teamwork and leadership and working with others and my career, this and that. So getting all those many speeches together, right? But I love sprinkling in my morals and ethics. So a good example of that would be you know, I believe in telling the truth. You know, I believe in showing up on time and showing respect to the people I work with by being on time. Doing what I say I’m gonna do. Being accountable. All of those things are what people are dying to hear in an interview, make sure you tell them, right.
Michelle: And then have a little story that tells them that. Like have that little baby story that illustrates that you actually do that.
Nicole: Yes, yes, yes. And I’m gonna tell you I’m on this big kick. I don’t know about you. Well, we’ve been on this big kick for a long time, but like even more so in my coaching, I’m working with people. I’m like, you got to get it together a set of stories, because you can tell people do X, or you can say, I’d like you to do X. And let me tell you about a time somebody did X. And they were very successful. Right? So they will remember the story because humans were wired for the for the story, right?
Michelle: Absolutely.
Nicole: Fantastic. All right, well, what is number five in your six pack?
Michelle: Well, I talk to people about body language and voice. And you can think what’s the big deal about that, but it’s huge. You will see all different statistics, but they say that nonverbal communication is 93%. That means that Ralph Waldo Emerson said, I can hear you, you’re screaming so loudly like your body language. And what you have to realize is that from the time you walk into a room, I’m coaching someone right now who’s in the Miss America Pageant. And I said, let me make something completely clear to you. From the time you get to that bus and you start in pageant land, assume somebody is listening, all the time, somebody is watching you all the time. Shoulders back, head up, keep your voice coming this way. If you look down, if someone has to say excuse me, I didn’t hear you. Be careful of your voice intonation. Some people are so monotone.
Practice, someone could say, well, how do I get better at that by voice is my voice? No, it’s not. Take out a child’s book and start reading out loud to yourself and listening to yourself. There’s a connection between the mind and the ear and it will hear by sound very monotone. If you have that trusted adviser I talked about, you can say to them, what do you think about my body language and my voice intonation. You might be surprised that people say you cross your arms constantly. Well, we look like you’re cold. Your eyebrows are furrowed, you always look like you’re confused, angry or tired. Oh, wow, more information than I needed. But let’s do a simple example. This sentence, I love you. I can say I love you. That means I don’t know about anyone else. But I do. I could say I love you. Which is I just like you, I love you. Or I love you. Not this person over here, this person you.
So the simple sentence I love you can come out three different ways. Which I’m sorry for anyone listening who English isn’t your first language that makes things really difficult, but your voice intonation and your body matter. I’ll give you a couple of quick tips when you’re talking about body language. When you’re walking, number one don’t out walk or outpace somebody, if you’re walking to their office with them. I’ve got very long legs, I can easily do that. Number two, shoulders back all the time. When you’re sitting down, it’s always tempting to cross your legs don’t. Just keep them together. And this one seems kind of odd. But there’s usually like an arm chair or something. And I keep one hand down and I keep one hand up.
And what this tells people is I’m firm in my convictions. I know who I am. But I’m open minded. And you don’t think people are picking up on all of this, but they are. Don’t do any annoying tapping, twirling, fidgeting. You can, last one, you can go like this with your hands when you’re making a point to show that you feel confident and it’s an important point. But don’t do this. Ivanka Trump does that a lot. And what it is, is the gun position, and it says I’m listening to you, but I don’t like what you’re saying. Just be aware that you might not know body language, but somebody else might. You have to be very aware of yourself.
Nicole: For those of you listening when she she described the one that you can do, she kind of put all her fingertips together and made like a little steeple. Okay. And then the one that she said Ivanka does is she did like the Charlie’s Angel thing. Or index fingers up at her hands clasped. So I just wanna make sure everybody understood. So I love that I had not heard that one before. But I will tell you, every grandma in America loves the fact that you just told everybody to stand up straight, put your shoulders back. That’s fantastic. And then this thing about not crossing your legs. Now that thing about crossing your legs and my right, Michelle, that that that is like a closed off message, that I’m closed off.
Michelle: A lot of times I’m not closed off. It’s just my place where I’m comfortable just crossing my legs. And I think it looks lady like and I like it. But I am very careful. There’s also power positions. I realize as people are listening, they can’t see this. But they’ve done studies, even with blind people and said, you just won a race or you just won a million dollars. Show me what you’re doing. And people go yes, and they put their hands up in what they call this victory stance where your hands are up like a V. That’s a power position. Don’t do it in front of other people. But if you have a big call coming up or a big meeting, they say to do that for two minutes and it builds confidence or the Wonder Woman pose. Men, you can do this as well. where your hands are on your hips and you look strong.
Nicole: We’ll call it the Superman pose.
Michelle: Yes we can call it Superman. And what it shows is, first of all, you’re taking up more space. Animals do this, when they’re trying to look fierce, they blow themselves up and make themselves look bigger. When your hands are on your hips, you become bigger, and you look stronger.
Nicole: Okay, that’s fantastic. Alright, so using body language and nonverbal, this is 93% of what you’re telling people, and you may not know it, and also the intonation in your voice. Alright, so here’s what I know, there’s a lot, a lot, a lot of material out there on that. But if this is a big part of your role, and you know, the whole time, I’m listening to this, Michelle, I’m thinking, you know, folks that need to work on their executive presence, that all is really, really important. Okay, so anybody who’s in an executive position or leading others, I love what you said, too, about you work with the Miss America client. And then you said to her, please be warned. From the moment you get on the bus.
And that is the same way with leaders in the building, right? The minute you walk in the building, you’re on. Yeah, you’re on stage, people are looking for you to say what’s going on. And you know, I had a training class today. And this question always trips people up. But I tell people, if you’re a leader, are you allowed to have a bad day? And people go, yeah, and I’m like, no, not in front of others. I mean, you might truly be having a bad day. However, you have to set the tone, you have the intonation, you got to use the right body language. In fact, today in the meeting, Michelle, there was a gentleman, his dad just got out of surgery. I mean, literally just got out of surgery, his dad’s 80 years old, right up the road. But he he made a commitment to come down here and make an appearance at the training and say this training is important. He came down, he talked to us for 15 minutes.
He said, I gotta go my dad’s in the hospital. I was like, oh, and so off, he left, okay. Now, he’s have probably not having a great day. But when he was sitting here talking to us, he was doing all the things you say. So let’s review real quick, everybody. He, you know, he’s probably doing a lot of self talk. Calm down. Yeah, dad will be fine. Just do what you need to do here in the moment. Right? And, you know, and then he said, I can only be here 15 minutes, and I gotta go. Non negotiable, I gotta be with dad. And then I think he was also in this place where, you know, he calmed down, and he had a proper boundary, you know, taking care of business, taking care of dad. All right. So I love all that. Okay. Oh, we have one left. Number six, what’s number six?
Michelle: This one will take a long time to get into. So I will just gloss over it. But this is the talk on overcoming stress, anxiety and panic. And how do you do that. And I will tell you that there’s some good news about stress, anxiety and panic. And that is that the symptoms are always the same. It doesn’t mean you will have all of them. Some people unfortunately, get all of them. But the symptoms are the same. And they affect all of the same organs. And that’s why when you go to a doctor, sometimes you’re thinking yes, that’s exactly what I have. You go, wow, these people are such geniuses, well, it affects all the same organs. And you could get a terrible headache, or a migraine. You know, any kind of headache, a little headache, or a migraine. You could get palms sweating, you could get a churning in your stomach, you’ve got to use the bathroom, you could feel like you’re going to faint your legs turn to jelly.
And all of the symptoms, if you know that you don’t have a heart issue, you know, you’ve been to a doctor. And you know, you don’t have anything hereditary wrong with your heart, your heart is very strong muscle. And it can take a lot. Sometimes though, we can have like it skip a beat, or it’s just rapid, feels like a horse race going on inside your chest. All of these things are actually very normal. It’s the fight or flight syndrome that takes place in your parasympathetic nervous system. And as I said before, if someone jumps out on you and screams surprise, or you just find out you’re going to win a million dollars, a lot of those symptoms could happen. It also happens to people who have a fear of public speaking. And that includes whether you’re talking to two people, 10 people or a whole boardroom. And they say, I’m never going to be able to stand up you don’t understand I can’t make it across the stage.
And I give them little tricks for being able to make it across the stage. But what happens is those are triggers. And those are all normal things to have happen. What happens is and that’s called first fear, there’s a Dr. Claire Weekes if anyone wants to read about her, she’s no longer alive, but she was a genius in this area. And she was from Australia, brilliant, brilliant woman. And that’s called first fear completely normal happens to all of us. But second fear is the one that keeps shooting adrenaline to the system and keeps us in a state of sensitization that we can’t get rid of. We’ll say, oh, I’ve been like this. I have some people who say I’ve been in a state of stress, anxiety and panic for 10 years. Wow, glad we’re talking. I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not a doctor.
But I know a lot about this topic because for some crazy reason it interests me, I think it’s because so many people have these problems. And once you learn, wait a second, even if my legs are shaking, I didn’t need any assistance when I got up this morning, I can walk across the stage, these are perfectly good legs. Sometimes it’s mind over matter. You have to say stand up, we’re walking. But maybe you’re sitting down. And they’re about to announce you. And that’s when all the adrenaline starts and you’re not sure you can walk. Tap your little foot, no one will see it against the floor. Can you feel that? Yes, I can feel my toes. Congratulations, they’re working stand up.
That’s when you got to be a little tough on yourself. If your hands are shaking. I know some people who say I’ve got a big problem, Michelle, I’m going to XYZ restaurant for a big interview and my hands shake. Okay, don’t order soup. You know what I do? What restaurant are they take me to let’s pull up the menu. Let’s look and decide what you’re going to order. You know what you can grab a burger with two hands, that’ll be fine. Don’t order things that are going to be a problem for you. But it’s learning how to work past some of the issues and to get over the stress, anxiety and panic. And you know what, we can say it’s super hard. And it is but it’s also doable.
Nicole: Yeah. And I love the fact that if you’re thinking about the winning interviews, like you did get prepped, you’ll still have a little nervous, you might have anxiety, you might have panic. But at the end of the day, you’re prepped, you’re ready to go. And I don’t know what to think about this, I’ll be curious to see what you think about this. But for the people that I work with, that are interviewing, or they’re nervous about things, as I say, you get to take notes, you can get a little you know, leather padfolio, you can write out all your answers. You can put bullet points on the legal pad that’s on the inside. And when you get in there, flip the thing open, it’s gonna be sitting right in front of you. And all you do is you say the interview, should I really prepared for this interview. So are they going to be impressed? If you say I prepared for the interview? Oh, say yes. Right.
Michelle: Of course they are. They’re human too. But the one thing, I’m so glad you’re bringing this up, I would have died if I forgot this. Anyone listening, please listen, if you listen to nothing else, listen to this. When you go for an interview, or you’re on a date, or whatever the thing is, please never say out loud. Oh, I’m really nervous. No one needs to know that information. And you think, well, if I say it out loud, then I’ll dispel some of it. No, you look like a little bit of a train wreck. If you’re nervous. It’s just like you were talking about before is a leader allowed to have a bad day.
Sure, in your head you can, but not in front of everyone else. Nobody really cares honestly about your problems. That’s sad, but true. They’re having a rough time. You know nothing about what’s going on in their life. And it’s not misery loves company. Let me tell you all my problems. I think you really have to put on a brave face. And you don’t tell people all you’ve done is made the person uncomfortable. Well, don’t be nervous. Now they’re trying to help you out. They’re trying to make you feel good. You don’t need to put that burden on another person.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. And don’t miss she said, check out Claire Weekes, who talks about the first fear and the second fear. So I’m gonna go check that out. I love a good reference to something I haven’t heard before. So I’m gonna go check her out. Alright, so we’ve got our six pack, we finished our six pack, and we haven’t even had a drink yet. Okay. We had self knowledge, which is really important, time management, feedback. And we talked about winning an interview, body language, and taking care of stress, anxiety and panic. So Michelle Holden has a lot that she can help you with. And you’ve helped us a lot here today. You know, Michelle, there’s probably somebody out there, one special listener who’s like, oh, I need one more nugget from Michelle. So what little nugget might you whisper in the ear of that special listener, leave them on a with a really good piece of information or a tip or a quote or something?
Michelle: You know, I’m all about the psychology. And the thing that I would say to each person, it sounds so simple, and so trite, but it’s really true. You know, we’re each fearfully and wonderfully made. And everybody has a talent or skill. I used to think I had none until I realized that the things I did so organically were talents. What I’d like each person to do is really just give some thought, quiet time by yourself. Turn off everything and just get comfortable. We’ll have a little something there with you a little soft drink something and ask yourself these questions. What am I good at? What do I like doing? What do people compliment me on? And these can be as hard It is the self knowledge when you first sit down, and I couldn’t figure out I was like, I just have no talents. I’ve got nothing.
And then I started thinking about my childhood, I could tell you hilarious stories. When I was eight years old and 10 years old teachers calling me aside, he asked me to help other children in the class, where I had to say, sure sister, I’d be glad to help. But remember, I’m eight. And I started remembering that people were always asking me to help other people get where they were going, and to be the best version of themselves. What I want to tell you is that you matter, you’re valuable. And don’t fall into that pity trap of saying, I don’t have any talents. I’m not good at anything.
Of course you are. I want you to sit down and grab that self knowledge and figure out what your specialty is. And then I want you to go and do it. I want you to go and share it with the rest of the world. That’s my big piece of advice. Don’t let other people tell you, you don’t matter. Don’t think you’re insignificant because you’re constantly playing that comparing game with everybody else on social media. Start to really do the tough work and it is tough work to figure out who you are, who are you and what are you good at and then go and share it?
Nicole: Yeah, can you imagine a culture of people who’ve done all this good work, coming together to support a business or an organization, it would be amazing. And you know what else is amazing Michelle Holden. Alright, so I am so glad that you have showed up to be on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. If people want to find out more or get a hold of you, what do they need to do?
Michelle: The need to go to thier force, and I’m going to spell it t h i e r f o r c e, thierforce.net. I’ll be doing this six pack in the next couple of weeks online. If anyone wants to sign up for it, they can go ahead and put something on my website. I’ll get you on a list and make sure you’re included. But the thing I would leave for all leaders listening today is get in the habit of surprising and delighting. Surprise and delight your internal clients which are the people who are working for you and your external clients. People like Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Home Depot, they’ve all changed the name of their headquarters to customer service centers. Be a servant leader, be someone who serves, like Nicole.
Nicole: Thank you so much. That’s fabulous. Last thing to leave us with. I want to thank you so much for spending time with me. I’m grateful for your friendship and our time together. Have a great rest of the night everybody.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
