Master your Virtual Meetings and Presentations. Show Up!

1. Welcome!: Hi and welcome to my course. Show up. Take control of your remote communication. Let me guess you've purchased this video because for the last few months, or maybe an entire year, you've been thrown into this weird world of both in person and virtual meetings. You've entered a hybrid environment. Something we didn't know existed five years ago. And gosh, has it thrown you for a loop? You might be wondering where has my confidence gone? I used to be good at public speaking communication, presentations, persuasion. Now that all of our meetings are virtual, I just can't get myself to speak up during meetings anymore. It seems too hard to cut in leading virtual meetings. It just doesn't feel the same as in person meetings. I can't quite tell if I'm landing with people. Where did my personality go, how do I know what I'm doing is right? What do I do? Where do I look? What do I do with my hands? How do I prepare myself now to succeed when we move to in person meetings and presentations? Hi, my name is Rebecca Martin and I'm an executive communication coach. These scenarios that I just described have been taken directly from my client's experiences. So if their stories resonate, then this course is for you. The first thing I want to tell you is that you're not alone. Everybody is dealing with this new crisis of confidence in communication. We all have to develop new ways to find confidence and new skill sets in order to show up as leaders in this new remote environment. In this course, I will teach you how to handle some of the most challenging components of communicating in our new virtual and hybrid environments. I will teach you how to prepare yourself to speak up as a professional even when you're showing up on a screen. I will teach you how to step into the driver's seat and stay in the driver's seat during important virtual meetings and presentations. I will teach you my top five necessary effective communication skill sets to not only survive but thrive in our new normal of virtual communication. You will walk away from this course knowing specific changes that you can make in order to feel confident and in control communicating over virtual platform. You will know exactly what you can practice every day in order to make these techniques your new habitual behavior. We're about to dive into this material, but let me be real with you first. This course does not teach you how to use your technology. This course does not teach you how to design and build your slides. This course does not cover written communication. This course will not teach you how to be seen more on social media. This course focuses specifically on teaching you the effective communication skill sets you need in order to show up and take control of your communication in our remote environment. Let's start with an exercise called visualizing your end goal. Visualizing the end goal is a very powerful exercise that will help you ensure success in any high stake situation. Let's do it together now. Start by taking a deep breath and closing your eyes. Imagine you're counting down the minutes to a large high stakes presentation. You're new to this role, so this is the first presentation of its kind. And because your audience doesn't know you and your work, this is high stakes. You're sitting calmly 10 minutes before the presentation, breathing deeply because you've done three things. You've prepared yourself physically for success, among other things. You've checked your connection, You've turned off all distractions, and you're dressed well. You've stretched your body to the corners of the room. Number two, you've prepared thoroughly, you know your material, you believe in your material, and you are excited to communicate your message. You've written notes, and you've rehearsed. You've gone through your presentation ritual instructions, saying your mantra out loud. I've got this, and I'm ready to give my gift. As you've been taking Rebecca's course, you have also been practicing in your daily low stakes meetings. The skill sets necessary in order to communicate well in a virtual environment. You're happy you did, because the confidence you've received is now paying off. You take a deep breath, you start the meeting, you feel a rush of energy as you make eye contact with one pair of eyes, one point of connection. When you're ready, you begin. The first 5 minutes is easy because you've structured it down to the very last detail. Okay, open your eyes. The exercise is over. The reality is possible for you. I want to give you a moment now to write down your speaking goals for this course. These may have come up during this exercise. You can use the handout entitled My Speaking Goals in your resource folder. Write them down. Write three goals. Now you can reference these goals throughout your course to make this material more relevant for you. You can review these goals at the end of the course. It will help you to know the progress that you've made and the support that you might need. Next, are you ready to step into your professionalism? To step into the driver's seat and feel in control to know exactly what effective communication techniques to use in your new virtual environment. In order to succeed, I'm ready to share all of this and more with you. Let's begin our communication journey I'll see in the first video. 2. How to use this course.: Let me tell you a little bit about how to use this course. This course is divided into sections. The first section will reveal how you're currently showing up in your virtual meetings and presentations. I will then teach you what you can do to fully prepare yourself and your content so that you can show up as a professional, an expert, and deliver value. The second section will help you to understand how virtual meetings and presentations can get derailed and what to do to take control and stay in control, ensuring that you are in the driver's seat from the start to finish, guaranteeing that you get the results that you want. In the third section, I will break down my top five techniques for remote communication. These are the techniques I teach time and time again addressing clients. Biggest issues including where do I make contact and how do I get feedback from my audience that they're with me. You can consider these techniques your best practices for effective remote communication. In our last section, I'll give you a picture of what's next. How do you carry these learnings to the next level? What's beyond show up. Take control of your remote communication. What can you do to gain more development and support? Attached to each section is a resource folder which includes all of the relevant documents, links, worksheets. I suggest that you print out these resources before you begin the series of lessons. There will be many times where it might feel supportive for you to have the printed worksheet or paper to take notes or to do an exercise with me. You might be enticed to go directly to a section that you think you might need and skip the rest. If you do this, you may miss what I like to call the Golden Key. The Golden Key is different for everyone. It's the one concept, technique, or practice that unlocks your confidence so that everything else that you want to have happen happens naturally. That Golden Key might be something unexpected. What you need might be different than what you think you need. If and when you find that Golden Key, please e mail me or write it in your review. I and other people might benefit from hearing what piece of this class has been most effective for you. You can view these videos out of order. But I have found that the most powerful communication journey can take place if you start at the beginning and go all the way through doing all of the included exercises and homework as each section builds on the last. You might even consider spreading the videos out over a series of weeks. By doing this, you'll have the opportunity to apply your homework assignments to situations in your daily life and turn these exercises into habit. Remember, practicing these techniques in low stakes environments repeatedly helps you to build the muscles that you want in place. When you take on higher stakes engagements, feel free to go through the course multiple times. As each time you take it, you'll hear and learn new things. Taking your communication savvy to the next level, I'd like to assign you a new tool in my tool kit, and that is a communication journal. While you're taking this course, I'd like you to write down on a daily basis what you notice, what works, and what doesn't in your daily entries. You can also write down what techniques you notice that others are using. This journal can be very instrumental in moving you into the next phase of self coaching. After this course is over, you can assign these pieces of homework to yourself and notice the results. By charting your progress, you truly will see yourself evolve to the next level of communication. The communication journey never ends. There's always something to learn, there's always something you can improve. Stay on this growth continuum, and you always stay ahead of the curve. I'm available at any time throughout your course by e mail for questions or clarification. I'm also available for one on one coaching or workshops tailored to your team's needs. Just reach out. I'm here as a teacher and a guide to help you excel quickly through this work. I will be taking you through exercises and teaching you tools that have worked time and time again. I'm excited for you to begin to feel more confident and in control immediately. Let's get started. 3. Self Assessment: How Are You Currently Showing Up?: Welcome to the first step on your communication journey. You might remember this from my last course. Speak Up Public Speaking for Leadership Development. To kick off any type of new habit development or skill building, we first need a certain level of self awareness. We can't change to something new unless we know where we are now. In order to be seen as an expert and to deliver value, we need to first make sure that we're showing up professionally in this new virtual environment. Showing up as a professional can be hard. There are new hurdles to overcome. I'm going to walk you through a bit of a self assessment to understand if you might be unconsciously sabotaging yourself so that you don't show up professionally to your colleagues, to leadership, or to yourself. This could be undercutting your confidence and ultimately your career growth. Here are your instructions for your assessment. Raise your hand if the scenario that I describe sounds familiar. First scenario, oh my gosh, I was running late and then my computer wanted to update. Right when I tried to sign in to the meeting and seem to be having technical difficulties, my Bluetooth is not even working. Oh no, my God. I'm so frazzled. I'm so sorry. Second scenario. I absolutely cannot turn my camera on today. I barely got he's sleep last night. He don't even want to see what I look like right now. I had to wake up early and it's just been a hectic day. So I'll just leave it off if that's okay with you. Third scenario. Gosh, I've just been so busy. You can see my house is a wreck. I haven't gotten to any of the papers behind me in the laundry and let alone have any time to clean. So it's just a disaster. I'm so sorry that you have to see all of this. I hope it's not too distracting. And fourth scenario. Oh, I absolutely didn't have time to prepare. The kids were up all night one of those days. My bad. Sorry. In advance as I stumble through this presentation. Okay. Wait, How do I share my screen now? Tell me honestly, how many times did you raise your hand? Yep, we've all been there. These are classic self sabotage scenarios. By committing to always running late, always having technical difficulties, never turning on your camera, always looking less than at your best, and never being prepared enough. We are unconsciously making it impossible to show up professionally as our best selves. Why do we do these self sabotage techniques? There's a famous quote by Marion Williamson. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Are you subconsciously scared of showing up in all of your power? The answer is yes, we all are. We are all guilty of this to differing degrees. The goal of this lesson and my coaching is to help you to understand what you're doing to unconsciously sabotage yourself and keep yourself from showing up in all of your power. We're going to learn what our self sabotage techniques are by examining our commitments, commitments. What aren't those good things you might be thinking? We'll find out in the next video where we'll work on understanding our commitments, the good and the bad. And commit to letting go of a few that are no longer serving us meet there. 4. Letting Go of Self Sabotage.: A great friend and mentor of mine, Paula Shaw of the popular leadership development workshop, The Max once taught me that we often think of our commitments as all of the good things that we do in our life. The relationships we commit to, the hobbies that we spend time cultivating, the exercise routine, the good food habits. But most people don't think about all of the bad habits that they unconsciously commit to every day. Committed to always running 5 minutes late. Committed to keeping that stack of papers on our desk. Committed to not dressing in a way that makes us feel respected. Committed to one too many cookies after dinner. And then telling ourselves that tomorrow we're going to give up cookies. Once we own these commitments, we actually give ourselves the opportunity to get unstuck and grow. So here's my question to you, what are you unconsciously committed to in terms of how you show up on a daily basis at work? Here are some examples that might ring true for you. I'm committed to showing up to every virtual meeting 3 minutes late. I'm committed to always feeling frazzled, pressed for time, and letting it show to my colleagues. I'm committed to never turning on my camera, even when I know I should. I'm committed to checking my e mail and half listening during important meetings and phone calls when I really should be present. I'm committed to procrastinating, never preparing enough to feel confident during my remote meetings or presentations. I'm committed to wearing clothing that makes me feel comfortable, but less important than everyone else. I'm committed to not speaking up at every meeting, even though I'm being considered for a leadership position. I'm committed to feeling under confident about my public speaking and not doing anything about it. Well, we know that last one isn't true because you're here. Here's your exercise. Take some time to write down all of the habits that you are unconsciously committed to. By doing this, we make them conscious. You might have to think for a few minutes to really get real with yourself and be honest. Because the commitment to a bad habit gone unawares is likely to be the stumbling block to your professionalism for the rest of your career, not to mention your life. Find the worksheet in your resource folder entitled, What Am I Committed To, and you'll notice that there's a column for positive commitments and there's a column for commitments that are no longer serving you. You might want the feedback of a trusted friend, a colleague, or a mentor, or a partner, or a spouse or not. These commitments can be hard to see for ourselves. I'll give you a moment to pause the video so that you can fill out both columns. Now, welcome back. At the bottom of your worksheet, you will see a space to write down the three commitments that you're ready to let go of. You don't have to let go of them all, just three. Go ahead and pick three. Now, the first step in changing anything is self awareness. Tony Robbins reminds us that an airplane never flies straight. It's always course correcting in order to reach its destination. Hey, so are we. Let's do a bit of course correcting this week. I'll meet you in the next video with some good habits that can replace these commitments that have been keeping you from showing up as your best self. 5. The Dangers of "Winging It".: Now that you've taken the step of seeing your self sabotage commitments, owning them and letting them go, we can start to build knowledge, techniques, and best practices on a solid foundation so that you can begin to show up as a professional, especially in this tricky virtual environment. In order to show up as a professional, you have to prepare yourself for success. Preparation is key. You have to prepare more than you would for in person events. In my practice, there are two categories of preparation. You have to prepare yourself physically, yourself, your environment, technically, logistically, so that you can even have a chance of showing up professionally and delivering value. You also have to prepare yourself mentally. That includes your mindset and your content so that you can show up as the expert that you are and deliver value for more on mindset, you can watch my previous video, Speak up. Public Speaking for Leadership Development. I dive deeply into this topic there. In the next two videos, I will go over how to prepare yourself in these two categories. At this point, you might be saying prepare. That sounds like a lot of work. I want to know how to show up well without taking the time to prepare. I'm usually good at winging it. Famous last words. Let me tell you a story about a client who decided not to prepare physically or mentally. Really, he didn't know how and instead relied on his ability to swing it. One of my clients, Pablo, was recently promoted to a more senior leadership position at a credit card company. He always spoke well and with lots of confidence in his previous position as a director. But now he was placed in meetings with more senior level people. Within his first week, he had to give a presentation to the board. Pablo came to me after his presentation, and he said that the presentation was the worst experience of his life. Hence he needed help. Here's how he described his experience. Trigger warning, you'll probably start sweating just listening to the details. He started out a little bit nervous because this was the first time in his new role presenting in front of new leadership. He had loads of experience doing this before in his previous role. So he hadn't prepared much and he knew his new boss liked him and he was usually good at winging things. His anxiety began to grow just prior to signing into the meeting with thoughts such as, Am I prepared enough? When he began speaking, his thoughts became jumbled and he couldn't remember what his message was and he hadn't written any notes. He began to forget words, Then whole sentences. At some point, he actually just had to stop and say, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting my words. Then his phone rang. He turned it off. It rang again through his computer. That person kept calling back and it was throwing off what little game he had left. Needless to say, this presentation didn't go well for Pablo and probably didn't leave the best first impression for his new bosses though. Don't worry, he still has his job and time does heal everything. The main problem for Pablo was that in order to succeed in this presentation, he was relying on his natural charisma. Trusting his inspiration in the moment, and his ability to wing it. I'm sure nobody out there knows that feeling for Pablo and anyone who relies on inspiration to deliver, that works 50% of the time. But if you happen to wake up on the wrong side of the bed or be given material last minute or your boss walks into the conference room unexpectedly, you're likely not going to do very well. We need to learn technique, which is always there for us no matter what happens, so that we don't rely on inspiration or feelings which come and go. What do you rely on? Inspiration, charisma, winging it, technique. Are you motivated yet to learn? Would you like to learn some technique? Would you like to learn some technique? See in the next video. 6. Checklist for Success: 7 Actions Steps for Remote Professionalism.: Pablo could have truly benefited from the checklist that I'm going to give you. Now, here are seven actions that you can take to physically prepare to show up as a professional in this virtual world. I want you to reference this checklist before signing into any call, any meeting, or presentation. You can find this checklist as a handout in your resource folder entitled Checklists for Success as I go through them. Now, circle the ones that you need to remember the most. Let's get started. Number one, log in 10 minutes early. During this time, you can check your connection, check your sound, and check your video. Check your Bluetooth. If there are any technical problems or difficulties. Usually 10 minutes will give you enough time to install any additional updates. Number two, turn off all distractions. Yes, I mean, you turn off your phone, close those open tabs. Either close the viewer where you can see yourself or put a sticky note over your picture. Lock your door. Most people are chronically distracted these days. These things might sound obvious, but I guarantee you that your phone is on right now. Number three, wear something that helps you to respect yourself even though you're at home. I suggest hard soled shoes to ensure that you feel the weight of your feet firmly planted on the floor. I also suggest a collared shirt or something with a little more structure so that especially when you're working remotely, you feel in your body that you are showing up to your meeting in a professional way. It's hard to slouch in a collared shirt. Number four, judge your background harshly. Imagine for a moment that this is not your background, but you're getting a sneak peek into somebody else's life. How might you judge that person? What story might you come up with about them? If you have a choice, I recommend single color background and nothing that gives anyone any additional information about you that they don't need to know. I could tell you many a story. Number five, give yourself a frame of authority. Here's what that means. Position your computer so that the green light or camera is at eye level. This does not mean that you tilt your screen up or down. It means that you stack your laptop on a stack of books, or you raise the level of your standing desk. Move your chair back from your desk so that you stay away from the temptation of leaning on any furniture. Use a cordless bluetooth or none at all. There's nothing worse than watching someone be limited by the length of their cord. Let your audiences see you from the top of your head to the bottom of your elbows. This puts you in context number six, plan for the worst case scenario. In my worst case scenario, I'm coughing and I need a sip of water, but I don't have one, or I'm low energy and a sip of coffee would really make me happy. Or maybe I have a thought and I don't have a pen or paper handy to write it down. Or maybe I only have a digital copy of my notes and I can't seem to find them. Think about your worst case scenario and then prepare for it. Place a cup of water, a cup of coffee, a notebook, and a pen your printed notes in front of you just in case the worst happens, You'll feel more confident because you're doing just that Technique number seven, stretch and move before you sit down. If you're sitting all day, you're lacking oxygen and circulation, your brain will function better and you'll be more engaging and more engaged. If you do a little dance before sitting down to an important meeting, wow, that's a big list. But each of these items are important so that you can show up and have the possibility of showing up as your best self. Here's a question for you. Which three habits on this checklist do you know that you could benefit from implementing? Immediately, Look at your checklist now. Write down your chosen three habits on a sticky note. Stick it to your computer. Now you're going to repeat the following phrase after me. I commit to you. Fill in the blank before every call, every day, this week. Now you say your commitment sentence once again. Excellent. You can't deliver an important message. Well, inspire your audience or survive a tough Q and A session. If you haven't done what you can to set yourself up physically and logistically for successful experience, physical preparation comes first, okay? You thought about it, you've written it down, and you said it out loud. You are one giant step closer to accomplishing your goal of showing up as your best, most professional self. Great work and I look forward to seeing you in the next video where I'll teach you how to prepare yourself mentally and your content so that you can show up as the expert that you are. 7. The Importance of Having an "Inside-Out Experience".: Hey there and welcome back. Remember poor Pablo, Not only did he not physically prepare himself for success, but he also didn't prepare the content and prepare mentally so that he could feel confident in his material and come across as calm and in control. Pablo had an outside in experience. He allowed what was happening outside of himself in his environment to determine how he felt about himself. On the inside, he probably knew what he wanted to say before getting up in front of his audience. But when he saw all the new faces out there, he immediately became distracted with such questions as, what are they thinking about me? Are they judging me right now? Oh, do I look and sound as scared and unprepared as I feel? These thoughts coming from the outside world overwhelmed his internal confidence and clarity of his message. Think about the last time that you stood in front of an audience. You probably knew what you wanted to say before being handed the microphone, didn't you? Did you forget your words? All of a sudden, your mind went blank. Those 50 sets of eyes looking back at you made you all of a sudden, think more about what everyone else was thinking and experiencing than what you were thinking about and wanting to say. When we prepare correctly and adequately, we put our focus on having an inside out experience. That means that we strengthen our internal dialogue so that it's stronger and louder than those external voices and external stimuli. We focus on affirming the message that we want to communicate. We focus on clarifying the goal that we want to accomplish. We focus on how we are feeling and what we need in order to achieve our goal. So join me in the next video so that I can teach you how to prepare your mindset and your content so that you can have an inside out experience during your next virtual meeting or presentation. See there. 8. Five Important Techniques to Give You an "Inside Out Experience".: Here are five important techniques that you can use in order to have an inside out experience. Unlike Pablo, these techniques are applicable to almost any situation. Whether it be an important conversation, a small meeting or a large meeting, a less or more formal presentation, virtual or in person. These techniques have your back. As I covered in the last video, I want you to remember the goal of these specific techniques. It's to keep you focused on who you are, what you think, what your experiences. These techniques will help you to translate your inner world to your audience. When we root ourselves in our own thoughts and expertise, we come from a place of grounded authentic confidence. We tend to care less about how other people receive and perceive us. And we are able to more successfully resist the urge to simply try to give other people what they want. Let's jump into these techniques now. The first technique is this, know your material inside and out. There is nothing that replaces the confidence that comes from knowing your material, Believing your material and being excited by your material. Take the time you need in order to make that your reality. If you don't believe in your material or you're not excited about what you're saying, there may be a way for you to reframe. Focus on emphasizing what you do believe in. Start by communicating what you are excited about. Only if these three things are true can you find authentic confidence in front of an audience. The second technique is this, know your goal. Your goal is what you want your audience to know, what you want your audience to do, and how you want your audience to feel. This is so important, so important that we cover this in more detail in the effective communication technique section. If you know your goal, you can always ask yourself, what do I need to say or do right now in order to achieve my goal? Regardless of what comes your way? It is the goal post that you are course correcting towards. The third technique is to organize your thoughts into three to five bullet points. You can do this preparation very quickly in 5 minutes before a meeting. You can write down three messages or three questions that you might be able to communicate that would help you achieve your goal. Write these messages or questions down in your own words, in full and complete sentences, so that if necessary, you can read them out loud. Say them out loud if you're feeling nervous, so that you hear them in your own voice before you say them in front of your audience. The fourth technique is to give yourself an empowering mantra. The problem is, when we get nervous, most of us are overwhelmed by the voice of our inner critic. The best way to counteract the voice of our inner critic is to amplify the voice of our inner advocate. For example, while your inner critic might say, who are you to say? You're an expert on this topic, do you really know what you're talking about? Do you really want to speak up? People might realize that you're an impostor. Your inner advocate might say, I know my stuff and I'm here to deliver value. I'm not an expert at everything, but I know more than anyone in the room about this topic. I don't need to have the answer to every single one of their questions. All I need is to give a solution to their problem. Another inner advocate might say simply, I've got this, or what's the worst thing that could happen? I'm a bad ***. A really powerful mantra that I use myself, and you can too, is what gift am I here to give? Reminding myself of my gift is a true motivator to stop listening to my inner critic. Your final technique is to prepare for the worst. Remember the same technique from the last video before a meeting or presentation. Think about what is making you the most nervous. Often for my clients, it's that they might be asked a question that they just don't know the answer to. Then think about at least three questions that you don't want to be asked and practice answering those questions. Do it out loud. Knowing that you're preparing for the worst case scenario will set your mind at ease, even if it doesn't happen. Let's put these strategies into action. Let's find your empowering mantra. This is the voice of your inner advocate. This voice needs to be louder than your inner critic. This is my favorite technique. Finding the voice of your inner advocate is so important. I'm going to dedicate a whole video to it. So join me in our next lesson, or I'll help you to hear the voice of your inner critic. And hold on to the voice of your inner advocate. See you there. 9. Find The Voice of Your Inner Advocate.: In order to find the voice of your inner advocate, let's start by finding the voice of your inner critic. You'll be shocked to know that this is a lot easier to find for most people than the voice of their inner advocate. Think about the last situation in which you had to speak and your inner critic was raging, attacking you. What was it saying? I know this might be painful, challenging, but I'd like you to write the answer in your worksheet entitled Inner Critic versus Inner Advocate. An example might be, I'm just not good at public speaking. When is this going to be over? Now I'd like you to think of a situation in which you had to speak and it went really well. Maybe even surprisingly so. And you felt comfortable and confident in what you had to say and your dynamic with the audience. What were you telling yourself? An example might be, everyone here knows me and knows how hard I work. I'm just here to give my point of view. Write down the words of your inner advocate. Congratulations, that was tough. Whereas before you probably knew the voice of your inner critic, you never met the voice of your inner advocate. Whatever you were telling yourself in a public speaking situation that went well, that is the phrase, that is the sentence, the cheer, the mantra that you need to be telling yourself more often and louder, especially when your inner critic wants to be heard. So make sure that you write your mantra down on a sticky note. Put it on your computer and practice it this week by saying it out loud three times before going into any important meeting or conversation. Say it in your mind during these communication opportunities. And notice how quickly it begins to integrate into your psyche. What you just did is very powerful. Don't take it lightly. Do it, and your life will change. I guarantee it. What's your inner critics saying now? Can it be that easy? What if I were to tell you that it is that easy? At least try it out. I'll meet you in the next video where I'll give you a sneak peek into my own personal preparation ritual that pretty much ensures a successful outcome for me in my important meetings and workshops every time I'll see you there. 10. Adopting A Growth Mindset On Your Communication Journey.: There's a point I want to make that's so important that I want to give it its very own video. If you've had a similar experience to Pablo, or worse, I want to commend you. Congratulations. What you've experienced is a gift in disguise. You've reached a certain rock bottom and most clients that I'm speaking to are so scared of hitting rock bottom that this fear is the very thing that keeps them from daring greatly, as Brane Brown says, from taking risks. So now you know what it feels like to fail. You've experienced yours and other people's worst nightmare. And was it so bad? Did you get fired? Was it the end of the world? Do you want to take steps so that it never happens again? Easy for you to say, Rebecca, Public speaking is easy for you. You've always had away with words, and you've always been so confident. What if I were to tell you that I lost my words onstage in front of hundreds of people on opening night? What if I were to tell you that in an important meeting where an opportunity for career growth was on the line, I didn't know when or how to speak up and deliver value. What if I told you that I was always the shy student in the back row that couldn't get up the courage to raise her hand and deliver an alternative point of view. I know from firsthand experience what it feels like to have my worst nightmare come true. And it's because I embrace these experiences that I learned foolproof techniques that would help me build authentic confidence. Speak up when it matters the most. And communicate my authority and expertise to an important audience. Because of these experiences, I am here teaching you now I want to empower you. Say yes to speaking engagements. Take risks. And speak up with confidence. Because you can say, what's the worst thing that could happen that hasn't happened already and mean it. And you can look for ways to prepare that are truly going to serve you and build your authentic confidence. So take your experience as a Badge of Honor. You've experienced something that most people only think about, worry about, dream about, keeps them up at night, you know what it feels like, and you know that you're still here and it's only going to help you to improve and motivate you to get better on the communication journey. It's not always easy. There are some rough patches. The most important thing is that we keep the attitude of a growth mindset. Learning from each experience, and building our techniques as we move forward. Ultimately, this depth of experience will give us the knowledge and deepen our empathy For those around us. This combination of knowledge and empathy gives us a magnetic presence. 11. Create Your Unique "Preparation Ritual".: Are you ready to create your very own preparation ritual? A preparation ritual is the routine you do before any important meeting or presentation that prepares you to show up as your best self. You can pick and choose from the techniques that I taught you in the last two videos. You can also add a few of your own. Whatever your ritual is, it, if it works for you, I cannot stress the importance of having a ritual. We are creatures of habit and at night we brush our teeth and that lets our body know that we're getting ready to go to bed. When we wake up in the morning, most of us rush to have that first cup of coffee. It's a ritual which lets our body know that we're getting ready for our day. When we need to show up as our best self. We need to have a set of actions that communicate to our body that we are gearing up to show up at peak performance. Your body and mind will learn through repetition what you want it to do. Let's imagine that I have a workshop. I'm running in 15 minutes. Ready? Here we go. First I arrive at my station 10 minutes early. I test my audio, my connection, I check my background, then I stand up and I stretch my body to the corners of the room. I do a couple of jumping jacks, move my face around like I'm chewing a wad of gum and I shake it out to release any excess energy. Next, I sit at the edge of my seat and I feel my feet firmly planted into the floor hip with the part my butt firmly planted into the seat. I push myself away from my desk to give myself a frame of authority. If I'm standing, I stand with my feet hip with the part and prepare to gesture from the waist up, the lower half of me firmly planted in cement, I practice my message out loud while gesturing and speaking with expression to the camera. I move my face more, I open my mouth wider than usual, and I gesture dramatically. In this way, I'm counteracting my body's tendency to tense up and tighten when it's feeling the duress of fight, flight, or freeze. Next I set up my plan B. Water, coffee, notes, a piece of paper and a pen to jot down a quick answer or a point I want to make. During my presentation, I take a look at my personal mantra and I say it out loud three times while I take up a lot of space. I am a rock star. I got this. Finally I ask myself, what can I do to have more fun? And I do just that. Now it's your turn. Take out that form that says my performance ritual in your resource folder. Write down your performance ritual. Try it out before your next meeting. If something doesn't work for you, review, edit, and repeat. Do your ritual for lower stakes meetings and presentations so that you know it works before you use it for higher stakes presentations and conversations. I want to leave you with one thought, focusing on one of the most important steps in my performance ritual. And that is, what can I do to have more fun when it comes to public speaking? Most people use one of the following methods, the Grin and Barrett method. Oh God, I just have to get through it. The pessimistic approach, I'm simply just not a good presenter. I know I'm going to do a bad job. The resigned method, I don't like presenting and I never will. What if I told you that any of these methods don't have to be yours? What if you could not just get through your presentation but enjoy it? What if you are secretly good at public speaking and you just have had some bad experiences? What if you don't like presenting because you simply haven't learned how to do it yet? Imagining the possibility of joy and fun is sometimes just the thing we need in order to make different choices and have a different experience. Here's your assignment. Think about what you could do to make your next speaking engagement a little more fun. Truly, think about it and say it out loud now. Oh, did you say that? It would be great if you started your presentation by having other people speak first. Abracadabra. I empower you to structure, in just that structure, your next presentation. To start by having other people speak up first, ask them a question, get some type of dialogue happening. Continue to have this conversation around, how can I have more fun once you have some ideas by them? Out experiment. Who's to say that public speaking can't be fun. Great job. See in the next video. 12. Self Assessment: Are You In Control of Your Remote Meetings and Presentations?: Welcome back. After the last three videos, I can imagine that you are pumped. I sure am. So far, you have learned how you've been sabotaging yourself and have committed to letting go of at least three self sabotage techniques. You've learned practical skills that you can implement right away to show up physically as a professional, you've learned strategies to prepare yourself mentally and to prepare your content so that you show up as an expert in all of your presentations and meetings. You even took the next step and created a personal preparation ritual for yourself so that you don't have to rely on feeling great in the moment or inspiration to have a successful meeting or presentation. Well done you. But let's imagine that you fast forward to your next virtual meeting or presentation. You show up professional, you're prepared. But a third of the way in, you get derailed. You come in with confidence and professionalism. But somehow or another, you lose control and you end up feeling deflated and concerned about how your next meeting or presentation is going to go. It might help you to know that somebody else derailing your meeting or presentation isn't your fault. You can't control how other people react to you. Unfortunately, the outcome of the meeting or presentation is important to your success. So it's imperative that you prepare yourself for success. But also that you know how to start a meeting or presentation in control. And you know how to stay in control throughout your meeting or presentation. That you learn how to get in the driver's seat and stay in the driver's seat. Here are some thoughts around control. When we feel in control, we tend to feel confident. Confidence is a virtuous cycle. The more we feel confident, the more we exude confidence, the more people feel our confidence. The more they see us as confident. The more people see us as confident, the more confidence we feel. Confidence, as you know, is everything. From my experience, confidence and control are linked. Hand in hand, here are three common ways that we lose control during our meetings or presentations. Raise your hand if you've experienced any of the following. We don't start off on the right foot. Either we let someone else start speaking or we focus on the wrong things to begin with and we set the wrong tone. We might start out on the right foot, but someone quickly asks an unrelated question or brings up another topic and it takes us down a rabbit hole that we have a hard time recovering from. We might start off well and feel in control throughout, but we simply aren't getting the engagement from our audience that we want. They don't respond when we ask a question. They look bored. I like they're doing something else. These are all signs and symptoms that we haven't started in control and don't know how to stay in control during our remote meetings or presentations. In the next few videos, I'm going to teach you how to do just this. How to step into the driver's seat and stay in the driver's seat. But before we dive in, let's start by building some self awareness in the arena. Shall we? Are you in control of your virtual meetings and presentations or are your virtual meetings and presentations in control of you? Let's take this short quiz together to find out. You can find this quiz as a handout in your resource folder. You can do it later or you can follow along with me. Now, I'll give you a moment to find it and then let's rip the band aid. Answer the following questions with a simple yes or no. When you lead a virtual meeting or presentation, are you the first to welcome everyone as they come into the room? Do you connect on a personal level with individuals through some type of small talk or ice breaker? You decided how you'll transition everyone into your content. Do you kick the meeting off by articulating your goal? Do you tell them your agenda for how you're hoping to achieve your goal? Do you set expectations? Do you talk about anything that you know might be getting in the way of them being able to listen to what you have to say? Do you periodically check in in order to increase their engagement? Do you know how to interrupt gracefully? And do you do it? Do you know how to quickly redirect the conversation easily? And do you do that? Does everyone walk away knowing exactly what you want and expect them to do? Are you signing off with a smile on your face, pleased with yourself for a job well done? If you answer no to three or more of the above questions, then you don't have control of your meetings and presentations. Your virtual meetings and presentations are in control of you. Come join me in the next section to talk about how to enhance your confidence by stepping into the driver's seat and staying in the driver's seat in all of your virtual meetings and presentations. 13. How To Start In Control, So You Stay In Control.: Welcome back. Have you ever noticed that what happens in the first 5 minutes of any interaction, any meeting or any presentation sets the tone for the entire conversation, meeting or presentation in a conversation. The first impression happens in the first 5 minutes, really in the first few seconds when we lead meetings or presentations. The first 5 minutes can have the same impact as those first few seconds in a conversation. The first 5 minutes is also where we feel the highest level of nerves. For these reasons, I encourage my clients to spend more time preparing for the first 5 minutes as they are often the most critical. The first technique to step into the driver's seat of your meetings or presentations is to prepare in detail for the first 5 minutes. Here are two ways that you can prepare in detail for your first 5 minutes. Number one, plan to connect with your audience. When we connect with each other, we begin to care. Care is a key ingredients to persuasion. Most of us are looking to persuade other people with our ideas in a meeting or a presentation. Therefore, it is powerful tool to focus on connecting first before moving into your content. Here are a couple of ways that you can prepare to make a connection. Prepare to ask a question about family or feelings, hobbies or passions. Any question that cannot be answered with a yes or no answer and is outside of our stereotypical questions about work and weather. All of these will go very far in helping you to create a connection. Share some content that you find to be inspiring, meaningful, or funny. This could be a statistic, a short video, an image, or a quote, a story that you just heard or experienced. Anything that you find to be curious or illuminating, this can be a great conversation starter for a group. The second way to prepare for your first 5 minutes is to outline your introduction in detail. Most of us feel nervous Only in the first 5 minutes. The wave of nerves and emotion comes up and then it goes away. Prepare to handle your nerves by outlining your introduction in detail. Write your outline down in full and complete sentences. Follow it diligently, and don't make it too complicated. Here's my foundational structure for any meeting or presentation. This is so important that we're going to walk through it now together. It is also available to you at any time in your resource folder entitled Guide to Structuring Powerful Introductions. In this handout, you'll find more of a description under each section as well as an example of what this might look like and sound like. It might be helpful to pull this out now and follow along. I'll give you a few moments to do so. Ready? Here we go. Start with your goal. What do you want your audience to know? How do you want your audience? And what do you want your audience to do? If you can write your goal in one sentence, follow your goal with your roadmap. How are you hoping to accomplish your goal during this presentation or meeting? This can also be considered your agenda. Next, name the elephant in the room. What might be keeping your audience from listening to you with an open mind? Next, set expectations. Tell us what role you'll be playing and what's expected from us, your audience. How do you want us to participate? Finally, check in. Ask us if we have any questions or want to make any comments or suggestions. You can use this structure in any situation. A conversation kicking off a meeting or delivering a presentation. It covers the gamut of information you need to stay on point and all the information your audience needs to feel comfortable listening to and following your lead. Sometimes you only need pieces of this structure. This structure is meant to be a tool for you to use in a way that's relevant to you and your audience. Now let's put this into practice. I want you to think about your next meeting or presentation. I want you to think about your goal for this meeting. What do you want your audience to know? How do you want your audience to feel? And what do you want your audience to do because of what you're about to say? Write this down and see if you can say it out loud in one full sentence. During my days of waitressing, it was often my experience that if I got off on the right foot with a customer, I greeted them early. I took time to make real eye contact and make a connection. Then there was almost nothing I could do after that that would screw it up. Similarly, if we start a meeting or a presentation off, well, in the first 5 minutes, most likely the rest will flow smoothly. We have our confidence intact. The audience engaged, listening, and trusting us. The rest is easy or not. Don't worry. Now that you've learned how to step into the driver's seat, join me in the next video to learn how to stay in the driver's seat. In other words, how to push back and right yourself when you're being derailed. Railroaded, steam rolled, rabbit holed, hijacked, talked over, ignored, undercut, underappreciated, you get the idea. These are all the things that we feel when somebody else tries to jump into our driver's seat. In our next video, you'll learn when and how to interrupt and redirect gracefully. Never thought it was possible. Join me and you'll find out. 14. Learn To Interrupt Boldly and Redirect Gracefully.: Have you ever had the experience of running a meeting or delivering a presentation and it's all going smoothly until someone interrupts and asks a question. But that question leads to another question, which leads to another question. Until your meeting is going down a proverbial rabbit hole, have you ever had someone offer their perspective or idea that last way too long and then takes the conversation in an entirely different direction? Congratulations, you know what it feels like to be kicked out of the driver's seat, but don't be alarmed. There are ways to climb back In our first step in learning how to stay in the driver's seat or climb back into the driver's seat is to learn how to interrupt gracefully. Now I know what you're probably thinking. I don't want to be that person isn't interrupting rude. My answer to this response is simple. Currently, you don't interrupt. How's that working for you? Probably not so well because you're taking this course and get this. It's my understanding at this point in my career that people who are not capable of interrupting gracefully are not actually able to do their job. We live in a culture of interruption. If you are letting one individual hijack the conversation, you're probably not getting your work done efficiently and effectively, and you're definitely not respecting everyone's time. So I encourage you to be bold and interrupt gracefully. Here's a structure that might make this a little easier to do. First part of the structure, apologize for interrupting. You can say, my apologies or I'm so sorry to interrupt. If your interruption doesn't work the first time, you can always use the person's name in order to really get their attention. Mr. Smith, my apologies for interrupting but I'd like to say something next. Make space for yourself to speak. You can use the following phrases. I have something to add. I'd like to give you my point of view. I'd like to weigh in here. These are all perfectly acceptable ways to let people know that you need the space and time to deliver your point of view. Next, reflect back what you just heard. Human beings want to be seen and heard. You can successfully interrupt somebody and communicate empathy if you immediately reflect back to them what you understood that they just said. And finally, deliver your content and steer your audience back to the shared goal. So far, our structure goes like this. Apologize for interrupting. Make space for yourself to speak. Reflect back what you just heard. Deliver your point of view or redirect the conversation back to the shared goal. Here's an example. Bridget, I'm sorry for interrupting but I would like to speak from the point of view of the managers. I heard you saying that we are both out of time and out of budget. But I would like to say that in order to achieve our ultimate goals this quarter, the managers need additional funds to conduct our public speaking training, which as you know, is essential for leadership growth and part of this year's strategic initiative. I want you to try this out right now. I'm going to ask you to interrupt me saying my ABC's ready. Interrupt A, B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. Now you try. Take an example of a recent experience you had where you wish you had interrupted a colleague in order to make a point. Remember, use the structure on the screen. Isn't that fun? Now, I'll leave you with one bonus technique for interrupting boldly and gracefully. There are those challenging personalities that won't let you interrupt gracefully, they just keep talking. This is to the detriment of you getting your work done if you're dealing with one of those toxic personalities. My suggestion is this, just keep going. Interrupting and speaking then turns into a game of endurance. Whoever can speak and not give up speaking will win the race of interruption. Interrupt boldly and gracefully, and just keep going. You're on your way to staying in the driver's seat for the whole journey. Do me a favor and try interrupting this week. No seriously. Once per meeting, every day, write it on a sticky note to ensure you practice this critical skill. Don't have too much fun. Happy practicing. 15. Speaking Remotely is Hard! Here's Why This Is True.: I was standing up in my office in California to deliver my first virtual workshop during the pandemic with an audience that was currently 375 miles away from me. I shuddered as our connection didn't seem to be working. When I rebooted and was able to sign on, I was met with an unresolvable challenge. My audience was looking at my image projected extra large on a screen. My vantage point placed me looking at the sides of their faces, tiny like little ants at a board room table. Some of the managers that weren't in the room were dialing in, and I watched as their smiling faces popped up in little squares on my zoom screen. I thought I'm a public speaking coach that delivers workshops on effective communication. How am I supposed to be effective if I'm deprived of my tools of making eye contact, reading body language, and energy? How can I make connection with my audience if I can't see their faces? How can I judge my audience's engagement with me if I can't see their heads nod or hear their voices in real time? I'm a public speaking coach that coaches people on how to be confident and authentic. In order for us to feel confident, our body has to feel comfortable, safe at home. How is my body supposed to feel comfortable staring at a green light and speaking to an audience 375 miles away? I share this story with you because I'm sure you've experienced something of a similar conundrum. And I want you to know something. What we're asking our bodies and psyches to do by conducting our meetings and presentations over virtual reality is extremely awkward, uncomfortable, and goes against all of our biological instincts. It might make sense to you in your mind, but your body is having a hard time getting used to it for good reason. I say this because so many of my clients have come to me because they've had no problems presenting in the past. But all of a sudden because they're speaking over a virtual platform, they're beginning to experience nerves and anxiety that feel surprising and insurmountable. They have always relied on using their personality to alleviate tension and create connection with their audience and are finding themselves at a loss for how to create the same personality over a virtual platform. They have relied on their ability to read a room in order to know what to do or say, and are having a hard time reading the room when the room is a bunch of tiny boxes. These are all very common challenges. They are very real and they are justified. It is hard to communicate confidence and personality and create engagement in others over a virtual platform. So now that I've set your expectations, there are tools that I can teach you that I have learned to be very helpful in becoming more effective, more confident, and getting more engagement from your audience. I'll share these tools with you in the next video. 16. My Top 5 Effective Communication Techniques for Remote Communication.: Here is my very own list of the top effective communication techniques for remote speaking drum roll. Please number one, make eye contact with one point of contact. This can be the green light, one person from your audience or even your own picture. The important thing is that you choose something and stick with it. When you choose one point of contact, you keep your eyes from dancing around, which can be distracting, as well as communicate insecurity or lack of knowledge. Technique number two, increase your expression, 20% Right now I want you to imagine standing on a stage and throwing a ball to an audience member. Imagine it being easy to throw and easy to catch. This is what it feels like to send our energy to an in person audience. It's easy. It's natural. When our audience is close, we throw the ball with ease. When our audience is far away, we naturally throw the ball a little bit harder so that it can reach our audience. When we communicate over a virtual platform, imagine that, that same ball has to be thrown fairly hard in order to reach its target. There's lots of noise, distraction, lag, lethargy, all of which are forces pushing against us, hitting our target. For this reason, it's important to amplify yourself. Increase your energy by increasing your expression, 20% Technique number three, chunk your material and check in with your audience. Chunk and check in in person. As we speak, we instinctively check that our audience is with us. We'll naturally judge whether or not we have eye contact are getting the head nod. And if people's bodies are leaning forward in the remote world, we can't see any of these body language signals. But we still need to know that our audience is with us to achieve this goal of needing to know, chunk your material and then check in with a question such as, are you with me? Does that make sense? Are you ready for me to move forward? Structure these check ins throughout your presentations and meetings in order to ensure engagement throughout technique. Number four, find creative ways to create more audience engagement. Being in front of a screen is simply less interesting than being in front of a person. Ask yourself what activity might help my audience feel engaged and when can I use it? Asking real questions that require more than a yes or no answer requires your audience's participation. Giving either quick, individual or group assignments can help everyone feel more engaged. Technique number five, embrace pauses. Especially in a virtual world, the lag time is real, the silence is deafening. It can be hard to take, Sometimes prepare to tolerate silence. The more comfortable you are with silence and pauses, the more in control you can remain. There are a number of techniques that I have found to be useful as I guide my clients to becoming better presenters and leaders in a remote environment. This list is far from everything and will continue to grow and change. As technology and new ways of working grow and change. We're living in a world where agility and the ability to pivot are key to our success and survival. Take the clarity and motivation that you're feeling now and put your commitment into action. Write the effective communication technique that you're choosing to work on on a sticky note and stick it on your computer. Let's meet in the next video to learn how you can put some of these techniques into practice. See there. 17. Now It's YOUR Turn! Enhance Your Expression 20%!: I know that my clients ultimately have it inside of them to coach themselves. Let's embark on a little self coaching now. Take a moment to think about and write down the answers to these two questions. What have you learned from your time leading meetings and presentations in our tough virtual world? What do you do currently that works? In what ways do you want to improve? Refresh yourself on the techniques that we worked on in the last video. Might adopting one of those techniques help you to improve your performance in your presentations or meetings? If so, commit to adopting this new technique this week. Practicing it every day. But now let's practice one technique together. This technique is called increasing your expression 20% You might be thinking that this is a great idea, but wondering what does that mean? How do I do that? In this video, I'll walk you through a step by step approach to increase your expression 20% We'll do this by learning to move the easiest parts of our body that can authentically communicate our expression. The first thing that we'll play with is moving our eyebrows. Do this with me now. Move your eyebrows up and down. Up and down, out in. Now repeat after me. I am excited about our new project, but make sure that you are moving your eyebrows 20% more ready. Here we go. I am excited about our new project. Great, let's move on to our next feature that we can easily use to enhance our expression. This is mouth. I want you to try opening your mouth more while you speak. This has a number of benefits, including helping you to be more articulate, increasing your volume by increasing your space, and forcing you to move your face, including your cheekbones more. It's a funny exercise. So we'll also make you smile. Ready? Here we go. Introduce yourself while opening your mouth 20% more. Do it with me now. Hello, my name is Rebecca Martin, and I'm a public speaking coach. Ready, your turn. Open that mouth, you got it great work. Wasn't that funny and enjoyable. Don't worry. It's just an exercise getting you loosened up to communicate with more expression. Finally, let's practice gesturing with our hands. Most of my clients who I give this assignment to think they have to work in order to align their hands with their words. Don't worry about that. Our body is way smarter than we are. Very quickly, your body will begin to align your hands with your message. Your job is to simply kickstart the process by moving your hands. You can think of gesturing as placing your ideas on a shelf in front of you. The best way to gesture is to open your palms and use upward movements. You can practice this by doing what I call the splashing water on your face move like this. You can also think of your gestures as giving your words structure. The first thing you might say is right here. The second thing you might say is in the middle. And the third thing you might say is over here. We also use our hands for emphasis, to showcase surprise, fear, even laughter. Any movement is good movement right now. I want you to practice introducing yourself. I want you to practice saying your name, where you work and your role, what you like about your job. And one of the biggest challenges that you're tackling right now, I want you to practice saying these three sentences while moving your eyebrows, opening your mouth, and gesturing all at the same time. Remember, take it all up. 20% ready? Here we go. This is just a silly exercise, but if you practice this exercise every day, your body will get into the habit of increasing its expression 20% It will then know to do this when you're in high stakes situations, meetings, and presentations because it feels good. It allows you to channel your energy and it helps you to communicate confidence. If you haven't done this yet, pick at least one meeting a day where you practice increasing your expression 20% Now, don't have too much fun, happy practicing, and see you in our next video. 18. Now It's YOUR Turn! Learn To Make Powerful Eye Contact Remotely.: Did you ever think that you're going to have to learn how to make eye contact with a little green light? I sure didn't. Did you ever think that you're going to have to try to make eye contact with so many small boxes all at the same time you got me. These are just a couple of the weird things that we need to learn how to do in order to communicate successfully in this virtual working environment. You might think that making eye contact while giving your virtual presentation really shouldn't be that hard. But let me tell you, this is complicated stuff. At this point, you might not even be aware of where you're looking, but your body and your audience too. Just to bring some awareness, let me demonstrate to you the most common eye contact choices that I've seen in my clients thus far. I want you to notice what each form of eye contact looks like from the audience's point of view and how it makes you feel, what it makes you think. Here we go. The distracted eye contact. Get it, Okay. Next, the checking what I look like, eye contact, recognize that one. Here's the next. The trying to take it all in. Eye contact, remember that one, Here's the next, the always thinking eye contact. You get the idea. None of these contact choices will serve You follow these rules in order to ensure the best results for powerful and authentic eye contact. Rule number one, pick one point of focus. You can pick the green light. You can pick one person. You can pick your own picture, but pick one point of contact and stick with it. This keeps you from the distracted eye contact approach, which can communicate fear insecurity. When we pick one point of eye contact, our audience accepts this as our real eye contact, even if you're looking off screen. Rule number two. In the best case scenario, you can choose a pair of human eyes as your one point of focus. When we look at a human face, all of our instincts fall into place and natural micro expressions take over. This helps us to look and feel authentic. If you can't make eye contact with one person, try imagining speaking to someone you know that might be in the audience or benefit from your presentation. You'll be able to reconstruct their reactions. Rule number three, hold your eye contact for longer than feels natural. Most of us have a fear of holding real eye contact. If you can harness your ability to hold your eye contact past that feeling of vulnerability, you step into a place of confidence and connection. Now do I advocate staring? No. Take this advice with a grain of salt and use it within reason. Final technique. Land your eye contact. Most people need a moment to look away as they think about what they want to say. This is absolutely okay. It is best if you can look away as you begin your sentence. But always end your sentence by creating eye contact with your single point of focus. In this way, you land your sentences, land your idea, emphasize your message, and create importance. In order to understand how this works, I'd like you to watch the following two examples. In my first example, I'm going to introduce myself while looking away at the end of my sentence. In my second example, I'm going to look away at the beginning of my sentence and end my sentence, making eye contact with you. In this way, I'm going to demonstrate how I can land my sentence by landing my eye contact. Ready? Here we go. Hi, my name is Rebecca Martin, and I'm a public speaking coach. My favorite thing about what I do is that I get to connect with people from all over the world. Second example. Hi, my name is Rebecca Martin, and I'm a public speaking coach. My favorite thing about what I do is I get to work with clients from all over the world, and I love meeting new people. Now it's your turn. I would like you to practice landing your sentence as you introduce yourself. Remember, you can allow your eyes to wander during the first part of your sentence. But make sure that you are coming back to your one point of focus at the end of each of your sentences. Ready? Let's try introducing yourself three times. Give yourself three chances as you practice landing your eye contact. You'll notice that it gets easier each time that you do it. Ready. Give it a shot. Great work. If you would like to practice holding more eye contact this week, I suggest that you write a sticky note right now that says land your eye contact. Even if you're not able to practice this specific technique, you'll probably begin to notice everyone else's eye contact. You might start to notice when somebody's eye contact is distracted. You might start to notice when it seems like they just keep checking their image to make sure that they look okay. You might begin to notice when they're trying to take everything in all at once. Notice what happens when you practice. Notice what happens when you don't notice how both of these experiences feel. Learning how to harness the power of your eye contact can help you to feel more confident and grounded, and create a powerful connection with your audience. Particularly in a remote environment. We have very few tools to impact our audiences. Our eye contact is one of the main ways that we can communicate our confidence and expertise. 19. Take These Techniques To The Next Level.: You now have my top five effective communication techniques for remote speaking. You've practiced at least two of them. Enhancing your expression by 20% and landing your eye contact. In order to get the most out of your list, I want to challenge you to assign yourself one technique to practice every week. For example, this week might be about eye contact. Next week might be about embracing silence and pausing. The following week could be focused on chunking and checking in. You can go to your calendar now and assign specific techniques for you to practice during specific meetings. I want to remind you that the more you practice, the more comfortable you'll be with each of these techniques. The more comfortable you are with each of these techniques, the more they'll turn into your new normal. The more they turn into your new normal, the more they become your communication style that other people notice and are impacted by. Take the time right now to assign yourself homework for the coming weeks and any upcoming meetings or presentations. Give yourself one technique to focus on. It's better to do one technique thoroughly than try to do many without feeling their full effect. At the beginning of this course, I spoke about encouraging you to use a communication journal. This would be a great opportunity for you to document every day what techniques you experimented with and how it went. In this way, you can hold yourself accountable to practicing your techniques and you can also chart your changes and growth. You might be able to look back in a month and say, wow, I made each of these new techniques normal. I am super proud of myself. We can accomplish great goals through taking simple daily steps. Every day is a new day and gives you the opportunity to step back into your practice. You're on day one. What are you going to do today? 20. From Virtual To In Person: What's Next?: The one thing that we can count on in life is change. As soon as you get used to something, it's going to change. Change is the only constant as you learn these tools and techniques, the environment for which I've created them has already changed. But guess what. You're in luck most, if not all, of these techniques translate directly to your in person meetings and presentations as well. For example, how to prepare mentally and prepare your content for meetings and presentations is the exact same preparation strategy I give for in person meetings and presentations. The powerful structure for any introduction is useful over remote platforms, as well as for in person meetings and presentations. So when you experience a feeling of fear or anxiety about what's it going to feel like to lead meetings or presentations in person, don't worry. All of the techniques that you have learned through these videos and that you're practicing on a daily basis because of these videos, are building the muscles that you need to flex when you're experiencing nerves and anxiety in your in person meetings and presentations. Especially when the stakes are high and if you still need extra training and support, never fear. I have another video entitled Speak Public Speaking for Leadership Development. In this video course, I teach you techniques that are applicable to remote presentation and communication. But dive deeply into the skill sets needed in order to communicate in person your leadership capability and expertise. 21. Congratulations On Your Accomplishments. Here's My Offering For You.: Congratulations, you made it through show up. Take control of your remote communication. I'm hoping you're feeling a lot more grounded and empowered knowing the ways in which you've been sabotaging yourself from showing up professionally. What you can do to prepare yourself physically and tactically to show up professionally. What you can do mentally and with your content to prepare to show up as an expert and deliver value. How you can step into the driver's seat and stay in the driver's seat throughout your remote meetings and presentations and effective communication techniques relevant to this new hybrid environment. I've packed a lot of tools and techniques into this course. I want to encourage you to go back and watch these videos again. Take longer to practice the homework. Notice what happens when you hear the material for a second time. Each one of these tools and techniques can be life changing. Give each of them their due by practicing them with awareness and intentionality for at least a week. By doing this, you'll truly begin to see results. I have thoroughly enjoyed having you in my course. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and absorb and practice my techniques. Thank you for trusting me to lead you through all of the challenges that remote communication has put in front of us. And please know that I'm always here to support you. If you'd like to ask me any questions, feel free to jump into the Q and A section. And most importantly, pass it on to your friends, your colleagues, or your manager. As it might help others, it's important that we learn how to grow strong together. Give these tools and techniques, others who might benefit. I'll leave you with my offering. I would like to know how I can assist you better and what questions did I not answer? In this course, I'd like to know what areas of remote presenting or communication. Do you still need additional support? Are you interested in one on one coaching? Would you like to bring my message to your team through a tailored workshop, one on one or group coaching? If so, I am happy to speak to you about your dialogue. Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you in my next video series. Until then, Happy practicing.