 I want to talk today about how you can really use influence in your communication. I get a question I get all the time is how can it be more influential when I'm communicating to people? Well, one of the challenges that people have, and probably one of the biggest ones, is really understanding that there is the words that are using the content. And then the settings that you're using those words in, meaning setting the context for what's happening, and arguably really the context is actually more important than the content. Because if someone's not in the right frame to receive that information, you're not going to be very successful at all, right? So if you are trying to communicate with a three-year-old child, and that child's having a temper tantrum, that person's not going to listen to you at all. If someone else you're dealing with is really upset with you, they're not really going to be hearing what you're saying at that point. They're going to want to get out what they want to say. So it's really important for you to understand that, to set the context, and really to, in order for you to do that, you really have to do that before you're delivering all this content. And I want to talk about some quick ways that you can do that to be really much more better when you, it doesn't matter whether you're giving a speech, it doesn't matter whether you're sending an email, it doesn't matter whether you're going out to dinner with people, it doesn't matter whether you're doing anything at home or with your friends, all of this stuff will help you. First, it's important to acknowledge your audience, right? Thank you for taking the time out today to come here to listen to this speech, right? Or thank you for taking the time to read this email today. Or if you're sitting down with some other people, thank you for taking the time to really listen to what I have to say. That sets someone's up to understand that you're being grateful, that you really understand their time is valuable, and that you're appreciative of them. And what happens is that builds rapport and affinity with the other person. And that's absolutely critical. The other thing is really, the next thing part of it is really entering their world, right? What's going on in their heads right now? What's actually happening? What's really rotating around that? So part of it could be maybe you're giving, I had a client of mine who was giving a presentation right before lunch. Well, you know, I told them that the audience is going to be thinking about they want to go to lunch and they want to eat. So I said to them, go up before the people and saying, hey, who's hungry here for lunch? And people rose their hands. And then he said to them, well, that's great. I'm hungry too. So I'm going to cut this presentation down by 10 minutes so you can go to lunch early, but I'm going to deliver the same information to you. Who wants me to do that and everyone rose their hand, right? So you're entering the world. Your understanding and what happens is when you do that, you eliminate the obstacles between you and your audience and you look like a hero, right? Because everyone there was wanting to go to lunch and was hungry. But now everyone knows that you went in their shoes, practiced empathy, and then you actually were meeting their needs, right? You're going to give them the same information. You're going to do it quicker, which allows them to go and eat, which means you're a hero because you created a win-win situation for them. The next thing after that is really to enroll your audience, right? To really have them understand that they're a part of whatever you're delivering, right? So it could be you're delivering it to executives, right? And you could say, whether you've been a senior executive or a CEO for 20 years, or this is your first year, or one of the first years as being an executive, this information today is really going to help you be a better leader, create a better culture, and really interact better with a board. Well, that's great if those are audience members because then you're going to be able to interact with them. And you want to really eliminate down to as few as possible, right? And you could also ask the question to the audience, you know, who here has been an executive for more than 10 years, right? Who here has been executive for more than five years? Or you can ask them, maybe, who's been an executive? It's one of the first years they've ever been, right? So you can then enroll people by getting them into categories, and everyone then says to themselves, well, that's me. Well, I can fit into that bucket. So there would be much more enrolled than what you're saying, because you're going to see that it applies for them. Now, number four, really, I've found the people is that everyone wants to know what's in it for them, right? They want to get something out of this. So you have to deliver to them upfront, what are the takeaways? What's really going to help them and why, right? What are the things that are going to help executives, right? Is it going to be a better leader? I'm going to show you how to be a better leader than you ever were before. I'm going to help you build closer, better relationships with your executive team so that company, your company, makes more revenue and makes more profit and hits your business metrics. Everyone's going to be interested in that because that's going to help them make more money and also them be a hero in their organization and in their industry. So you've got to really show what's in it for them and you need to do this upfront in there. Now, the last part of it is really you have to tell people about being vulnerable and authentic through the process. And I think you have to share that with other people because people relate to other people through challenges, through stripes, through ups and downs, right? You could say to someone, I've been an executive for a while and I work with hundreds of executives and I've seen people do great things and things that have really fallen flat on their face. And actually I've done probably more following my face and give them examples of how you've done that or how you've seen people do that. So they can relate to that and they can really see what's going on. And it's not that you're coming here and trying to tell them all the things they're doing wrong. It's that you can relate to that and because you can relate to that, you really want to help them really develop the skill sets so they can become extraordinary leaders to really impact the bottom line in their organization. So the key thing here is to remember that you have content and context. Well, the key thing is here, the context really matters to set up the content. So people are willing to listen to you engage in it. And again, the things that you really have to focus on is acknowledging the audience, entering their world, enrolling your audience, what's in it for them and being vulnerable and authentic when you're delivering that message.