High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 690: Redefining Influence: How to Communicate with Confidence and Credibility with Stacey Hanke

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

In this engaging episode, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff talks with Stacey Hanke—nationally recognized communication expert, keynote speaker, and author of Influence Redefined and Influence Elevated. Stacey challenges the common myths around influence and shares how true influence isn’t about charisma or likability—it’s about showing up consistently with presence, clarity, and connection. Stacey is the founder of Stacey Hanke Inc., where she equips leaders and teams with the tools to communicate more effectively in high-stakes environments. Her work with Fortune 500 companies, NFL teams, and top-level executives offers real-world strategies for building trust and leading with credibility, even when feedback is limited or unclear. You’ll learn: The biggest misconception people have about influence—and what it really takes Stacey’s 6-part Influence Elevated model for lasting impact Why self-awareness is the foundation of powerful communication The connection between confidence and your ability to speak up under pressure Daily rituals and mindset shifts to lead with authenticity and consistency Stacey also shares how elevated presence leads to stronger connections and greater influence, plus one tool you can start using today to transform how you come across. If you want to level up your leadership and communication, this episode is a must-listen. HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE 🔹 Learn more about Stacey Hanke and her work🔹 Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra and/or her team🔹 Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute Love the show? Rate and review the podcast—and you might hear your name on the next episode!  

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset podcast, where we help you master your mindset to gain the high performance edge. My name is Dr. Syndra Kamboff, and I am so grateful you are here to listen to episode 690 with Stacey Honke. In this engaging episode, I talk with Stacey Honke, nationally recognized communication expert, keynote speaker, and author of Influence Redefined and Influence Elevated. Stacey challenges the common myths around influence and shares how true influence isn't

about charisma or likeability. It's about showing up consistently with presence, clarity, and connection. Stacey is the founder of Stacey Hunkey, Inc., where she equips leaders and teams with the tools to communicate more effectively in high-stakes environments. Her work with Fortune 500 companies, NFL teams, and top-level executives offers real-world strategies for building trust and leading with credibility, even when feedback is limited or unclear. You'll learn the biggest misconception people have about influence and what it really takes.

Stacy's six-part influence elevated model for lasting impact. Why self-awareness is the foundation of powerful communication. The connection between confidence and your ability to speak up under pressure. Daily rituals and mindset shifts to lead with authenticity and consistency. Stacey also shares how elevated presence leads to stronger connections and greater influence. Plus one tool you can start using today

to transform how you come across. If you wanna level up your leadership and communication, this episode is a must listen. Also do you love the show? Please leave a rating and review and you might hear your name on the next episode. All right let's jump into my interview with Stacey Hunky. Thank you so much Stacey Hunky for joining us today on the High Performance Mindset. I'm so excited to have you here today and can't wait to hear about your two books.

Oh, thank you. Thanks just for having me, for trusting me with your followers. I have a feeling we're going to give some good in-depth information to your followers. Absolutely. And so today we're talking about influence. And I would love for you just to start, Stacy, with like why should people continue to listen to us today? Why is influence really important? Because most people believe they're more influential than they really are. And I know it's really

harsh for us to just kick off this conversation with me making that statement. And it's also really identifying what influences and when it's not. And then from your third reason to stay tuned, actually giving you practical how tos I promise you're going to be able to use, whether it's in your personal life you need to be more influential or it's your day-to-day professional life. I love that. Well, let's dive into what influence really is. And so in your book, Influence Redefined, you say most people mistake influence for

being liked or being charismatic, which I think is so true that you know they think about it so then you know I want to be liked. So how do you define real influence? And there is there's a lot of misperception probably because there's so many people that say they're influencers. Let's just break it. Okay. It's your body language and your messaging. They need to be consistent Monday to Monday. Monday to Monday, I mean that your influence, who you are, doesn't take the weekends off. True influence is more about what you do all the time versus some of the time, but that's one definition. There's two, the ability to move people, to take action long after the actual conversation occurs.

You and I both know as entrepreneurs that sometimes, a lot of times, the relationship, the trust, the I want to buy you or your services doesn't happen in the first interaction. It really is a series of interactions, how people experience you is that consistent over time that really builds true influence. Awesome. So what would you tell us to do in the first way to kind of start thinking about our influence and what it really is and what we want it to be? That's exactly where I'll always start.

When I'm mentoring someone, I'll say to them, when it comes to influence, what do you want? Fill in the blank. Because when you think about what you want, now I want you to think of that like a baseline. It's a starting point. You need to be very clear about what do you want when it comes to influence, which really is your personal brand. It's the reputation you create. It's what you want people to say when you leave. It wasn't just happen when you're there. True influence is happening all the time, even when you're not there. So that, that's the first thing, just figure out what you want.

Okay. And then from there, a lot of people don't like hearing this. There's a disconnect of how even now I feel versus how perhaps you're experiencing me, both verbally and physically. We really need to take a look, okay? See yourself, hear yourself through the eyes and ears of your listeners. So if you take those two together, right, you figure out what you want, and then you start watching audio playbacks, video playbacks of live conversations, meetings that you're having during the day, you get to sit back and watch it and say, okay, that's right on to what I want, or whoa, I am creating a lot of distractions. I had

no idea I was doing it. So it's like a coach you hire after playing tennis for a very long time, and most like the coach would say at your very first lesson, swing the racket. I want you to serve the tennis ball a couple of times. And then from there they say, okay, here's where we're going to do some work. So helpful. And as I'm listening to you,

I'm thinking about how I want to be described. And also I'm thinking about how you might answer that question. And I'd love to hear what you see as influence for you and how you want to be described. And mine really is tied when I give you the answer. I value both my personal and professional life. Just prefer. Is truly to be trusted. I think trust sits on the top of everything else.

Because if people trust you, now they're respecting you, the next would be truly approachable. Call it authentic. Yes. People know that even if it's a challenging conversation they can come to me and I'm just going to be who I am. They never have to guess who's going to show up. They always get me, whether they like that or not, they just always get me. And then the next one is a toss-up.

As much as I want to come across as knowledgeable, I think that does say it. It's this level of confidence. Nice. Because if people trust me and they see me as confident, they know I'm always going to tell you the truth. I'm not gonna guide you in the wrong way, but I have to really display that confidence in order for someone to trust.

Okay, her recommendation. She looks confident telling me this. I'll go that way. You know, when I think about my words, I would say passionate is my top word. Because I, I, I used to hide my energy. And maybe because I thought it was, I don't know, too ditzy. I don't know. I'm not sure. But now I actually realized that that's my superpower

and one of the things that people really most appreciate about me. Yeah, totally. And that is why it's so important to not only write down that answer of what you want when it comes to influence, now it is just doing these recordings and taking a high-stakes situation versus day-to to day conversation.

Do I come across passionate? If yes, where do I see it? I hear it because you want to grow that. Like that's all this idea of elevating your influence. You're also watching and listening to these playbats to say, when I do that or when I say it this way, I diminish my trust or I diminish my sugar. That's where I have that work to do. So would you encourage people to write down three words or what would you say people to do in terms of just a takeaway that they could use right now as we start our conversation?

I usually say up to three. Up to three. What's so interesting, I'll spend several months with an executive when I'm mentoring them one-on-one. We'll start with these questions at the very beginning. You know, what do you want? Write down some adjectives and then midway through their mentoring, which were about four sessions in, I'll ask that again. Sometimes it'll change. You end of the mentoring, which is after seven sessions, it usually changes. Why? They have seen themselves. Yeah. So many times that they're realizing, what really is it? What is my personal brand?

I love that. And you know, one of the things I appreciated about your books is particularly your model in the influence elevated book. And I'd love for you to describe that model for us. And I love the six parts of influence. I thought it would really help people understand what influence is and what is not. Yeah, the six parts of it. I'm looking down because I'm going to grab my books so I don't skip a beat here. It's a triangle. The one that I really focus on. So Influence Redefined is an actual triangle with three key drivers that lay on the outside of the triangle. You're right, there's six elements inside. Influence Elevated is the

very top part of that model. So if we just look at the big model, these three key drivers, you have feedback on one side of the triangle, both sides of it. You have deliberate practice on the other side. Face the triangles accountable. Accountability would be a good place to start. And why those are the three key drivers to drive the elements inside the model to reach

influence is first feedback. A lot of times it's flawed. One of the number one requests my team and I get from our clients is teach us how to get feedback. And then how do we ask for it? How do we receive it? How do we give it? Yes, that question, which tells a lot of misperception in your own feedback.

Yeah, just like any athlete, like anyone that is making a career out of what they do with their muscle memory, practice is the key. But the great news when it comes to improving, enhancing your influence, every interaction you have in your personal and professional life is an opportunity for you to practice. Finally, the base of the triangle is the accountability. You cannot, you cannot increase your awareness of how you come across, your level of influence. You really cannot elevate your influence if you don't have someone holding you accountable where you don't have that in place.

And that's what we work with people to help them put that plan in place. It's similar to, I mean, you've got a sports background. And I always see the analogy of you go to the gym and someone's going to sign up for a membership and they ask the membership representative and they ask them, you guarantee if I come to the gym, it's going to work. If you guarantee this membership is going to work. And the membership director says, yeah, if you come and you actually do the work, but it's a lot easier when we've got someone holding ourselves accountable. That's what I think makes influence so difficult.

It's not a when and done. It's a journey and it's really hard to do it if you decide to do it on your own. Absolutely. And so my question for that is when you think about who should hold you accountable or what does accountability look like in your model? Tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, well, they're probably people in your personal life that can't wait to give you feedback. So when it comes to accountability, What about that? Yeah. Well, they're probably people in your personal life that can't wait to give you feedback. So when it's like, wait, I have people in my professional life and my personal life. Why? Hey. Remember the definition of influence. It's about being consistent Monday to Monday.

I want to make sure that whatever feedback I'm asking in my personal professional life, however the feedback I'm receiving from my accountability partners or what I'm seeing on video, audio playbacks, whether I record a personal professional conversation, I want to make sure it's the same me. Finding someone in your personal life is always a great place to start because they know you. They know your natural self. They know who you are, And it's a safe environment. I highly recommend finding someone

in your professional life as well that you trust is going to tell you the truth. The key is to not do this. You have a sales call or you have a meeting with an employee, one that you are going to help hold you accountable. There's other people on the call. And after the call, you say to them, how did I do? Well, you just set yourself and that person up for failure

because they have no idea you wanted feedback. So now they're best true. Oh, that was good. I don't know. It was good. First, if you and I got on a call together before we recorded the slide, I might say to you, okay, Cinder, here's what I'm working on.

Would you watch for that? Here's how I want to come across. Use those adjectives. Would you watch for what do I say? What do I do? Be most specific with that accountability partner on exactly what you want feedback on. Your accountability partner should not work for you, you need to work for them. And the more clear you can be with clarity and direction, the more likely you will get what you

need that ties to what you want and the progress you're seeing or not seeing when you're doing these audio or video playbanks. Excellent, well I appreciate that. And the three key drivers of influence, feedback, deliberate practice, and accountability. Tell us a bit about the feedback part because you're right that people have a hard time giving feedback or receiving feedback and they don't necessarily know how to do that.

So what would be your recommendation? Yeah, what always helps for me is if I set up that person for success right up front and be real specific what you want feedback on, you might have to demonstrate it. You might have to just articulate it so much better. When I get the feedback from whether it's a peer of mine, one of my coaches, someone in my personal life,

if it's feedback that matches what I'm currently working on or matches what I really want when it comes to influence, I write it down because what we invite in our life, I then take the Post-It, and right now there's a lot of Post-It notes hanging in front of me that you cannot see. I also believe with feedback, the stuff you want to use, it has to be in front of you all the time.

If feedback truly is the gift sometimes that you don't want to receive, but they will tell you anyway, know that you always get to decide though, what do you want to act on and what you don't want to act on. And in my last book, I did quite a bit of research around feedback and I came up with different types

of feedback. And one of the feedbacks I always share that you want to avoid is the silent feedback. And a lot of leaders will say to me, well, no one's ever said this to me before. I say to them, that's where you should be concerned. Because what are they saying when you're not there? They say when you get off that virtual call, when you

leave that room, what do they say when they see your name on their Outlook calendar, that they'll be meeting with you that day? Silent feedback is probably the most dangerous feedback. The second type of feedback is also dangerous where people just tell you how great you are. Right. And I get it, I've done it too. I am guilty of it, I have done it. And we do more harm than good

because as a leader, if I'm your leader, Syndra, and I'm constantly saying, great, good job, good job, and now it's time for your quarterly review. Right. And I see it all the time leaders will say, can you help me with this conversation? I'll say to them, well, let's measure backwards. What's been happening? What have your conversations looked like with this person before this quarterly review? Because whatever you did in the past, you now can't come back and give them this

long list of what to improve on because they're wondering, that's not what you've been saying for three months. You see how that jeopardizes your trust, you'll start jeopardizing your influence. Influence is a really big topic and it truly is the fact that we all, no matter what your positions are, we're under surveillance 24-7. I know that can be a little creepy. It's not made to be. Sure. But 20-7. I know like a little creepy. It's not made to be. Sure.

But 20- Sure. And as a leader, you're in a position where people are wondering, how did you become that VP? I wanna be that. So they start watching your every move in a company because they're trying to replicate that pattern of being there to get into that role.

Absolutely. And I was just thinking, Stacey, this morning I was speaking, and during my talk, you know, it's funny how your mind goes so quickly, but I remembered this feedback that I got from James Robillata, and maybe you know James. He's in my room. The National Speakers Association, and he listened to one of my talks at SHRM,

and he sat in the back. It was so wonderful because he also reaffirmed a lot of the things that I knew that I was doing well, but there was this one feedback that he gave me. He was like, because I have these 10 practices of high performance that I speak on. He said, Cindra, I wasn't sure why you didn't go in order, like why you went from one to nine. And even today when I was speaking, I thought of James voice when I explained why I went from one to nine, you know? And so feedback can be really helpful, um, and can transform

the way that you move forward. And would we rather know than not know? Yes. Someone else is seeing it or hearing the way that you're communicating, they're making comments behind your back. And it's best to just figure out what's working, what's not. There's so many times when I've mentored a C-suite employee or executive and they'll watch their playback for the first time. And they'll always make comments.

No one's ever told me. And I say to them, there's a point where you get to a certain point in your career and that time follows your name. Stop telling you what you really need to hear because of the position that you have. I think that's why it's so critical for leaders to seek out the feedback, because you get to certain positions that people just tell you how great you are all the time. That's true.

So the most dangerous ones of feedback are silent feedback and how great you are. What's the kind of feedback we wanna give instead? You know, in the book, I just simply said it's successful feedback. And it's feedback that is very specific to what you've asked for. Here's the other piece of it. Now you have to act on it.

And that's one of those decisions where the feedback that you got from James, it's the, all right, does that fall in line with who I am? You can see now why I always start with I want. So you got, I have these lines and the adjectives, what does it look like? Making sure that you act on whatever that feedback is. Now I am very much of, I write it down. And if I'm watching, say for example,

getting feedback from a coach or I'm watching a video playback, I will take three columns, what I liked, what I didn't like, what am I willing to commit to? And I commit to it for the first 30 days. You know, we talked about year goals and quarterly goals. I do that. But if I really want to make sure I can check it off, to me, 30 days is so much more doable.

That's just a personal preference and it works for me. You've got to find out what works for you, meaning what are you willing to commit to? Thank you so much. And I was thinking about, all right, we were talking about the three drivers of your model of influence and feedback, deliberate practice and accountability are on the sides.

Tell us about the six parts of influence. Yeah, and there's a lot of them, right? So it's on the top. tell us about the six parts of influence. Yeah, and there's a lot of them, right? So it's on the top. The very first one is really where we're tapping into today is self-awareness, because we can't change anything if we're not first self-aware.

It's crazy how the subconscious messes with us. Our body doesn't want to be uncomfortable. Anytime, I don't know, even for yourself, if you feel this way, you've gotten some feedback about how you present, how you communicate, and you try it on for the first couple of times, and you're thinking, oh, man, this is not working. This is the way I'm thinking.

So either people will go back to where they're comfortable, or they know enough that true success is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. They get through self-awareness. Now they're super aware. Now they need to be consistent, meaning Monday to Monday, no matter if it's a virtual call, it's an in-person, they are who they are. For example, let's say during your self-awareness you decided, wow, I say a lot, I need to have

more brevity. Well consistency, the next level in the model, brevity means you have brevity all the time. It's not just for the prepared sales call, the prepared boardroom conversation, whatever it might be. When those two are in line, we go to the third element, it's your reputation. Making sure that your personal brand is communicating who you are and who you're not. You and I both know that comes through your messaging, comes through your delivery, how people experience you.

The next one's a little bigger. Once those are in line, number four is adaptability. We know this to be true, but I see it fail so many times. It's adapting your style to the situation you're in, the person you're trying to influence. It's adapting your messaging, it's listening differently. I call it mindful listening to truly someone is saying to you versus what you believe to be true. Then you get into impact and under impact, step number five, it's all the body language where I unpack it in the book and it's what every element

of your body image, your body language communicates or doesn't. If that's all simultaneously happening, influence sits right on the top. Awesome. So self-awareness, consistency, reputation, adaptability, and then this, what was the last part? Impact. Impact and then influence. How do people use that model to help them think about influence and the way, you know, intentionally showing up in the way that they want to? Because I think that's really what that model is about. Yeah, it totally is. It's first understanding that it's constant, that elevating your influence is a journey.

You'll never reach a destination. It's not you go from self-awareness to influence. I think you're bouncing around that model constantly, and it comes down to how do you do that? It is always recording yourself as often as you can. It's constantly getting feedback, whether it's watching your playbacks or asking for someone else. And number three, it's that constant challenge,

that constant mindset that every interaction you have is an opportunity to be thinking about your influence, thinking about your body language, thinking about your messaging. You know, Stacey, for those people who say, oh, there's no way I want to watch my own playback. Like that's, you know, like the most difficult thing that you could possibly do.

What advice would you give to people on why they should listen to their recordings or their playbacks? Yeah. Well, first, what doesn't challenge you doesn't change you. Nice. I mean, it just doesn't. Yeah. The first step you can take today

to start thinking about your influence is the courage to be vulnerable. You know, the discomfort of watching your playback has such a greater risk than the reward of watching the playback. Absolutely true. Right? I never tell anyone that watching the playback. Absolutely true. I never tell anyone that watching my playbacks is easy. What is easy is the level of awareness that I have.

And maybe start small, do an audio playback. That way you're not, it's all at once, right? You're seeing yourself, hearing yourself, that's a lot. And what I love about audio playbacks, you don't get to see, you're not distracted by your body language. You just get to hear how you believe you sound versus what you're actually gonna hear everyone else hears.

You get to pay attention to the words you thought you used versus what you actually used. Uh-huh. Go off that way. Start with the audio. Get that down, meaning your word choice, your tone, your voice, your brevity, your lack thereof. Then, start introducing the video playback. And hang in on it, meaning give yourself grace because you're not going to like it.

I've never worked with someone that says, oh, I love the way I look. I look so much better than I thought. Now, everyone goes through this. Oh, I hate it. I can only speak from experience. I've never had an executive come back and say to me, with the mentoring we did, I wish she would have never recorded me. Right. I've never had anyone say that. It's, I'm so glad we did, I wish she would have never recorded me. Right. I don't remember had anyone say that. I'm so glad we did this. I did like it at the time.

They'll admit they were not happy all the time with me, but it's the results. Absolutely. And I think about times where I've watched my talks or videos and it is really eye-opening because you may have this idea of the way that you're perceived but then you really get to learn and grow just by watching yourself. It's a fast growth because if you're doing both if you're watching audio and video playbacks of yourself you're also asking for feedback even just in your personal life. Suddenly, you start catching the behavior you're trying to change or the words you'd rather be using. You start catching it before you do the behavior, before you say the word you don't want to say.

They're super helpful. Hi, this is Syndra Kamboff and thanks for listening to the High Performance Mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches.

Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. So one of the things I also liked in your book, Influence Elevated, is this equation. And you said elevated momentum equals elevated presence. Elevated presence equals elevated connection. An elevated connection equals elevated ELEVATED PRECENSE EQUALS ELEVATED CONNECTION. AND ELEVATED CONNECTION EQUALS ELEVATED INFLUENCE. I'd love for you to unpack that for us and just describe what does that mean to you and how can we use it to grow our influence? Yeah. Because of all the noise we've created over the last several years, I mean our phone alerts,

our distractions in our home, the multitude of ways we can connect with people. There's so much noise. It's more difficult than ever before to consistently have influence. Therefore, I wrote Influence Elevated. And the model you just identified is a triangle that's broken up into momentum, presence, connection. That influence sits on the tip of that old model. So it's like this area of influence that no one even realized exists. So what do we need by momentum? Everything that we're talking about, feedback and practice. You need to create momentum. I'll use an example, being that your background in sports, I've done so much physical therapy due to injuries

from working out or a sport, whatever. And I know when I finished my physical therapy with my therapist, she or he will always say, and you cannot lose the momentum. If you lose the momentum on everything we've worked on for six weeks, you could be back in here. I kept hearing that. I thought, oh, that's really influence. I've got to help people create some momentum. So, for example, create momentum around watching your playbacks.

And even if you just once a month, you're like, all right, it's July 15th, middle of the month. That's typically when I do a recording. I'm doing a recording today. It's like eating lunch every day. Even if you do it at your desk and eat, eat. So it's the same kind. You got to create momentum. And that's through feedback and practice.

All right, so that's momentum. Then you've got executive presence. Over the last however many years, I constantly hear people requesting, I want executive presence. And then I would go back and ask, what does that mean? What does that look like? Right. Right. And I thought, okay, so now they're not aware.

So executive presence is first you've got to be aware of your presence, what it is today. What? Yeah. what it is today, what. The biggest pieces under presence that we jeopardize, our influence, is our lack of brevity. It's deciding what really needs to be said when, how to say it. Yeah. How to say it. I mean, there's so much behind brevity that I'll unpack.

I'll unpack it in the book. Now, once you've got those two, connection is king. The more connection you have, the more influence you will have. It is that simple, yet that complicated. And part of connection is being consistent. And how do you build the connection? Well, it's through what you do with your eyes. I talk a lot about what I call eye connection in my keynotes and my mentoring because eye connection really is the only skill it can base trust. I'm just showing how to do it so trust is created, but you sustain it. Nice. These are all, this whole idea of influence elevated is giving people a sneak

behind this bay curtain that they didn't even know even existed. It's necessary because even though we're so connected in today's world with the many options we have to connect, we're more disconnected than we've ever been. That's true. So it makes it harder to have influence on people. It's harder to break through the noise. I have no idea what you have going on today or what you have going on after this call. So it's my job based on how I deliver and what I say to try to get you to remember

as much of what I've said as possible. So I have influence on you long after this conversation. I love it. And I'm thinking about specifically what you just said about eye contact. And I'd love to hear your advice on that, what you might give people on stage or just when you're on stage and when you're describing what they should do with their eyes. I love that. I love it. I love it. It's when you're in front of people, whether it's two or more, stay connected with one person at a time for a day and then spore thoughts. So suddenly you're having a series of one-on-one conversations. We've been, I scan your audience, look at everyone, looking back, right?

Let me watch, right? See, watch if you're comfortable. Either stay connected for a full sentence or thought. If you look away at any point, which you can, don't talk. No eyes, no talk. It's easy to remember. And we said it sounds so common sense, but even on these virtual meetings, I see people having conversations with their notes

or whatever they're looking at. I see people in hallway conversations at the events that I'm at, and you're talking the trail. We're so disconnected. We don't even know we're doing it. Yeah, it's become so much of a habit. And I think about the times where I've been on stage where I have scanned the room, and I don't really love that.

And when I watched videos on that, it didn't feel like it was very authentic, whereas that one-on-one connection with your eyes, it feels much more authentic and that you're really there present instead of maybe anxious and maybe you might scan more when you're anxious. Yeah. It's truly when you can look someone dead in the eyes, even if you're in a large audience and you can't see them, like it's a noop, but lights are dark. I then will sit with an area with my eyes, perhaps in the back of the room for a full

send it through thought. I always wait when I switch my eyes to the next person or the next area in the room. I wait until I see a set of eyes, then I'll speak. And it's the one piece of feedback, whether it's for me or for my team, especially for my team with the workshops that they've done with leaders. Leaders will come back and say, we've never been off our phones this long. We're not sure what you're all doing, but we- Yeah. And it's because even if I'm looking at you, but there's 500 people in this room, everyone

catches on very quickly that I'm actually going to look at you. Yeah, exactly. You're not dead. Yeah, I love that. So Stacey, I think about how you work with so many top executives and leaders. I'm curious what mindset shifts have you seen that make the biggest difference in their communication? The biggest mindset from what they'll say to me is how surprised they are,

how much room of improvement they had, that they needed to have, and then that they had. They're surprised that it's so much more about day-to-day communication and the reputation you build yourself versus just the high-stakes conversations. So many of my executive clients initially want me to help them for the big board meeting. The big day of the meeting. Before we go that, Syndra, I really work on, well, how do you show up in your hallways at work? How are you showing up just random conversations? And the third, they're surprised how much work it really does take. Yeah.

Yeah. I always think about my years of working corporate. We would always throw these events and I would be a meeting planner is really what I was. And we would have golf outings before the event. I realized I should I should learn how to play golf right so I can socialize with our clients at that time I thought how hard can that be? How hard can it be to just hit a ball anyone that's a golfer right now and listen to this is totally laughing. How hard can it be? And I remember going to those lessons thinking, wow, is this frustrating because my body wants

to do something, my mind wants to do something. I think of enhancing someone's communication skills, however you define that. It's the same thing because we've been communicating the way we've been communicating for many, many years. If you've never given it thought, no wonder you start watching playbacks. No wonder people say, I hate the way I look. It's because they're ruling themselves in such a different light than what everyone else sees.

And that can be tough. That can be really tough to see it a couple of times. That's why I encourage you to give yourself grace and don't record yourself once and then say, oh, forget it. I knew it. I knew it was bad. I'm not going there. You don't want to hang on that memory. You're better off to bear it. Just buckle down and hunger down and just do it to get to the other side of where the true success is. down and just do it to get to the other side of where the true success is. Well, I'm thinking about all the things we've talked about so far, Stacey. You defined what influence really is.

We talked about the three drivers of influence and then your six components. I'm curious if there's one tool or strategy, you know, someone could apply today to really elevate their influence. Yeah, I think it is going back to asking themselves the I want question and it's starting to watch yourself. Because I still think that's the best feedback is when you just get to see yourself and that recording is for your eyes only, then go get feedback. But just take even five minutes today

and really think about what do you really want? What do you want people to say behind your back? What do you want your brand to be? At least then you have a very clear focus, and everything from there is always centered around that answer to that question. Awesome. Is there any question I have not asked you today

that you'd like us to talk about or any of your content that you think would be helpful for the listeners? Just more, I mean, you've done it. You've dug in there to both books and really high level of influence. We've given your followers some practical how-tos. I think the big takeaway is don't underestimate what sounds so common sense.

Because communication really is the core to everything that you do. And influence doesn't naturally come with your title, with your years of experience. It comes with the consistency behind the work that you put into it. Thank you so much. Well, Stacey, how can people learn more about your keynote speaking, your mentoring you do, and your company? I'd love for us to just learn how could people find

out about your services and follow along with what you for that. It is my name on the website. So it's Stacy with an E-Y-H-A-N-K-E-I-N-C.com. If they search for me on any of the social media sites, we are always sending out how-to's and just resources to help people from afar. Thank you, Stacy. I'm going to do my best afar. Thank you, Stacey. I'm going to do my best to summarize what we talked about today. So at the beginning, you talked about how influences our body language and our messaging. I love the idea of Monday to Monday, very sticky and helps us really think about the consistency of that.

You also talked about the ability to move people as part of influence. We talked about your three drivers of influence, feedback, deliberate practice, and accountability. And then we discussed different types of feedback, silent feedback, it was dangerous, successful feedback and just like what you did great. Oh, we really want successful feedback. That's what you said. Not just what's great about people. And then your six components of influence. Self-awareness, consistency, reputation, adaptability, impact, and influence. So thank you so much for having us be on today

and just sharing with us your wisdom and your research and all the things you've been doing to really shape your career so far. So congratulations on all your amazing success as a speaker and a business owner and thank you so much for being here today. Eunice, thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to mindset.