Tiger Sisters - Body Language Expert Reveals Why You’re Still Invisible

Starting point is 00:00:00 They told us to work hard, speak up, and smile on Zoom. But somehow the wrong people still get promoted. Because in today's workplace, it's not about what you do. It's also about how you're perceived. Because you can be great and amazing and perfect and also invisible at the same time. We're sitting with Lorraine and we're talking about the one word that makes people 93% more likely to say yes, the unconscious Zoom habits that are silently ruining your crew. credibility and how to play the game without looking like a suckup.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Whether you're early in your career or leading a team, today we'll talk about the blueprint of becoming magnetic. By the end of this episode, you won't just know how to fix your body language or speak with more confidence. You'll walk away with Lorraine's exact steps for building executive presence and showing up like a leader, no matter your title. I'm Cherie. I'm Jean.

Starting point is 00:00:56 I'm Lorraine. And we're the Tiger Sisters. Hey friends, it's Sheree and Jean from Tiger Sisters. We need your help. We just dropped our very first audience survey and it's actually really important to us. Why? Because we want to create the best content for you and learning more about you helps us to do that. It takes less than five minutes to fill out and as a thank you, we're giving away a $100 gift card at the end of the season to one listener who fills out the survey. The link is in the video description. Please fill it out. Thank you for being a part of this with us. Tiger Sisters is just getting started. Welcome to Tiger Sisters.

Starting point is 00:01:42 podcast where we talk about money, power, and love. Today we're talking to Lorraine K. Lee, LinkedIn, Top Voice, and author of Unforgettable presence. We're breaking down the unspoken rules of the workplace on how to get seen, heard, and promoted. Welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast, Lorraine. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Starting point is 00:02:03 We're so excited that you're here. Made it happen. Yay. Could you please introduce yourself to the audience in your own words? Of course. Well, I'm Lorraine. I spent the first decade of my career leading editorial teams at various tech companies, most notably at LinkedIn, where I met you, Cherie. And now I am a keynote speaker, a course creator, an author, as you mentioned, and also a content creator. Yay, so excited to dive right in. Yeah, same here. Okay, Lorraine. In your book, you say that first impressions form in as little as one tenth of a second. So what are people getting wrong in that? one tenth of a second. A lot of people are not thinking about the nonverbal. I think when we are about to meet someone, we think about our introduction, we know what we want to say, but we're not thinking

Starting point is 00:02:51 about what our body is saying. So for example, there's the obvious things like you need to have good posture, you want to make eye contact, not have the dead fish handshake, right? So have a solid handshake. And then there's other things as well that we don't think about. So let's say I am doing a job interview, right? And Shari, you're going to interview me. You come out of your office to meet me and I'm on my cell phone. That small moments, even that takes me to look up, right? Like, you're already informing an impression, right? I'm looking distracted or phones signal distraction usually. So something as simple as that could also be negatively impacting our impression, even like before we've actually said anything. And then there's other examples too where perhaps

Starting point is 00:03:29 we're on a video call. And I don't know if this has happened to you, but I will get on a call with someone and they will be like, oh, just one second. I just have to like send off this message really quick. I mean, that's a little bit longer than one tenth of a second, but that's still setting up the call not on the best footing. I don't have a good impression. I don't have a good feeling. The initial reaction is, oh, you're not paying attention to me. Like, you're not really present. Yeah. That actually reminds me. I think first impressions, obviously in the professional setting, how you show up, how you bring yourself, like what you're doing, the distraction part. But I also remember listening to a podcast and is talking about first impressions.

Starting point is 00:04:08 in a romantic setting. Okay. And apparently on dates, like if you're a person who you're going on date with, goes to the bathroom, you're not supposed to look at your phone while they're away. Yeah. Because if they come back and you're looking at your phone, it signals like distraction or perhaps that you're not interested on like a very like subconscious level. Yes.

Starting point is 00:04:26 But also in a romantic place, like you're not supposed to seem distracted. That's what the podcast was saying. Yeah. I thought you were going to take it in a different direction. I thought you were going to say that like when you go on a first date, you kind of know in the first one tenth of a second if it's a no or is that just me I think that just maybe for a few minutes yeah no I feel like you know like instinctually in the first second if it's a no no it's sure yeah yeah vibes and also nonverbal cues like right yeah yes yes totally yeah

Starting point is 00:04:59 like if someone has like bad posture mm-hmm when I first mean like a date that I'm like No confidence. Signals no confidence. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So whether it's like a professional setting, romantic setting, like it applies. Yeah. Continuing on first impressions, you call out RBF, which you call resting business phase. I think other people might know it for something else. Similar. But it's a major career killer that could be silent. What's the fix for RBF, especially in the workplace? And describe it what it is for? Yeah, resting business face. We've all seen it. Maybe we're the ones doing it, right? We're on a call. And what happens is, especially virtually, we're usually at home. We're relaxed. So we get on a call and we're just not thinking about our facial expression. So we're either neutral or looking kind of angry. And on video, those feelings are going to be even more magnified, right? And so what RBF is or the antidote to RBF, it sounds really obvious, but first is to smile and be aware of your facial expressions. I think just so many of us just aren't thinking about it because, again, we're at home, we're comfortable. And so smiling is an important one. And then there's also, again, nonverbal cues and affirmations that you can use on video. So nodding your head slowly, maybe raising your eyebrows. If someone said something interesting, and again, smiling, right, if what they're saying resonates with you. So there's those little things that you can do to

Starting point is 00:06:30 break free from that RBF and show that you're engaged. Because especially if we're virtual, we only have so many touch points in a given day and so we want to make sure that our video presence is allowing us to show up in the way that we want to show up i can't help but feel like this advice is especially pertinent for women because that's sort of what is expected of you in society to kind of like exude i think we'll get into this later but like exude a certain level of warmth and i think a lot of women naturally or are like societally trained to do that in person yeah so like if you're not not conveying that on Zoom or it's harder to convey that on Zoom than people are sort of like perceive that negatively versus a man. I think men are you know oftentimes expected to be more

Starting point is 00:07:18 stoic societally. So like it's not as much of a like a ding against you as a man. But I totally see how that's very applicable as a woman. Again, something to be aware of like we don't want to go so over the top and do something that feels unnatural. But again, it's, perception is reality right so how are people perceiving you and you want to be aware of that and make adjustments accordingly yeah it's something within your control that you can try and change yeah yeah love that i'm like on one hand it's so exhausting to like it's like so so exhausting but then on the other hand i'm like well i would rather know like i'd rather be aware and have this information and then be able to like you know affect how people perceive me i don't want to just have no self-awareness right i think over

Starting point is 00:08:05 time to it will become more natural. Like of course if your natural face is always kind of angry, like going against that, it's going to take a little time to get used to. But I think like any skill like you practice and it'll become more natural. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So Lorraine, you give scripts in your book to talk about how to talk about your accomplishments without seeming like you're bragging. So how do you do this? The first thing to keep in mind is that we need to be vocal about our work. I think so many of us, and myself included, you think hard work speaks for itself, but if no one knows about it, what's it all for, right? So we need to know first and foremost that we do, in fact, have to talk about our work and make sure that we're being visible. So when it comes

Starting point is 00:08:51 to advocating for ourselves, to talking about our work, there's a few different things that you can do. So one thing, for example, there was data in Harvard Business Review that showed that when you We use more collaborative language like we, us, our, you're actually seen as more senior and more impressive than someone who perhaps uses a lot of eye statements. People who use eye statements are going to be seen as more junior, for example. There's other things that you can do as well. If you're uncomfortable talking about your work, frame it in terms of team learnings, right? How is this going to help everyone else?

Starting point is 00:09:22 Like I'm proud I did this. Like, you know, I think this can be helpful to the rest of the team. And so again, it's more of that collaborative spirit that I think makes it a little bit easier to talk about things. And then always whenever you can ground it in data, facts, right? No one can really argue with that. Tie it to the company's bottom line. Every executive, every senior leader will be so happy if you show them that you are doing work.

Starting point is 00:09:46 That's helping the business, right? So I think when you have those mindset shifts and you reframe things in that way, it can be a little bit more comfortable for the people who are perhaps a little bit more hesitant. At LinkedIn, where we both worked. We had a really... Not sponsored. Not sponsored. Yes.

Starting point is 00:10:01 But maybe. But perhaps in the future. LinkedIn premium. Well, so we had a very clear outlet of how to do this in our company, which is there are these emails that teams could send announcing some of their wins and successes. If a company doesn't do that or if an individual is looking to gain more visibility, what are some places where people can do so, like putting into place some of the things you just suggested. I love that you brought up those emails because when I went to Prezzi right after,

Starting point is 00:10:33 I immediately asked my boss, I was like, how can I email everyone? How can I get everyone on this list serve? They didn't have an email like that or system like that. So what I did was we did have a company intranet. So that actually reached the whole company, which was even better than a specific email list. So finding the place where everyone's going to be asking your manager, where are the senior leaders, the decision makers showing up? I think that's a really good first step. And then you don't have to always be so big and so wide reaching necessarily, right? You want to make sure you're reaching the right people at the right time. So, for example, that might be, oh, there's a Slack channel with the CEO or Slack channel with the marketing leader who I want to reach. And it's not

Starting point is 00:11:13 going to be our immediate small channel, but it's going to be one that reaches a few more people. So that would be a really wonderful avenue. And then remember that we don't want to just say things once, but we want to try to find different places that we can repeat ourselves because everyone's so busy. Some of us are in person. Some of us are remote. And so maybe half the people you want will end up seeing your message once, but repeat it and make sure that people aren't missing it. Can you talk a little bit more about the repeated exposure? That part is really interesting to me and I often forget that it's needed. Yeah. So my former CEO used to say that you have to repeat things seven times in seven different ways before people actually retain the information process what

Starting point is 00:11:52 you're saying. And so it is really critical. Like imagine I send a Slack message at 10 a.m. Right. I'm missing a lot of people perhaps in the APAC time zone, even Europe, right? And then there's so many messages that happen in a given day. And so to perhaps time your messages or send it in Slack and then also maybe send it in an email. And then you also maybe mention the whatever it is, you're learning in the team meeting. So that's a way that you can keep promoting yourself and also helping people at the same time and making sure that people don't miss it. I also, I loved your advice about if you want to sort of like brag or talk about your accomplishment to sort of frame it in, oh, this is what I learned so that it's useful for other people. Because for me, one thing that was always very easy was to talk about

Starting point is 00:12:39 accomplishment when it was for like a group achievement. Like we, you know, launched a major platform or like a major feature because I felt like that was necessary because I wanted to shine a light on everyone else on my team and I wanted them to get the accolades. I wanted them to get the praise, etc. But when it comes to something that is like just me, it just feels so cringe and unnatural. Yeah. So I think it's like more about like taking on that mindset, at least for me to be like, okay, the reason I'm sharing this is not just to like show off about what I did, but it was hard to do this. Like these are all the things that I had to learn or I had to push through. And if I can share it and share that context, then it's actually useful for people.

Starting point is 00:13:22 I'm not just showing off for the sake of showing off. Yeah, exactly. Everyone always likes a helpful teammate, right? Yeah. What I'm hearing is that it is essential to have visibility within your company, but it can be really uncomfortable to talk about yourself and use eye statements, which you don't want to do. But what you should do is talk about your team, what you've learned, use we statements

Starting point is 00:13:45 to sound more collaborative. and it can take like the ick feeling out of kind of bragging about yourself because you're talking about your team. Yeah. I think also this really applies to LinkedIn as well when you're writing a LinkedIn post. That's what I was thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. Like talking about your own accomplishment.

Starting point is 00:14:02 Yeah. Because in your book you also talk about like posting on LinkedIn is really important. Yes. In this day and age talking about professional achievements, but how you do it can still feel uncomfortable. So applying this like using the we statement. and posting about learning so that you're providing something of value to your audience and you're not just being like, I'm so excited to announce. I'm humbled and honored. Humbled and honored. I'm so thrilled. I'm so thrilled to announce that I now have this investment banking job. Yeah. This investment banking. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Now we know how she really feels.

Starting point is 00:14:39 Yeah, exactly. No shade. So, you know, going on a little bit tangent here with LinkedIn, like, you know, I talk about the three types of content on LinkedIn, personal, professional, educational. And then, of course, the fourth sort of bonus pillar of promotional. So anytime you can incorporate some personal education professional tie-in, right, it's going to be a little bit less like I'm bragging about myself, but I'm either sharing some insights, I'm talking about a challenge I went through, or I'm, you know, teaching you something. So that's a way to like buffer it a little bit. Well, you have a very large following on LinkedIn. Did you just give us like the secret formula of how to write a successful LinkedIn post? I mean, that's that's one part. There's a lot of other other factors as well. But I think,

Starting point is 00:15:21 you know, I came up with those three buckets because a lot of people do get really nervous posting on LinkedIn. Me. Yeah. I never do it. I just like draft off of Cherie's post where she tags me. Yeah. And I'm just like, I hope some people see that. Yeah. Like it's the question that I get most often about LinkedIn is, oh, I have something that I want to say, but you know, I'm hesitant to click post. And I just, I'm worried it needs to be the most original thought ever. And what I tell people is nothing on LinkedIn is original. Don't worry. Don't put that stress on yourself.

Starting point is 00:15:53 The people who stand out are the people who are talking about their experiences. People are connecting to them as a person, right? And maybe the way that they're framing things. Again, like everyone, the content is all the same, but the way people are packaging it and the people themselves are different. And so I think there's a, you know, people don't need to put so much pressure on themselves. And so hopefully for the listeners, That's something that, you know, gives them encouragement that, yeah, it's okay to pose and you don't have to be perfect or feel like, yeah, you're completely original.

Starting point is 00:16:23 You're like the LinkedIn therapist. Truly. Yeah. I feel so much better. I'm like, oh, I could do this. Wait, so what were the three buckets that you want to try to be? So personal, educational, professional. Okay.

Starting point is 00:16:36 And you want to try to hit all of them, all three, or as many as you can. You can mix and match. Yeah. I think what usually happens is most people will start off with educational. I think that's probably the easiest, right? I'm teaching someone something. Professional will be, oh, there's something happening in the news or in my industry that I want to talk about.

Starting point is 00:16:52 And the hardest one, but I think is, but resonates the most is the personal, so the personal stories. But, you know, take some time to build up to it. Again, you don't have to put that pressure on yourself to share all your deepest, darkest, you know, challenges and stories right away. But in due time, like you'll get more comfortable mixing it in.

Starting point is 00:17:09 And then you'll realize by doing that, you're going to meet more people, more people are going to engage with you, resonate with you. And so yeah, those are the three. I'm going to, after this, I'm going to go and study all of your LinkedIn photos. Like a workbook. Nice. Let me know what you think after. In our next section, we're going to talk about writing like a leader. And in your book, you share that adding the word, because a very simple word, adding that to a sentence increases people's willingness and also compliance to do what you're asking by 93%, which is a lot.

Starting point is 00:17:43 What's an everyday way to use that power without it feeling ick or kind of manipulative? With the word because I think the most common use case would probably be with deadlines. Now, ideally your team is meeting deadlines and following through, but sometimes, you know, you need to give them a reason. So in my last role at Presby, I mentioned I sent out that weekly newsletter, right? And so I needed my team to add things to it and to make sure that it was complete so I could publish it for the rest of the company. And so an example of where I might use that is, can you please fill this out by Friday? Because I'm really excited to talk about what you did this week with the company. Or even the study that you're talking about, Cherie, is Xerox study.

Starting point is 00:18:26 You can even give not that greater reason and people will still be more inclined to actually do the thing. So, you know, instead of, can you turn this to me on Thursday? I might say, can you deliver this by Thursday because I'm going to be out of office on Friday. So very simple. I don't know why. That word just gives people a reason, right? Yeah. And when you have a reason, it's like, oh, okay, now I know why I need to take action.

Starting point is 00:18:48 You're not just telling me to do something or asking me to do something without a reason behind it. Yeah, I vaguely remember the study. It was like people, someone was standing in line and he wanted to cut the line. Make copies, right? And he had to skip people at like a kinkoze or something. And in some of the instances, they had him say nothing, but just ask. Some of the instances, they had him say, because. and then like a really good reason.

Starting point is 00:19:14 Yeah. And some of the instances, it was just like because and then a lame reason that didn't even make any sense or like you wouldn't even want to help them. So it was like the first one was, you know, can I skip the line? Like most people are going to say no. And then the next one was, oh, can I skip the line because I'm in a rush to make copy? So then again, a lot of people said, okay, sure.

Starting point is 00:19:34 And then the next one was can I skip the line because I need to make copies? So that was the one that was like, yeah, duh, like not that great of a reason. So we're all here to make. But then still, like, most people said, yeah, go ahead. So the power of the word becomes. Yeah. Even if the reason's not good. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:52 I'll be like, be careful with that power. It actually reminds me. One of my friends just told me that her mom has this, like, super power where everywhere she goes, she'll ask for a discount, like, just because, which I've, like, heard of people doing that. But she says that she does it. even at like designer stores. And she said that, like, for example, she'll be at, like, Louis Vuitton.

Starting point is 00:20:19 Yeah. And then when she's, you know, talking to the essay, the sales associate, she'll be like, you know, what can you do for me? Like, I would like, I would like a discount because. Because I want one. Because I want you. Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:31 She wouldn't really have a reason. She'd be like, can I have your employee discount? Yeah. And then they give it to her. Oh, wow. So, like, I was so shook it when she told me this. I was like, what? I'm like, first of all, I don't shop at Louis Vuitton, but, you know, I'm going to be walking

Starting point is 00:20:46 now, yeah, dear, like, Dior, watch out. I'm going to be coming in and asking for some sort of discount because I need one. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think generally I am a person who has a hard time asking for things at all, like whether it's in the workplace, whether it's personal or romantic. Like, I just have a hard time asking for help, for example, or just asking for things. But I think I should experiment with being a bit more liberal with it and attach the word because to see what would happen. Yeah. You should have a follow up episode where you just use because and just like random situations

Starting point is 00:21:23 and then like come back and be like, what worked? We can test it out ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In your book, you introduce the concept of an email haiku. What is it and why do executives love it? So this idea is actually Kim Scott.

Starting point is 00:21:41 So she's the author of Radical Cander, one of the three dozen amazing, amazing business leaders I got to interview for this book. And what she said was the email haiku is essentially a very thoughtful way of communicating. And what you want to do is a haiku is very short, right? When you write an email, you also want your email to be very short and essentially be able to fit on a smartphone screen without needing to scroll. Ooh, I like that. Yeah, because people are busy, especially executives are busy, but you want to really really. think through like what can I eliminate what's extra so many of us are go go go so the way we're communicating we're shooting off messages here and there we're not

Starting point is 00:22:19 really being thoughtful and then when that happens okay now my coworker has to follow up for clarification or now you know they're missing the actual question we're going back and forth and wasting time but the email haiku which is a very concise way of communicating your message being respectful about the recipient's time and then yeah you you're going to have to use a little bit extra time 20 30 minutes to think through that but it's going to to lead to more productive, collaborative teams, and your co-workers are going to appreciate you more. Yeah. So I took a class at Stanford, and it was a really famous writing class called Winning

Starting point is 00:22:50 Writing with Glenn Kramon, who was a New York Times editor for 37 years. He's incredible. He's He's... Hi, Glenn. Hi, Glenn. Hope you're watching. Love you. He's fantastic. And, you know, there's this one part of the class where we talk about email hygiene and how to write, like, a good email so that it gets a response. And, like, one thing, like, you mentioned, that's, like, super simple. is like what will fit on a smartphone? Like I think that is so smart because most people are on the go now. Yeah. And they don't check their email at their desk as like the first thing that they do.

Starting point is 00:23:22 They're mostly on their phone. So like figuring out what is the subject line because they'll probably just read the subject line. Like that's such. That's really important too. Important real estate. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:30 I mean that's I mean that's the that makes them want to open it. Right. So subject lines are so important. Action needed. Just FYI. No response needed. do April 7th, like whatever information you can include that will make someone open it, realize that it's time sensitive or even not time sensitive, right?

Starting point is 00:23:49 Like that's your opening. That's your first impression, right? But over email. Yeah. This might be taking it to the extreme. But when I worked in finance, a lot of times we would just write the whole message in the subject line and try to keep it as short as possible. And at the end of it, we would write EOM, like it brings these end of message.

Starting point is 00:24:07 I've heard of that. So that they never even have to open. the email they can just like read the subject line and then know the information yeah that's a that's hard exercise yeah yeah you have to keep that tight yeah yeah yeah and I think it was just it was just like the common what everyone did so I never thought twice about it was like oh okay got to make a really short message EOM yeah perfect yeah I think kind of a power move too yeah so the next thing we're going to talk about is more of the nonverbal cues that we kind of started on so you cite research that hand gestures when you're talking.

Starting point is 00:24:42 Yeah. Increase anecdote recall by 33%. Just basically people remembering what you say. Yeah. How do we use this in everyday life? And how do we also use this while we're on a Zoom call? I want to talk about the Zoom call first because I feel like that's where most people miss using body language.

Starting point is 00:25:03 So there has been research that has been shown that when you use your hands on camera, you appear warmer, more personable, more energetic, more trustworthy, right? Because you're showing your hands. Is that what you're doing now? I know. I'm just, because I'm like so used to using them so energetically on video. It like translated to in person things. But anyway, so like all these really positive things on video. And that, I mean, we want those things, right? Simply by showing your hands. And so the, everyone's just, you know, I'm practicing. The, the first way to do that is to make on video that you have your framing correct. So what you want to do a lot of people it's like way up close and personal with your face or it's you know coming from the top so it's not really

Starting point is 00:25:44 seeing your whole body. So what you want to do is you want about like three to five fingers worth of space above the top of your head between the top of the camera frame and then you want to actually show a little bit of your torso on camera. So a lot of people they kind of cut it off here and so if you were to use your hands on camera with the video cut off here your hands are like by your head which is super straight, right? Like you're just like this the whole time. However, if they're down here, now you just have to lift your hands a little bit higher than it feels normal to get them to fit in the camera. What a lot of people do is they keep their hands down on their lap. Again, we're relaxed. We're at home on their lap, on their keyboard, on their mouse. So they're moving their hands,

Starting point is 00:26:20 but all what you're seeing is little twitches of the shoulders, maybe a finger popping in and out of the screen. And so what we want is to, again, adjust the framing so that we can move our hands higher up and then use them naturally. I think we shouldn't need to or shouldn't try to overthink it too much because I know we can get in our heads and it's like, how do I use my hands again? Like what's natural? But if you just relax, like your hands will move naturally as you speak. So yeah, a lot of a lot of really great benefits. And then yeah, like you said, like more message recall. Like you just seem more engaging. It's more interesting to see movement on screen, right? Versus just me sitting still with just my head, for example. So

Starting point is 00:26:53 yeah, very, very powerful thing to include on video calls and presentations and meetings that still a lot of people aren't doing. Yeah. I think that makes so much sense psychologically when you think through it because they do all these studies on like what is that kids TV show on YouTube? The reason why kids are so addicted to it is because they change the screen every two seconds or something. Oh, like cocoa melon?

Starting point is 00:27:16 Cocoa melon. Yes. It's like psychologically they set it up so that they flashed a different screen every two seconds, which is like that's why kids are like so locked into it. And so like it's kind of the same idea. if you're watching someone and talking to them on camera, like adding the hand movements is just more dynamic. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:33 And it just adds another element of interest. And then it's not just your head and your face like the whole time talking and you're like, you know, barely change your expression. Yeah. So it's more, I don't know. It's just like human psychology. Yeah, unless you do this. Just human psychology.

Starting point is 00:27:46 There's like more interesting. Yeah. Or they're like following something else. Yeah, you're more engaged when you also have like your hands free to like, it's like a third element of interest. Exactly. And also helps reinforce. your message too. Yeah. So it's going to like add emphasis when you need to add emphasis and yeah,

Starting point is 00:28:02 just more memorable. Yeah. We had an executive presence class like basically public speaking class at Stanford and we had one lecture that was dedicated. Now I'm using my hands. Yeah. You just have to think about it and I'm like yeah, it comes naturally. We had one lecture that was dedicated to matching your hand movements to what you're saying. So making sure that the vocal, and the visual were aligned. And obviously, like, you don't want to do too much hand movements. But if they can complement each other, like, the message really sticks. For example, like, if you're going to name things, and this is mainly for, like,

Starting point is 00:28:40 stage public speaking, so not really like this. But, like, if you're on stage and, like, you want to enumerate things, you can be, like, one, two and three. Or if you're talking to an audience and it's broken up into, like, threes, you can do, like, the first thing to, like, one side. the second thing to like the middle and then the third you're looking to the other side of the room but there's ways to match up your physical presence with your message so that people are like not only deeply engaged but also like following along yeah exactly and I think it gives the

Starting point is 00:29:11 impression also that like you're locked in to your own message and what you're saying and that you have a lot of like belief behind it basically yeah you're like putting your whole body emphatically yeah emphatic you're like it seems like you believe your message more as opposed to like, oh, you're kind of just like talking. Yeah. And even if you're not on stage and you're saying like one, two, three, I think like naturally when I enumerate, I'm like, well, one, two, three. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:35 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The energy is also a huge piece on video that we're lacking. So the body language really adds to that. I think I can trick myself. Like if I'm on Zoom and I'm like low energy for a meeting, I might be able to trick myself into

Starting point is 00:29:49 being higher energy if I use my hands more. Yeah? Yeah. I can trick myself if I have a huge. huge cup of macho. That's part of it. That works as well. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:01 Okay, let's move on to the section about confidence, language, and authority. Okay. You say that one of the phrases we should try to avoid is, does this make sense? Is it ever okay to use this phrase or is it always undermining your message? That is by far when I teach about executive presence and communication, when I talk about minimizing language and the need to remove minimizing language, which are words or phrases that weaken your message and then make you look less confident or less sure of yourself, does that make sense? Whenever I give that one as an example, everyone in the chat is always firing off like, oh, I just use that like

Starting point is 00:30:37 three times today. And I've used it too. And so with that, it feels like you're being collaborative. Like I'm asking you, does that make sense? Let me know, right? But when you ask you like that, it can make it seem like you're not actually sure if what you actually said does in fact make sense. And so small tweak, let me know if you have any questions. So now you're sure about what you just said and you're still inviting collaboration in. So there's a lot of phrases like that that we use throughout the day without even realizing it. But again, those small tweaks make you come across as a lot more powerful, confident, authoritative. Minimizing language.

Starting point is 00:31:11 Yeah. What are some other examples of like minimizing language that we should avoid? Because I feel like I probably have a lot of those in my vocabulary. Another one that's really common is because we're in. so many back-to-back meetings, we're sometimes running late. So we join a meeting and we're kind of frantic. I'm like, oh my God, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm late. Instead, you might change that too. Thank you so much for your patience. Really appreciate it. So instead of coming in kind of frenzied and forcing the other person to say, no, no, it's okay. Right now the person feels good. You're showing

Starting point is 00:31:39 appreciation. You're starting the meeting off on a more positive footing. Oh, no problem. Yeah, let's get started. Instead of using I think all the time, you might say, I recommend, or the data suggests that. So again, like really, really small tweaks, but it makes a big difference over time. Yeah. I think it's also like now we have like more confidence in what we're talking about and more confidence in ourselves. And that just comes across no matter what you're talking about. Yeah, I agree. But practice really does help. The next question is, I guess, is it spicy? A little bit. A little bit. Just a little spicy. A little spicy. A little spicy. Okay. So I think. think we've all seen this in the workplace or heard about it from a friend of a friend, but like

Starting point is 00:32:25 oftentimes confident people, confident women get overlooked because they're interrupted and there's a person in the workplace. Maybe it's a narcissist. Like someone who's very loud, they get promoted because they're the ones that are heard more. Why do you think this dynamic plays out and what do you think needs to change? I think it goes back to that visibility discussion we had earlier where yeah, if you're louder, people are going to see you. Now, I don't think it makes sense to always reward the really loud person just because they're loud. Like, you need to be able to back it up.

Starting point is 00:33:00 And my hope is if someone were promoting someone simply because they were loud at a certain point, they would realize, oh, this person can't go any farther because they're not actually doing the good work, right? But I think it is really critical to talk about your work and make it known. And I think what happens often during those critical promotion times that were not taught. certainly didn't know this when I first try to go up for promotion is that, oh, you're not supposed to bring it up right when review time is happening. Like this is a thing that needs to be thought about months in advance. So there's actually quite a lot of strategy behind it. So instead

Starting point is 00:33:34 of telling my manager after I wrote my review, oh, you know, I would love to get promoted this cycle. This is a conversation I should have mentioned six months ahead of time. I should have a better understanding of who's going to be in the room. And there are, in fact, other people in the room, which I also did not realize. I thought it was just my manager just deciding, okay, Lorraine's ready, right? So who's in the room? Do they know that you want to get promoted? What are the skills that might be missing or what is potentially stopping you from getting that promotion? How can you address it? Again, give yourself that time, right, so that you can actually prepare for when the actual discussion happens. So I think that foresight and, you know, throughout

Starting point is 00:34:08 the book, I'm talking about being intentional about your career, becoming the CEO of your own career that's really about taking things into your own hands. And yeah, maybe that loud, annoying guy is getting promoted, but don't let him, you know, be a cloud over you. Like, make your voice heard too by being more strategic, but being thoughtful about it, not just being that loud, annoying voice. I think people don't realize that there is so much strategy that goes behind promotion and promotion decisions. And I think just that sentence I said sounds really ick. But it's kind of the truth of the corporate workplace. Yeah. And I think a lot of people who are early or mid-career are like, they don't know that or are starting to figure that out.

Starting point is 00:34:47 And let me add a point there that I didn't even mention is that you first have to let your manager know that you want to get promoted and say it. Again, I assumed that they would know. Of course, I'm ambitious. Like, who doesn't want to get promoted? Well, actually, there's a lot of people who don't want to get promoted and who are happy with where they are. So we have to make it known in the first place.

Starting point is 00:35:04 And then again, like we were talking about repeating things multiple times. I mean, you're not going to want to bring it up every one-on-one meeting every week, but make it known. Like, keep repeating it. Make sure your manager doesn't forget about it. Yeah. And I think the benefit of bringing it up early with your manager is that they can kind of make a plan for you out of time and then you can work on that plan together. And then it feels like it's like this joint effort. They can advocate for you. Yeah. Well, they have to advocate for you. But yes. And they can start to advocate. They can plant the seeds early on on your behalf. Because then like not only do you have to let them know, they have to start doing the legwork like months in advance so that they figure out who else is going to be in that room. I guess I'm speaking about this. from my perspective of having been a manager and done this. They have to figure out who else is going to be in the room.

Starting point is 00:35:49 Who do I need to also, you know, vote yes for my direct report? And who do I think is going to have objections? How do I, like, work against those objections or start to, you know, mollify them months in advance? What do they think? How do I need to? How can I work with my direct report so that they can start to address these things directly with this person?

Starting point is 00:36:11 There's like so much. So much to do. There's so much work that goes into it. And I think, yes, you're totally, totally right that the first thing you need to do is bring your manager on board so that you're both like it's the two of you like against the world kind of feeling. Yeah, they're going to be more invested if you bring them in. Yeah. They have to be very invested because honestly it's a lot of work for them. So in the workplace, in the like the big corporations where there is a lot of behind the scenes that needs to happen for promotion to happen, does your boss need to like you in order for.

Starting point is 00:36:45 you to get promoted because there's a lot of things that you have to do like you just named yeah they have to like you even if they don't like your personality they have to like what you bring to the table and you have to make their lives like 10 times easier yeah in some way or the other whether or not you're it's your like sunny and beautiful disposition and presence every single day or you're like the results yeah or like you're you know a 10x performer yeah i think that they respect you right I mean, maybe they don't like your personality or you're not like best friends, but they have to respect your work, respect what you do, respect your career. Lorraine, thank you so much for being here and giving us the real talk. Of course.

Starting point is 00:37:25 Thank you for having me. This was amazing. So fun. Yay. We didn't just talk about communication and visibility, but really what it takes to be unforgettable in the workplace. And you really gave us the playbook on how to speak and how to present ourselves so people listen. So we always say that we want to be the Internet's career mentors and big sisters that we never had. And today, you were the trusted expert that we all needed.

Starting point is 00:37:54 You were practical. You were empowering and really just bringing so much wisdom and kind big sister energy and information to all of our listeners. So thank you so much. Oh my gosh. Thank you. It's was seriously so fun. So guys, if this conversation made you rethink your presence or your LinkedIn posts or any sort of of announcements you were trying to make, please take 10 seconds to like, follow, and subscribe

Starting point is 00:38:17 and also rate us five stars on Spotify and also Apple Podcasts. It really makes, oh, because because it really helps our podcast be discovered and shared with other people. Awesome. We'll see you next time on the Tiger Sisters podcast. Bye.

Tiger Sisters - Body Language Expert Reveals Why You’re Still Invisible

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.