In today's episode, discover why you can walk into a room with rock solid data, a clear proposal and the credentials to back it up.
And still you get blank stares, surface level nods, or even worse, resistance to your brilliance.
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
By the end of today's episode, you will know the hidden cost of being brilliant but not heard in decision-making spaces.
It's very frustrating.
The key mindset and messaging shift that transforms an expert into trusted advisor.
And exactly what to do when you're asked a tough question mid-presentation.
So you know the science.
You know the numbers and yet your message is not moving people as it should.
So if you're tired of being smart but not seen, informed but not influential, confident in your content but invisible, let's talk about it.
Data alone never moves the room despite what they tell you.
And I know a lot of you spend hours and hours preparing scripting, rehearsing every detail of the clinical trial or the budget under scrutiny.
You can explain every variable, every risk, every requirement, and you hit every slide flawlessly.
And then you get to QA and your brain shuts down, or you start over explaining, or you just get yourself into a tangle of too many details and you walk away thinking what just happened.
Or even worse, nothing happens.
That's the worst.
You think having questions is bad?
No, no, no, no.
The worst is no questions.
And that means you're not engaging your audience.
The part that hurts the most is that when you realize that despite all that preparation and effort and expertise and experiences, that they didn't get it right.
And it's because you're missing apart, right?
Data is not enough.
And research studies show that when leaders use communication that triggered emotional responses, listeners rated them as warmer and more charismatic, even though the actual information transferred was the same.
And that matters because warmth and connection drive influence, not just data alone.
And I know a lot of you are resistant to this truth.
And I was too.
And it's not a matter of becoming this super emotionally driven person.
It's subtle, but it's there.
So there's non-reaction to your data because you're lacking emotional resonance.
And by the way, we're going to consider confidence kind of an emotion, right?
But you can be confident and not have any emotional resonance.
And still, it doesn't land.
It doesn't connect with people.
They don't feel anything.
And that can hurt your reputation, your credibility and your ideas that could be changing those outcomes or don't get implemented.
And then what's really the?
It's just so annoying when the key stakeholders pivot to someone else who has kind of a more engaging approach but less experience and knowledge, and their proposal gets it.
So you walk out of the room thinking, did they see me?
Am I not clear enough?
Is it my voice?
Is it my accent?
Is it the way I think?
Like, what is wrong with me?
And you start holding back and speaking up less.
And the people who speak up more start moving faster.
So it's not a good situation.
You know, that invisibility means that the features you're proposing don't move forward.
The clinical trial doesn't move forward.
The proposal doesn't get approved.
The project goes nowhere.
Your work is overlooked and promotions go to other people.
So we need to stop.
But the reality is, when people don't have some kind of emotional reaction to what you're saying, they do not act on it.
And if you're the one who knows the data but does not drive the decision, someone else will.
You know, nature abhors a vacuum.
And that other person who drives the decision may not know as much or be thoughtful or as experienced or committed as you are.
Studies in persuasion science have found that when people try to influence others, they automatically lean into emotion-infused language, even when they think they're being logical.
That's because emotional content actually increases persuasion, while raw facts alone often fail to inspire action.
And I know all of you are trained to be super analytical but if you can go back in your memory and To maybe once you got a bad grade in school and the way you try to convince your parents not to punish you, that would be you using emotional resonance.
But at work, you might be telling yourself, well, I just need to explain it better.
Or I'm not a natural speaker.
Or English isn't my first language.
Or I have a southern accent.
Or they're senior.
They're intimidating.
Or they don't like me.
So those are not facts.
Those are beliefs and they are holding you back, because the truth is, you do not need perfect English.
You need to be clear.
Americans in particular, we love accents.
Yeah, I have lots of stories about that.
And we also like people who get to the point, not that talk our heads off.
So you need to connect fast and you do not need to become someone else.
You need to be yourself.
So here's what you need to do.
Simon Sinek start with why.
The why is the reason.
Like if you're in pharma, obviously the reason is to save lives.
If you're in tech, you know all the tech companies believe that they are doing something to make the world a better place.
If you're in insurance, then you're helping people protect their properties.
Like there has to be a why in every business.
So before you talk about your sample size, let's say for pharmaceutical, you would show them the patient right.
If you're going to talk about a variable of some sort, connect to the impact of that variable.
You want to anchor the decision and the impact it's going to have for your client or your patient or your employees.
And I want you to not think of yourself as an explainer, but an advisor, right?
So now I'm going to tell you about the questioning part.
If somebody asks you a question, first of all, that's a good thing.
And I want you to pause.
If your brain is spiraling, repeat the question.
Or find common ground.
But the easiest way to deal with a question, to buy yourself a little bit of time, is to say oh, it's a great question.
Let me make sure I understand what you're saying.
And you just rephrase it, restate it.
That gives yourself some time and it let the person know who asked the question.
That you appreciate that.
And that will usually give you enough time to give them a high level answer.
You don't need to give them like the whole enchilada, every single detail.
There's a psychological concept I found called the effect heuristic.
And you know that a heuristic is a shortcut.
So it means that people often make quick decisions based on how they feel about something more than what the data actually says.
Emotion is not noise.
It is a core part of how people decide.
And that is true even for your C-suite, for your, you know, super duper engineers, and They have developed this intuition and that's what they lean on, because they don't have enough time to do all the analysis themselves.
Nonverbal communication as well as what you're actually saying.
So if you are tired of walking out of meetings thinking I should have said that better, if you know your ideas deserve more traction than what they're getting, if you're done watching other people get the influence you have earned, I want you to know.
That's why I created the Executive Presence Mastery System.
It's a coaching system for high-performing introverts who are ready to go from overlooked to influential, without being fake or memorizing these scripts, because you don't need to do more or say more.
You need to say it differently.
Data is not what wins you.
I mean, you do have to have some data, but it's the connections.
So if this is interesting to you, if you want to go from explainer to trusted advisor, I can help you.
There's a link in the show notes or you can visit speakupwithlauracom slash, speak up and book a call.
And in any case, have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
