In today's episode, you're going to learn practical tools to massively increase your executive presence and charisma from one of the best communicators in business right now.
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.
And by the end of today's episode, you will know why Daniel Ives captivates audiences, even when he's delivering complex technical content.
The charismatic habits he uses that any of you introverted leaders can adopt, and how to borrow his presence phrases.
I've got some phrases you can rinse and repeat so that you sound like this top senior executive in any meeting, not just on your best days.
So I'm Super excited about this episode because a few days ago, I quite by accident discovered the Wall Street analyst Daniel Ives or Dan Ives on Twitter or X, and I was blown away by his communication style.
He's also quite the dresser.
I mean, he's known as a very well-dressed person on Wall Street, but that's not what we're gonna talk about today.
He explains complex tech markets like he was talking to his mom.
You know, you just look up one of his videos on social media, maybe YouTube or X, and you'll see what I mean.
He makes these bold predictions, but he does not sound arrogant at all.
So that makes you have even more confidence in him.
He communicates with warmth with certainty, with charisma, even during times of market chaos, right?
And he's more interesting as a speaker than he is polished.
And I love that.
And the best part is that he does everything with this communication style that works perfectly for us introverts, the thinkers, the analytical professionals.
Daniel Ives has more executive presence than 90% of corporate leaders, in my opinion.
So keep in mind, that charisma is not a personality trait.
It is a strategy.
And you're going to learn from a master today.
So my first point is that he has this charismatic calm which I know so many of you relate to like.
You're not hyperactive, you're not mercurial you're, you know calm, overthinking high performing professionals.
And that's OK, Daniel Ives also has to speak during a lot of chaotic moments and he retains calm.
I mean, think about this year for the tech industry.
You've had you know visa issues, tariff issues, AI layoffs, market meltdowns, earnings disasters, in some cases, breaking news that sends the Nasdaq on a roller coaster.
But this guy is calm and he's certain and he's unshaken.
And I would call that charisma by certainty, not this loud certainty, not alpha male certainty, not I'm here to dominate or I'm right and you're wrong.
It's like it's a certainty grounded and that everything is figureoutable.
And so I want you to remember that, even when you don't have 100 of the answer, you can figure it out and you will figure it out.
And if you can transmit that in the way you communicate, you're going to deliver certainty as a service right.
Because people, as you well know, don't always follow the smartest person.
They follow the person who sounds like they've already done some thinking on the issue.
So here are three phrases you can replace or you can replace what you're using and use these.
But I've got more.
So stay tuned.
But if instead of saying, I think with what the data shows or what I've observed, replace maybe.
And listen to this.
The most likely scenario is.
And it could be the most likely scenario in your informed opinion.
But you don't have to say in my informed opinion.
You just say the most likely scenario is blah, blah, blah.
They ask you a question.
You don't know the full answer.
Don't say I don't know.
Don't even say I'm not sure.
Say here's what we know right now.
It's always folks.
Tell people what you do know, what you can do, not what you can't do and what you don't know.
That is executive presence.
And so now I want to move on to this formula that I pulled out from listening to him.
His charisma, which also reminds me of my grandmother, by the way.
Very warm, very conversational and decisive.
Yes.
He does not sound like he's trying to impress you.
He just sounds like this is how it is.
One plus one is two.
He's warm.
He's conversational.
He laughs.
He uses simple language, short sentences.
He makes bold predictions and then he stands by them.
It's very accessible style of charisma.
Like he does not sound like he went to Harvard and I don't think he did.
Speaking of Harvard.
Research from Harvard and Cornell shows that leaders who are able to simplify complex information are viewed as more competent and more trustworthy.
But it's not just simplifying it because you can simplify it and still be boring.
It's got to simplify it and make it interesting and relevant.
Complexity does not impress.
Clarity is what impresses you because if they don't follow you, then they won't follow you.
And I know that some of you get caught up in knowing that you're speaking to extremely brilliant people.
But being brilliant and wanting to expend the effort to figure out what you mean is not a good play.
What you want to do is use metaphors, tell the story behind the numbers.
Speak like you're speaking to this smart friend of yours.
Dan Ives, he's talking about multi-billion dollar market dynamics.
But it sounds like, you know, a conversation you would have with somebody at the bar at an airport.
That's charisma.
OK, another thing he brings is energy without hype.
And I've told you before in other episodes, like you need to be the battery charger.
Everybody's tired.
Everybody's doing too much.
Everybody is thinking about lunch or their Amazon packages.
So you need to bring energy to raise the energy on the room.
And one way to do that is with volume.
But that's not the only way.
You can be excited about something.
You can use vocal variety.
That means speaking faster sometimes and speaking more slowly at other times.
But the fastest way to increase your vocal variety is to start inserting pauses like that one.
Here are some more things that are going to help you sound more charismatic.
So many practical tools in this episode.
I can't even count them.
So smiling before you speak, that's going to change your tone and it's forcing you to pause, which can be hard in the beginning.
Highlight your key lines with like say 5% more energy.
And that means knowing what your key lines.
You have to have your key points and then your supporting evidence and stories.
Use short sentences.
That's how you keep attention without being flashy or dramatic.
Now, this next point is going to scare some of you.
It's about point of view, even when it's risky.
That means making predictions when you don't have like 100 security or 100 knowledge that it's going to go that way.
But you think it will right.
And that means, guess what?
You might be wrong sometimes, but that's okay.
It's better to be decisive and make a wrong decision because you can recover from that.
Being indecisive is a bad habit that can drag down a company.
It's not about the absence of doubt.
It's not that, oh, but Laura, I'm not 100% sure.
It's okay.
But what do you think is the having a point of view because so few people have both the information and the competence to have an informed point of view that actually stated?
Because we've kind of a lot of us have been trained, i know in phd school like they drill into you that you never state anything definitively.
It's just like the evidence suggests this.
But if you have a point of view, State it.
Give it.
They can disagree.
People can disagree with you.
That's fine.
Here are some ways that plays out.
Number one, here's my recommendation or what I recommend is blah, blah, blah.
And then explain why.
And that is executive presence.
All right.
Oh, my gosh.
A superpower here.
Framing your numbers.
Right.
When you have this like update feature, make your update more interesting, even if it's just a routine presentation.
You connect the dots.
You show the inflection point in that slide full of data and facts.
What's the inflection point?
What's the future state?
So you could go present state, inflection point, future state.
I mean, that is giving a narrative and that's the job of senior leadership.
So here's a three-step formula for you to create that vision that framed your message into a vision.
You one this is where we are right now present state.
Number two this is what's changing.
And number three this is how it affects the business.
This is how it affects the business.
You can say these three things in order.
Then you automatically sound like somebody who's operating at next level.
All right, I'm getting to the end of this.
It's just so rich.
You know, Daniel Ives is very charming, very warm.
He is excited.
He cares.
He uses phrases like this is Apple Super Bowl moment, or it's a fork in the road quarter, or this is a once in a decade transformation.
Like that is packing in so much meaning and promise into a short phrase.
Now listen to this carefully.
Those three phrases, I'll repeat them.
This is Apple's Super Bowl moment.
It's a fork in the road quarter.
It's a once in a decade transformation.
These phrases are examples of something that I bet you haven't heard of before.
And it's called the impression of increased language.
That is the language of leaders.
And the impression of increase is communication that makes people feel that things are growing and improving and expanding or moving towards something better.
It conveys momentum, elevation upward trajectory and it signals optimism and vision and confidence and momentum and all these things opportunity.
So people feel excited right now.
The trick is that But there's a lot of bad news out there, and that is why not everybody does that.
But you have to find what is the good news in this calamity.
And I'm going to give you an example, not from business.
It's just one that comes to mind from the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict II.
So those of you who don't know, he was Pope before Pope Francis, and he was a German theologian.
What was the calamity he was addressing?
He was addressing the calamity of falling attendance in the Catholic Church, which is something that is continuing to this day.
So instead of crying about, oh, nobody comes to our church anymore.
He says, guess what, folks?
We're going to have a smaller church.
It's going to be smaller and better.
It's going to be more Christ-like.
So he was selling his vision of a smaller but better church.
That's what I'm talking about.
That's what people want from you.
They want you to elevate the opportunity, to show them the opportunity, and that's when people will line up to follow you.
Three more phrases I'm going to give you to drop into your next meeting.
One, it's the real takeaway here is the bigger story is this is where the leverage is.
I'm going to repeat those.
The real takeaway is the bigger story is This is where the leverage is.
So these are examples of value indicators.
And I've talked about those before.
People cannot fully pay attention nonstop.
Their attention goes in and goes out.
So when you pull out one of these value indicators like and this is important, because then people really don't lean in, and that's what you want not to be leaning in a hundred percent of the time, but to be leaning in a lot, and you might want to listen to this one twice.
If you want to know how your communication stacks up against leaders who get promoted, i suggest you get access to my executive presence scorecard.
It'll take you three to four minutes to complete And it will show you that where you're doing well and where you have an opportunity to get better and to have more executive presence.
And remember, it's not about being loud.
It's about being intentional.
What we've learned from Daniel Ives today is he's clear, he's warm, he has a strong point of view and he says things directly.
He packs in a lot of meaning into short phrases.
He does not go on and on.
Oh and, by the way, the Executive Presence Scorecard.
If you want a copy of that or access to it, really email me at hello at speakupwithlauracom.
Put the word score in the subject line and I will send it to you and hope you have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
