What makes a great coach? It’s generally a loaded question, and I would normally answer, the coach not with the most clients, but the one with the most clients kicking ass.
One other thing that stands out for me, is the speed of their ability to learn new tools or information and pass this on, in a way that accelerates the growth of their audience.
This brings me to one of my favorite words, ‘Indicating.’ It was 1997 when I first learned, or I should say, heard this word first. It was my acting teaching Michael Saccente, a human cross between Fozzie Bear and a Mad Scientist, back in Auckland, New Zealand. I remember clearly him giving an actor feedback. He was explaining in detail, why their performance was uncomfortable to watch, that he was ‘Layering’ emotions on top of what was already there. Effectively, he was ‘Indicating’ to the audience what he thought he should have been feeling.
Confused a little bit? Well if it makes you feel any better, it took 18 years for me to have the penny drop, finally. You can imagine the AHA moment I had right there.
The most challenging thing to get between us as Presenters and our audience is the many masks we wear. We wear these to protect ourselves. We wear these to try to resemble the idea in our heads or the fantasy we have of what we should look like for our audience. However, it’s indicating that can create the biggest disconnection. When indicating we are trying to show the audience how we’re feeling by showing them what we think that ‘emotion’ looks like.
Let’s look at some basic examples and how they affect the audience by denying them from seeing the real, authentic you. I had a client recently who was doing this weird thing on camera, to be fair it was irritating me. I finally stopped and asked him what was going on and who had kidnapped the body of the guy I was talking to minutes earlier. His answer was he wanted to come across trustworthy, so in his piece, to the camera, he was giving us his version of what trustworthy looks like.
Now, let me ask you this question. What kind of person needs to act trustworthy? Exactly, someone who is not! What kind of person needs to act excited, happy, honest, fulfilled or caring? The very person who is not feeling these things. The one that probably stands out for me is the ‘I’m excited’ indicator. If you are genuinely excited, you do not need to change your state of being before Presenting, surely you just need to be, and the excitement will be there? It may not be as BIG, however, it will be REAL. And that is the very thing that shifts hearts and minds of an audience. The truth!
Get out of your heads, drop into your hearts and Present from a space where there is no disconnect between who you are now and who is Presenting. The cream will always rise to the top when Presenting with a focus on authenticity because the genuinely good people are the ones that will stand out with an effortless consistency.
The ability to turn up and simply be, to not add unnecessary layers that are not organically there, to be present in your authentic self, is a gift you can give an audience. The other being, and my new favorite, the greatest gift you can give an audience is being yourself, for by doing this, you’re in turn giving permission for them to do the same.
I understand, that it requires a lot of trust and vulnerability. But, the alternative is just, for me anyway, one fat, giant, NO. Presenting without indicating is effortless, it’s raw, and when you feel the difference, you’ll never be able to go back to the way you worked before because every time you do your HeART will know the difference.
~ Andrew
