You are not meant to be dragged around by the whims and gut feelings of your coworkers, your managers, your company

You are successful in your career. Your knowledge and experience has gotten you where you are today

You sense the potential of what could be achieved if your knowledge and experience could be directly connected with the decision makers who need to see and hear it

That is why it is so frustrating when it doesn’t

Your senses are correct. There is an invisible wall between you and what you want

…

And there is a process for breaking through that wall

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Part 1: Seeing and hearing yourself

It starts by understanding with exact precision what is driving you. To a point where you could summarize your own intentions and motivations in a one-line sentence

This must be done first! This sets the stage, it primes your mind to carry out the next two steps of this process

How do you know if you understand your own motivations clearly?

There is a feeling you get when someone is being dishonest with you. Something just feels off, or the logic in what they are saying is flawed and contradictory

State what you believe your motivations and intentions are, either out loud or in your head

If you listen carefully or think through it logically, it will feel right and hold up to your own scrutiny

Part 2: Seeing and hearing others

Once you have mastered seeing and hearing your own intentions and motivations, that alone will train you to see and hear the same from others

Why should that matter?

It is too easy to fall into the trap of believing the people, who are not listening to you, are uncaring, unintelligent, or even lack some sanity

That feels good to imagine. It lets you off the hook. The truth is however, they would not be in the positions they are in if they did not have some level of compassion, intelligence, and sanity

So that begs the question…

Why would a compassionate, intelligent, sane person not listen to what you have to say, based in reason and years of experience, which they acknowledged by having you in your position in the first place?

This is the question!

This is the exercise!

This is part 2!

Instead of being frustrated, take it as a gift. Answer this question accurately, respond accordingly, and you will be leagues ahead of others in your field

And primed for part 3…

Part 3: Being seen and heard

This is where most public speaking coaches start. Having not established a foundation for knowing what it is you are trying to say, why you are trying to say it, and what others are trying to hear

They start with structure and mechanics, but if the inner work is not done, it will feel like you are spinning your wheels, expending a lot of effort to go absolutely no where

If part 2 is not complete then you may be missing critical information from those you wish to influence

You will be painted as the…

“Typical engineer who can’t see the big picture”

You will be ignored at best and discredited at worst

Once parts 1 & 2 are mastered, you will know exactly what you need to do for part 3. It becomes less about communication techniques and more about doing what the moment calls for

That is the true strength of this process. No slides, no CAD models, no technical reports, no planning is needed to say what you need to say and to have those who need to hear it, hear it

Influence on command

You can apply this 3-part approach TODAY as written here and see immediate improvement in how others receive information from you

But I would like to offer you more