VALORA CALMA | FORCES & FLOW: Stop Performing and Start Connecting

One of the most important communication lessons I learned came while telling someone else’s story.

A classmate trusted me with the story of her friend Karly, who had died unexpectedly.

I wanted to tell it correctly.

At first, I focused on the words.

What comes next?

Am I remembering everything?

Then I changed the question:

What do I want the audience to feel?

The words began to come more naturally.

Stories are not just information

When someone gives you a personal story, they are giving you something precious.

I felt responsible for carrying Karly’s story with care, even though I had known my classmate for only a few days.

Storytelling is not simply performance. It can be stewardship: carrying meaning from one person to another.

That requires more than remembering the words.

What matters?

What is at stake?

What should stay with the listener after the words are gone?

An audience is not a crowd

One piece of feedback I received was to direct individual thoughts toward individual people.

One sentence to one person.

The next thought to someone else.

I practiced this later when I sang mariachi at our evening show.

Instead of looking at the room as one audience, I sang portions of the song to individual people.

For a few seconds at a time, I was not singing to a crowd. I was singing to one person, then another.

Later, one classmate wrote me a note saying I had made him feel included.

I had entered the performance wondering whether I would remember the lyrics.

He left remembering how the experience made him feel.

That is a different measure of success.

Shift the attention away from yourself

The biggest change came when I stopped thinking so much about how I was doing.

Not:

Do I look confident?

Am I performing well?

Did I say that correctly?

Instead:

What am I giving them?

I was sharing music, culture, a story, the Mexican grito—something from one of my worlds.

The pressure changed because I was no longer trying to prove something.

I was sharing something.

Leadership presence is relational

We sometimes talk about presence as though it is something a person possesses: confidence, charisma, authority, a commanding voice.

But leadership presence also exists between people.

When you are giving feedback:

What do I want this person to understand?

When you are leading a difficult meeting:

What does the room need from me?

When you are presenting a technical recommendation:

What do they need to see that I can already see?

When you are coaching:

What question could help them discover something rather than simply hear my answer?

This does not make communication less rigorous. It makes the rigor useful.

Ask one question before you enter

Before an important presentation or meeting, ask:

What do I want people to feel when they leave this room?

Clear?

Included?

Confident?

Concerned?

Curious?

Ready to act?

That answer can guide the opening, examples, pacing, tone, and pauses.

The strongest leadership presence may not come from controlling every word.

It may come from being connected enough to stop performing leadership and start practicing it.

Related:

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Stay grounded. Rise strong.