Make your audience the hero

- [Guest] Well so it starts with the listening and then what would you say is the next step? - [Host] Well the next step, and this is counterintuitive but if you want to be awesome at your job and create a greater impact for yourself you got to take your attention off of yourself because if you're talking to someone, you're talking to your boss, someone that you wished you influenced, you wished you had an impact in some way and you're thinking how am I doing. It's like playing a game looking at the scoreboard or running a race while you're looking at the clock. The real game is how is the person right in front of you doing. How is your boss doing? How is your team doing? How are you making them the hero of your story? And so many times when we have objectives for ourselves we begin by focusing on you know, well I need this raise, I need this to happen, I need this idea to come forward. But what happens when you flip the script and you think about what your ideas, your raise, your promotion, whatever the case may be means to the person right in front of you. And when you phrase your goals and desires in terms of the impact that it means for others you exhibit the four words that represent, in my mind, one of the key leadership skills. And here are the four words. I've thought this through. - [Guest] I remembered it from last time. I was like oh yeah. I was like wait a minute, are those the four words? There's a contraction in there. Is that five? I thought this through. - [Host] And this time in the book Leadership Language I talk about not only saying I thought this through, but I thought this through for you. Because leaders look in the direction of impact. They talk in terms of outcomes and they think about impact and impact not just for themselves but for the people that they serve.