Someone I highly respect asked me last week what I stand for.  I realized it was an exceedingly good question and something I had never written about before.

I stand for something you don’t hear talked about much.

Yet it’s actually what makes me valuable to the people I serve.

I stand for beautiful communication.  In large corporations, where I mostly work, professionals and executives are always talking to me about being effective, compelling, inspiring.  Mostly about being effective.

The truth is that I find being effective rather easy and quite boring.  Someone I coach struggles to get promoted.  Then, after coaching, communicates effectively and makes it from Senior Director to VP.  Personally, I don’t find that very interesting.

That’s the reason why, when I’m coaching someone, I don’t often stop after helping them be effective.  Being effective is a level they do need to hit, but I don’t stop there.  And fortunately it turns out they are always happy I don’t.

Let me give you an example. This past week I was coaching a woman who is responsible for a large segment of a major corporation.  Brilliant woman.  She’s new to the role and struggles with the leadership team she’s a part of.  I’m reluctant to mention that it’s a male-dominated team because the fact they’re men is not really the issue.  Her communication skills are.  But you get the picture.

I coached her until she was effective in getting her point across and persuading.  She was quite happy.

But I could see she had a beauty within her that had not yet emerged.  I continued to coach her until her communication reached a level where it became beautiful.  When she communicates at this level, she takes your breath away. Yes, she’s effective.  But she is also extraordinarily beautiful, graceful and elegant.  Not just physically, but in her presence.

Her very being, and in the incredible quality of her communication is a demonstration of beauty.

It was incredible what happened to her own beauty when her communication became aesthetic.

I coached another executive on giving presentations to difficult audiences.  He went from being overly defensive and somewhat forceful to being effective.   It was good.

But I didn’t want to stop there. I continued to coach him until he tapped into something inside him that made his communication extraordinary. It’s funny to use the word beautiful when you’re describing a man, but his communication was beautiful in the way that Martin Luther King‘s I have a dream speech was beautiful.

It wasn’t the words that became beautiful.  It was his arresting connection with the audience and HOW the words were spoken.

And, yes, he became handsome.

I believe that inside each person resides an ability to communicate at a level that is WAY beyond effective.

Yes, being effective is a milestone.  But for me it’s not an end goal.  It’s not enough.  I coach until the natural artistry and aesthetic within each person emerges.

Their communication becomes spontaneous.  They’re not thinking about it.  It’s just coming out of them. It’s pure.  They’re in a zone where they can’t help but be amazing.

They’re now capable of creating an extraordinary relationship, whether it’s with one person or 10,000.

If a person is willing to do the work, that level of aesthetic is always there to be found.

I love seeing people become beautiful and handsome.  It has nothing to do with flawless facial features, youth or being slim.  Their faces completely change when it radiates from within.

Beautiful communication is inspiring.  It is compelling.  It is persuasive.  It creates extraordinary leadership.

I find that extraordinary outcomes are all byproducts of extraordinary and extraordinarily beautiful communication.

It creates the kind of conversation or presentation where you say, “Wow! That was beautiful!”

I love this in my personal life too.

This is what I stand for:  serving as a guide for people who want to experience this level of communication, to transform their communication into something extraordinarily beautiful.

Wishing you great beauty in the communications that are important to you.

Love,

Ingrid

 

One of the Bay Area’s best kept secrets is September.

Unfortunate travelers optimistically arriving in the normal summer tourist season make the unhappy discovery that The City by the Bay is often cold and foggy in June, July and August.  They’re greeted by street vendors selling very expensive San Francisco sweatshirts to a very cold and captive audience.

With the beginning of September, school starting and Labor Day behind us, a real summer begins here.

Sunny days, a sky so blue and temperatures so perfect, warm breezes that kiss your skin, your heart can’t help but burst into song.   Ahhhhhh … finally summer.

Now we take the sweatshirts off and pull out our shorts and skimpy T-shirts.  Now we put the tops down on our convertibles.

The tourists are gone and we have our town back to ourselves.

Yesterday evening I drove across the Bay Bridge to The City with the top down, enjoying the 80° breeze, The City skyline outlined against the breathtaking red-toned sunset, The beautiful water of the San Francisco Bay.

Coming home at night the sky was full of stars and full moon and summer joy.

Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”  But he said nothing about our September summer, October and even November, which often feels like spring.

For a girl from Philadelphia this is the craziest gumbo of weather pattern I could imagine.  But as I sit on my patio, sipping my breakfast tea, watching the butterflies and the bees sip on the flowers, as I look at the bluest blue of skies, and contemplate the wonderful hike I have planned for this afternoon, I celebrate that summer has begun.

Wishing you the start of a glorious new season in your life.

Just a little note in case you visit:  San Franciscans cringe when someone calls our town “Frisco” or “San Fran”.  We mostly call it The City (yes, with capital letters) or San Francisco.

Love,

Ingrid