014. Mastering Communication: An Essential Skill for Leadership Success

Struggle to speak up in front of senior leaders? advocate for yourself? set boundaries? Alejandra shares valuable insights regarding effective communication in leadership and how it can help in career advancement. She provides clear and concise tips to master effective communication.

She also identifies the common areas where Latinas struggle in effective communication and how cultural conditioning can affect one's ability to assert oneself in the workplace. She offers you tips on how to overcome these hurdles. By improving communication skills, Latinas can ask raise in their salary, advocate for themselves and others, address conflict, set boundaries, present confidently in front of senior leaders to increase their career potentials.

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Intro Song: Cumbia No Frills Faster by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Transcript

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Hello. Welcome. You are listening to the Latinas in Leadership podcast, where we empower Latinas with the guidance, knowledge they need to get promoted into leadership, increase their salary, and step into their purpose. I'm your host, Alejandra Thompson, leadership coach and first gen Latina on the mission to see more Latinas in leadership. Inside of my one on one coaching program, the confident Latina leader. I've helped Latinas increase their salary by 17, and even 40, 000. I've helped them get promoted into director level positions, quit toxic jobs, and change careers without taking a pay cut. In this podcast, you can count on me to share strategies, tools, and knowledge to help you break into the next level of your career. Let's go.

Shure MV7 & Lumina Camera - Raw: 0:54

Hello, friends. And welcome back to the podcast. I am excited to jump in today. I'm starting a new series. Where I'm breaking down five different skills that Latinas must develop to succeed in leadership. And I'm going to dedicate an episode to each of those skills. These are S. Essential for leadership success. And I particularly chose ones that are essential for leadership success. And I also see a lot of my clients struggle with, and so we're going to break down each of them today. We're starting off with effective communication. How do you master communication, speaking up for yourself and for others and presenting in front of others? Anything that is communication, whether that is speaking up in a meeting, leading the meeting advocate. Advocating for yourself or going to talk about the areas where I see Latinos struggle a lot and how you can work on mastering communication. Now before we jump in, I just want, I hope everyone's doing well. I hope you're doing well. ovEr the weekend, I hung out with my best friend who was in town as kind of like a pre birthday celebration. Her birthday is in March. But she was in town over this past weekend. To hang out and it was so much fun. We went out to eat. I'm not a huge, go out to eat type of person, mainly because I'm very particular about what I eat and the quality of the food that I eat. So it's just not the thing that I necessarily do that much going out to eat. But we went out to eat this to this Mediterranean spot. No. Yes, it was Mediterranean. It was Israeli Mediterranean. It was specifically Israeli food. Fire. Oh my gosh, everything was so delicious. I had such a good time. It was really, really cute and I just loved it. Our waiter was nice and it was such a great experience. So I'm glad that the time Ellis, when we did go out to eat, it was really nice. We went to the beach both daYs. I'm originally from Maryland and she's from Maryland and it's just nice to in the middle of February to be able to go to the beach and the weather was been nominal. if you're in the Northeast or if you're somewhere cold, I'm really sorry. And I just hope that you are bearing through and that the sunny days are coming very shortly. Okay. So hope all is well, and let's go, let's jump into communication. Let's talk about mastering communication. Here's a problem that I'm addressing with my clients that I work with. It's my clients want to jump into manager or director level position, but oftentimes. They, and maybe you are struggling with imposter syndrome. Now, sometimes that could come from a lack of mastery in essential skills. Sometimes that imposter syndrome may come from a gap that you objective really see, and then you make that mean that you're never going to be able to be good enough. And that's not true. Things like communication are skills, meaning that you can learn them. And so it's okay. If right now you are not good at these things. You're not good at presenting in front of senior leaders or advocating for yourself. That's okay. We can work on that. You can work on that. It just means you get to practice in order for you to master them. So objectively. These are skills that every leader needs to succeed in leadership. If you don't have them, it's okay. You can work on them, but they are essential skills. I'm going to go over five skills over the next few weeks. And today I'm focusing on effective communication. I'll discuss the obstacles. I see Latinas face when attempting to develop these skills and then tips for how you can start developing them. Like my other episodes, this is going to be very pragmatic so that you can start working on these things today. Being in a leadership position is going to come with more responsibility and will require more of you. It's I know that that can be daunting. And that's where maybe that imposter syndrome kicks in where it's like, do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? Can I do it? And I always want to emphasize that these are skills and having that growth mindset. If you haven't listened to my imposter syndrome, Episodes is really important because it's understanding that I can. Learn something as long as I work hard and practice it consistently, I can get better at any one thing. And these skills are exactly like that. You can get better at any of these things here. If you decide to dedicate yourself to being better at it through consistency and practice. Okay. And so with effective communication, Here are some of the things specifically with the clients that I work with, which are predominantly Latinas, women of color first-generation of immigrant parents. This is kind of like the group of. That I'm oftentimes working with a few of the things that have kind of made us speaking up in particular, difficult in the workplace is number one, cultural conditioning and narratives that we grew up hearing. These, for example, can be kids are meant to be seen and not heard, or we, another one too, that I see very, very often is that we have to respect our elders and growing up, it was this culture of like, you must respect your elders. However, somewhere along the way that got conflated to, we just need to accept whatever they say. We can't say anything back, whatever they say is what goes. And then this translate into the workplace where my clients and myself, when I was in the corporate space as well. We find it very difficult to give feedback or say, or speak up when there are people who are older than us. And sometimes even if they're not older in age, but have a higher title, we have a really hard time because of these cultural conditioning and narratives around needing to be quiet. It's better that you're quiet and you need to respect your elders at all costs no matter why. Right. And so we grow up and then we can have this fear of making a mistake or looking dumb. And so instead we stay quiet or where we have so much nervousness around this area of speaking up and effective communication We're so pent up and nervous that if anything happens, we shut down. If anything happens in the meeting, we shut down, we get so caught up in our mind. And so it can be really difficult for us in terms of effective communication. Now, this is really important because. Communication can massively increase your earning potential, your ability to communicate strongly. Even if you think about people outside of the nine to five space, but if you think about people like Bernay brown and Oprah and Steve jobs, they can communicate ideas and influence people. Communication is what we have to be able to influence others. It's what we have to connect with one another. Communication is essential. And when I see Latinas struggling to communicate with confidence, it directly is correlated to their inability to learn. Edit. Uh, their inability to earn more, to support their families, to build wealth, to donate charities. That they love to pass on generational wealth to their children. If you can learn to effectively communicate, not only will you thrive in your career, you will also see it impact your personal life in positive ways. So communicating with confidence, it's a life skill. And I encourage all Latinas to develop this. It's okay. If you're an introvert, I am as well. It's okay. If you're not an introvert, that's fine too. You can still learn how to effectively communicate. Even if speaking for example is not a problem for you. There is a way in which you do that, that can be more effective. There is an art to it. And so here are four key areas, IC Latinas, struggle to effectively communicate. Four key areas. And I want you to pay attention. Is this you, do you see yourself struggling in this area? I want you to note down or take a mental note. If you're currently driving or doing something that would not allow you to safely be able to make a note of this. Take a note of. Where do you struggle with effective communication? One area is addressing conflict and setting boundaries. This is an area where you need to be able to effectively communicate in order to address a conflict. That is how you address it is through communication through saying something to another person, to holding a conversation that may be uncomfortable. Setting boundaries is how you communicate a boundary that you have. I find that many of the people that I work with avoid conflict or that's really the biggest thing I see. That's the most common, it's super rare that I'll have a client. That is more like explosive or says something, but doesn't say it gracefully. Most of the time, my clients just shut down and won't address a conflict unless things get really, really bad. Same thing with setting boundaries. This is really hard on your career growth, because if you don't know how to address conflict, you're going to struggle in a leadership position. You're not going to feel confident at all because there is always going to be conflict in the workplace in some fashion in some way or another. There's always going to be that because people will. We'll be people, same thing with setting boundaries. If you don't know how to effectively set boundaries and you're going to always whine, I wouldn't say always, but you're going to wind up in many times. Overwhelming yourself through burnout because you're not setting boundaries around work and even worse. If you get into leadership positions, your team can wind up suffering as well because you lack setting boundaries. So that's number one. Addressing conflict and setting boundaries. I want you to think about, is that an area that you struggle with? Number two, speak up for yourself and others. Do you find that you have a hard time self advocating? And so there is obviously the self, like you advocating for yourself, but then there's also you advocating for other people. And this is what I want to just tell you a story about to really help you paint the picture as to why this is so important. I have a client and she is currently. Working to be a manager. That's what we're working on right now. She recently got promoted. She got a salary raise. And so she's on her path to that manager position. Now she has a manager and her manager is a Latina. And unfortunately her manager doesn't stick up for the two of them. She struggles to. Speak up. For example, there's like a transition that needs to happen in some work stuff. And the manager struggling to speak up and go, this work is no longer going to be a part of this team. It needs to move over here. She has a hard time being direct in that manner. And this is what winds up happening. If we don't work on these things, then we wind up in leadership positions. And even though you have a great heart and you want to look out for people, if you don't know how to speak up for yourself, Or others, you're going to wind up making mistakes in your leadership that are impacting other people. And I know you want to be a leader that is empowered and empowering other people. You cannot do that without being an effective communicator. There's just no way. So knowing where do you struggle to self-advocate right now? Where do you struggle to even advocate for the accomplishments that you've created or that your team members have created? And noticing that the both are important is knowing how to speak about both. Speaking up for yourself and for others, that's another area right there. So is that an area that you struggle with? The third one that I, I see a lot is presenting. Slash communicating with senior leaders. So if you're presenting, for example, for a group of senior leaders, or if you're in a meeting, Communicating with senior leaders. This is a big area that I see my clients struggle with. Again, I think it goes back to like growing up, you have to respect your elders at all costs. And then there's just the pressure of these are people in very important positions and who am I? And what if I say something dumb and what if they don't think that I'm capable those types of things? We put so much separation between us and senior leaders. We make them people that are just way better than us. It's almost like we make senior leaders, these people that are like the president. Of the United States where it's like, look, these, these people are also people. And so as the president of United States, by the way, so like there are people. And so this is another area and it's really important because if senior leaders can't recognize that you were a strong presenter, a strong communicator, then that's going to impact whenever it comes time to promotion, you will not be top of mind if. You are not a strong communicator again, because it is an essential skill. The last one that I have down here is networking and building strategic relationships. This kind of goes hand in hand also with presenting slash communicating with senior leaders, because I will oftentimes see that it's the same type of sentiment. That's making it difficult for Latinas to build strategic relationships. They struggle to build strategic relationships with senior leaders because they're like. You know, they're busy. Why would they have time for me? Or what do I have to say? And so there's that aspect, but even in the general networking, another big piece that I see with the clients that I work with is they struggle with talking about themselves, talking about the work that they do without. Feeling uncomfortable or maybe rambling. They just have a really hard time in networking spaces. Um, I hear a lot of my clients will be like, I just hate small talk. And so they just go into these things dreading and they don't know how to effectively communicate what they do, what if they're looking for anything or just build really great relationships when they are in a networking setting. Now a lot of the clients that I do work with are great at building relationships. It's just something that takes over a much longer span of time. And so there's an itchiness around networking and building those strategic relationships. So these are all areas. And I want you to think about what are the areas where you struggle the most, or, and if they're all of them even rank them, where do you see that you struggle the most to the least, or if you're struggling, if you're like, I struggled with all of them, like all the time, then at least you can have that awareness. But I want you to take a look at where you are struggling to effectively communicate, because that is going to help you with where you need to develop yourself, where you need to put together a plan to specifically help you in the area that you're struggling with. Because I'm going to go through some tips. That can help you be a better communicator that can help you master effective communication. And these are going to be more general of tips that you can use in any type of area. I want you to be more specific to your area, whether that's presenting, whether it's networking, setting boundaries. Self-advocacy I want you to think about what that area is for you. At it. And so here are five tips for mastering effective communication. Number one, be clear and concise. I aim for clarity and be concise in your communication to ensure that your message is understood and that people remember what you said. Rambling is so common. It's so, so, so, so common and it makes it hard people to fall. It makes it hard for people to follow your request or follow your idea. I'm going to give you a framework. That seemed almost ridiculous when I first heard it and I actually have transformed the way that I speak through this framework. And once I share it with you, you're going to notice that I do this every time I have a podcast and every time I go live on LinkedIn, it is a three-step framework that you can follow. Whenever you are leading in a meeting, a presentation. Out of podcasts, wherever it can be. And this is how it goes when you are in, when you are communicating, this is the three-step framework. You're going to number one, tell them what you're going to tell them. Number two. Tell them. Number three. Tell them what you told them. This is so simple and it's also taught to teachers. So when you are presenting to senior leaders, when you are communicating. You want to have a clear introduction? That's tell them what you're going to tell them. You want to have your main points telling them. And then you want to have your conclusion. Tell them what you told them. You simple language, don't go super wild with the jargon. And make it easy to understand. So an example could be, I'm going to go over three main strategies to help increase our social media engagement. Each change or each strategy will have its own unique pros and cons. And I'm going to cover that. Then we can decide which one will be the best one for us. Then you go over the strategy. So that was tell them what you told them. Edit. So that was tell them what you're going to tell them. And then you go into tell them. So now you tell them each of the three strategies and then you go through the pros and cons. That's telling them. And then you go into tell them what you told them. So these were the three strategies that we just discussed. X, Y, and Z, the pros and cons. This is the one that I do recommend. What are your thoughts? And then you go into a discussion. When I start this podcast or any podcasts, if you go back and listen to it, I tell you what I'm about to tell you, tell them what you're going to tell them. Hey, today on this podcast, we're going to talk about effective communication. I'm going to go over the main areas where I see Latinas struggle, and then I'm going to go over five tips that will help you master effective communication. And then right now, I'm in the midst of telling you, telling you the different areas where I see Latina struggle. I'm telling you right now, the five tips. And then at the end of this podcast, I will queue it once I get there as well. But then I'm going to tell you what I told you. This is how you practice being concise and clear. It helps you keep track of your thoughts. And when you practice this framework right here, you will become so much more effective in the way that you speak. People will understand what you said, and then they can always go back and go, wait, what did I think she said something about three main strategies. They can always come back to what you said in the, tell them what you're going to tell them. So that's number one, be concise and be clear. Most commonly people are just rambling and they don't have that concise. So there's like going on and on, but things don't really seem to be connecting. And I can hear like a lot of times when my clients do get uncomfortable, then they'll be like, I don't know if that makes sense. Or does that make sense? It's like, that's where you want to be able to practice this framework so that you can make sense of what you're saying. Number two practice, effective listening. Being a poor listener makes you a poor communicator. Affective communication is a two-way street. So meaning if you listen, well you can speak back. Well, you can respond in a much better fashion when you are listening. Well. The most common way that I see me as Latinas be poor at listening is that they take things personal and they make assumptions. So I want you to think right now, do you find yourself taking things personal at work and making assumptions? Let me give you an example to get your kind of memory jogging, to see Oop, that's me. Or not, I don't think that's me. You can pay attention here. For example, I'll speak to a client and she'll say that her boss, and this is a real story, how has dug into my client? And she said that her boss doesn't trust her and derails their conversations. Whenever she's trying to get a simple answer. And it's really frustrating. After coaching, what it really came down to is that her boss would ask her several questions. So she would bring something up and then her boss would be like, well, what is, why are we working on that? Or what is this about? And what do we do here? And when she got those questions, she made that mean. That he didn't trust her. And that it was derailing the conversation. And then from that assumption that he doesn't trust her. And now this conversation is going where I didn't even want it to go. She believed that and therefore she would shut down. So she would just answer all the questions. And not even get to the answer she was looking in the first place. She would not even ask the question again to make sure she actually got the answer that she was looking to get from the senior manager. When she went to go talk to him. And I'm going to just say this. So lovingly. Not everything is about you. Not everyone has a personal thing against you. And so this is when I would, I mean, when I was originally talking about how we can be almost like so sensitive around this area, and I'm not, this is one example, but I've heard this a lot in my coaching. Where my clients will say something about their manager, either not liking them or not supporting them or not trusting them or something like that. And there are managers that do that by the way. But through our coaching, I'll realize, oh, he did. All he did was ask you questions. Why are you making that mean that he doesn't trust you? Maybe he's just super type a. Maybe he is just someone who wants to know all the information. And when you begin to make those assumptions, your you're no longer active listening. Now you're stuck in your own drama. Now you're in your assumptions. Now you shut down because you're like, this is not even going where it needs to go. So I'm just not even going to try anymore. And when it came to the senior manager in particular with the example that I gave you. She winds up getting promoted. And when she does get promoted, she works a lot closer with this senior manager. And he praised her and said, you've done so much work in this area. You're already contributing in so many ways. You're going to be such a great addition in this role. And so through that, she was surprised because this whole time she's been telling herself he doesn't trust me. And he's kind of hard to work with. And other people kind of feel the same way too. And it's like stop worrying about what other people are saying. Stop worrying about the personal attacks that you think. It means and start focusing on what they're saying. Start paying attention to the speaker. Listen to what they are saying. As well as their body language and their tone, make sure to maintain eye contact, avoid distraction. So when your brain starts to jump to conclusions, like, oh, they're saying this, or they're saying that, or they're trying to take credit for my work or they're doing this, or they're trying to go behind my back whenever you find yourself doing that. Stop and pause and refocus on the person, because what that will allow you to do is then ask open-ended questions that will help you understand the speaker more, and that will help the speaker express themselves better. And clarify any misconceptions or con. Assumptions that you're making, because you can even ask questions now, a question again, going back to effective communication. The question may not be, oh, you don't trust me. Like that's accusatory. Now you're just leading with your. Interpretation now you're just leading with your assumption. However, you can ask a question, like, are you having any concerns on my ability to be able to complete this? Are you having any concerns on how I'm handling this project at the moment? You can start asking open-ended questions and then the senior manager might be like, oh no, I don't have any problem with that. I just want to know about this and this. Uh, or he may say no, but then can you look at his body language and tone and say, Hmm. Um, are you sure if there's anything, please? I'm more than happy to hear your feedback. I would love to just grow and learn if there's anything that's making you uncomfortable. I'm we can definitely talk about it. You can pay attention to body language and tone, but you can't even ask that question in a genuine way. If you're shut down, if you're focused on your assumption, if you're like, I know you got a problem, you better tell me what the problem is. No beat, genuinely open. To understand the speaker and so active listening. When I say practice effective listening, I'm talking about active listening and the biggest way that I see this, because when I'm talking to my clients, you know, Latinas a lot of times y'all are great listeners when it's like your friends, like you're, you're talking to your friends and maybe they're venting to you. Uh, or you have a family member that's upset. But when it comes to your, a lot of times that relationship I see with you and like a manager where there's like a sensitivity that I see where you're just constantly afraid that they don't think you're good enough. And that's where that imposter syndrome is showing up. And it's making you super sensitive to these things. And I'm not saying for everyone, I'm just saying, think about I'm talking to a. Particular person right now. And maybe that's you listening and maybe it's not. But think about that is that you, where you take things really personal, you start to make assumptions and then you shut down. And you don't even say the thing that you need to say, or actually pay attention to what they were saying. Because you made those assumptions. So that's number two, practice, active listening, be more effective in your listening. When you start to make assumptions. Pause and actually reorient yourself to listening to what they said instead of what you're making that mean and that assumption. And then you can ask open ended questions. Number three, decide on when and what you are sharing before you share it. This is going to help you with tip number one, which is to be clear and concise. So before you go into a meeting, I want you to decide when and where. So maybe it's the meeting before you go into that meeting, decide, what's the idea. You're going to pitch go over how you're going to say it. Why do you believe in this idea? What are the things that people may not like about this idea? Don't. Prepare it without actually preparing for pushback, prepare for the pushback. So that if it happens, it doesn't shut you down. You're like, oh yeah. I thought through this. Prepare for people going, oh, I don't like that idea or I don't think that that's the most, the best idea prepare for that. Cause I know that that doesn't feel good, but you can prepare for that. So you can advocate for the idea why that doesn't mean you have to be like, okay. No, the idea sucks. You see, I told you. That's what that internal brain will say. Whenever someone gives you pushback to your idea, when you don't feel confident in your day, your idea, you just give up and you're like, I, you know, in your brain you might go, you should never set anything. Versus how can you self advocate and go, oh, well, this, I actually thought about that. This is what I think about that. And not to be super attached to your idea, like, it's gotta be mine, but just so that you can express it just so that you can communicate it. So that's number three, decide on when and what you're going to share before you share it. Think it through whether it's in a meeting, whether wherever it wants to be, maybe it's in your one-on-one meeting and maybe it's a team meeting. However you want to go about that. Number four meditate. There are two main things. Meditating will help you with to be an effective communicator and a successful leader. There are many things meditating will help you with, but I'm going to specify to why I'm bringing this in here to be an effective communicator and successful leader. Number one, it helps to regulate you when you get anxious and super nervous when you're presenting in front of senior leaders, or you're about to say something for the first time in a meeting, whatever it may be when you are meditating, you have a much better capacity to bring yourself back to the present moment, because that's literally what meditating is all about. So if you think you suck at meditating because you think a lot when you are meditating, no, you don't suck. You're a human welcome to being human. That's what, the reason we meditate is to help us. See the thought that comes up and go, oh, there we go. Thinking about that to do list again, or there we go. Thinking about that random thing, let me get back to my breath. And so the more that you practice doing that process. That is what then ultimately makes you better at regulating yourself at other moments outside of when you're sitting down and meditating, like when you get anxious and you're about to present in front of a senior leader, or you're about to negotiate your salary for the first time, or you're about to ask for the promotion. When you have a practice that you have went to bring yourself back to center, to bring yourself back to your breath, to not spiral into the thoughts that you're having in your brain, but actually get back to your breath that translates into all other areas. It doesn't just stick into meditation. You will see that in other, in other areas of your life. And it will make you a much better communicator, especially if anxiety is very, is a big thing for you when you are. Thinking about communicating and setting boundaries and self-advocating and so forth. So instead of shutting down, when you feel personally attacked, you can get yourself back to center and communicate. So meditating is really perfect. For regulating yourself. And then number two, it helps you with effective listening. As well. So it really boils down to being able to be present for someone else. When you're able to be present in a conversation, then you will be able to hear at such a caliber that you were never able to hear before. So when you meditate that ability to get into the present moment and to just. Feel all the senses, like when you are practicing mindfulness, it's about being in your body and feeling what you feel, seeing what you see, hearing, what you hear, smelling, what you smell. It's all the senses you're paying attention. You're being hyper aware of everything that's going on. So when you have a practice that does that, when you are in a conversation with someone else, it makes you so much better at being able to hold the space with that person and actually hear what they're saying and pay attention to their body language and their tone of voice. It really boils down to being present. And when you can do that, you will be so much better as a leader. Number five, the last one here. Practice speaking outside of the workplace. So you can join a Toastmasters club. You can pray over people out loud. If you are a woman of faith and you do pray, maybe if you struggle with effective communication or communicating, praying over people out loud may actually seem like the worst thing that could ever happen to you. And so that can be a way that you can practice speaking outside of the workplace. You can record yourself, speaking about something and share it with a friend. So you record a video, you can share it with a friend. You don't have to post it on social media, but you can share it with a friend. And maybe you record a video of yourself talking about something you find really interesting, or it could be something work-related or it could be anything at all, but decide on something. One of the things that I had my client do a while ago, when I, when she was working on her communication is I had her do a whole talk a three minute talk on. Tips for training a puppy. Because she had a puppy. And she loved her puppy and she loved all the research that she put into on how to train a puppy. And so she really struggled with speaking up and presenting in front of other people. So I told her put together. Some, uh, talk that you're going to have, you're going to have three minutes and you're going to talk about training a puppy. And I want you to prepare for it as if it's a presentation in front of like senior leaders or you're selling a course. Like this is like something that you want people to buy into. I want you to do that. So that's an example. She recorded herself doing it, and then she shared it with me. Actually, we did it together on our coaching call. That's what we did. But you, for example, you could record yourself and you could share it with a friend and you can be like, Hey, can you tell me what your thoughts are specifically? And if you're going to ask someone for feedback, it really helps. If you ask for specific things that they can look out for, because unless they are like a trained manager, most people are not really good at giving feedback. They'll be like, oh, I love it. Especially if it's like your girl, like, they're not going to be like, this is trash, but like, You can just tell them specifically, I want to know. Was I clear? What did you learn from this? Did I make any, a lot of filler words? Did you hear a lot of ums and AHS from me? Was that distracting for you? Just please would love to hear your feedback on it. That's an example. Or you could post a video of you speaking on a topic and you can post it on Instagram. You can post it on Tik TOK. You can pose it on a different social media platform. And it, I think for you, I want to give you these different examples so that you can find wherever you are in your journey. What's going to be the thing that pushes you. That's going to be uncomfortable and pushes you, but your brain just doesn't go. Absolutely never, ever doing that. You're crazy. And so whatever one is like that, just find the one that is uncomfortable that does push you, but that, you know, you can do, it's just going to be uncomfortable. So find whatever that is for you. Whether it's joining a Toastmasters club, recording a video of yourself and sharing it with a friend, praying over people, posting a video and speaking on a topic and then sharing that on social media, whatever you want to do, I encourage you to practice speaking outside of the workplace. So, and when I say speaking, it's like not just a conversation. practice speaking with authority, practice speaking, like you got something to share, like you got an idea. Like, I want you to practice that. Style of speaking, because that is what I'm talking about when it comes to leadership. I'm talking about the type of communication that will support you in being able to influence people, lead people and get people on the same page. Okay. I'm about to go into the, tell them what you just told them. So now you can hear this whole thing. Play out. We just went through the biggest problems when you do not have effective communication and what contributes to it like cultural conditioning and narratives that we grew up hearing and really seeing that this is a key leadership skill that you cannot succeed in leadership without. And it really caps are earning potential. When we don't have the ability to effectively communicate. I talked about four key areas that I see you struggle. See Latinas struggle to effectively communicate addressing conflict and setting boundaries. number two, speaking up for yourself and others. Number three, presenting and communicating with senior leaders. And number four, networking and building strategic relationships. I went over five ways that you can be an effective communicator. One, be clear and concise to practice, effective listening, three, decide on when and what you're sharing before you share it for meditate and five practice outside the workplace. Those are the tips that I have for you. I want you to really practice these. If you're struggling with your communication. Start practicing. If you want to hear more about how I really got into confident communication I have an episode titled Latina, pero introverted, AAF. Unleashing the power of your voice it's episode 0, 0 5. Go back and listen to that because I go over my journey of overcoming my fears and insecurities related, related to speaking up and sharing my story, even getting to this podcast. And so on that I will, I broke down my journey and that may be, can give you more tangible ways that you can work on you unleashing the power of your voice and being a confident communicator. This is a skill I want to just say that over and over again. This is a skill you can. Can learn it. You're not someone who's not able to effectively communicate. I promise you that you can effectively communicate. It's a skill that requires practice. It requires our presence and it requires us to address these limiting beliefs. Those beliefs that we have that can be rooted in an inner critic. It forces us to really address those and say, I'm not going to listen to you. I can communicate well. And I'm going to try this out and I'm going to use my growth mindset. To work on this. Okay. I hope this was helpful and I will see y'all next week. Bye.

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If you are ready to get promoted into leadership and get the salary you deserve, I invite you to book a sales call with me. This is a one hour call where I will assess your career, your obstacles, your goals. I will tell you exactly the way that I can help you. And we can talk about whether the confident Latina leader program is the best fit for you. The link to book your sales call is in the show notes. Talk to you soon. Ciao.