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Megan Devito: You know that executive who in and commands the room until their CEO walks in and suddenly they're overexplaining apologizing. And you can almost physically see them roll into a ball at their chair. Maybe not totally, but they start to shrink ⁓ Or it's that smartest person in the room, the one who knows the answer, but then they wait to see what the rest of the room says before she actually commits to saying what she knows is actually right. Or maybe it's that athlete who just is overflowing with confidence when they're talking about their sport and their ability and what they can do. But they fall apart in the finals every single time. That high performer who gets passed over for the promotion because they just don't have that presence. And nobody can really tell them what that means. They just can feel it coming off of them. It's their vibe. I have people who I work with like this. They know their stuff. They're smart. They're brilliant. They're athletic. They're killing it in their industry. And they get up in their heads, fall apart, pull back, and miss out on what they really want and what they've worked so hard for. Executive presence isn't something that you perform. It's something that you access. And most people lose access in the moment because the pressure goes up and they start to question themselves and their ability. Or maybe their worthiness. If that sounds like you, hang tight, because we are going headfirst into this. Today we're talking about what executive presence actually is, not that Forbes definition, not the list of seven C's. We're gonna talk about what's happening inside when you have it and what's happening when you don't. And of course, we're gonna talk about what can actually be done to make sure that it's growing and getting stronger so that you walk in and show everybody what you've got. Whether you're building your own presence or you lead a team and you're watching someone on it play smaller than they're capable of, this episode is for you. If we've not met before, my name is Megan DeVito. I'm a performance mindset coach. I work with elite athletes and executives on the mental side of performance. So let's talk about what executive presence actually is. Here's what everybody says executive presence is. Are you ready? It's that gravitas, right? It's how you look. It's just that magnetic pull. Communication, appearance, emotional intelligence, and really being able to feel people and their emotions and help them out. Decisiveness, all great things. Maybe they say it's the seven C's. If you don't know what those are, it's connection, composure, charisma, confidence, credibility, clarity, and consciousness. Great things again. They're all real things. They're also completely useless if you don't understand what's underneath them, what's happening inside, and how those things actually are portrayed and show up whether you're working in a corporate position or you're an athlete or anyone else in a position
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of leadership. Because here's what executive presence actually is: ⁓ it's the ability to Access your best self when the pressure's on without crumbling. It's not simple, is it? It's about it's not about looking confident. It's about being grounded enough that confidence is available to you even when you feel like you might throw up or you're shaking or your palms are sweating. It's not about controlling your emotions. It's about regulating your nervous system so that your brain can actually function properly. It's not a personality type. It's not something that you either have or you don't. You're not born with it. It's a skill. You can learn it. I teach people how to do this all the time. It is trainable, but you have to train the right things. You can't just stand taller, which by the way, there's a podcast episode that I've done in the past about this. It does help. It does signal your body to act differently. But you have to regulate your nervous system and you have to recognize what you're thinking that's maybe stealing that presence from you. You cannot perform your way to executive presence. You have to build your way there. I've watched people try to perform and fail. I've also watched people build it and succeed one step at a time until they don't even understand what happened. Because when you do it one step at a time, it's not overwhelming, it's not scary, and it actually sticks. Here's why you lose that presence when the pressure comes up. This is what nobody is telling you. Your nervous system is the problem. It is the piece that's missing. When the pressure cranks up, whether it's a board presentation, a hard conversation, a personal crisis, the championship game that you are on the free throw line waiting to win for your team, your brain doesn't know the difference between that and a threat that's actually going to kill you. It goes into survival mode. Fight, flight, freeze, spawn. It's the same system that keeps your ancestors alive back when we all lived in caves. And now it's hijacking your quarterly review or it's ruining your best swimming. In that state, this front part of your brain, the part that's responsible for clear, rational thinking, for communicating, and for keeping you composed, totally shuts off. You're offline because you're in a state where you don't need to think. You need to outrun the mountain lion or whatever it is that your brain assumes is chasing you. You don't lose your intelligence, you lose your access to what you already know, the things that make you great, the things that you were talking about just not too long ago, maybe to your teammates or your coworkers, poof, they're all gone. you don't lose your intelligence under pressure, you lose your access, and that is the problem. Most executives have never heard this because they think they aren't qualified or they need to take another course or they just need to amp themselves up better. And that's not true. This is what it looks like in real life. It's over explaining your decisions that you've already made because your nervous system is kind of amped up and it's looking for approval for you to feel safe or to feel right. It's going blank in the middle of a presentation that you knew. cold five minutes ago because you're overthinking what people think about what you're saying. It's agreeing with the room that you're in instead of saying what you actually think. Because again, we're people pleasing so that we don't die outside the cave. It's getting defensive when someone challenges you instead of being curious about, I wonder what they're actually worried about or what I could do to improve. Or it's feeling completely different in a One to One conversation. Versus in front of a group. Does any of that sound familiar? Because it does to me. I've been through it. We all have. This isn't a character flaw. It's just basic physiology. Your caveman brain takes over when the stakes are highest to keep you from being embarrassed, losing, judged, or anything else. It's the identity underneath it that needs work. So for a lot of executives, that presence collapses under pressure because. Their sense of who they are is tied to their performance. You are your job. You are your success. And that's not true. The same is true for athletes. If I don't perform well in this event, what does that mean about me? What if I wasn't the athlete? What if I wasn't the CEO? And that question, even when it's unconscious, takes about a half a second to throw you into survival mode. It's that fast. The executives who command a room aren't fearless. They just don't need the room's approval because they know who they are. The athlete who misses the free throw shot and loses the game, they don't need somebody to tell them that they're still a good athlete. They're just like, that was a crappy shot. Dang. They're disappointed and they can deal with it. Executive presence isn't about being fearless. It's not about being right. It's not about needing the room's approval to know who you are. It's because you know who you are. And you know what you bring to the table or to the court or to the pool or to the boardroom or wherever it is that you are. Here are the five things that actually build executive presence. These are practical, they're specific, and you can take action on them right now. These are your things, not the Forbes list. This is what I coach on. Are you ready? Number one, you have to regulate your nervous system before you go into the meeting, before you go into the game or the meet or The one-to-one conversation. You cannot think, communicate, or lead well with a dysregulated nervous system. This is where breath work, visualization, and that pre-performance routine comes in. Whether you're an athlete or an executive, you gotta do it. It's not woo, it's not some kind of weird cult or weird ohm thing. It's neuroscience. It's the same stuff that Olympic athletes and Navy SEALs and ER doctors use before their
stuff. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us. It's a five minute routine before a high stakes meeting, and it changes the entire physiological state of your body when you walk in. This is why I do visualization with executives and with athletes, because it is something that allows you to protect to practice that moment before you actually go into the big event. The second thing is to build the identity underneath your behavior. Executive presence coaching that only works on behavior is sort of like painting over rust. It's just gonna peel off and fall apart. It doesn't really work. You can fake it, but Until you change what's actually going on, it doesn't really change. The work is knowing who you are clearly enough that pressure doesn't change anything. It's just the feeling inside your body. And that means doing that inner work. It's understanding what you actually believe about yourself or about your value or your capability and your ability to be right, even if nobody agrees with you. High performers aren't just burning out all of a sudden. They're not just suddenly falling apart. They just kind of quietly stop trusting themselves. And that's an identity issue, not a skill issue. The third thing is communicating with conviction, not from a need. Communicating because you believe what you're saying, not from what you'll get. It's something to think about, isn't it? The difference between a leader who commands a room and one who just talks loudly and like carries a big hammer with them or a big stick, whatever the thing is, is it's a big difference. You can be loud and wrong, but you can be quiet and right. Conviction comes from clarity and knowing what you believe. And why you believe it? Because when you truly believe what you're saying, you can explain it to other people. It's not about being louder, it's about being more certain of your own perspective than you are afraid of what somebody else thinks about it. So the next time that you're in this big conversation or this big performance, ask yourself: Am I speaking to be understood? Am I performing to be, you know, like to demonstrate my talent, or am I speaking to be approved of? Because those are two different things. With two very different feelings attached to them. If you are getting your worth from what other people think about you or your performance, it's going to cause you to feel anxious and your nervous system is gonna go bananas. The fourth thing is to get comfortable with people seeing you. A lot of high performers hide how amazing they are. They think if they do the work well enough that people will just recognize it and give them the, you know, the claps that they deserve. Executive presence actually requires you to be visible. It requires you to take up space and to let yourself be seen thinking out loud and processing and bouncing ideas and not worrying about what other people think. That's uncomfortable for people who were rewarded for being quiet, or the ones who were just quietly getting things done and not asking for attention. You got to take up space. This is that appearance piece. It's not just how you dress, although that is important. But it's how you carry yourself. It's how much space you can take up and be humble, whether you make eye contact or avoid it. Body language is important. People read your energy. So if you walk in curled into a ball and you're trying to tell them your great idea, nobody's gonna believe you. And if you walk in and force it down their throat and you don't tell them why, nobody has cares what you have to say. The fifth thing is you have to practice under pressure. Not just in safe conditions. You cannot build presence by rehearsing in a low stakes environment and hoping that you do it in a bigger show. You gotta put yourself out there when you're not ready yet. It's uncomfortable. It's scary. Athletes don't just practice when they're relaxed and feel fine. They train their minds and their bodies to access those skills when it's hard. They practice at race pace. They shoot under pressure. They do all of those things when it's high stakes. Seeking out uncomfortable rooms for the hard home conversations, saying things out loud to make sure that you know how to say it is practice. Presence is built in the repetitions, not just while you prepare to do the thing that you need to do. You have to do the hard thing in practice first. We practice these situations a lot on coaching calls where I'm like, play with me here. Let's go through the situation. You build presence by doing the things that you feel that you're not ready for. Not after you feel ready. You have to do it when it still feels scary. So if you lead a team, here's what I want you to look for. Keep an eye out for that team member who gets really quiet all of a sudden in the group, but is brilliant when you talk to them one-on-one. I was a teacher before I was a coach, and I can spot these students and these clients anywhere. You know they know it. But they clam up because they're so afraid of what everybody else thinks. Look for that high performer who starts to overexplain, who kind of is wishy-washy on everything, or waits for your approval before they commit. Being honest here, guys, this one is me a lot of the time. I have to push myself through this, and you might too. Or look for the person who gets defensive when they're challenged, not because they're being difficult, but because their nervous system sees challenge as a threat. Instead of a way to improve and grow. Or look for the one who's technically excellent, but just doesn't have that presence to be able to go into the bigger room or the bigger situation. Like you know they have this stuff, but you know they're gonna shrink back and not go in with confidence, standing tall and giving everything they've got. And here's what you don't want to do if you're leading a team. Don't tell them to be more confident. That's not feedback, that's a wish,
and they already wish it. They want to be and feel more confident. Saying it doesn't help. Don't assume there's a skills gap. Most of the time, it's a mindset and an identity gap with a nervous system that is on fire. Help them learn to regulate that. And don't wait for their performance review to tell them. By then, they've already missed out on a year of development, and you've missed out of a year of a great team member. Could bring so much more to your team and to your business. Here's what actually helps. Name what you see specifically. Not more presence, but I notice you get really quiet whenever so-and-so walks in their room. What's up with that? Tell me what's going on. Give them opportunities to practice in a low-stakes setting and build them up. Challenge them. Say, I know you can do this. It's going to be uncomfortable. This is the next step. Push them forward one step at a time, not all at once. Do push them forward. Invest in that inner work for them, not just their behaviors, but what they feel and what they think. This is what coaching is for. This is what I do for companies and for individuals. Reach out to them and say, hey, it looks like you kind of get inside of your head and feel a little nervous. How about if we talk with a coach that can help you work through those things? Then look me up. I'm here for it. You have what it takes, and so do the people on your team. Probably at least some of them, if not all of them. You can help them be successful. You can help yourself be successful by learning how to regulate your nervous system, to question your thoughts, and to create new habits one step at a time. Remember, that executive presence isn't something that you go out and get. It is something that you find inside of yourself. It's already in there. That version of you that knows exactly what you think, that says it clearly, and who doesn't need the room's approval. To stand behind it is there. You do it with people you're comfortable with. Maybe it's your family or your friends or your sister or your brother, whatever. That version's there. It exists. You've been that person before in the right conditions with the right people on the right day. The work is making those conditions available inside of you, regardless of what's happening in the boardroom, in the big game, or wherever you are. The leader that people want to follow. is already in you. The work is learning how to find them when it matters most and not hoping that they just show up. If this episode resonated with you, share it with the leader in your life who needs to hear it. Or maybe watch it again yourself. Make sure you subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or on YouTube. The link is in the show notes. And if you're ready to find out more about how I can help you, Book your free performance audit at Megandevito.com. No pitch, just real clarity on where your presence is keeping you stuck. If you lead a team and you're watching someone play smaller than they're capable of, reply to this video or leave me a comment and let's talk about what coaching could do for them. And of course, you can always check out my 90 days of calm book on Amazon. It's a daily practice for building that inner foundation of presence that helps you build that executive presence or That athletic presence that gets you to where you want to go. As always, I am cheering for you. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. And I will see you again next month.