John:
00:00:00
Do you have the x factor? That je ne sais quoi, gravitas, executive presence that most influential people seem to have. My guest today says that you don't even need that, that there's something better than all those things when it comes to being an influencer in the truest sense of what that means and that's what we're here to find out. My guest is Lida Citroen, the author of a fairly new book called The New Rules of Influence, How to Authentically Build Trust, Drive Change, and Make an Impact. So you can imagine, I was excited to talk with Lida, when I realized that we have a great deal of crossover. According to Lida, there are only 10 elements that you need to consider to be more influential. One of them surprised me and the one I found most impactful was about something we all need if we are really going to be more visible and to be heard if we're going to have any influence at all. We talked about what it means to be real and get real with people. And what happens to those people who are faking it or who are just completely different people when they're not on stage, giving some kind of performance. The guardrails that you need to have in place to protect your public profile and why you really do need to know your values to have great influence. You won't want to miss a minute of this high value conversation. Welcome to Present Influence the show that helps coaches, speakers, and business leaders develop the communication skills to impact influence and inspire. My name is John Ball, keynote coach, professional speaker, and your guide on this journey to mastery level communication and presentation skills. My mission is to provide professional communicators like you with everything you need to maximize your impact, connect with audiences and present with influence. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app for weekly episodes and interviews with influence experts. Lida, I'd like to say, first of all, welcome to Present Influence. I have been looking forward to speaking to you and you speak and write on one of my favorite subjects, which is influence. And it's even in even in the title of this show. So he's definitely the right audience. I think for you to be a guest for, and you even have a perfect name for us. What a perfect name for driving change Lida Citroen. That's awesome.
Lida Citröen:
00:02:29
I wasn't planned, but I'm going to use that.
John:
00:02:32
You're primarily, we're primarily here to talk about your book today, which is the new rules for influence, the 10 new, 10 new rules for influence. And it's fascinating to me that this is a book that needed to exist in the first place because I will, what were the old rules for influence that you felt needed to?
Lida Citröen:
00:02:52
Yeah. And thank you so much, John, for having me. I love this topic. I love what you're focusing on and really what I tried to do with the new rules of influence is support a need in the market that I didn't see was being met. So there's all these wonderful courses and, literary guides that have been institutions in our corporate world. Upbringing and all and how we work today, but they tended to not relate to an audience. I thought was missing some practical advice and a place for them. So I'll give you an example. Traditional influence is built on this model of executive presence. And when we think of executive presence and we look at all the literature and all the writing I've taken the courses I've, I've taught executive presence, it focuses on three main pillars, right? There's image. You have to look a certain way there's communication. You have to speak a certain way and there's this thing called gravitas, which studies show. People say is very important, especially hiring managers and human resource professionals say gravitas is really important to becoming a leader. We see it, we know it, but we can't teach it. That's fun. So I'm telling you something is important, but I can't tell you how to get it. And I always struggled with that. And I just thought, there's something needed. That's a little more practical, a little more gritty and a little more real. And that's why I tackled a different way of thinking about influence in this book.
John:
00:04:24
Let's keep on defining our terms, because that's a really helpful thing. And I'm really glad you explained the executive presence part there as well. When we're talking about influence in what capacity are we talking about it? What kind of influence is this that we're going for?
Lida Citröen:
00:04:41
I define it as any kind of influence, right? You want to have more sway when you offer an idea in a meeting with your team. You want to advocate for a position that the company should take with your boss or you want to influence a need not being met in a community. And it could be a community you don't come from. Which is what's interesting. It could be political influence. It could be social justice influence. It could be corporate influence. But really, when you think of what influence is and you know this better than most, it's the ability to sway or affect a decision to take a vision, an idea and then championing for that and have people actually listen to you and take you seriously. So it can be as small as I just want to be more visible in my company. I want to have more of a say, or I want to start a movement that changes the world and everything in between.
John:
00:05:42
Are there some kind of popular names who you would say are good examples of this?
Lida Citröen:
00:05:46
I think, the classic influence when we think of the old model, we think of corporate leaders. We think of politicians, right? Who come to the microphone dress the right way with the right messages. And they have that gravitas thing, right? That charisma, that je ne sais crois that is just so compelling. But then we look at people, and I use the example in the book of Greta Thunberg at age 15 sits in front of Swedish parliament and advocates for climate change. 15 years old. She didn't sound suave and polished. She had a good message and it was thought through. She didn't have the right outfit on. She wasn't dressed the right way. And I don't know that she has gravitas. She was a young woman who had an idea that she was deeply passionate about and she took it as far as she could and she still advocates for it. So I think we look at something like that and say, wait a minute, somebody like that can have influence. What does that mean for me? And when we look around companies today, I know in my experience, and you do a lot of this work too, I am seeing CEOs yield less influence than somebody more junior. That there's a person in the back of the room who shares an idea and heads turn wait a minute, influence is coming from different corners now, and that's really cool.
John:
00:07:12
So can we reclaim the word influencer or has it been ruined for all of us?
Lida Citröen:
00:07:18
It certainly hasn't been ruined. I don't think it's like some of the other words that, are going to be challenged, or maybe the next generation has to redefine. I just think we need to embrace it. And I know a lot of people who read the book and reached out to me are people who say, I describe myself as an introvert, or I'm really pretty shy. And I never thought, That I could share an idea. I just waited for someone else to share that idea. So you're saying I could have influence. Yes, you can have influence. We need you to have influence. We can't just keep hearing from the same voices.
John:
00:07:54
I do definitely want to take a look at some of these rules but before we do, were there more than 10? How many rules could there have been?
Lida Citröen:
00:08:04
This could be volume 1, right? No, I'm kidding. There's 10 volumes. I worked with my publisher on that because I just, it just kept coming. And I think this is a starting place. I think it's a good starting place. For 99. 9 percent of us, could you add rules in that work for you? Absolutely, but I picked 10 because I thought, phone numbers are in 10, 10 can be somewhat digestible. And then by breaking those 10 rules or grouping them into 4 key sections to help the reader understand how the rules apply to certain aspects of building influence that kind of chunked it down to make it a little more manageable.
John:
00:08:46
Good. I will say I just recently created a nine point framework for something I'm working on. You've made me feel a lot better about that. So it's so thanks. So thank you for that. One of the first things we come to in the book and the first rules we come to is courage. What's the role of courage in influence?
Lida Citröen:
00:09:06
know, And that one really hit me hard because I looked at the people I've worked with and I've been honored to, to help guide through their personal branding journey or their reputation journey, the audiences that I've spoken to and the people that stood out really had courage and encouraged doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're so much more passionate and committed to your vision that you're willing to work through that. And I think for the audience that this book is designed for, I think courage is really important for them. This is scary stuff I'm talking about. It was scary for me to write it, but I'm asking them to be courageous to believe in themselves, to believe in their idea, to believe in the people they want to serve. So courage is really where it all starts. The others don't matter if you're not going to be courageous.
John:
00:09:58
Yeah, what's the greatest fear that you are aware of that? Maybe you've had yourself but that you think other people are working to overcome
Lida Citröen:
00:10:07
I think what we all fear is being judged. And I work in the judgment business, right? Because I'm all about managing perception. That's what personal branding and reputation management is. But in this case, there, there are so many people who will. Sit on an idea thinking someone else will share it, or if I share it and then it's not a good idea, people are going to laugh at me or think less of me. So they hold on to these ideas or they hold on to not calling out when they see something that's wrong. In their community or their company, and we can't have that anymore. That's not what's going to move us as a society forward, and that's not what's going to help us individually grow. Yes, we will be judged. It's a fact. You judge me. I judge you. Your listeners are judging. Do they like the sound of my voice? Do I sound interesting enough? Where does my name come from? There's all these judgments that happen without us even thinking about it. So I acknowledge, just know they will judge you. And be courageous. It's just going to happen. Let's look at the worst fear and work through it.
John:
00:11:18
You begin some of the content of the book with asking people to get in touch with their why is that the reason for that? Because of the relation to needing to have that to find the courage.
Lida Citröen:
00:11:30
You certainly need to understand why you want to have courage. And what I talk about a lot is, people can want to have influence because they want money and I'm not opposed to money. Money's great, but that's not the point of what we're talking about. If you want to have influence because to you, it means yielding more power. Power for what power to drive change or power to soothe your ego. So really the first section is before you read any more of the book, be really clear about why you want to influence these conversations. And that's why the first three rules are anchored into that. Then we talk about who, and then we talk about where and how you want to influence, but it's you can't pass go. If you don't know why you want to influence, it's the genesis of everything.
John:
00:12:17
It was a very logical structure to the book, which I definitely appreciated. What for you is, if you don't mind sharing what's the why that drives you?
Lida Citröen:
00:12:30
I think my why is I am so deeply committed and unapologetically committed to helping people. I am that person who will help someone wherever they are, however they are. And I do it without judgment for the most part. I try not to judge what I believe is happening. I've committed a large part of my life and my business to serving our military and helping them. I work with women's groups. I just, I believe in helping people. I have so much to give and there's only so many hours in a day and there's only so many clients. So whatever's left or whatever, I can add in to help somebody else. That's really where I see benefit and writing a book to me is a way to do that. That's why I wrote my first book because I couldn't get everywhere and I wanted people to have those tools. So you could hire me, you could hire me to speak, but that's expensive. For 20 bucks. You can do it yourself. That was my idea was, let's just get the information out there. I get enough coming back and I'm very blessed in that way, but I want to help people. That's really what I'm passionate about.
John:
00:13:39
Yeah, and you're in roles in your life that are Very based around influence and you're speaking you're coaching. You're an author. These are influence roles, right?
Lida Citröen:
00:13:51
Absolutely. But not everybody has to be on stage in front of 5, 000 people or write seven books or coach CEOs to be able to have that kind of influence. And that's where it can I try to not. Only make it corporate because we have people leading nonprofits. We have people working in nonprofits. We have people doing a nine to five job coming home and seeing something in their community that doesn't sit well, that want to have influence. So it isn't just corporate influence. Yeah.
John:
00:14:24
I found rule number two Curious i'll say curious. Because I have questions as you don't really for a podcast Rule number two is about being real you say be real and you seem very carefully to be avoiding the word authenticity like be rather than saying be authentic Why be real and what does that mean?
Lida Citröen:
00:14:45
It builds on courage, right? So if you're going to have courage, the way you're going to express that courage is you're going to let people see you. You're going to let them know you. And that's terrifying. It goes back to what we talked about with, being judged. If you don't know me and you don't see me, then you can't judge me. But if I let you know who I am now, I've exposing myself and I'm vulnerable. The reason I push back against authenticity and being authentic. And I use the word all the time is I think it's getting a little overplayed. You asked me earlier if influence was. I think influence is fine. I think authenticity is often misunderstood because if I said to you, John, be authentic with me. What does that mean? If I said, I'm going to be my authentic self, it's a word we hear and we know, but if I say to you, let's get real, or I'm going to share my real thoughts, or I'm going to be real with you, there's a different level of understanding. And I tested this globally because I wanted to make sure it wasn't just a U. S. Vernacular, and I think it plays well with my audiences and I work in over 30 countries. So that was really important. But being real means, yeah letting people see you. And one thing I'm deeply passionate about, and I know you're probably going to ask me about it, is I'm not a fan of transparency. I'm a big fan of being real, but I don't believe we should tell people everything. And I don't know how you feel about that when you read that in the book. What are your thoughts?
John:
00:16:17
It was actually one of the things I had a question about funnily enough so you say very astute to to get to that first. Because Robert Greene talks about this and you I don't know if you're familiar with robert green's books But he talks about having a curated Image that we put out there, which is still who is still true to who we are, but it's very particular aspects we like we're choosing what we project out into the world We're picking the bits of us that are going to be most relevant and most representative now, I know some people see that as being quite maybe manipulative and maybe over curated But it's I think it depends on how you take it because if that still isn't You true to who you are in some aspects. It's going to feel fake. So there's still that element there. Do you lie somewhere in that territory?
Lida Citröen:
00:17:07
mean, I think I probably get a little simpler than that. And I'm fascinated to hear about his work. Cause I'll definitely look at that. I think where I draw the line is it comes from working with people that are going through reputation crisis, which reputation repair is a specialty of mine. And a lot of times these individuals. Maybe high profile, maybe not have felt a sort of social pressure or social obligation to chime in or share their thoughts on a conversation that either they're not the right person to speak on or that really opens up wounds. So my advice is be authentic, be real. If I ask you a question and you give me a response online or in person, it should be your truth, right? It should be what you really believe. But you also have the right to say, Lida, that, that's a little too personal for me, or I'm not comfortable going there. And that's perfectly fine. When the Supreme Court decision came down on Roe versus Wade, a lot of people were online talking about it. And I had clients reach out to me and say, do I need to be part of this? And we talked through whether it made sense not to curate necessarily, but because they had trauma attached to it, or they had deep Conflict attached to it and I said, no, don't prematurely jump into a conversation that you're not ready to talk about and there's no reason you have to. And that's where I think we're allowed to keep things private. I encourage parents to teach their kids this right? Just because it's being talked about doesn't mean you have to jump in. We can get into trouble that way.
John:
00:18:52
How do we find the balance then between, there's certainly plenty of people out there in the influence world who are saying, You need to have opinions and you need to be strong in your opinions and need to regularly exercise your right to express those opinions Because if you're not one thing or another if you're trying to be a people pleaser, you're not going to stand out You're not going to be that noticeable. So where do we find the balance there?
Lida Citröen:
00:19:16
I actually would challenge that, that jumping in on every conversation is what makes you notable or noticeable, because I don't know that's really, I think you just start sounding like the noise that's happening. Where I advise clients is create your boundaries or your guardrails. What are the topics that you are just not comfortable going towards? And it might be someone has small children and they say, I don't want to share my children online. I don't want to talk about my children. They're vulnerable. They're young. Perfectly fine. Then that's a rule for you. I have rules around talking about religion, talking about alcohol, drugs, anything like that, and talking about politics. I just don't do it in person or online. It doesn't mean I don't have strong political opinions. It doesn't mean I don't, anchor my work a lot personally in my faith and it doesn't mean I don't enjoy a nice glass of wine on a Friday night, but it's not germane to my brand. It doesn't add anything to my brand. And so I don't see a reason to go there and having those three rules, those three guardrails, I just know that I don't have to participate when the conversations go that direction.
John:
00:20:34
It seems very wise to me. It's actually making me think of a time when I turned down an appearance on a podcast that sounded like a lot of fun, but was to go on primarily to talk about a time that you had broken the law. And I'm thinking I could do that. Seriously. I thought, yeah, it sounds fun. I think I would enjoy the conversation, but I'm really not sure about what that would do for me reputationally, because I would probably end up talking about something really. Bland that wasn't that interesting because probably the times that might actually be that more, more interesting to talk about are ones that I actually wouldn't want to talk about.
Lida Citröen:
00:21:12
Was it a law enforcement podcast? I would be
John:
00:21:14
No I think it was primarily just to talk about that maybe just to emphasize how much people break the law or to have fun conversations around that. But just reputationally, I thought, Oh no, I'm going to steer clear. Okay.
Lida Citröen:
00:21:27
That's another fabulous way to think about it, right? Am I going to, is this going to help me not just personally, but help me fulfill my mission? So if I were to start talking about faith, is it going to help me? I'm not afraid to, but I have clients of all different faith. So I don't ever want them to feel that I'm going to guide them as an executive coach by using my faith. And the same thing with alcohol and drugs. I have clients that are in recovery. I have clients that started recovery programs. I worked with a fascinating client years ago. It's not part of what I do. I don't have to talk about it and then risk, maybe it going in a sideways direction.
John:
00:22:11
One of your rules is inclusivity, right? And I think that's a part of this. And I certainly know from my own years of coaching experience. Like I am not a religious person. I'm not a particular, I say, I'm not very spiritual. I do meditation and stuff like that, I have no particular association or anything like that. And yeah, I've had many clients who do. But whether I do or not shouldn't be relevant to that. It's not relevant to them It's not relevant to the coaching relationship I'm not there to validate their beliefs or to invalidate them. I'm there to coach them and so I don't want You know, I don't want my beliefs to tread on What we're actually there to do and how we're so for me it makes a lot of sense,
Lida Citröen:
00:22:53
And for some coaches it does, right? And then in that case, you need to lean into it, right? And that would be a case where you would have to be real and talk about it and talk about how it influences your coaching style, because there's a client out there who is looking for that type of coaching. So if it is part of your brand, then yes, you lean into it.
John:
00:23:14
Yeah, which is an interesting kind of dichotomy There are those times where you actually actively do Want to distance some people from you and what you're about because you're going for Working or helping particular kind of person in a particular way maybe you working in the faith based area and you want to have your clients Who share that faith that would just make perfect sense. So yeah, it's it's very again very logical But it's interesting that there was definitely probably the for the majority of people you want to be more inclusive And be able to speak on a wider scale. The rules are very interesting. One of the things Just to stay on this sort of be real aspect for a moment have you ever come across Todd Herman's book alter The Alter Ego Effect?
Lida Citröen:
00:23:59
No, I'll write that one down too. I think I need to read more. Okay.
John:
00:24:06
It's an interesting but I say the reason why I brought it up is because he talks about this idea of creating these alter ego versions of ourselves that like think of someone like beyonce with the sasha fears character. It's like You can step into that alter ego version of ourselves and step out of our own limitations. We can become that How do you think that perhaps that idea might fit with the being real concept here?
Lida Citröen:
00:24:30
So now I'm really like liking that. Because I think I challenged that. I think I challenged that idea because that seems to play with this older idea of executive presence. And if you recall, I share a story of something that happened to me years ago, where I was, Part of coordinating a very large conference. I wasn't a speaker yet. So I was backstage and we had hired a notable speaker to come with us to do our general session keynote and backstage. I thought this guy was falling apart. He was nervous and fidgeting. I caught him smoking behind the AV equipment. Not a good thing. He was an absolute mess and I'm panicking thinking I'm putting him on stage in a moment in front of thousands of people. What just happened? He's supposed to be such a good speaker. And as soon as his feet hit the stage, like you're talking about, he like drew in a breath and became this other person and was charismatic and relaxed and funny and self deprecating. And I'm watching this thinking. This guy has influence but was he real? Which was the real him? And I grew up in Hollywood, so I've been around the idea of playing other parts, right? But I think the way it translates to lessons in the book is, I don't know that's sustainable for most of us. For instance, I share that I spent 20 years in the corporate world doing that, right? I would go to work and almost breathe in that air and go, okay, now we're this person. And I was what I thought everybody wanted me to be. I was funny when they thought I was supposed to be funny. I was strong when they wanted me to be strong. I sat in the back when they told me to sit in the back, but I would come home every night and take off that costume. And then I got to be myself. And that's where I was most relaxed and most funny, believe it or not and most myself. And I did that for 20 years. That's really hard to do.
John:
00:26:29
Yeah
Lida Citröen:
00:26:29
What I'm talking about in the book is maybe we don't step into an alter ego or another personality, but what would it look like to bring that self that we are when we're feeling most real into our day to day engagements?
John:
00:26:45
It's interesting because one of the things I talk about is helping people to show up And you talk about consistency in your book as well Which I thought you know that I think there's some crossover in some of the things that we talk about for sure a lot of people are not very conscious about How they show up they're living in reactivity to their environment to the people they encounter things like that So where's where do we make the distinction then about how we tune in to showing up as the real self because our real self might be Reactive to all the things that are going on around us Should we show up as that version of ourselves or should we actually? Try to be more Controlled or aware of how we're showing up and interacting with people
Lida Citröen:
00:27:31
I think it's controlled, but not in a way that we have to stress it. I think where I'm, what I'm talking about in consistency is, for instance, when somebody is curated and polished and suave on their LinkedIn profile, but then you meet them and they're funny and quirky and you're like, which is real. Which is the real you. If you're funny, be funny on LinkedIn. It's okay. But make sure you're funny because some people think they're funny, but they're really not. So I always say, make sure at least five people say you're funny.
John:
00:28:05
Lots of british people think they're funny and they're just smutty I will say that
Lida Citröen:
00:28:09
Or the, yeah, exactly. And that's where reputation repair comes in, but it's about being consistent, right? I am the same person. If you meet me at a grocery store or you meet me at a conference I'm not a different person. I don't have a persona that I assume that I have to change when I'm being myself. And I'm just trying to give people permission to be the version of themselves. And know that they, yes it's going to take courage because you might get rejected, but that means you're with the wrong people. If you're with the wrong people and they reject you, that's a good thing. You want to be with the right people and just be consistent. It doesn't mean you have to have a signature style or a signature look. I'm a Gemini. And I'm female. There's no way I'm going to wear the same thing every day. But I can change my hair. I can change my look and still be the same person inside.
John:
00:29:03
Which again it makes perfect sense to me. I just think I've been in the personal development industry a long time and You may have experience with this yourself, I've certainly spoken about it on many of my own shows and other people's podcasts as well of how there are many people in the personal development world, big names who many people would know who are not the same person off stage as they are on stage. And I know I write about this as well in terms of does it really matter? And I think it does. Because I think if the people who are like that and they can give the big performance, but they're broken Stage they're messed up or they're doing things that are really out of their integrity and that's the environment that you're really in not what on stage is what's going on behind That's really the energy that you're Surrounding yourself with and so if the people around you aren't walking the talk, you're not either. Really. You're not standing up for your own values in that sense. If you care about your values, would you agree with that?
Lida Citröen:
00:30:03
I absolutely agree with that. And that's, I think a big part of what I talk about in the book, right? Is it's not about being who you think other people want you to be. And I draw my own experience there because I did it and it works and I made a lot of money and I grew my career, but it was exhausting and it wasn't sustainable and it wasn't fulfilling. And then I go the complete opposite and I lead completely with my heart. And. I've created magic and my clients create magic, but it is terrifying to do that when you talk about people being different on stage than they are in person. I think we see examples of that in entertainment. We see examples in politics, but there's also a trust that comes when somebody is the same person. We don't have to like them. And I think we have many examples of politicians, for instance, we don't like as people, but we respect their policy and we believe we can trust them because they're the same off camera that they are on. And that's when I talk about credibility in the book values. Plus action equals credibility. You have to tell me what you stand for, what you believe in. And then to use your expression, you have to walk the talk. So if you do the walking without telling me why, then I don't necessarily trust you. If you do the telling me why, but I don't see evidence of you living your values, then I don't trust you. So it does require us to communicate who we are, what we stand for, what we believe in. And then consistently show up and take action to support that.
John:
00:31:44
I was going to ask you what's what do you do then if you're, if your real self is dull and boring, but then I thinking the British prime minister, Sir Kier Starmer is pretty dull and boring. He's doing all right for himself, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Lida Citröen:
00:31:58
And there's nothing wrong with dull and boring. I think those are, those are terms I might not use. I might use more quiet and introvert, but But we don't need everyone to be loud. Having influence does not mean being the loudest voice in the room. It doesn't mean being an extrovert. And I certainly put myself in the camp of being an extrovert and we're not always great. We have shortcomings. We're not the best listeners, but someone who is quieter, who's more reserved will tend to take in information. And then when they do speak, what comes out of their mouth is unbelievable. They may not have all that charisma and gravitas and all that, but they're very deliberate and very considerate with what they offer. And that is power. That is absolutely a superpower.
John:
00:32:45
Yeah, definitely. I think people do. Tend to really sit up and pay attention when the people who are usually quiet suddenly decide to speak up so I do agree that there is power with that. You talk about values and you talk about integrity I don't want to get one of the things that maybe had questions about in from your book was Where you see if there is a difference between integrity and ethics
Lida Citröen:
00:33:16
I, the difference I see is that I think ethics and being ethical is easier to understand than having integrity. When I do values exercises, for instance, with audiences, a lot of people will say integrity. My value is integrity. And then I asked him to clarify what that means. And they look at me like everyone knows what that means. Not everyone knows what that means. And I asked him to peel it back. And what I have found doing this for years is eventually we get to a very different understanding of what integrity means. But upholding an ethical standard, having a moral compass being an ethical person, I think is a little bit easier to grasp, but are they different dramatically? I guess I haven't thought about that in that way.
John:
00:34:05
Yeah, I guess it's just that my take and it is just my take because i'm not the authority on this by any means is More that your integrity is about being true to your values and the things you believe in true to yourself and the real you whereas I see ethics as being more of an external thing that like commonly shared values and principles That everyone is better off if we live by that are not necessarily the same thing But that I think that's just my take because why I had a question about it
Lida Citröen:
00:34:37
that's interesting because where I would have gone if I had shared more about the values exercise when I do this in a group is when I talk to people about what integrity means. They usually tell me it's doing the right thing. It's doing what you believe. So it feels more external than the way you just defined it. So I'm going to give some more thinking on that. I think that's really interesting.
John:
00:35:00
Oh, I'm glad that can be interesting as I'm asking questions. You do go on to talk about building up credibility. And it's something I've had a lot of people talk about on my show before. What are we talking about in terms of credibility here? And how do we go about building it?
Lida Citröen:
00:35:19
Very simply values plus action. That's how you build credibility. I have had so many clients try to come to me and say, I just need to go over that. I just need to fast forward that cause I don't have time to do. It's it doesn't work. And remember, we don't have to like the person, but we can find them credible. We can trust them. If we know what they stand for, what are their Core operating values, right? Those primary values that they are going to make decisions through. This is yes, this is no, this is right. This is wrong. If we understand where that person is coming from in terms of their values, and then we see them lead and behave and communicate through the lens of those values. Then we start to trust them. We start to assign them credibility if there's no action. So they tell us, I believe in this, but they don't do anything about it. It falls apart. And also if they do the action, but they don't tell us why. It falls apart. So it is really important, and that again, is why it requires courage. I, I had a training session last week with a company in India and people were saying, I don't wanna tell people what I stand for. I don't wanna open myself up like that. And I said, but how are they gonna know who you really are? Not your skills, not your subject matter expertise. But who you are that makes you unique and compelling and interesting and memorable if they don't know where you come from and what you stand for and finding our values is not an easy thing. We don't just fill out a form and go boom. There they are. It requires a lot of work. But
John:
00:37:04
And they can change, right? As well they change over time.
Lida Citröen:
00:37:07
They I use the word evolve that they don't change except if there's been a traumatic event. So in the case of a really traumatic event, then it can absolutely pivot our priorities, our values, all, everything we stand for. And that's rare. Usually if we look back on our life. That's that value set was there some somewhere. We just didn't know what it was called, but it grew and it matured and it evolved as we grow and mature. 10, 15 years from now, I'm still going to want to help people. I'm still going to focus on gratitude and generosity. I was doing this when I was a kid. I was just doing it differently.
John:
00:37:49
Yeah, those essential core values pretty much they stay the same for most of us Do you think then that most people don't know what their values are?
Lida Citröen:
00:38:01
I would say that's probably true. And it isn't that they, that. They can't find them. It's just life is busy and we're feeding our family and taking care of our parents and trying to do good and not get in trouble and not show up on a podcast about breaking the law. And we're just not thinking about it, but I love to take an audience or a client through the experience of just pausing for a second. and realizing, I talked a lot about purpose in the book. Why are you here? What makes you the person that was supposed to be here at this moment to hear this message and where do your values live in that? And I see, I'm sure you do too, I see the physical transformation and the joy and the relaxation that comes with, I have, I have a sense of who I am now, I have a sense of why I'm here, how I should lead and show up and how I'm supposed to breathe through this thing called life that I've been given one chance at.
John:
00:39:06
Do you feel from the experience of your work with people then that The values are there and they are living by them They just need to uncover what they actually are or is there something else that they're living by or influenced by instead? You
Lida Citröen:
00:39:22
I think they're there. I think they're there. I think they are many times living through them. They haven't made the connection. So when we, for instance, we'll talk about a value like honesty, which comes up as much as integrity, right? As honesty. And I'll do some wordsmithing to ask him, do you mean truthfulness, directness, candor, I love words and we will usually will land on honesty and a definition of honesty. And then I'll ask them, so tell me about times when you had to be honest and you had to bring courage into it and you had to share something that was honest when maybe it wasn't popular and they'll bring forward those examples, but they never connected the two. They said, I was just honest because I felt I couldn't not be. Okay, because your values are there and your values are what are guiding you. You just might not see them yet. Then they can be empowered going forward every time they have to be honest with someone to preface it by saying, I'm going to be honest with you. You might, it might not be popular what I share, but I'm going to be honest because. I stand and I value honesty. I want you to be honest with me too. So you start anchoring your personal brand and your reputation in these values and people around you start seeing evidence and going, yeah, John he's the honest guy. He's going to, he's going to tell you what he thinks and they start giving you that credibility.
John:
00:40:51
There was one of the rules in your book that I think surprised me, and Not in a bad way, just in a oh, really, how does that fit in a curious, in a curiosity raising kind of way. I wonder if you can guess what it was.
Lida Citröen:
00:41:06
I'm looking at my list going, was it agile?
John:
00:41:12
No, yeah service. I won't make you play the guessing game. Service, where does service in your view fit into influence?
Lida Citröen:
00:41:21
I had nine other guesses. I, again, we're talking about influence. We're not talking about power or authority or rank or seniority. So when you truly want to influence a conversation, an organization, a community, that you have to have a service mindset. If it's just for self serving gain, I don't know that's really what I'm trying to get at with the book. I'm speaking to people who want to help. Maybe it's as grand on as grand a scale as I serve. Maybe it's military service, which is, extraordinary. Maybe it's just, maybe it's mentoring or being a friend to people who need it to serve means to lead with more integrity, more realness, more courage, more agility, more consistency and I think service is paramount. It goes along with inclusivity when it comes to understanding who you want to serve.
John:
00:42:22
It's funny in a world where so many people talk about leadership and influence that service is probably one of those things that doesn't come up that often. And that's that was why maybe took me a bit by surprise. But one of the people, like historical figures who I most admire and respect was the the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. And he is probably a prime example, often called the philosopher king. But. His whole philosophy was based around servant leadership and it's a principle that sometimes see making its way back and that's what this brought me back to one thinking. Yeah, I see It's something that's been there through the ages and it comes and it goes but it's a voice we should we can only hope to hear more of in the leadership and influence conversations that we have probably one of the ones that Will be most interesting and maybe least surprising to our audience, to our listener about influence would be storytelling. So many people out there are teaching storytelling and it's a wonderful area, but let's ask you, why is this in your rules and what does storytelling mean from your perspective?
Lida Citröen:
00:43:34
I think it, it means a lot of different things and you're right, it is very much a hot topic, but I think it's good that it's a hot topic because so much information is being shared without being wrapped in a story and it makes it really hard to learn. We're in an information age, we're being bombarded online in person. It's coming at us fast and strong. And I know others have found what I have found. Cross culturally stories work. I teach a lot of international audiences like you do. We were talking about that a moment ago. And if I share a story that isn't just an American story, I can speak to an audience in India or Israel or Europe because stories are how we learned as children. And so the beauty of being able to tell stories is just magical. And what I love about storytelling, I think it really speaks to that person who isn't sure how to share their message. So for instance, I talk about the origin story. In the book. Where do you come from? What is your origin story? And how does that make you who you are? There's beauty in that. And that's unique to you. Did you grow up in a challenging environment? Did you grow up in a very comfortable environment? How did that influence How you want to lead today and how you want to serve other people. So whether you're communicating large sets of data or you're trying to build rapport with an audience, stories are how we do that. I can share methodology. I can teach the steps, but the second I tell a story. That's what people come up to me after a program and say, I love when you talked about that woman and what happened to her. Gosh, I could relate to that. It doesn't even have to be their story or something they've experienced, but we put ourselves in the position of the person that the story is about. And, like Donald Miller said in his story brand book, which if you haven't read that one, that's fabulous. The hero of the story should always be the other person. So when you can think about storytelling that way, that really dovetails beautifully into influence.
John:
00:45:46
Yeah What for you then what are some of the best elements of a good storytelling?
Lida Citröen:
00:45:55
A good story always has an opening, a middle and an end, right? There's a structure to a story. And when I teach storytelling with clients, I say we focus on all three because I've seen people tell a story and it's wrapped and I'm brought in and I'm hanging on every word. And then the supporting points are there. And then they just end. They'll say that's all I've got wait a minute, you had me in this story. You've got to tie it up with a bow. So I think a good story has all 3 elements and they're thought through. If I'm telling a story with a coaching client or on stage, because I know a lot of your listeners do this kind of work too, I'm going to think about, am I going to open the story with something that's shocking or something that's sad? How am I going to draw them into the story? And then what's the point of the story? What are the supporting points that i'm going to unpack and how am I going to close that up? And that's what makes a story work
John:
00:46:53
What makes it work from the stage like when you're on a stage telling a story what makes your stories work from the stage?
Lida Citröen:
00:47:01
practice for sure I can always tell when i'm telling a story that I haven't thought through and i'm like, where am I going with this? Like I got caught up in a moment. I'm down a rabbit hole. I don't know what to do so what makes them work is definitely Thinking them through, thinking those three steps through whenever I write out a new program or a new speech, I always look at it and wonder, where am I going to embed the stories? Because the stories really punctuate a message. They illustrate, they give an example. I even suggest including a small story in an elevator pitch because We can remember stories. I may not remember your job title or what company you work for, but if you tell me a story about what it looks like to do what you do, I'm going to remember that. So the stories that work from the stage, I think there's a little bit of not theatrics, but you have to deliver the story the right way. So if there's suspense. You don't rush through it. You actually let your audience take that silence in, build the anticipation, and then you help them understand the outcome. So I enjoy that part because that, that to me is really getting the message to stick.
John:
00:48:13
One of the things I think is very important. We've already touched on it earlier on in that conversation, but you certainly really hit it home in the book is about being visible and I just wonder you know as we start to draw our conversation to a close as much fun as it's been We can't go on forever. As we start to do that, what's the importance of, I just can't recap what the importance is of being visible and maybe some advice that you can give to our listener for how they can start to step up and be visible today.
Lida Citröen:
00:48:46
Absolutely. I'll tell very quick story years ago. I worked for an organization. I was part of the senior Lidaship team and we had a board of directors every month. The board of directors and the staff, the senior staff would get together. And discuss what was happening with the organization. And there was a very large conference table. The format when I joined the organization was that the board sat at the table and we, as senior staff sat along the wall in the back and I did this for months. I watched this Then sometimes from the back, we would have to share because we were reporting on our department, but it struck me. Why am I sitting at the back of the room when there's a whole big table and there's plenty of seats open and I sat at the table one time. And as the board filtered in, and my boss filtered in, they looked at me like, what are you doing? Nobody really said anything. They were just surprised that I was not sitting at the back of the room with the staff. And then I did it again the 2nd time. And the 2nd month, I actually said something while I was sitting at the table. The 3rd month I did it, one of my colleagues joined me. The 4th month, that colleague said something. So I think if we're in the back of the room all the time. Or we're hiding or just sitting on our ideas because we think someone else will say it. Someone else might say it, but then they get credit for it. And maybe their idea is not as fleshed out as yours. Maybe it's not as good as yours. Maybe you bring a voice to that conversation that is going to be missing if someone else shares that idea. So I think being visible means, again, having the courage to sit at the table, to raise your hand and say, I don't think that is a good idea for our team or our company or our community. Or here's a different way we could look at it. That takes a lot of courage to do that. But if we're not visible, if we don't see you, if you make a LinkedIn profile and then just wait for people to reach out to you. That's not the point. The point is to take those chances, get involved in the conversation. Yeah, you might be wrong. Sometime we all are. We're human beings. We're going to make mistakes. But what if you are the right person that is supposed to carry that idea forward and you don't say anything? What a missed opportunity. So I encourage people to just start small, right? It could be Offering an idea in a meeting and think about the idea ahead of time. Really plan it. Maybe it's sitting at the big kids table instead of against the wall. Maybe it's asking for someone else to be in the meeting. That isn't represented in that group, just small steps. It doesn't have to be big swings, but we have to see you in order to be influenced by you.
John:
00:51:41
I love that and certainly many of the clients I work with Particularly the introverts and to be honest many of the female clients I work with as well will often talk about not feeling visible not feeling heard in these kinds of situations and You're really giving like the encouragement and permission to step up and be seen be heard and not just leave it for the loud voices as you say not just leave it for the extroverts to be the ones who are always leading the charge and we can step up and You keep going and be okay with it. Not always being perfect. All right We have to take those risks to get out there. I do think the 10 rules in your book applied together are Genuinely transformational for people if those are implemented they're transformational Completely turn a person's life and career around in very positive ways. So I really like what you bring to the table. Your book is now available for people to buy. Is that right?
Lida Citröen:
00:52:39
Oh, yes, it was launched at the end of August. It's available audio book ebook. Amazon, wherever books are sold internationally, it's doing really well internationally, which makes my heart happy. Because I really want. any underrepresented voice, any marginalized voice. You mentioned women. There are so many people who would say that they feel unseen and yeah, I want to help people be seen because you might be the right person at the right time and we need you. I need you to speak up.
John:
00:53:11
And the book is called the new rules for influence.
Lida Citröen:
00:53:13
The new rules of influence, how to authentically build trust, drive change and make an impact.
John:
00:53:21
Fantastic, I certainly would encourage anyone to go and check that out. I'm a big audio book person you know certainly i've read the physical copy I might well go and check out the audio book because I love that Is it you reading or did you get someone else?
Lida Citröen:
00:53:32
No, my publisher walked me through what the process was, if I were to record it, and yeah, that sounds like a hot mess. So they do have, it was a professional narrator. She did a fabulous job. And I'm listening to the audio book as well, because I like, it's interesting to hear someone else tell your stories, but I guess I guess that's how it works today.
John:
00:53:53
Does it feel like a level of detachment from it's oh that's interesting. Oh wait, I said that
Lida Citröen:
00:53:58
No, it actually feels like I have a twin Oh, she felt that too. So did I, Oh, wait a minute. Those are my words. There's not another person. She's just reading them, but she did a really good job reading them and putting the emphasis where the emphasis should be. Yeah.
John:
00:54:13
always very important, when it comes, certainly our listener can go and find out more about you from your book, and I do encourage it. I did enjoy your book very much. Where else should I listen to go through? We'd like to check you out more.
Lida Citröen:
00:54:23
I'm pretty much on every social platform. My website is Lida360, L I D A 360. I'm on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn is my big platform. And yeah I'm sharing a lot of information online. It doesn't cost anything. I'm putting it out there because I'll just make more.
John:
00:54:42
This has been a wonderfully high value conversation Lida. I really appreciate you coming on and being our guest on the show. And thank you for appearing on Present Influence.
Lida Citröen:
00:54:51
Thank you. I love what you're doing. Keep at it. Keep teaching influence and it's been my honor. Thank you.
John:
00:54:57
I just wanted to add a few final thoughts onto this episode because having played it back and been through the editing process for this episode, I realized there was so much great content in here and really a lot of detail elements that made it a very strong conversation with things that I want to take from it and things that I want to maybe talk more about, which I'm going to do on Friday in this week's solo episode. So, you know, I want to talk about things like courage and influence and visibility and values and how we perhaps need to know our values and understand them a bit more about guardrails and about what we do and don't need to talk about and Also about service and really my own opinions about how that fits into influence. So I hope you'll join me on Friday for another episode which is just going to be me by myself pondering on some of the things that we've been talking about today and doing a little personal deep dive into, into some of those areas. And that you've enjoyed this episode with Lida. I am busy revamping the Present Influence website. I do hope you'll go and check it out. If you haven't done so already, get yourself a copy of my free download to help you be able to get more influence, more leads, more following through being a podcast guest. Lots of high value for you there as well. And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn and get access to the Present Influence newsletter which comes out every week and find out, get some highlights of the show and some other additional information and articles that will be coming up there from time to time. Hope to see you there and I'll see you Friday and next week. I have a really fun guest for you. we're gonna be talking about Utilizing humor in your sales and marketing whatever kind of business you're in Because it's so hard to stand out and right now one of the biggest Top ways to be able to stand out online and have your presence be noticed and to have greater influence is to utilize humor. As speakers we know that being able to add humor and touch of comedy into our presentations is really helpful and very influential with audiences as well. So we're going to be talking about that. Do join us for that. You won't want to miss it. And you're going to find out how you could add humor into your sales and marketing processes if that is something that you would like to do. So join me next week for that with my guest Adam Hunt from White Label. In the meantime, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, have an amazing rest of your day. see you soon.
00:00:00
Do you have the x factor? That je ne sais quoi, gravitas, executive presence that most influential people seem to have. My guest today says that you don't even need that, that there's something better than all those things when it comes to being an influencer in the truest sense of what that means and that's what we're here to find out. My guest is Lida Citroen, the author of a fairly new book called The New Rules of Influence, How to Authentically Build Trust, Drive Change, and Make an Impact. So you can imagine, I was excited to talk with Lida, when I realized that we have a great deal of crossover. According to Lida, there are only 10 elements that you need to consider to be more influential. One of them surprised me and the one I found most impactful was about something we all need if we are really going to be more visible and to be heard if we're going to have any influence at all. We talked about what it means to be real and get real with people. And what happens to those people who are faking it or who are just completely different people when they're not on stage, giving some kind of performance. The guardrails that you need to have in place to protect your public profile and why you really do need to know your values to have great influence. You won't want to miss a minute of this high value conversation. Welcome to Present Influence the show that helps coaches, speakers, and business leaders develop the communication skills to impact influence and inspire. My name is John Ball, keynote coach, professional speaker, and your guide on this journey to mastery level communication and presentation skills. My mission is to provide professional communicators like you with everything you need to maximize your impact, connect with audiences and present with influence. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app for weekly episodes and interviews with influence experts. Lida, I'd like to say, first of all, welcome to Present Influence. I have been looking forward to speaking to you and you speak and write on one of my favorite subjects, which is influence. And it's even in even in the title of this show. So he's definitely the right audience. I think for you to be a guest for, and you even have a perfect name for us. What a perfect name for driving change Lida Citroen. That's awesome.
Lida Citröen:
00:02:29
I wasn't planned, but I'm going to use that.
John:
00:02:32
You're primarily, we're primarily here to talk about your book today, which is the new rules for influence, the 10 new, 10 new rules for influence. And it's fascinating to me that this is a book that needed to exist in the first place because I will, what were the old rules for influence that you felt needed to?
Lida Citröen:
00:02:52
Yeah. And thank you so much, John, for having me. I love this topic. I love what you're focusing on and really what I tried to do with the new rules of influence is support a need in the market that I didn't see was being met. So there's all these wonderful courses and, literary guides that have been institutions in our corporate world. Upbringing and all and how we work today, but they tended to not relate to an audience. I thought was missing some practical advice and a place for them. So I'll give you an example. Traditional influence is built on this model of executive presence. And when we think of executive presence and we look at all the literature and all the writing I've taken the courses I've, I've taught executive presence, it focuses on three main pillars, right? There's image. You have to look a certain way there's communication. You have to speak a certain way and there's this thing called gravitas, which studies show. People say is very important, especially hiring managers and human resource professionals say gravitas is really important to becoming a leader. We see it, we know it, but we can't teach it. That's fun. So I'm telling you something is important, but I can't tell you how to get it. And I always struggled with that. And I just thought, there's something needed. That's a little more practical, a little more gritty and a little more real. And that's why I tackled a different way of thinking about influence in this book.
John:
00:04:24
Let's keep on defining our terms, because that's a really helpful thing. And I'm really glad you explained the executive presence part there as well. When we're talking about influence in what capacity are we talking about it? What kind of influence is this that we're going for?
Lida Citröen:
00:04:41
I define it as any kind of influence, right? You want to have more sway when you offer an idea in a meeting with your team. You want to advocate for a position that the company should take with your boss or you want to influence a need not being met in a community. And it could be a community you don't come from. Which is what's interesting. It could be political influence. It could be social justice influence. It could be corporate influence. But really, when you think of what influence is and you know this better than most, it's the ability to sway or affect a decision to take a vision, an idea and then championing for that and have people actually listen to you and take you seriously. So it can be as small as I just want to be more visible in my company. I want to have more of a say, or I want to start a movement that changes the world and everything in between.
John:
00:05:42
Are there some kind of popular names who you would say are good examples of this?
Lida Citröen:
00:05:46
I think, the classic influence when we think of the old model, we think of corporate leaders. We think of politicians, right? Who come to the microphone dress the right way with the right messages. And they have that gravitas thing, right? That charisma, that je ne sais crois that is just so compelling. But then we look at people, and I use the example in the book of Greta Thunberg at age 15 sits in front of Swedish parliament and advocates for climate change. 15 years old. She didn't sound suave and polished. She had a good message and it was thought through. She didn't have the right outfit on. She wasn't dressed the right way. And I don't know that she has gravitas. She was a young woman who had an idea that she was deeply passionate about and she took it as far as she could and she still advocates for it. So I think we look at something like that and say, wait a minute, somebody like that can have influence. What does that mean for me? And when we look around companies today, I know in my experience, and you do a lot of this work too, I am seeing CEOs yield less influence than somebody more junior. That there's a person in the back of the room who shares an idea and heads turn wait a minute, influence is coming from different corners now, and that's really cool.
John:
00:07:12
So can we reclaim the word influencer or has it been ruined for all of us?
Lida Citröen:
00:07:18
It certainly hasn't been ruined. I don't think it's like some of the other words that, are going to be challenged, or maybe the next generation has to redefine. I just think we need to embrace it. And I know a lot of people who read the book and reached out to me are people who say, I describe myself as an introvert, or I'm really pretty shy. And I never thought, That I could share an idea. I just waited for someone else to share that idea. So you're saying I could have influence. Yes, you can have influence. We need you to have influence. We can't just keep hearing from the same voices.
John:
00:07:54
I do definitely want to take a look at some of these rules but before we do, were there more than 10? How many rules could there have been?
Lida Citröen:
00:08:04
This could be volume 1, right? No, I'm kidding. There's 10 volumes. I worked with my publisher on that because I just, it just kept coming. And I think this is a starting place. I think it's a good starting place. For 99. 9 percent of us, could you add rules in that work for you? Absolutely, but I picked 10 because I thought, phone numbers are in 10, 10 can be somewhat digestible. And then by breaking those 10 rules or grouping them into 4 key sections to help the reader understand how the rules apply to certain aspects of building influence that kind of chunked it down to make it a little more manageable.
John:
00:08:46
Good. I will say I just recently created a nine point framework for something I'm working on. You've made me feel a lot better about that. So it's so thanks. So thank you for that. One of the first things we come to in the book and the first rules we come to is courage. What's the role of courage in influence?
Lida Citröen:
00:09:06
know, And that one really hit me hard because I looked at the people I've worked with and I've been honored to, to help guide through their personal branding journey or their reputation journey, the audiences that I've spoken to and the people that stood out really had courage and encouraged doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're so much more passionate and committed to your vision that you're willing to work through that. And I think for the audience that this book is designed for, I think courage is really important for them. This is scary stuff I'm talking about. It was scary for me to write it, but I'm asking them to be courageous to believe in themselves, to believe in their idea, to believe in the people they want to serve. So courage is really where it all starts. The others don't matter if you're not going to be courageous.
John:
00:09:58
Yeah, what's the greatest fear that you are aware of that? Maybe you've had yourself but that you think other people are working to overcome
Lida Citröen:
00:10:07
I think what we all fear is being judged. And I work in the judgment business, right? Because I'm all about managing perception. That's what personal branding and reputation management is. But in this case, there, there are so many people who will. Sit on an idea thinking someone else will share it, or if I share it and then it's not a good idea, people are going to laugh at me or think less of me. So they hold on to these ideas or they hold on to not calling out when they see something that's wrong. In their community or their company, and we can't have that anymore. That's not what's going to move us as a society forward, and that's not what's going to help us individually grow. Yes, we will be judged. It's a fact. You judge me. I judge you. Your listeners are judging. Do they like the sound of my voice? Do I sound interesting enough? Where does my name come from? There's all these judgments that happen without us even thinking about it. So I acknowledge, just know they will judge you. And be courageous. It's just going to happen. Let's look at the worst fear and work through it.
John:
00:11:18
You begin some of the content of the book with asking people to get in touch with their why is that the reason for that? Because of the relation to needing to have that to find the courage.
Lida Citröen:
00:11:30
You certainly need to understand why you want to have courage. And what I talk about a lot is, people can want to have influence because they want money and I'm not opposed to money. Money's great, but that's not the point of what we're talking about. If you want to have influence because to you, it means yielding more power. Power for what power to drive change or power to soothe your ego. So really the first section is before you read any more of the book, be really clear about why you want to influence these conversations. And that's why the first three rules are anchored into that. Then we talk about who, and then we talk about where and how you want to influence, but it's you can't pass go. If you don't know why you want to influence, it's the genesis of everything.
John:
00:12:17
It was a very logical structure to the book, which I definitely appreciated. What for you is, if you don't mind sharing what's the why that drives you?
Lida Citröen:
00:12:30
I think my why is I am so deeply committed and unapologetically committed to helping people. I am that person who will help someone wherever they are, however they are. And I do it without judgment for the most part. I try not to judge what I believe is happening. I've committed a large part of my life and my business to serving our military and helping them. I work with women's groups. I just, I believe in helping people. I have so much to give and there's only so many hours in a day and there's only so many clients. So whatever's left or whatever, I can add in to help somebody else. That's really where I see benefit and writing a book to me is a way to do that. That's why I wrote my first book because I couldn't get everywhere and I wanted people to have those tools. So you could hire me, you could hire me to speak, but that's expensive. For 20 bucks. You can do it yourself. That was my idea was, let's just get the information out there. I get enough coming back and I'm very blessed in that way, but I want to help people. That's really what I'm passionate about.
John:
00:13:39
Yeah, and you're in roles in your life that are Very based around influence and you're speaking you're coaching. You're an author. These are influence roles, right?
Lida Citröen:
00:13:51
Absolutely. But not everybody has to be on stage in front of 5, 000 people or write seven books or coach CEOs to be able to have that kind of influence. And that's where it can I try to not. Only make it corporate because we have people leading nonprofits. We have people working in nonprofits. We have people doing a nine to five job coming home and seeing something in their community that doesn't sit well, that want to have influence. So it isn't just corporate influence. Yeah.
John:
00:14:24
I found rule number two Curious i'll say curious. Because I have questions as you don't really for a podcast Rule number two is about being real you say be real and you seem very carefully to be avoiding the word authenticity like be rather than saying be authentic Why be real and what does that mean?
Lida Citröen:
00:14:45
It builds on courage, right? So if you're going to have courage, the way you're going to express that courage is you're going to let people see you. You're going to let them know you. And that's terrifying. It goes back to what we talked about with, being judged. If you don't know me and you don't see me, then you can't judge me. But if I let you know who I am now, I've exposing myself and I'm vulnerable. The reason I push back against authenticity and being authentic. And I use the word all the time is I think it's getting a little overplayed. You asked me earlier if influence was. I think influence is fine. I think authenticity is often misunderstood because if I said to you, John, be authentic with me. What does that mean? If I said, I'm going to be my authentic self, it's a word we hear and we know, but if I say to you, let's get real, or I'm going to share my real thoughts, or I'm going to be real with you, there's a different level of understanding. And I tested this globally because I wanted to make sure it wasn't just a U. S. Vernacular, and I think it plays well with my audiences and I work in over 30 countries. So that was really important. But being real means, yeah letting people see you. And one thing I'm deeply passionate about, and I know you're probably going to ask me about it, is I'm not a fan of transparency. I'm a big fan of being real, but I don't believe we should tell people everything. And I don't know how you feel about that when you read that in the book. What are your thoughts?
John:
00:16:17
It was actually one of the things I had a question about funnily enough so you say very astute to to get to that first. Because Robert Greene talks about this and you I don't know if you're familiar with robert green's books But he talks about having a curated Image that we put out there, which is still who is still true to who we are, but it's very particular aspects we like we're choosing what we project out into the world We're picking the bits of us that are going to be most relevant and most representative now, I know some people see that as being quite maybe manipulative and maybe over curated But it's I think it depends on how you take it because if that still isn't You true to who you are in some aspects. It's going to feel fake. So there's still that element there. Do you lie somewhere in that territory?
Lida Citröen:
00:17:07
mean, I think I probably get a little simpler than that. And I'm fascinated to hear about his work. Cause I'll definitely look at that. I think where I draw the line is it comes from working with people that are going through reputation crisis, which reputation repair is a specialty of mine. And a lot of times these individuals. Maybe high profile, maybe not have felt a sort of social pressure or social obligation to chime in or share their thoughts on a conversation that either they're not the right person to speak on or that really opens up wounds. So my advice is be authentic, be real. If I ask you a question and you give me a response online or in person, it should be your truth, right? It should be what you really believe. But you also have the right to say, Lida, that, that's a little too personal for me, or I'm not comfortable going there. And that's perfectly fine. When the Supreme Court decision came down on Roe versus Wade, a lot of people were online talking about it. And I had clients reach out to me and say, do I need to be part of this? And we talked through whether it made sense not to curate necessarily, but because they had trauma attached to it, or they had deep Conflict attached to it and I said, no, don't prematurely jump into a conversation that you're not ready to talk about and there's no reason you have to. And that's where I think we're allowed to keep things private. I encourage parents to teach their kids this right? Just because it's being talked about doesn't mean you have to jump in. We can get into trouble that way.
John:
00:18:52
How do we find the balance then between, there's certainly plenty of people out there in the influence world who are saying, You need to have opinions and you need to be strong in your opinions and need to regularly exercise your right to express those opinions Because if you're not one thing or another if you're trying to be a people pleaser, you're not going to stand out You're not going to be that noticeable. So where do we find the balance there?
Lida Citröen:
00:19:16
I actually would challenge that, that jumping in on every conversation is what makes you notable or noticeable, because I don't know that's really, I think you just start sounding like the noise that's happening. Where I advise clients is create your boundaries or your guardrails. What are the topics that you are just not comfortable going towards? And it might be someone has small children and they say, I don't want to share my children online. I don't want to talk about my children. They're vulnerable. They're young. Perfectly fine. Then that's a rule for you. I have rules around talking about religion, talking about alcohol, drugs, anything like that, and talking about politics. I just don't do it in person or online. It doesn't mean I don't have strong political opinions. It doesn't mean I don't, anchor my work a lot personally in my faith and it doesn't mean I don't enjoy a nice glass of wine on a Friday night, but it's not germane to my brand. It doesn't add anything to my brand. And so I don't see a reason to go there and having those three rules, those three guardrails, I just know that I don't have to participate when the conversations go that direction.
John:
00:20:34
It seems very wise to me. It's actually making me think of a time when I turned down an appearance on a podcast that sounded like a lot of fun, but was to go on primarily to talk about a time that you had broken the law. And I'm thinking I could do that. Seriously. I thought, yeah, it sounds fun. I think I would enjoy the conversation, but I'm really not sure about what that would do for me reputationally, because I would probably end up talking about something really. Bland that wasn't that interesting because probably the times that might actually be that more, more interesting to talk about are ones that I actually wouldn't want to talk about.
Lida Citröen:
00:21:12
Was it a law enforcement podcast? I would be
John:
00:21:14
No I think it was primarily just to talk about that maybe just to emphasize how much people break the law or to have fun conversations around that. But just reputationally, I thought, Oh no, I'm going to steer clear. Okay.
Lida Citröen:
00:21:27
That's another fabulous way to think about it, right? Am I going to, is this going to help me not just personally, but help me fulfill my mission? So if I were to start talking about faith, is it going to help me? I'm not afraid to, but I have clients of all different faith. So I don't ever want them to feel that I'm going to guide them as an executive coach by using my faith. And the same thing with alcohol and drugs. I have clients that are in recovery. I have clients that started recovery programs. I worked with a fascinating client years ago. It's not part of what I do. I don't have to talk about it and then risk, maybe it going in a sideways direction.
John:
00:22:11
One of your rules is inclusivity, right? And I think that's a part of this. And I certainly know from my own years of coaching experience. Like I am not a religious person. I'm not a particular, I say, I'm not very spiritual. I do meditation and stuff like that, I have no particular association or anything like that. And yeah, I've had many clients who do. But whether I do or not shouldn't be relevant to that. It's not relevant to them It's not relevant to the coaching relationship I'm not there to validate their beliefs or to invalidate them. I'm there to coach them and so I don't want You know, I don't want my beliefs to tread on What we're actually there to do and how we're so for me it makes a lot of sense,
Lida Citröen:
00:22:53
And for some coaches it does, right? And then in that case, you need to lean into it, right? And that would be a case where you would have to be real and talk about it and talk about how it influences your coaching style, because there's a client out there who is looking for that type of coaching. So if it is part of your brand, then yes, you lean into it.
John:
00:23:14
Yeah, which is an interesting kind of dichotomy There are those times where you actually actively do Want to distance some people from you and what you're about because you're going for Working or helping particular kind of person in a particular way maybe you working in the faith based area and you want to have your clients Who share that faith that would just make perfect sense. So yeah, it's it's very again very logical But it's interesting that there was definitely probably the for the majority of people you want to be more inclusive And be able to speak on a wider scale. The rules are very interesting. One of the things Just to stay on this sort of be real aspect for a moment have you ever come across Todd Herman's book alter The Alter Ego Effect?
Lida Citröen:
00:23:59
No, I'll write that one down too. I think I need to read more. Okay.
John:
00:24:06
It's an interesting but I say the reason why I brought it up is because he talks about this idea of creating these alter ego versions of ourselves that like think of someone like beyonce with the sasha fears character. It's like You can step into that alter ego version of ourselves and step out of our own limitations. We can become that How do you think that perhaps that idea might fit with the being real concept here?
Lida Citröen:
00:24:30
So now I'm really like liking that. Because I think I challenged that. I think I challenged that idea because that seems to play with this older idea of executive presence. And if you recall, I share a story of something that happened to me years ago, where I was, Part of coordinating a very large conference. I wasn't a speaker yet. So I was backstage and we had hired a notable speaker to come with us to do our general session keynote and backstage. I thought this guy was falling apart. He was nervous and fidgeting. I caught him smoking behind the AV equipment. Not a good thing. He was an absolute mess and I'm panicking thinking I'm putting him on stage in a moment in front of thousands of people. What just happened? He's supposed to be such a good speaker. And as soon as his feet hit the stage, like you're talking about, he like drew in a breath and became this other person and was charismatic and relaxed and funny and self deprecating. And I'm watching this thinking. This guy has influence but was he real? Which was the real him? And I grew up in Hollywood, so I've been around the idea of playing other parts, right? But I think the way it translates to lessons in the book is, I don't know that's sustainable for most of us. For instance, I share that I spent 20 years in the corporate world doing that, right? I would go to work and almost breathe in that air and go, okay, now we're this person. And I was what I thought everybody wanted me to be. I was funny when they thought I was supposed to be funny. I was strong when they wanted me to be strong. I sat in the back when they told me to sit in the back, but I would come home every night and take off that costume. And then I got to be myself. And that's where I was most relaxed and most funny, believe it or not and most myself. And I did that for 20 years. That's really hard to do.
John:
00:26:29
Yeah
Lida Citröen:
00:26:29
What I'm talking about in the book is maybe we don't step into an alter ego or another personality, but what would it look like to bring that self that we are when we're feeling most real into our day to day engagements?
John:
00:26:45
It's interesting because one of the things I talk about is helping people to show up And you talk about consistency in your book as well Which I thought you know that I think there's some crossover in some of the things that we talk about for sure a lot of people are not very conscious about How they show up they're living in reactivity to their environment to the people they encounter things like that So where's where do we make the distinction then about how we tune in to showing up as the real self because our real self might be Reactive to all the things that are going on around us Should we show up as that version of ourselves or should we actually? Try to be more Controlled or aware of how we're showing up and interacting with people
Lida Citröen:
00:27:31
I think it's controlled, but not in a way that we have to stress it. I think where I'm, what I'm talking about in consistency is, for instance, when somebody is curated and polished and suave on their LinkedIn profile, but then you meet them and they're funny and quirky and you're like, which is real. Which is the real you. If you're funny, be funny on LinkedIn. It's okay. But make sure you're funny because some people think they're funny, but they're really not. So I always say, make sure at least five people say you're funny.
John:
00:28:05
Lots of british people think they're funny and they're just smutty I will say that
Lida Citröen:
00:28:09
Or the, yeah, exactly. And that's where reputation repair comes in, but it's about being consistent, right? I am the same person. If you meet me at a grocery store or you meet me at a conference I'm not a different person. I don't have a persona that I assume that I have to change when I'm being myself. And I'm just trying to give people permission to be the version of themselves. And know that they, yes it's going to take courage because you might get rejected, but that means you're with the wrong people. If you're with the wrong people and they reject you, that's a good thing. You want to be with the right people and just be consistent. It doesn't mean you have to have a signature style or a signature look. I'm a Gemini. And I'm female. There's no way I'm going to wear the same thing every day. But I can change my hair. I can change my look and still be the same person inside.
John:
00:29:03
Which again it makes perfect sense to me. I just think I've been in the personal development industry a long time and You may have experience with this yourself, I've certainly spoken about it on many of my own shows and other people's podcasts as well of how there are many people in the personal development world, big names who many people would know who are not the same person off stage as they are on stage. And I know I write about this as well in terms of does it really matter? And I think it does. Because I think if the people who are like that and they can give the big performance, but they're broken Stage they're messed up or they're doing things that are really out of their integrity and that's the environment that you're really in not what on stage is what's going on behind That's really the energy that you're Surrounding yourself with and so if the people around you aren't walking the talk, you're not either. Really. You're not standing up for your own values in that sense. If you care about your values, would you agree with that?
Lida Citröen:
00:30:03
I absolutely agree with that. And that's, I think a big part of what I talk about in the book, right? Is it's not about being who you think other people want you to be. And I draw my own experience there because I did it and it works and I made a lot of money and I grew my career, but it was exhausting and it wasn't sustainable and it wasn't fulfilling. And then I go the complete opposite and I lead completely with my heart. And. I've created magic and my clients create magic, but it is terrifying to do that when you talk about people being different on stage than they are in person. I think we see examples of that in entertainment. We see examples in politics, but there's also a trust that comes when somebody is the same person. We don't have to like them. And I think we have many examples of politicians, for instance, we don't like as people, but we respect their policy and we believe we can trust them because they're the same off camera that they are on. And that's when I talk about credibility in the book values. Plus action equals credibility. You have to tell me what you stand for, what you believe in. And then to use your expression, you have to walk the talk. So if you do the walking without telling me why, then I don't necessarily trust you. If you do the telling me why, but I don't see evidence of you living your values, then I don't trust you. So it does require us to communicate who we are, what we stand for, what we believe in. And then consistently show up and take action to support that.
John:
00:31:44
I was going to ask you what's what do you do then if you're, if your real self is dull and boring, but then I thinking the British prime minister, Sir Kier Starmer is pretty dull and boring. He's doing all right for himself, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Lida Citröen:
00:31:58
And there's nothing wrong with dull and boring. I think those are, those are terms I might not use. I might use more quiet and introvert, but But we don't need everyone to be loud. Having influence does not mean being the loudest voice in the room. It doesn't mean being an extrovert. And I certainly put myself in the camp of being an extrovert and we're not always great. We have shortcomings. We're not the best listeners, but someone who is quieter, who's more reserved will tend to take in information. And then when they do speak, what comes out of their mouth is unbelievable. They may not have all that charisma and gravitas and all that, but they're very deliberate and very considerate with what they offer. And that is power. That is absolutely a superpower.
John:
00:32:45
Yeah, definitely. I think people do. Tend to really sit up and pay attention when the people who are usually quiet suddenly decide to speak up so I do agree that there is power with that. You talk about values and you talk about integrity I don't want to get one of the things that maybe had questions about in from your book was Where you see if there is a difference between integrity and ethics
Lida Citröen:
00:33:16
I, the difference I see is that I think ethics and being ethical is easier to understand than having integrity. When I do values exercises, for instance, with audiences, a lot of people will say integrity. My value is integrity. And then I asked him to clarify what that means. And they look at me like everyone knows what that means. Not everyone knows what that means. And I asked him to peel it back. And what I have found doing this for years is eventually we get to a very different understanding of what integrity means. But upholding an ethical standard, having a moral compass being an ethical person, I think is a little bit easier to grasp, but are they different dramatically? I guess I haven't thought about that in that way.
John:
00:34:05
Yeah, I guess it's just that my take and it is just my take because i'm not the authority on this by any means is More that your integrity is about being true to your values and the things you believe in true to yourself and the real you whereas I see ethics as being more of an external thing that like commonly shared values and principles That everyone is better off if we live by that are not necessarily the same thing But that I think that's just my take because why I had a question about it
Lida Citröen:
00:34:37
that's interesting because where I would have gone if I had shared more about the values exercise when I do this in a group is when I talk to people about what integrity means. They usually tell me it's doing the right thing. It's doing what you believe. So it feels more external than the way you just defined it. So I'm going to give some more thinking on that. I think that's really interesting.
John:
00:35:00
Oh, I'm glad that can be interesting as I'm asking questions. You do go on to talk about building up credibility. And it's something I've had a lot of people talk about on my show before. What are we talking about in terms of credibility here? And how do we go about building it?
Lida Citröen:
00:35:19
Very simply values plus action. That's how you build credibility. I have had so many clients try to come to me and say, I just need to go over that. I just need to fast forward that cause I don't have time to do. It's it doesn't work. And remember, we don't have to like the person, but we can find them credible. We can trust them. If we know what they stand for, what are their Core operating values, right? Those primary values that they are going to make decisions through. This is yes, this is no, this is right. This is wrong. If we understand where that person is coming from in terms of their values, and then we see them lead and behave and communicate through the lens of those values. Then we start to trust them. We start to assign them credibility if there's no action. So they tell us, I believe in this, but they don't do anything about it. It falls apart. And also if they do the action, but they don't tell us why. It falls apart. So it is really important, and that again, is why it requires courage. I, I had a training session last week with a company in India and people were saying, I don't wanna tell people what I stand for. I don't wanna open myself up like that. And I said, but how are they gonna know who you really are? Not your skills, not your subject matter expertise. But who you are that makes you unique and compelling and interesting and memorable if they don't know where you come from and what you stand for and finding our values is not an easy thing. We don't just fill out a form and go boom. There they are. It requires a lot of work. But
John:
00:37:04
And they can change, right? As well they change over time.
Lida Citröen:
00:37:07
They I use the word evolve that they don't change except if there's been a traumatic event. So in the case of a really traumatic event, then it can absolutely pivot our priorities, our values, all, everything we stand for. And that's rare. Usually if we look back on our life. That's that value set was there some somewhere. We just didn't know what it was called, but it grew and it matured and it evolved as we grow and mature. 10, 15 years from now, I'm still going to want to help people. I'm still going to focus on gratitude and generosity. I was doing this when I was a kid. I was just doing it differently.
John:
00:37:49
Yeah, those essential core values pretty much they stay the same for most of us Do you think then that most people don't know what their values are?
Lida Citröen:
00:38:01
I would say that's probably true. And it isn't that they, that. They can't find them. It's just life is busy and we're feeding our family and taking care of our parents and trying to do good and not get in trouble and not show up on a podcast about breaking the law. And we're just not thinking about it, but I love to take an audience or a client through the experience of just pausing for a second. and realizing, I talked a lot about purpose in the book. Why are you here? What makes you the person that was supposed to be here at this moment to hear this message and where do your values live in that? And I see, I'm sure you do too, I see the physical transformation and the joy and the relaxation that comes with, I have, I have a sense of who I am now, I have a sense of why I'm here, how I should lead and show up and how I'm supposed to breathe through this thing called life that I've been given one chance at.
John:
00:39:06
Do you feel from the experience of your work with people then that The values are there and they are living by them They just need to uncover what they actually are or is there something else that they're living by or influenced by instead? You
Lida Citröen:
00:39:22
I think they're there. I think they're there. I think they are many times living through them. They haven't made the connection. So when we, for instance, we'll talk about a value like honesty, which comes up as much as integrity, right? As honesty. And I'll do some wordsmithing to ask him, do you mean truthfulness, directness, candor, I love words and we will usually will land on honesty and a definition of honesty. And then I'll ask them, so tell me about times when you had to be honest and you had to bring courage into it and you had to share something that was honest when maybe it wasn't popular and they'll bring forward those examples, but they never connected the two. They said, I was just honest because I felt I couldn't not be. Okay, because your values are there and your values are what are guiding you. You just might not see them yet. Then they can be empowered going forward every time they have to be honest with someone to preface it by saying, I'm going to be honest with you. You might, it might not be popular what I share, but I'm going to be honest because. I stand and I value honesty. I want you to be honest with me too. So you start anchoring your personal brand and your reputation in these values and people around you start seeing evidence and going, yeah, John he's the honest guy. He's going to, he's going to tell you what he thinks and they start giving you that credibility.
John:
00:40:51
There was one of the rules in your book that I think surprised me, and Not in a bad way, just in a oh, really, how does that fit in a curious, in a curiosity raising kind of way. I wonder if you can guess what it was.
Lida Citröen:
00:41:06
I'm looking at my list going, was it agile?
John:
00:41:12
No, yeah service. I won't make you play the guessing game. Service, where does service in your view fit into influence?
Lida Citröen:
00:41:21
I had nine other guesses. I, again, we're talking about influence. We're not talking about power or authority or rank or seniority. So when you truly want to influence a conversation, an organization, a community, that you have to have a service mindset. If it's just for self serving gain, I don't know that's really what I'm trying to get at with the book. I'm speaking to people who want to help. Maybe it's as grand on as grand a scale as I serve. Maybe it's military service, which is, extraordinary. Maybe it's just, maybe it's mentoring or being a friend to people who need it to serve means to lead with more integrity, more realness, more courage, more agility, more consistency and I think service is paramount. It goes along with inclusivity when it comes to understanding who you want to serve.
John:
00:42:22
It's funny in a world where so many people talk about leadership and influence that service is probably one of those things that doesn't come up that often. And that's that was why maybe took me a bit by surprise. But one of the people, like historical figures who I most admire and respect was the the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. And he is probably a prime example, often called the philosopher king. But. His whole philosophy was based around servant leadership and it's a principle that sometimes see making its way back and that's what this brought me back to one thinking. Yeah, I see It's something that's been there through the ages and it comes and it goes but it's a voice we should we can only hope to hear more of in the leadership and influence conversations that we have probably one of the ones that Will be most interesting and maybe least surprising to our audience, to our listener about influence would be storytelling. So many people out there are teaching storytelling and it's a wonderful area, but let's ask you, why is this in your rules and what does storytelling mean from your perspective?
Lida Citröen:
00:43:34
I think it, it means a lot of different things and you're right, it is very much a hot topic, but I think it's good that it's a hot topic because so much information is being shared without being wrapped in a story and it makes it really hard to learn. We're in an information age, we're being bombarded online in person. It's coming at us fast and strong. And I know others have found what I have found. Cross culturally stories work. I teach a lot of international audiences like you do. We were talking about that a moment ago. And if I share a story that isn't just an American story, I can speak to an audience in India or Israel or Europe because stories are how we learned as children. And so the beauty of being able to tell stories is just magical. And what I love about storytelling, I think it really speaks to that person who isn't sure how to share their message. So for instance, I talk about the origin story. In the book. Where do you come from? What is your origin story? And how does that make you who you are? There's beauty in that. And that's unique to you. Did you grow up in a challenging environment? Did you grow up in a very comfortable environment? How did that influence How you want to lead today and how you want to serve other people. So whether you're communicating large sets of data or you're trying to build rapport with an audience, stories are how we do that. I can share methodology. I can teach the steps, but the second I tell a story. That's what people come up to me after a program and say, I love when you talked about that woman and what happened to her. Gosh, I could relate to that. It doesn't even have to be their story or something they've experienced, but we put ourselves in the position of the person that the story is about. And, like Donald Miller said in his story brand book, which if you haven't read that one, that's fabulous. The hero of the story should always be the other person. So when you can think about storytelling that way, that really dovetails beautifully into influence.
John:
00:45:46
Yeah What for you then what are some of the best elements of a good storytelling?
Lida Citröen:
00:45:55
A good story always has an opening, a middle and an end, right? There's a structure to a story. And when I teach storytelling with clients, I say we focus on all three because I've seen people tell a story and it's wrapped and I'm brought in and I'm hanging on every word. And then the supporting points are there. And then they just end. They'll say that's all I've got wait a minute, you had me in this story. You've got to tie it up with a bow. So I think a good story has all 3 elements and they're thought through. If I'm telling a story with a coaching client or on stage, because I know a lot of your listeners do this kind of work too, I'm going to think about, am I going to open the story with something that's shocking or something that's sad? How am I going to draw them into the story? And then what's the point of the story? What are the supporting points that i'm going to unpack and how am I going to close that up? And that's what makes a story work
John:
00:46:53
What makes it work from the stage like when you're on a stage telling a story what makes your stories work from the stage?
Lida Citröen:
00:47:01
practice for sure I can always tell when i'm telling a story that I haven't thought through and i'm like, where am I going with this? Like I got caught up in a moment. I'm down a rabbit hole. I don't know what to do so what makes them work is definitely Thinking them through, thinking those three steps through whenever I write out a new program or a new speech, I always look at it and wonder, where am I going to embed the stories? Because the stories really punctuate a message. They illustrate, they give an example. I even suggest including a small story in an elevator pitch because We can remember stories. I may not remember your job title or what company you work for, but if you tell me a story about what it looks like to do what you do, I'm going to remember that. So the stories that work from the stage, I think there's a little bit of not theatrics, but you have to deliver the story the right way. So if there's suspense. You don't rush through it. You actually let your audience take that silence in, build the anticipation, and then you help them understand the outcome. So I enjoy that part because that, that to me is really getting the message to stick.
John:
00:48:13
One of the things I think is very important. We've already touched on it earlier on in that conversation, but you certainly really hit it home in the book is about being visible and I just wonder you know as we start to draw our conversation to a close as much fun as it's been We can't go on forever. As we start to do that, what's the importance of, I just can't recap what the importance is of being visible and maybe some advice that you can give to our listener for how they can start to step up and be visible today.
Lida Citröen:
00:48:46
Absolutely. I'll tell very quick story years ago. I worked for an organization. I was part of the senior Lidaship team and we had a board of directors every month. The board of directors and the staff, the senior staff would get together. And discuss what was happening with the organization. And there was a very large conference table. The format when I joined the organization was that the board sat at the table and we, as senior staff sat along the wall in the back and I did this for months. I watched this Then sometimes from the back, we would have to share because we were reporting on our department, but it struck me. Why am I sitting at the back of the room when there's a whole big table and there's plenty of seats open and I sat at the table one time. And as the board filtered in, and my boss filtered in, they looked at me like, what are you doing? Nobody really said anything. They were just surprised that I was not sitting at the back of the room with the staff. And then I did it again the 2nd time. And the 2nd month, I actually said something while I was sitting at the table. The 3rd month I did it, one of my colleagues joined me. The 4th month, that colleague said something. So I think if we're in the back of the room all the time. Or we're hiding or just sitting on our ideas because we think someone else will say it. Someone else might say it, but then they get credit for it. And maybe their idea is not as fleshed out as yours. Maybe it's not as good as yours. Maybe you bring a voice to that conversation that is going to be missing if someone else shares that idea. So I think being visible means, again, having the courage to sit at the table, to raise your hand and say, I don't think that is a good idea for our team or our company or our community. Or here's a different way we could look at it. That takes a lot of courage to do that. But if we're not visible, if we don't see you, if you make a LinkedIn profile and then just wait for people to reach out to you. That's not the point. The point is to take those chances, get involved in the conversation. Yeah, you might be wrong. Sometime we all are. We're human beings. We're going to make mistakes. But what if you are the right person that is supposed to carry that idea forward and you don't say anything? What a missed opportunity. So I encourage people to just start small, right? It could be Offering an idea in a meeting and think about the idea ahead of time. Really plan it. Maybe it's sitting at the big kids table instead of against the wall. Maybe it's asking for someone else to be in the meeting. That isn't represented in that group, just small steps. It doesn't have to be big swings, but we have to see you in order to be influenced by you.
John:
00:51:41
I love that and certainly many of the clients I work with Particularly the introverts and to be honest many of the female clients I work with as well will often talk about not feeling visible not feeling heard in these kinds of situations and You're really giving like the encouragement and permission to step up and be seen be heard and not just leave it for the loud voices as you say not just leave it for the extroverts to be the ones who are always leading the charge and we can step up and You keep going and be okay with it. Not always being perfect. All right We have to take those risks to get out there. I do think the 10 rules in your book applied together are Genuinely transformational for people if those are implemented they're transformational Completely turn a person's life and career around in very positive ways. So I really like what you bring to the table. Your book is now available for people to buy. Is that right?
Lida Citröen:
00:52:39
Oh, yes, it was launched at the end of August. It's available audio book ebook. Amazon, wherever books are sold internationally, it's doing really well internationally, which makes my heart happy. Because I really want. any underrepresented voice, any marginalized voice. You mentioned women. There are so many people who would say that they feel unseen and yeah, I want to help people be seen because you might be the right person at the right time and we need you. I need you to speak up.
John:
00:53:11
And the book is called the new rules for influence.
Lida Citröen:
00:53:13
The new rules of influence, how to authentically build trust, drive change and make an impact.
John:
00:53:21
Fantastic, I certainly would encourage anyone to go and check that out. I'm a big audio book person you know certainly i've read the physical copy I might well go and check out the audio book because I love that Is it you reading or did you get someone else?
Lida Citröen:
00:53:32
No, my publisher walked me through what the process was, if I were to record it, and yeah, that sounds like a hot mess. So they do have, it was a professional narrator. She did a fabulous job. And I'm listening to the audio book as well, because I like, it's interesting to hear someone else tell your stories, but I guess I guess that's how it works today.
John:
00:53:53
Does it feel like a level of detachment from it's oh that's interesting. Oh wait, I said that
Lida Citröen:
00:53:58
No, it actually feels like I have a twin Oh, she felt that too. So did I, Oh, wait a minute. Those are my words. There's not another person. She's just reading them, but she did a really good job reading them and putting the emphasis where the emphasis should be. Yeah.
John:
00:54:13
always very important, when it comes, certainly our listener can go and find out more about you from your book, and I do encourage it. I did enjoy your book very much. Where else should I listen to go through? We'd like to check you out more.
Lida Citröen:
00:54:23
I'm pretty much on every social platform. My website is Lida360, L I D A 360. I'm on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn is my big platform. And yeah I'm sharing a lot of information online. It doesn't cost anything. I'm putting it out there because I'll just make more.
John:
00:54:42
This has been a wonderfully high value conversation Lida. I really appreciate you coming on and being our guest on the show. And thank you for appearing on Present Influence.
Lida Citröen:
00:54:51
Thank you. I love what you're doing. Keep at it. Keep teaching influence and it's been my honor. Thank you.
John:
00:54:57
I just wanted to add a few final thoughts onto this episode because having played it back and been through the editing process for this episode, I realized there was so much great content in here and really a lot of detail elements that made it a very strong conversation with things that I want to take from it and things that I want to maybe talk more about, which I'm going to do on Friday in this week's solo episode. So, you know, I want to talk about things like courage and influence and visibility and values and how we perhaps need to know our values and understand them a bit more about guardrails and about what we do and don't need to talk about and Also about service and really my own opinions about how that fits into influence. So I hope you'll join me on Friday for another episode which is just going to be me by myself pondering on some of the things that we've been talking about today and doing a little personal deep dive into, into some of those areas. And that you've enjoyed this episode with Lida. I am busy revamping the Present Influence website. I do hope you'll go and check it out. If you haven't done so already, get yourself a copy of my free download to help you be able to get more influence, more leads, more following through being a podcast guest. Lots of high value for you there as well. And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn and get access to the Present Influence newsletter which comes out every week and find out, get some highlights of the show and some other additional information and articles that will be coming up there from time to time. Hope to see you there and I'll see you Friday and next week. I have a really fun guest for you. we're gonna be talking about Utilizing humor in your sales and marketing whatever kind of business you're in Because it's so hard to stand out and right now one of the biggest Top ways to be able to stand out online and have your presence be noticed and to have greater influence is to utilize humor. As speakers we know that being able to add humor and touch of comedy into our presentations is really helpful and very influential with audiences as well. So we're going to be talking about that. Do join us for that. You won't want to miss it. And you're going to find out how you could add humor into your sales and marketing processes if that is something that you would like to do. So join me next week for that with my guest Adam Hunt from White Label. In the meantime, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, have an amazing rest of your day. see you soon.
