This morning we had some time with with Mel earlier and you know we were talking
about this sort of phenomenon you've posted about this idiot in your Facebook
about apologizing yeah or about qualifying steering committee
discussion started sentence by saying I'm sorry for interrupting
I'm sorry I'm disagreeing or I'm sorry I'm late
do you guys find that you do some of that sometimes what's your thought about
that well I do it and I have two daughters that do it and I can't
remember where who I learned this from but I was recently somebody else said oh
well you know instead of saying sorry try saying thank you so when you run
into a meeting in your late oh sorry I'm late or to a call say thank you for your
patience and that one line has changed everything for me and what I've come to
realize is that when I say I'm sorry it's all about me and I'm making myself
wrong and when I say thank you I'm actually acknowledging the other people
around me and you can find that you can substitute that line in almost every
instance and I was very surprised by how often without even thinking about it I
was saying sorry I was telling everybody the story that even yesterday I was in a
yoga class and somebody fell over on the you know and kind of hit me and I'm like
oh I'm sorry what you know I just like I could have
said are you okay instead of I'm sorry the other thing I use so much qualifying
language when I speak and I never knew it until I was on CNN and then you have
the horrifying experience of having to watch yourself on video I had no idea
how often I said I think or actually or you know like all of these qualifiers TV
yeah it takes the precision and the force out of your language and the way
that you speak and I had no idea how often I was being equivocal so that that
is an interesting thought to think about our own language and that there is a
deliberateness to it that we can bring mm-hmm and maybe it's in that
five-second rule thinking about you know a grounded
Claude or language or or just being deliberate about that language we're
going to use or not use yes that's taught at school no it's definitely a
muscle the other thing that all that I've noticed that the five-second rule
has been fantastic for and I used the five-second rule loosely to just
describe that gap so to just describe that phenomenon that your emotions get
triggered like that and you're either gonna go with them or you're going to
interrupt them and actually act from the outcome or the values that you want so
in the personal development business there are not a lot of women at least
not in the speaking circuit in the personal development business at the
level that I'm speaking I am surrounded by dudes and it never ceases to amaze me
because I'm friends with a lot of them how I am constantly offered less money
and in the regicide know the amazing thing about it is that you always have
leverage because you can say no and the interesting thing is is that as I've
gotten better and better and better about noticing when I'm triggered and
managing that five second gap between letting the emotions take over or
interrupting them and stepping forward and being intentional I've become such a
skilled negotiator because when normally I'd get triggered
and get pissed off like you wouldn't offer that deal to so-and-so you know
why are you doing it to me this is about you know like internally that's not
gonna help me negotiate but simply it's going okay so I'm managing the gaff and
like interesting oh thank you right yes completely
having your own rules for what you will show up for and what you won't what you
want to get paid and what you won't accept super empowering I literally I
mean 5x my income when I just started asking for what I wanted here's a here's
another embarrassing story so when I got into the speaking business
it all happened organically because that TEDx talk went crazy and so people
started calling me and asking me if I would speak and a lot of the times in
the beginning it was women's leadership conferences and it didn't even occur to
me to ask for money because I was doing something
I didn't I always just thought oh people that are celebrities and and politicians
and athletes those are the people that get paid to do this so here I am at the
Pennsylvania Women's Conference I have the largest group of my entire life I
didn't have a speech that look anything like this and I was nervous as hell I
walk into the room there's a thousand people in there I do a okay job I'm
proud of myself I go to the train station I'm sitting there waiting for
Amtrak and a woman comes up to me and says oh I was in your session you were
terrific you know I was on a panel in the morning do you mind if I ask you a
question speaker to speaker and I'm like sure she goes did you get your check yet
I look better and say check you got paid for that and she looked at me and said
you're in the largest room you didn't and it was this real wake-up call where
I just thought I must be the stupidest person on the planet it didn't even
occur to me and so I spent six months researching the speaking business and I
decided in that moment that I would never accept another speaking engagement
unless it was paid and I was terrified to ask for money and so because I didn't
know what I was worth and I didn't know what people got paid and this was in the
beginning so this person calls and I developed the strategy where I would
start by saying so what's the budget and then I take a deep breath as the nerves
are rising up and I'd say well normally I'm double and then I'd like and they'd
either say yes or they negotiate and that's how I started getting paid
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