Wording, Speaking and Presence with David Goldberg 

Mike: David Goldberg, CEO of the Prosody Center, is one of the foremost experts on wording, speaking, and presence. Born hearing impaired with delayed speech, he has spent a lifetime developing techniques now used by over 10,000 politicians, speakers, CEOs, startups, trainers, and more that have revolutionized speaking training.

With decades of studying the nuances of speaking and voice, David brings a musician’s ear and a scientist’s precision to every speaking encounter. So I’m sure he’s gonna evaluate my whole discussion with him today. He has authored countless articles and five books, including a cover feature with Tony Robbins.

David, welcome to the show

David Goldberg: Michael, thank you so much for having me. And I’m not going to re- Sorry

Mike: that’s beautiful what we just did, given what we’re gonna talk all about. Go ahead

David Goldberg: I’m not going to review you.

Mike: I don’t know. I don’t know. I, maybe I want that review. We’ll see. We’ll see.

So before we dive in to, kind of the main topic, David, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the most important characteristic of a great leadership team?

David Goldberg: Putting together a team that absolutely loves working together

Mike: Yeah, that sounds so simple, right? But we know it’s not, and you were telling me earlier about how long some of the people working for you have been working for you. Talk, talk about that a little bit because I think it sends a message that you’re living that

David Goldberg: Yeah. You know, when I talk about having a team who gel, who are friends, I’m– we all go out to dinner and so on and, you know, after work. Having a team that gels together comes down to finding the right people. Sometimes not necessarily the smartest or the most experienced at something, but rather someone who will fit our culture, who will get along with everyone else.

We will get along with them. Have– I very often have a bunch of my team help me select an employee. Ultimately, I have final say, of course, but I want… I do wanna bring in someone who gets along with everyone, and that, that glue that we have as a team has been, I believe, one of the strongest qualities of our business.

We all can cover for one another. We all enjoy going to work, and because of that, everyone feels– everyone is influenced to, to work hard and complete their fair share of the team. I have one employee here of 22 years, one 20 years. Someone today hit 11 years. I have lots of people at 12, 13 years.

It’s great. avoiding turnover also is a cost-saving measure, right? You know, turnover is expensive, so it’s pocketed me some more profit too along the way.

Mike: Absolutely something to be proud of and it’s great when you can wake up, up every day and look forward to going to work because you’re looking forward to working with the people that you work with. So that’s amazing

David Goldberg: And also, and I travel a lot for work, and I have no concern when I’m away. I’m completely confident, comfortable even, that everything is handled and everything’s great

Mike: Beautiful. Beautiful.

David, you were born hearing impaired. How do you think that shaped the way you think about sound and voice?

David Goldberg: I don’t know exactly what caused my hearing issues, my impairments to sort of go away. And, for whatever reason, it led me to not speak until I was nine or 10, or put sentences together until I was nine or 10. But along the way, my mom tells me, she still recounts that she’s– was always angry at me because she would take piano lessons and when I was very young, before I could even speak a single word, w- well, while my mom would struggle on a song, from– with the piano instructor, when the instructor left, I could just sit down and play it.

And I think the– it’s pretty common for people who are lacking in one sensitivity or one area of focus to be able to enhance the others. you have to do something to get along, to get by, I guess. My– something happened with my hearing, and I was just able to hear notes and pitches and put notes together on a keyboard and eventually turn those into words.

And it’s, fun the few times I go to, an annual exam and have my hearing checked, the doctors are always amazed. I hear higher frequencies than most people do. I hear lower frequencies than most people do. So that’s kind of cool.

Mike: Yeah. that is cool. and my wife tells me I can’t hear very well, or maybe I’m just not listening to her. I don’t know. But I don’t

David Goldberg: selective hearing,

Mike: I don’t have that kinda hearing. Um, yeah, I went to the ear doctor, and they tested my hearing. They started off, they said, “Well, why are you here?”

And I realized doctors have no sense of humor. They said, “Why are you here?” I said, “My wife says I don’t listen.” And there was nothing. It was like crickets. I’m like, “Is this thing on?” anyway, so, you know, it’s interesting, you know, that we’re talking about sound and voice.

I was just actually interviewing someone else for the podcast earlier today, and it was all about branding.

And, you know, companies tend to obsess how their brand looks. And when they think of branding, they think of logos, fonts, PowerPoint decks, designs, newsletters, all of that stuff, but they never think about or talk about how their people sound. Talk about why that might be more important than we realize it is.

David Goldberg: Yeah, it’s a crazy thing. it’s totally crazy. If you ask people what is or which is more important, that they look good or if they sound good, most people will typically say they’re about the same. They’re equally as important. and if you ask businesses that question, I think if they think about it, they’ll probably say, “No, they’re both important,” right?

You need a good pitch deck, but you need to be able to make a good vocal presentation. Both are important. Yet companies do spend a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of money on how things look, and they do forget about how their people sound. And that is what my latest company called, as you introduced me as Prosody.Center, that’s what that company focuses on, getting CEOs and politicians to understand that it is equally as important and probably even more important to sound good than it is to look good.

So for example, you take an investor pitch and someone giving a, an investor pitch, they could have a great looking deck, but when they speak, if they don’t sound good, they’re not gonna get anywhere. Yet the reverse is opposite, right? If they have a deck that looks so-so, but they speak really well, they can get that investment.

And I believe from my studies, from our research, it is more important to sound good than it is to look good.

Mike: and what does it mean to, to sound good? And maybe I’ll ask it, I’ll ask the negative and what we’ll get into,we’ll get into probably a lot of different areas from this. But what are one or two of the biggest mistakes you see leaders make in how they come across and how they sound that may kill their credibility or kill their ability to influence?

David Goldberg: Yeah. I mean, it necessarily kill their credibility. Very often it just weakens it. If you, if it’s okay, I’d like to take that to three things, not just two, and give a bit of an explanation here The, the business that I’ve had for 38 years, another business, is called Edge Studio. That business is a voiceover business.

I have in the facility, in fact, where I am right now, we have five recording studios for voiceover. we record the soundtracks for commercials and audiobooks, corporate training videos, lots of cartoons, lots of video games, and all sorts of things. In that business, in addition to owning the business, I’ve always had the role of voice director, which is exciting.

My job out- again, outside of owning the business is when we are recording commercials, I direct the celebrities, the actors, whoever it is speaking, my job is to direct them. So you take a company that is, let’s say, for example, a $50 million dollar ad campaign, and they only have a 15-second slot on TV. We all know advertising on TV is pretty darn expensive. Every second is worth many millions of dollars, and my job is to make sure that the right words are said and that they’re said in the most influential way. That’s what I focus on. That’s what I’ve studied and studied. My business has five studios in my– where I am right now in Times Square. We have five studios in this complex.

And so five studios over 38 years, 38 years now. I believe we’ve completed, about 13,000 projects. So I’m working with these, marketing teams and ad agencies and focus groups, and we obsess over which words to use. And it makes sense when you have these large dollar campaigns, right? We study everything about what words will, cause the most engagement and influence the most buy-in from customers, down to little things like should you contract the word or not?

Or if there’s a word in the script and there’s a synonym that could be used, well, we focus on which word to use. This thing is, these words are studied and studied and thought, just drilled down. We break them down. We analyze what words will work best, and then we w- focus on how to say those words.

Should a word have more emphasis or less emphasis, an upward inflection or downward inflection, and all of these things. You take all of that, five studios over 38 years, 13,000 projects, you find some common denominators. So when you ask the question: Where do people sort of go wrong? What do they do that can hurt their credibility?

I can tell you probably 20,000 different things that they do typically, because my job all day long is to take these celebrities, and when they read a word, it’s my job to say, “Oh, no, let’s change that word for something else,” or, “Don’t say that word with a downward inflection. That’s the word you want to say with an upward inflection,” because it makes a big difference in the dollars and cents, you know, I should say, like, how effective that advertisement is.

You know, we change these things so the ads are more effective. the biggest things that CEOs make Thinking offhand, two things really, two or three things come to mind, and they come to mind in terms of wording and speaking. In terms of the words they use, a lot of CEOs tend to use hedge words, which really lessen their credibility.

Hedge words, Michael, are words that lessen the certainty of something. Hedge words are… Well, they’re qualifiers. They’re words like think and probably and should and could. And so if an advertiser is saying, you know, “Our product should be able to do this,” that should disqualifies the credibility of the product.

Instead of saying, “I should be able to be there at 3:00,” you want to just say, “I’ll be there at 3:00.” It has a lot more credibility. And so that’s one big area. Second big area that comes to mind is so many advertisers and so many CEOs and politicians, politicians, all the people I coach, they have so much to say.

They want to get it all out there. Of course, there’s limited time, so instead of having… Well, what happens is they end up speaking too quickly. I have learned over the years it is so much better to have fewer words with more space between them, rather than having more words with less space between them.

When CEOs and politicians give speeches, keynotes, seminars, TEDx talks, investor pitch presentations, when they’re on speaker panels, customer sales presentations, any of these high-stakes talks, when they spit out the words, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing with the words, the audience can’t take that stuff in.

It’s just, it’s a too many words. it overflows our brains. You know what it’s like, Michael? It’s like if you take your favorite book and you remove… This is, okay, this sounds silly, but if you take your favorite book and you remove all of the commas, and then you remove all of the periods between sentences, and then you remove the blank line between paragraphs, and then you even remove the blank page between chapters, y- you’d be left over, you’d be left off with all of the same words in the same sequence but with no spaces.

And I think that book would be near impossible to parse. It’d be like a nonstop words. And when people give speeches with nonstop words, the audience can’t take it in. We, in, in written form, we use commas to separate phrases and periods to separate sentences and blank lines to separate paragraphs and blank pages to separate chapters.

Wow, that gives the book, it makes it easy to digest. And so when speakers are speaking, speakers being a politician or a CEO or an entrepreneur or whoever, some space goes a long way. So that’s the second thing where a lot of people go wrong. So, so far that’s two big ones. CEOs, politicians, we all tend to speak with hedge words, and we all tend to use this like just nonstop words.

We just need to give people space. So

Mike: Speaking, speaking of the nonstop words, I wanna jump in with a quick example that shows how real this is. and this happens to be from a more formal… It was actually from a Ted, a TEDx that I did a few years ago. but I assume you’re not just talking about formal presentations. It could be any communication.

But there was a point in my TEDx, and I got some training, some speaker training, and I was telling a pretty emotional story about my son from when he was younger, and there was a point in the story that I kinda make the point, I’m getting very angry with my son, and then I start thinking about a bunch of stuff that, that’s really important.

And it came across… it was good. It wasn’t great. It was good. And then the speaker coach that was helping me said, “After you get really angry, pause. And pause way longer than you think you’re supposed to pause.” And I’m getting real angry at my son. I’m telling this story about… And I’m getting angry, and I paused.

And in that pause, I got crazy emotional. Like, all of those old thoughts. I was telling a story that was 20 years old, but all those old thoughts came in my head, which made me emotional, which made the audience emotional. And just by me pausing for probably what amounted to three seconds, it changed, uh, it probably 5X’d the power of what I was saying to the audience.

So I’ve seen it work

David Goldberg: Pause is the greatest bang for the buck It’s amazing

Mike: If you’ve got a CEO that is– To take these two and, um, you, there, there are hundreds or thousands of you said, as you said, of, of mistakes you’ve seen. But to take the hedge words and the pauses, if you’ve got a leader that… You know, the, these are not thoughtful things that we do.

They’re, they’re habits that we do. I could remember listening to one of my first podcast interviews where I was being interviewed, and my beginning to the, to answer every question was I’d say, “Yeah, no,” and then I’d answer the question. I’m like: Why am I saying y- what is that? And I never knew I did that until I listened to the recording.

and I don’t do that most of the time now. But these things become habits.

How do we… H-how can leaders take an idea like, like getting rid of hedge words and pauses, how do you take that and make it a habit so, so you’re kinda consciously competent at not making those mistakes?

David Goldberg: Yeah. Two parts to that. First part, you need someone to tell you what your habits are, the habits that you probably should change. You need someone who’s objective and someone who doesn’t know you I’ll talk about the second part in a moment. Here’s why you need to work with someone who you don’t know.

Someone who knows you is used to your speaking habits, and so they won’t recognize that you’re doing something funky, something that could offset you to other people. So for example, if I give a presentation and I rush my name so fast that no one can understand it, that sucks for me, right? I lose my one opportunity of branding.

Now, I could practice that same presentation, including rushing my name. I could practice it the night before a big presentation for my wife. I could say, “Hey, watch this. Give me, some review on my presentation.” She knows my name, so if I rush my name, she won’t recognize it because her brain fills in the missing letters.

You need to work with someone who you don’t know. Then once you can isolate where your speaking habits are, the ones that work against you, the easiest way to become cognizant of them is to actually exaggerate the problem. Intentionally rush your name, for example, and then say it more slowly. And if you do that three or four times, you say your name too quickly and then slow it down, and then too quickly and slow it down, and you do that a few times, your brain will recognize it.

And for the next week, every time you say your name, you’ll rush it, but you’ll hear it, and as soon as you get halfway into your name, you’ll realize, “Oh crap, I’m rushing my name. They possibly, they can’t possibly understand it.” And then you’ll slow down, and maybe the following week your brain will catch it before you say your name. Here, so interesting, I have a client in Washington, DC. She works at a huge nonprofit, and she called me in a rush. She said, “David, I need you like ASAP.” I said, “What’s up?” She said, “Our CEO is about to give an investor pitch, and he has so much content to get in a, to get out in a three-minute timed pitch.

He knows he needs to rush. And because he has to rush, and he knows it’s not good to rush, but because he has so many words to get out, he knows he’s going to rush. That’s making him nervous that he’s going to sound rushed. And the mere fact that he’s going to sound nervous because he’s rushing is making him even more nervous.” said, “What can I tell him?” I said, “Could I get on the phone with him and give him a coaching session?” She said, “No, this pitch, this investor pitch is like in minutes from now. He’s flipping out. Like, just tell me what to do to tell him.” so I thought about it and I said, “Tell him to do two things.” I said, “Tell him to lower the pitch on the first word of every sentence, and tell him to double the space between sentences and he should be fine.” And she told him those two things. He did those two things. They got back to me the next day and said it was great. Every- anytime someone has a habit, there is an easy adjustment, and I’ll tell you why I gave him those two adjustments in a moment.

There’s always an easy adjustment. This is what I do, all day long, Michael. in this voiceover world, actors come in, everything is rush, right? We all work in this rushed, you know, world, and clients don’t want to pay more than, more, recording studio time if they don’t have to. So actors come in, they read the script.

I have to give them adjustments. Lower the pitch on that word, raise the pitch on that word, take up more space here, less space there, and so on. It’s all little adjustments between the words they use, the way they say those words, which is their speaking patterns, and their presence if they’re being recorded on camera. I told this particular CEO to do these two things, and I’ll explain why. He’s so nervous about speaking quickly that I’m concerned that his pitch is going to go up, right? When people are nervous, their pitch goes up. And I’m thinking to myself, well, the number one thing that, you don’t want to do in front of an investor during an investor pitch is sound nervous. Because he’s nervous, his pitch will likely go higher. Investors will perceive that consciously or subconsciously, and investors well– They invest in the person more than the business. So I don’t want this guy to sound nervous. So I’m thinking, how can I have him mask his nerves? It’s easy to mask nerves by lowering your pitch. So by telling this CEO to lower the pitch on the first word of every sentence, that means every sentence he be- he begins will not sound nervous. He will be nervous, but he will not sound nervous. And then the other thing is he has so much content to get through, I don’t want him to rush, so I tell him to double the space between sentences.

Now, this kind of sounds counterproductive, right? Because he has so many words to get through. I’m telling him to add more space. But here’s the thing: when you take space between sentences, you have a chance to catch your breath. You have a chance to organize your next word. by taking breaks between sentences, he will no longer get tongue-tied.

He won’t speak in circles. I guarantee you he will get through more content in less time. And there are little adjustments like that, I believe everyone should learn, you know, and just based upon your own speaking habits, your own speaking quirks, and they make a big difference in your credibility

Mike: David, we met because we’re both Vistage Certified speakers, and if you’re, i-if you don’t know what a Vistage Certified speaker is, there are… What is it, David? I think about 1,500-plus Vistage groups all over the country, and then Tech Canada up in Canada. they’re groups of CEOs, groups of leaders, and David and I met because we both won different top speaker awards for Vistage.

So I know you, you talk to CEOs a lot about all of this.

And in addition to the hedge words, um, and not pausing enough, when you work with CEOs in these Vistage groups or when you’re coaching CEOs, what are some of the other big challenges they have or big mistakes you see?

David Goldberg: There’s– I will estimate there are about 20, 20 pretty common errors or habits that people have picked up along the years that really weaken their credibility, and then everyone has 20 of their own. So I can talk about some of the more general ones. One big one, Michael, is speaking in the negative. Most people in American English speak in the negative. we default to negative language. And when you speak in the negative, in a negative context rather than a positive context, when you speak in a negative context, you create more misunderstandings. So, for example, if, i- if someone is leaving my office and I want the door to be left open, it is natural, normal in American English to say, don’t close the door.” I make sure I say, “Please leave the door open.” It seems like a tiny little thing. However, study after study after study after study proves that when you speak in a positive mode, there are fewer misunderstandings. And when we’re talking internationally, it’s even more important. Most CEOs, most politicians, I’ve coached a lot, hundreds and hundreds of politicians, CEOs, politicians, entrepreneurs, podcasters, almost everyone in American English uses the word “but” all the time. When you use the word “but,” your audience’s head, their brain goes to a negative place. And so I very often instruct politicians and CEOs to get rid of the word “but,” well, most of the time get rid of the word “but,” and instead use the word “and.” So, for example, I could say to someone, “I want you to see me in my office at 5:00, but don’t be late.” I would rather say, “And don’t be late.” Rather than, “But don’t be late,” I’d say, “And don’t be late.” When you say “and,” it keeps things in a positive, forward motion, and people take in two separate clauses rather than one negative clause. It’s an amazing, easy, simple technique that allows you to have significantly better buy-in from your team.

people are more receptive to your me- like way more receptive to your messages. It’s a easy fi- it’s an easy change, I should say, that works really well. So when you can, give things a positive spin. keep things in the positive text. it really does make a big difference.

Mike: Love that. And I would think too, as a leader, one of the things I talk to leaders about all the time is being super clear about your expectations of your direct reports. What is it– What does success look like? What is it you wanna see? What behaviors do you want? And, just as you say that, you could be a whole lot clearer with people where you’re saying, “This is what I wanna see,” versus, “Don’t do this anymore.”

David Goldberg: Yes

Mike: So, so this works. Again, all of this we’re talking about, we may be thinking of kind of formal presentation, but it’s not. Like you said, it’s difference between, “Don’t close the door,” and, “Please leave the door open.” This could be very informal as well, so I love that

David Goldberg: If I was going to be late to a meeting, my default would be to say, “Hey, I’ll be there 10 minutes late.” That’s how we think in this country, in this language. I would switch it and say, in- instead of saying, “I’ll be 10 minutes late,” I don’t wanna use the late word. Late is a negative word.

I’d rather say, “Hey, I’ll get there 10 minutes after you begin.” When you change that little thing, it keeps you in a positive world, and people don’t see you apologizing for being, or negative things happening. it’s positive, it’s forward. Little

Mike: I love this. let’s continue with this. So, so we’ve talked about hedge words. We talked about speaking too fast and not pauses. Now we’ve talked about kind of the using positive instead of negative. Let’s do a few more. this I think is really helpful and really actionable, so let’s keep going with a few more of these

David Goldberg: There’s so many.

In terms of wording, whenever you can, start with a positive word. If you want to increase your engagement, your receptivity, start with a positive word. Down to– Actually, I have a really good, example here. Everyone listening has probably either been on an interview or has interviewed someone.

And if you’ve had the chance, the opportunity to have interviewed people, you know that some people who you interview just interview really well, and some people don’t interview really well. One of the things you can do when interviewing is begin your responses with a positive word. That’s one of the keys to interviewing well. Let’s suppose you’re applying for a job somewhere, and you’re speaking with a hiring manager, someone in HR, maybe the CEO, and you’re up for this position. You really want the role, and you’re asked a question, and the question, for example, is: Why are you interested in working at our company? Most people go right into the answer. “Well, I’m interested in working at the company because of XYZ.” I would say begin that with a positive word. If you ask me why I’m interested in working at the company, I’d say, “Great question. I’m happy you asked.” Once you say that at the beginning of your sentence, it opens up a world of comfort. It shows your listener that you are excited and comfortable.

Those kinds of things like “I love that question. Okay, here’s where we are.” Saying things like that at the beginning of a response goes avery, a very long way

Mike: Beautiful. let’s do one or two more. I wanna keep here. And now you’ve, you said, and I’m gonna go off on a tangent for a second. You, in your intro, I said you’ve written five books. do any of the books kinda go through all, you know, the- these types of mistakes? Is there one of your books we could point people to, or is this different territory?

David Goldberg: Sort of. There’s one book I wrote on voiceover direction, and however that– See, I’m not saying but that is specific. I’m saying however that is specific to narrating a commercial. I do want to point that out. My default American English is to go to that but word. I was about to say I wrote– The book is on voiceover, but…

And that would bring me to a negative place. So I’m using the word however instead. However, that– Voiceover is sort of different than spoken language because in voiceover you’re reading a script, you’re not thinking spontaneously as you do typically in everyday conversation. There’s not a book I’ve written on these types of things,the, these, the adjustments that we’re talking about now.

That’s what I give in a lot of the presentations when I tour the country. That’s the Vistage presentation, just understanding how to con- think about your wording, how your words land. It’s really truly studying how your words land, how you say those words, and then how you appear when you say those words.

Those three things together, your wording, the way you say the words, and how you appear when you say the words in totality really create your presence, and that’s what I focus on, having people come through really well as you opened with, because most people are not thinking enough about how they sound.

We’re focused on how we look. We forget about how we sound, and it is super important. You know-

Mike: the words, how you say those words, and how you appear when you say those words. We’ve talked about a couple– We’ve talked about a couple of things around the words and, and how you say those words.

What about the how you appear, your presence when you say those words? Talk a little bit about that and what leaders should be thinking about.

David Goldberg: Here’s how I could say it. Easiest way You take most people on Zoom, a-and if you say to them, “Okay, we’re gonna put you on the front cover of a magazine. The way you look right now, your Zoom photo, that’s how you’re going on front of a magazine.” Most people have fake backgrounds, blur– you know, ironing boards in the background, all kinds of things in the background, and they’d say,no.

I don’t want the way I look right now to be how I am on the front of a magazine.” And I feel that’s kind of silly. I think this: when you are on Zoom, that is the impression you’re giving people of how you come through. The way you look, your presence, your audio quality, your lighting, your framing, all of those things create your presence, your online presence, your virtual presence.

And I think that you should put as much thought into your virtual presence as you would if you have a headshot going on the front of a magazine. Like, why is it okay,why is it okay to not look as good on Zoom as you would want to look on the front of a magazine? In fact, probably more people would see you on Zoom than they would on the front of a magazine. So I believe that when you’re on Zoom, you should take pride in it. My head goes right to the top of the screen. I’m using a microphone so I don’t have echo or noise or hiss or dogs barking in the background. The, these things are really important when you are on Zoom. Interestingly, and this is an analogy I thought of last week or two weeks ago, if I said to you…

Well, okay, Michael, here’s the example. If you and I worked at the same company, and you came in the morning and you said, “David, did the new person start?” I might say, “Yeah, they did.” And you said, “Well, have you met them?” And I said, “No, I ha- I haven’t met them yet, but I saw their office. Th- their desk is really cluttered.”

If that was the only thing you knew about someone, the only thing you know about someone is that their o- their desk is cluttered, you probably think, okay, they’re probably disorganized and messy and so on. that’s your first impression of them. Well, if you go on Zoom and your background is cluttered or messy, then that’s your audience’s first impression of you, because their first impression of you is how you look.

Before you open your mouth, they see you. First impression is made in a quarter of a second. In a quarter of a second, th- your audience decides if they like you, if they can trust you, would they do business with you. That first impression is critical, and so you need to put pride, and take time, I should say, with your first impression.

Make sure it’s a good one. So beginning a new job, you don’t want a cluttered desk, and if you’re on Zoom, when people come onto Zoom, you should not have a cluttered background. I’ve seen some pretty bad backgrounds. Studies prove that fake backgrounds and blurred backgrounds don’t work well, because when people have a blurred background or a fake background, two things happen.

It makes your audience wonder, “What’s really going on in your background?” It does make people question that, and it erodes that credibility. And more importantly, when you have a fake background or a faux background, it makes part of your hair, like, like disappear and reappear. I’m sure you’ve seen that at times.

It’s kind of a weird thing, and why would you want to do that to yourself? It’s distracting. W- it takes away from your message. It takes away from your credibility. So take pride with how you come through. That’s the key thing in terms of presence, whether it is on stage, on mic, on camera, in person, in a boardroom, where- wherever your situation.

That’s one of the things I coach with a lot of th- these celebrities and the politicians and the, the CEOs, making sure you look as good as you can look.

Mike: And it’s interesting that we end up here when one of the first questions I asked you is, was all about, you know, how companies spend so much time on, on how their brand looks, the logo, their PowerPoint presentations, their newsletters. They spend all that time on that, and they don’t think about how they sound.

That’s the way we started. But now we come back to if, you know, why would you care so much about the way your brand looks, your logo, but you don’t care as much about how you look in front of people or on Zoom? To me, that says a whole lot more than whether you have a nice logo or l- or not, is how you’re personally coming across to folks.

David Goldberg: Agreed. Yes. It’s all a package. We are all a package, and audiences see every part of our package. When you are– When you’re watching someone on Zoom, in person, if you are an investor and watching someone give a pitch, if you are a customer and looking at the salesperson, consciously and subconsciously, audiences take in the words someone uses, they take in how those words are said, and they take in how that person looks when they deliver those words.

And if you focus on all three of those things, if you learn to get rid of habits that can erode your credibility, your authority, if you can learn how to enhance those three areas, the– your outcomes are consistently better. It’s amazing. It just, it w- it just, the stuff works

Mike: like you said earlier, it’s– this is something that is, it’s difficult to do yourself. A- and I know that because in, in the work I’ve done to, you know, I do keynote speaking, and the work that I’ve done to get better on stage, I– most of that I could never have done myself because I can’t see myself objectively.

So, you know, and some of us are lucky enough to have people around us that can be objective, but most, most really don’t.

So if a leader wants to really focus on this and they want to figure out where, you know, where maybe they’re, they’re– what mistakes they’re making and how can they improve, kinda I ask two things and I’ll tell you where I’m going with it.

One is I wanna ask, like, what are one or two things that a leader can do right now to better focus on this? But then I do wanna ask, obviously, David, how you and your company might help. But let’s start before I talk about what you and your company,what you and your company do, um, what are one or two things a leader can do to start better focusing on this right now?

David Goldberg: Truly step outside yourself and see how other people– and envision how other people see you. Really think about how your words land. And I’ll give you an example of that in a moment. Truly think about how your words land, hear your voice and hear how the sound of your words land, and think about your presence.

if you can be objective, if you can really picture yourself as your own audience, you may be able to overcome a lot of these things and really enhance your image. Fun story, and it’s short. a couple of Sundays ago, my 14-year-old son said to me, 14 at the time, now he’s since turned 15.

My 14-year-old said to me, probably 9:00 on a Sunday night, “Dad, could you take my friends and I to the mall?” My, my initial instinct was to say, “Dude, like it’s 9:00 on a Sunday night. Like, you have school tomorrow, and the mall is closed.” I really think about how my words land, and I think before I speak.

I take that moment to think. So I caught myself, and before I said a word, I was able to adjust my words, and I said, “I’d love to, except the mall is closed now, and it’s a school night. Can I take you guys tomorrow?” I wouldn’t want to reject my son, or I should say I don’t want my son to feel rejected by me, and so– and nor would I want to do that to an employee, anyone on my team, anyone in my family, a friend.

I don’t wanna do that to anyone. So think how your words land. It takes a moment to think about. Neuroscientists say it takes six seconds for our brains to sort of get off the initial rush of the impetus, the, like the abrupt response, and put words into a more natural a better place. So think before you speak.

That’s a thing that people can do. That’s the one thing maybe. Think before you act. Don’t be abrupt. Take a moment

Mike: sounds easy, not so much.

Um, David, you talked a a little bit earlier, you know, kinda quickly about what you do at the Edge Studio business that you have. But talk a little bit about, Prosody.Center and what you do there and how you help folks

David Goldberg: Yeah. So these businesses are separate. Edgestudio.com is the voiceover business. Prosody.center is the speaking business. And I say speaking, but it’s really wording, speaking, and presence. We work with athletes who are on the fields giving interviews after games. We work with actors who are giving interviews after shows.

We work with politicians. We work with CEOs. We work with entrepreneurs, podcasters, authors, anyone who has a high-stakes talk. A- and here’s another way to say it, Michael. If you are not necessarily a public speaker, except you rely on your voice for success, that’s where we come in. We make sure that you sound as good as you can, always focusing on the same three things, wording, speaking, and presence.

Mike: And if someone wants to find out more about you, where’s the best place for them to go?

David Goldberg: Prosody.center

Mike: Easy

David Goldberg: That’s our website, yeah. And I can give my– I can give an email address. My email is david.goldberg@prosody.center.

Again, david.goldberg@prosody.center

Mike: Beautiful.

Well, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. We don’t always think about how we sound, how we come across, our presence when we speak as an important part of that. But it’s such an important part whether you are presenting to an investor, whether you are talking about your vision to your organization and trying to get people behind you.

Um, as a leader, so much of what you say is so important. So David, thanks for opening our eyes today to some things that, most of us probably don’t think about very much. So this was great. I appreciate it

David Goldberg: I appreciate the chance to let me share some fun stuff

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