Speaking and Communicating Podcast

In my first book, Choosing Your Power, I have 10 watchwords, and the top three watchwords are why, but, and should.

And if we could eliminate those three, I guarantee your life would change.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndlela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.

Now, let's get communicating.

Today, we will not just communicate, but we will have so much fun with Dr.

Wayne Pernell, who is bringing another companion with him.

He is the exponential success coach and the founder of Dynamic Leadership.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show.

Hi, Wayne.

Hi, Roberta.

It is a beautiful day to be communicating.

It's a beautiful day to be lifting others.

We're going to lift as we lead out there.

So I'm so glad to be here.

Thank you.

I'm so excited that you're here.

Welcome.

I love that idea of lifting others because essentially isn't that what communication does when people feel that when they communicate, they are being heard, they feel uplifted?

Well, our job as good leaders is to really acknowledge others, right?

It's to acknowledge others in their space, who they are, what they need, and to treat everybody equally.

I believe that each of us is a leader because we're being seen by somebody, and that could be in the grocery store, how we treat ourselves and how we treat other people.

That's a leadership moment.

Even in checking out of the grocery store, who are you and how are you, and how are you engaging with another, it matters, it really, really matters.

Absolutely.

So please give us off your background.

Well, I was born in, no, it's my background.

So the doctor part of Dr.

Wayne Pernell is my doctorate in clinical psychology.

And about 40 years ago, I decided to move out of traditional psychology.

A lot of traditional psychology actually puts people in boxes, at least a lot of the things that I was taught along the way.

And when I saw an opportunity to move from traditional psychology into leadership development and into coaching and becoming the exponential success coach, it was about leveraging the strengths that people had and not about saying, oh, I know what your problem is.

I'd rather say to somebody, I see you, I see your potential, and I see a way through.

Do you want that?

And that's different than, oh, I know what your problem is.

Let's start there and get rid of that, you know.

Something got you to where you are.

You're as old as you've ever been, right?

So something allowed you to live up to this point.

That's your strength.

How do we leverage that?

How do we leverage where you've been?

And yes, everybody has a story, and yes, everybody has stuff to carry with them, and the stories that they have taken on as their reality.

And my job, my work, is to break people free of those stories by allowing them a glimmer of light into what excellence actually looks like.

You may pause and you may go, you know, my life's okay.

Or you could go, wow, I'm really struggling.

Or I'm suffering.

You know, struggle is necessary.

That's part of growth.

Suffering is a choice, usually.

And it's never really productive.

It's kind of indicative of dis-ease.

Dis-ease.

So how do we get out of dis-ease and into a really very positive state where you wake up every morning and you go, wow, look what I get to do today.

We talk about communication.

Oh, I have to do this versus, wow, look at what I get to do today.

I look at my calendar, and it's jam-packed full.

And even today for me, I had double booking.

I had some overlap, and I'm, instead of going, oh no, what did I do to myself?

I'm like, wow.

Like, how lucky am I that I have so much in terms of being able to share, being able to grow, being able to lift others along the way?

Incredible.

What an opportunity.

And then it's up to me to manage that versus going, oh my gosh, how did that happen?

You know, who did this to me?

It's like, it's my calendar.

I did this.

Is my assistant not efficient enough?

And the point here is that's a choice.

And when you recognize you have choice, you have power.

Let me go back to the weaknesses part.

I remember when my country reached democracy in 1994, so one of the ladies who had been exiled during apartheid, when she came back, she said, here's how I'm going to contribute to South Africa.

We're going to have this talk show where everybody talks about what they've been through and where we're going.

And I remember specifically this one statement she made.

She said, I don't focus on my weaknesses.

I'm busy working on my strengths and what they can contribute.

I don't have time to work on my weaknesses.

That's going to take too long while time is passing, and our country needs us to rebuild it.

That's exactly right.

We think we're flawed.

And the truth is we're perfect.

We all have flaws.

Those are perfect flaws.

Otherwise, we'd all be identical.

One person's weakness might actually be the thing that someone else needs to see.

We talk about authenticity and vulnerability.

It's like, maybe I just needed to see that in you.

Maybe that's why you're here and you showed up for me, or why I'm here and showed up for you.

Maybe you saw a glimmer of something, and so instead of going, I have to polish out all the weakness, it's not about that.

It's about, well, given who I am and the balance, how do I get stronger in what would be a zone of genius for me?

I don't have to be good at everything.

I know that I'm living in purpose.

When I go toward the thing that my heart draws me toward, that's great.

Then how do I get the support around me to do the other things?

When I think of everybody wants to feel seen and heard and validated, the fact that you see people, you see the excellence in them, how big is that?

I think that's our job.

I think that we are here to essentially bear witness to other people, to witness other people's lives.

And I think that a lot of us got into the habit, especially pre-pandemic, of, hey, how are you?

Oh, fine.

Oh, I'm fine.

Oh, fine.

And we just move on instead of, hey, how are you?

Wait, really, how are you?

I see you.

I see you.

Right?

And so we do need to acknowledge the other person.

How are you?

Who are you?

What are you working on?

How's your family doing?

You know, that if we took the time to care about that, it actually makes a difference.

The grocery store near me, there's thousands of people that go through it every day.

I know the checkers.

It's like they know me.

They'll recognize me.

And why?

It's because I take the time to say, I see you.

I'll call them by name.

I'll look in their eyes.

I'll ask how they're doing, really how they're doing.

And I think, how long does that take?

You know, two seconds maybe.

It's like to really connect.

Think about this.

And this is a challenge for our audience, our listeners and viewers.

The last person you met, what color were their eyes?

Like, did you actually take the opportunity to look in their eyes and actually notice their eye color?

That's the clue.

Like, oh no, I was so busy being busy that I forgot to actually make that human connection.

So we're talking about communication here.

We're talking about leadership here.

We're talking about success.

How do you get success?

Not by saying, hey, follow me, I'm so great.

It's like, no, I see you.

And I've got this journey.

Does it make sense?

Would you love to come along?

And if you actually see people and they get to see you, now you've got people that want to come along.

Right.

And doesn't that also support if you give enough people what they want, then you also get what you want.

That is success.

Zig Ziglar said, if you help enough people, get what they want, you will have everything you want.

Yeah, that was Zig Ziglar.

And he was absolutely right.

If you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want.

And that is because you are doing it in order to help people.

You are not doing it for an exchange.

I'm going to help you, and then I'm going to get what I want.

No, I'm going to help you, and you're going to pay it forward, and you're going to pay it forward, and energetically, somehow, it's going to come back, and it's going to come back in a way that you don't expect, and there will be opportunities that open, and it's only because of the mindset of, I am of service, not what can I get.

The true trick here is to snap yourself out of lack thinking.

I need to get is all about lack thinking, versus there's enough for everybody, there's actually an abundance, so how can I help other people?

We all have bad days.

If you ever have a bad day, it's like, well, who can I serve even more greatly today?

Right?

And so your ability to feel positive every day and to serve greatly creates a ripple effect that you won't even know how many lives you've touched, because your message and your value and that particular touch mattered so much.

Is that what you refer to as the culture of caring?

Really good segue, Roberta.

Thank you.

The whole idea of culture of caring really starts with, I see you before, hey, how are you?

It really is like almost everything I've been talking about so far is about building this culture of caring.

I think we need to bring it to our corporate settings where leaders learn that individuals are individuals.

And it's not, hello, everybody, I have a message for my staff.

It's like, hey, as team members, I'm grateful that each of you are here versus all of you.

Each of you, individuals, we recognize individual contributors.

We recognize individual uniqueness.

And so the culture of caring is I see each individual.

My job as a leader is to find out what it takes to help you do your job even better.

I believe that's leadership, that your job is not to come in and demand or show that you're the grand poobah because of some title.

It's not about title.

It's not positional power.

Your power comes from actual connection and showing that you care and showing that you can make a difference.

And then for each person to be accountable to that.

Like if I said, hey, we need to all rally and everybody's like, yeah, yeah, we should.

We is nobody because when we say we, we look around and it's like everybody else, not me.

You're talking about, yes, right.

And so what we need is an individual accountable.

I, I believe in that.

I will do that.

And then we get a group of accountable.

I, I will too.

I will too.

Now we have individuals who are aligned because a leader has said, this is what I believe in.

This is who I am.

I'm here to support you.

Now we have a group of accountable individuals.

Awesome.

That's how we build a culture of caring.

It starts with I see you.

My job is to support you.

How do you do your job?

Well, what do you need from me?

And that's how you influence as a leader.

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

So what's the difference between influence and significance?

Oh, really great.

So I have five books out there.

I'm working on two more side by side.

It's kind of exciting.

At some point, I'll talk about my first one.

The whole idea of significance, I call this the book, The Significance Factor.

It came out a few years back.

And the idea here is how do you move from success and influence, how do you move from that to real significance?

And if you think about it, we would define success as what do I have?

Look at all that I have to show for myself.

So success is seen as what a person gets.

And I think we need to redefine that, because success can be redefined, and it can be turned into significance, which is how many lives have I positively touched?

How many people have I positively affected?

And it may not even be direct.

Like, you know, my big, hairy, audacious goal in my life, in my lifetime, my big goal is to positively touch a billion lives.

Will I do that individually, or will I do it here, where, for example, I don't know how big your audience is, but it's possible, and I should say, and it's possible, that someone in your audience tells someone else who tells someone else who tells someone else.

So now, my words, the little nuggets, as you say, my words have touched the lives of people I've never met.

And for me, that's what it's about.

You know, I wake up to serve greatly.

I wake up in order to remind people of their humanity and their potential, and the truth about being able to be successful and live in a state of excellence.

It's not like, well, I'm going to sit here until excellence drops on me.

It's like, no, there's work to be done, but it doesn't have to be hard work.

And it doesn't have to be like the struggle that I talk about is sort of like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, and it's time for the butterfly to break out of its cocoon, it must push against the cocoon in order to get that strength.

Otherwise, if you help it out, it will not have the strength in its wings to be able to flourish, to fly.

So the struggle is actually about the growth.

And let's explain something here just for a second.

Excellence doesn't mean perfection, because a lot of people give up on striving for excellence, thinking they're supposed to be perfect.

And so when things don't turn out perfectly, then they let it go.

Now we're into this book, my first book called, Choosing Your Power, where I talk about the perfect flaw.

Roberta, I believe that all of us are perfect, that we all are also flawed, and that if we didn't have flaws, we'd all be identical, which is boring.

We are perfect.

We have perfect flaws.

And again, like, do we brush them out?

No, we don't have to polish them out.

We get to acknowledge them as that's part of who I am.

And do I have to bring it with me?

No, because I can learn different things.

I can become better.

Excellence is not about perfection, because your idea of excellence may differ from my idea of excellence.

And so is it perfect?

Would I judge it that way?

It's like, no.

And speaking of judgment, so there's a part of me that's very playful.

I showed this to you before we started recording.

There's a part of me that's really playful.

And that is, I almost always have a Curious George with me.

No matter where I go.

A lot of Curious George books.

So when I've even brought Curious George on stage with me, I've brought, when I do speaking, I've brought Curious George.

He doesn't always show up.

I've brought Curious George with me to board rooms when I've done consulting in major organizations.

Sometimes he'll, you know, sit conspicuously.

Other times he's just there.

But there's two reasons for him.

One, he almost always makes me laugh.

He's just fun, right?

It's just like, how can you not have smile when you see that little monkey?

The other is the reminder of curiosity.

This is a huge leadership lesson.

It's a huge communication lesson.

We are so quick to judge.

We are so quick to judge.

We see something, we judge it.

We judge it whether it's good for us, whether it's a threat to us, whether we could dominate it, we could own it, we could have it, we could decimate it.

We judge it.

Even when I held up the monkey, I'm sure that some of the viewers of the podcast are going to be going, this guy brought a monkey?

I thought it was a serious guy.

Right?

The second reason that I bring Curious George along with me is, as a reminder to myself and to others, if you live in curiosity, you cannot live in judgment.

Please repeat that.

When you live in curiosity, live in this state of wonder, I wonder what happened that that guy was in such a hurry he cut me off on the freeway.

I wonder what happened that that person's having such a bad day that they're being rude to the barista.

Instead of, what a Karen!

Like, that's judgment that doesn't serve anybody.

How about compassion?

I wonder what happened that this person who promised to get their work in so that I could do the next phase, I wonder what happened that I didn't get the report at the time that they had promised it.

Imagine how many leaders and managers would think that way if you don't turn in your work on time.

Right?

So it's like, what support do they need?

It puts you in a place of compassion.

We never know somebody else's full story.

We never know their full story.

Right?

I have a TED Talk out there.

It's got over 2 million views on it.

It's called How a Parallax Perspective Disrupts Perceptual Bias.

That is a really fancy way of saying, if you choose to look at a situation differently and you ask the question, what am I missing?

You will find the answer to the thing that you've been missing.

There's always more.

I know that there's more to the context of the situation.

I know there's more to the other person, and I know there's more to me.

I must be missing something based on how I was raised, based on what I was taught, based on what I expect about this meeting.

What am I missing?

And you stay curious, not in judgment.

And then it causes this desire to actually search.

Just the very language being different changes your mindset about the situation as well.

Absolutely, yes.

That you choose to live in this curious place, I wonder, is so different.

It's different from, oh, that guy must, or look at her, she's...

And we do it to ourselves.

In my first book, Choosing Your Power, I have ten watchwords, and the top three watchwords are why, but, and should.

And if we could eliminate those three, I guarantee your life would change.

Now, Simon Sinek did a really good job about asking the question why, and he was great at promoting it.

Around that same time I came out, I think he says ask why five times, and I say four.

When you ask yourself, why is that important to me?

And why is that important to me?

And you dig down to find your real why.

You do a certain level of discovery, and it's a discovery of values.

And I think that's an incredibly important path and journey.

That said, I think we also need to eliminate the word why when we're working with another person, or when we're talking to another person, because it's really an accusatory question.

Right?

Think about this.

Okay, Roberta, why did you choose to wear red today?

It demands a because response.

It's like, what's wrong with red?

It's definitely not a compliment, for sure.

Right?

So if I said, oh, Roberta, wow, what about red?

Like, do you love?

That sounds a little better.

Brings it out of me.

It's a vibrant color.

It's different.

If you ask a why question, you get a because response.

And because it puts the other person in a one down position.

Actually, if you ask a husband or a wife in a childlike or a parental, from a parental vantage point, why are there dishes in the sink?

You know what the answer is?

Dishes are in the sink.

That's where I left them and gravity kept them there.

It's like, that's the real answer.

We're talking communication.

Do you actually want to get what you want to get?

Which is, hey, it would be great if we could have a clean kitchen.

When you're done with a dish, would it be cool with you if you just put it in the dishwasher or washed it and put it away?

Just ask for what you want versus being accusatory.

And speaking of a parental tone, you remember when we were kids, as soon as your parents say why, you know you're in trouble.

And that's because because was never going to be good enough.

Why did you do that?

It always sounds shaming.

And so we need to eliminate the shame.

I mean, if you want to be right, I'm more right than you.

It's like your relationships on a crash course.

It's going to implode.

And so if you could actually ask for what you want, you have more of a chance of getting what you want without resentment, with enrollment and engagement.

You know, it's important to me that the kitchen is clean.

Instead of leaving a mug in the sink, could you put it in the dishwasher when you're done?

You're going to substitute why for what and how.

You're going to substitute but, and you're going to create and, which creates that connection.

And should, it was Fritz Perls, again, back in the 60s.

Fritz Perls was the founder of Gestalt Psychology, and he was the one that first said that shoulds are sh-poo.

And there's no reason to should all over yourself or anyone else.

So, there's that.

Like, you know, we find ourselves in a place of, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that, or we blame other people.

You should have called.

You should have been here sooner.

You should have brought green beans instead of potato salad to Thanksgiving.

You should have.

Well, guess what?

I can't should have called.

I can't should have brought green beans.

So, what could we do in the future so that that is communicated better?

So, we substitute should for would or could in the future.

Again, if your intent is to shame the other person, just come out and go, I'm really mad at you.

Start there.

That's a better conversation.

In terms of communication, I'm really mad at you.

I wanted you to call me.

You disappointed me.

And that's a different conversation.

It opens for appropriate apology.

It opens for an appropriate plan for the future.

And speaking for asking what you want.

Yes.

You mentioned earlier in one of your books, you talk to us women, which we appreciate, about helping us ask for what we want, because usually we ask for permission, as they say.

Yes.

Again, in this, in choosing your power, Chapter 3 is called permission granted.

Look, it still happens and it surprises me every time, and it disappoints me every time, because our culture demands it, and I can't stand it.

I wrote this book a decade ago, and it still holds true, and I wrote it based on my work with over 300 women at the time.

And one of the pieces was stop apologizing.

Like really claim your space.

You know, as a guy, I want to know that you are a woman who values yourself.

I want to know that you're a good human in the world that values yourself.

I'm standing in a hotel lobby, waiting for the elevator, and the doors open and the dudes march out, and the women go, Oh, sorry.

Oh, excuse me.

Sorry.

Oh, sorry.

That's like why you are.

That's the why.

What happened to you that you are shrinking and apologizing?

You are coming out of an elevator, leaving space for me to get into it.

What are you sorry about?

Stop it.

Stop apologizing.

That's one instance.

The other happens all the time in grocery stores.

You and I could be shopping in the same aisle, and we reach for green beans at the same time.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Stop it.

There's one pack left.

I let you take it.

Let's have a conversation about it.

Hey, I've got an event coming up.

Can I have this?

Like my family loves these.

Can I have this?

Again, ask for what you want unapologetically.

Truly unapologetically, like you deserve to be in the world.

You deserve to have a voice.

Everybody does.

And we've been accused also of being because, you know, leadership has originally been male before in boardrooms and big companies.

So when we enter those spaces as well, we also tend to have the apologetic.

I feel like I don't fully belong here like you guys.

I've seen that polar actually, Roberta, I've seen it where women are so aggressive that they've learned to play the man's game and they think that being hostile is the man's game.

And it's like, that's not exactly the man's game.

And nor should you be playing the man's game.

Let's play the business game.

It's not about are you man enough to be in a boardroom.

It's about are you a leader enough to make a difference in the boardroom?

So there's that, then there's the imposter syndrome where, again, it's apology.

I have something to say.

Can I contribute?

It's like, stop apologizing.

You got something to say.

You got yourself there.

Say it.

And this is for anybody.

It's not just in the boardroom.

This is about you've got a voice.

You've got an opinion.

You deserve to be heard.

If you're in a place where people aren't listening to you, you either need to find your confidence and bring your voice and bring your presence.

On my website, by the way, I have a free masterclass called Powerful Presence.

So I would invite people to go there and I'll tell you how to get there.

If you find your presence and you grow, or you go, you know what?

Toxic environment.

I don't even want to put the energy into helping these people anymore.

I want out.

I've got really powerful daughters, and I've seen them go both directions.

You know, one is like, I'm taking this on.

And in another situation, the other is like, this is not worth the battle.

It's horrible.

I'm out.

And both acted correctly.

Both acted correctly.

Because it's not about fighting every battle.

Sometimes you think, I don't want to be stained by the mud of that pigsty.

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's like, is it worth it to get any more on me?

I don't know.

I don't...

This isn't where I want to be.

It's like, that's awesome.

That's great.

Then you choose.

Which, by the way, brings us to Dynamic Transitions, which is a really, really, really good book.

I'm really proud of this one.

It went international number one bestseller.

Dynamic Transitions.

Here's the thing.

If I asked you and the audience here, as an individual, are you in any form of transition in your relationships, in your spirituality, in your finances, in your home situation, in your career?

Maybe people in your household are moving in or moving out.

Like, are you in transition?

Do you feel like you are in a transition?

And the answer is 100% of the time, yeah.

Do you know why it's an inward search, the inward why?

The reason for that is, honestly, you're not the same person that you were.

If you think back 20 years, would you say you're that person?

No.

Absolutely not.

The girl in my 20s is a whole different person.

So let's go there, right?

And let's think about this.

In your 20s, you're like, look at me, look how energetic and vibrant I am, I'm sexy.

It's all about the let's go.

In your 30s, you start to settle in to, I am looking for stability.

I'm looking for a way to have something I can rely on for myself and maybe even to create a life with someone else, eventually a family even sometimes.

So as you move into your 40s, it's really a powerful time, and you're going to love this being in your 40s now, that you're creating legacy.

So you're looking at, I have the stability.

Am I still looking for more?

Yeah, because we all ache for more.

We all know that we are bigger than the life we're leading, which is why we're in dynamic transitions.

We are bigger than the life we are currently leading.

We know that.

So we're searching for more.

Awesome.

Well, now it's about legacy.

How do I create something?

This podcast is part of your legacy.

It is.

It's like you are making a difference to people.

So this is huge.

In our 50s, we start to look at, well, health and adventure.

Things don't work the way they used to.

Joints, the stakes.

I will tell you, when I turned 50, I went ziplining, though.

It was the first time I'd ever been ziplining, and I did it in Jamaica.

It was fabulous.

There's a thing about adventure that happens.

Like, I've earned it.

I've earned adventure.

In your 60s, it starts to be a combination of all of that.

It's partly look at me.

It's partly stability.

It's partly legacy.

It's partly health.

It's partly adventure.

And so you may have older kids, grandkids, or you may have a broader touch on your community looking at how do you make that bigger difference and how do you take care of yourself and how do you give back to yourself?

And so from there, it only gets better as well.

There's more of that.

So if you think about where you've been and who you are, if you think about what you valued in your 20s, and there are certain core values that came with you, love, family, integrity, those core values come with you.

In your 30s, it's like, I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to buckle down, I'm going to create this thing, I'm going to work for another person, I'm going to maybe start my own company, this is it.

Awesome.

Your core values come with you.

Your peripheral values may or may not come with you to the next phase of, you know what, I'm looking at all I've created to this point, I want to make sure that some of it lasts for other generations.

I want to make sure that I'm creating something that makes a difference to other people.

So the point that I'm making is that you have core values and peripheral values.

And that at each phase, in fact, you know, I said that you're not the same person you were 20 years ago.

You're not the same person you were 10 years ago, five years ago, two years ago.

If you think about it, you're not the same person that you were two weeks ago.

And if you really think about it, you're not even the same person you were yesterday, because you've learned today, you've grown today, you've had different experiences today than you had yesterday.

And that's what makes you different.

And so recognizing that we are here and we are different from who we were, you also now get to recognize, well, who do I want to become?

Like, what do I want to have in my life?

And who do I need to become to have those things?

We now start that today.

That's where the dynamic transitions happens.

If I want these things in my life, who do I need to be to have them?

Who are the people that already have them?

How are they?

Who are they?

How do they show up in the world?

How do they treat their own bodies?

How do they treat their people around them?

And you look at the people who are the models of success for you, whatever that looks like.

Because Roberta, here's the funny thing.

We typically spend more time planning the details of our vacation than we do planning the details of the next year or two of our lives.

And this is...

The vacation sounds more fun, Wayne.

Give us some credit here.

You know what?

My life is pretty fun.

So planning it out and knowing what to put into it.

I don't wait to see what will the new year bring.

It's like, what am I going to bring to the new year?

Like, what am I going to bring to it?

It's my responsibility to fill that year with things I love, versus what's it going to hold for me?

Every day could be, could feel, exciting, new, vibrant, because of what you bring, because of how you choose to show up in the morning.

And throughout the day, I'm annoyingly perky in the morning.

Like, I wake up and I'm like, let's go!

It's a great day.

How do I serve greatly?

Who's on my list?

And I will know because I've checked the night before.

I have a plan.

I know what my day, my week looks like.

And so I wake up like, yeah, I get to serve greatly today.

How exciting.

It's not like Tony Robbins.

He does the priming exercise as soon as it gets out of bed.

So here's the thing.

A couple of decades ago, I was living my life.

It was not a fun life for me.

And for many weeks in a row, I would wake up and, oh, were the first two words out of my mouth.

Here we go.

Right.

And it's like, every day felt like drudgery day.

Yeah, like I'd grab food in the dark.

I'd get in my car.

I would commute.

It was pretty bad.

And then there was a shift.

I was in stop and go traffic.

And it was stop and go and stop and go.

And it was like grr.

And then it was stop and stop.

But I went stop and go.

And I ran into the back of a garbage truck.

And I'm like, that is like the biggest sign ever.

If I'm running into the back of a garbage truck and hating my life, like, is that not a clue that something's got to change?

So many metaphors.

Right?

And so now, instead of waking up going, oh, now I wake up going, thank you.

Those are the first two words out of my mouth.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have this day to make a difference.

I have this day to be of value to lift and to serve greatly.

I have this day.

And maybe I don't serve greatly every day.

My goal is how do I serve greatly?

That's the question.

Right?

So I start my days with that question.

And then my wife goes, shh, coffee first, and then talking, no talking.

As I'm up, I'm perky, and she's like, shh, shh.

She's more of an introvert, and it's okay.

You complement each other beautifully.

We do.

We definitely do.

This has been so beautiful, Wayne, you have so many words of wisdom.

But what is one last thing that you would like to say to us and the listeners regarding being exponentially successful?

So the whole idea of exponential success, if you notice, there are three Vs in the mountains.

There are three Vs inside that torch, and that is about values, vision, and vitality.

What are your values?

Understand what they are truly deeply.

Understand your values.

What do you value now?

That's going to help you create your vision for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

And then the vitality is, how do you show up?

How do you choose to show up in the world, embodying those values and that vision?

That's your life, vitality, vital, being vital, being a vital force.

It's really about choice and knowing that you have choice every day, and that you can ask for what you want, and that you can actually set your sights on what you want.

Part of it is about daring to declare.

It's like, I dare to declare into the world.

And if other people say, who are you to want that?

It's like, I don't have to listen to them.

I know who I am, and I know what I want.

Man, invite people to visit my website.

Absolutely.

Please give us those details.

I'll put them on the show notes as well.

Great.

So as long as you spell my name correctly, see what I've done to my iPhone case.

That is your case, and at the back, you have your logo for exponential success.

Yes, I do.

Whoops.

So my name, Wayne Pernell, W-A-Y-N-E, T-E-R-N-E-L-L, waynepernell.com.

On that, you'll find Wednesdays with Wayne.

It's a blog that I do every week.

You'll find The Powerful Presence Masterclass free.

It's about 47 minutes.

It will walk you through daring to declare, and really daring, like choosing to want something to actually your destination of getting it.

I have a link to my TED Talk with over 2 million views, and I have a link to my Oxford Talk that's out there that talks about culture of caring.

So go to waynepernell.com and look around and Google me.

I mean, love to have you on my Wednesdays with Wayne email list because you get a little bit of inspiration and thought-provoking leadership nudge every week.

Wednesdays with Wayne.

So waynepernell.com, that's how you find me.

waynepernell.com, Wednesdays with Wayne and his five books, the latest one being Dynamic Transitions, Author, TEDx Speaker, Leadership Coach, and Founder of Dynamic Leadership, Dr.

waynepernell.com.

This has been such a pleasure.

Thank you.

It is a pleasure.

Thank you, Roberta.

Thank you.

Really great.

I thank Curious George as well.

My absolute pleasure.

Take a bow.

Take a bow.

Thank you so much, waynep.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking on Communicating Podcast once again.

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