Episode 012: Communicating With Resonance: Leading Authentically Through Fear with Scott Ramey

Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami

Episode 012: Communicating With Resonance: Leading Authentically Through Fear with Scott Ramey

Episode Description:

In this episode, executive leadership and communication coach Scott Ramey shares his journey from battling anxiety in corporate leadership roles to becoming a transformative keynote speaker and creator of The Resonance Edge™ framework. 

Scott reveals how leaders, sales professionals, and teams can communicate with clarity, presence, and trust to build deeper influence and connection — not through persuasion, but through authentic resonance. You’ll discover practical strategies for overcoming fear, aligning tone with message, and leading with purpose in high‑stakes situations. 

Whether you’re scaling performance, navigating change, or coaching teams to better engagement, this episode delivers actionable insights to help you own your voice and lead with impact. 

Tune in for lessons that elevate leadership communication in every context.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The fear and anxiety that I thought I was experienced wasn't mine at all. In fact, it was most of the situations I was finding myself in, the combined frequency and energy of a room, so I could feel that. I would take that and own it as if it were mine, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami, where real journeys, mindset shifts, and strategic insights meet to purpose-driven success. I'm your host, Mo Salami. Every week we dive into real conversations with high-achieving founders and leaders, uncovering the mindsets, strategies, and takeaways that help you define and achieve success on your own terms. Hi, this is Mo Salami, and welcome to the podcast. We have such a gift of a guest today. His insights they just shine through effortlessly, and he's such a superb individual as well. And that always helps, right? Scott Raimi is a keynote speaker, leadership coach, and communication coach whose most important lessons didn't come from a textbook or even from the boardroom. They came from navigating success while silently battling anxiety and fear. After decades in senior leadership roles at major financial institutions, Scott learned firsthand that confidence, clarity, and influence aren't just about performance. Today he helps leaders, sales professionals, and teams find their authentic voice through his propriety methods, the Scott Raimi method, and at the resonance edge, teaching them how to communicate best when it matters most. Scott, welcome to the show. Thanks, Bell. It's nice to see you. I'm so honored that you're on the show, as I mentioned. And um Scott, let's start at the beginning because I happen to know that you have a really fascinating, simple, amazing backstory. So let's start right there. Just share your backstory a little bit and what brought you here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, no, again, thank you for having me. So look, I was I'm a simple kid from Indiana here in the U.S. and um had a great childhood. What and I learned most of everything I teach today, frankly, uh from my childhood, and especially from people like my my grandmother, who we called hoo-hoo, because every time she'd walk into a home, if she didn't see or hear somebody immediately, she'd say, Woo-hoo, and then that's how we identified her. But um, her name is Betty Grabbitt, and uh we called her we called her hoo-hoo. But um she had an amazing ability to connect with complete strangers, and so kind of intuitively I watched her and observed her, and uh we we joked that she is the perfect woman because she literally could do anything. She lost her husband when I was a month old and you know was kind of my she was a superhero in all of our eyes. But um I had by all accounts had a really, really great childhood. You know, my brothers and I are still very close today. Um what I didn't realize though is that there were kind of disbehaviors and these traits and characteristics that I probably learned all too well when I was growing up. I was one of four boys. We had 35 foster kids come through our household. And I would find my you know, unbeknownst to me, I found that my voice was being moderated and modulated, which later revealed itself in a panic attack. My escape from the craziness was that our household was sports, and so I ended up being a relatively good basketball player. But when I wasn't able to play basketball and I went to go tell the coaches the first time that I was done playing ball and I was transferring out of the school that I was at, I had a f a full-on, full-fledged panic attack. Uh, the most horrifying experience. And it wasn't the first, it was one of many, and I'm fifty almost 54 years of age and you know, knock on wood, thank goodness I don't have them any longer. But what I've been able to overcome uh understand and overcome about that was really about identifying and finding my voice. And so many of us operate in a performative way. And by all accounts, I was in a performative mindset most of my career because I felt like I had to be a certain way, behave a certain way, communicate a certain way, lead a certain way. And what I've realized is that just isn't the case at all. And most of us are performing most of the time. And gosh, if we just went back to our authentic self, who we truly are, just being, I don't, you know, I go be you is such a discounted way of thinking about this, you know, be you. But I would say return to yourself, return to your roots, return to who you really are, fundamentally at the root of what who we are and how we exist. That to me is the secret. And so now I I work with leaders, sales organizations to help them unveil their true identity, their true self. So they just are present in the moment, communicating authentically and connecting with people. And it's just been, frankly, Mo, it's just been um a blessing leaving corporate America and now helping organizations. And ironically, uh, some of the very organizations I used to work for now have hired me to come back and coach, which has been so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Amazing, amazing. And like you mentioned, you had a long, successful corporate career. What was happening for you internally when you had to do that pivot towards well, standing on your own, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

What was happening? Fear, imposter syndrome, not thinking I was good enough. I all these all these emotions that probably follow a lot of us around every single day. I felt them they were magnified. When I left corporate, it really magnified. So even these fears and apprehensions and concerns and this masking, as I like to refer to it, that I was experiencing in corporate America when I left to start my own business, it was magnified to the point where it finally clued me in and said, Hey, look, you probably should go talk to somebody about these challenges you're experiencing, which opened up a whole plethora of opportunity and discovery and self-exploration. That when I finally started to dig into, well, why was why did I have anxiety? Why was I panic most of my, why was I in fight, flight, fee, or flop mode most of my adult life? So the the most the most rewarding thing for me, Mo, about becoming an entrepreneur is I finally had to confront all those fears that I was living with and experiencing. And so once I was able to confront those and get past that, then my business has started to flourish more than I possibly could have ever imagined. And my working relationships, my personal experience, my family relationships are all so much better now that I was willing to get help and really uncover what was driving this fear that I was experiencing most of my adult life.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

You mentioned that the fear and the anxiety was magnified. And that's the moment when most people do this. They pause and they just stay in pause mode for however long. It could be five years, it could be decades. What made you go in the other direction versus pausing? You continued forward uh regardless.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, so it's such a that's such a good insight that you bring, and the question you raise is because that is most of our tendencies is to retreat. Uh it's a kind of the syndrome of lessons learned too well. So if we learn a lesson too well, then we retreat. Like the a cat that steps on a hot stove won't step on a cold one either, because we learn. And so I don't know. I think I probably finally just started to eat my own cooking. As I've always talked about this concept of success, reluctance, lessons learned too well, that we retreat. And what I felt in that moment was I was literally at a tipping point. And this has happened many, many times in my career. So maybe that's the lesson I look back on. When I found I was up against a new challenge, something I never experienced before, my tendency was to recognize it, even when I was in fear and fight and flight, I would still recognize it and realize that that was a moment I was about to break through. I knew that my intellectual property and the content and what I've used to be successful in corporate is proven it works. But it was just a new experience. And so I just knew that if I could break through and do the work, then I would break through and start to see the results that I needed to experience or wanted to experience. And so I guess maybe this is like the one time where I actually ate my own cooking. Like, hey man, you've got to confront the unconfrontable here. And the unconfrontable is like, why are you so why do you have so much fear? You've had success. This is so that really, again, like I said, it was it prompting me to get some help and to explore areas I hadn't explored before. And I'm glad I did. Like I have an amazing, amazing therapist locally. Her name's Amy, and shout out to Amy, but I needed to do the work. And I think that's kind of maybe a whole lesson that your listeners pick up on is like we got to do the work. Like it those moments you feel like you need you're about to break through, you are. Trust that, and then explore what you need to do to break through.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

So what I'm hearing is if one has fear, imposter syndrome, anxiety, all those great things, so to speak, that just hold us back to move ahead regardless, that there is a way forward and to almost trust yourself. Is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, and reframe it. You know, I I I've what I've come to appreciate and realize is that I was given a gift, and my gift is to be able to feel a room and emotions in a room and energy in a room. I confused most of my adult life. The fear and anxiety that I thought I was experienced wasn't mine at all. In fact, it was most of the situations I was finding myself in, the in the combined frequency and energy of a room, so I could feel that. I would take that and own it as if it were mine, it wasn't. And so now I've been able to uh am more in tune with what's actually happening. So it's not just so easy, just go do it like the old Nike ads, go do it. It, you know, increments of betterment, take gradient steps to get to the point where you can start to break through these moments. But retreating is probably the last thing we want to do in moments that we feel like we're up against it and we've, you know, that that we need to test this pressure that we're experiencing. Pressure's real, fears are real, anxiety is real. It frustrates me to no end when I hear people, particularly around the stigma with mental health. I mean, this is real, and we're seeing a significant increase in anxiety, depression, um, partly because of the experiences we all had with COVID and the isolation. That's never really a great thing. So I hate when it gets diminished that well, well, mental health is just a weakness. No, it's not. It's it's real. And um, you know, it's a lot of my work is to debunk the myths, and there's ways to take gradient steps to improve your situation, to improve your outlook. Um, and that's you know the steps that I took, um, particularly as it became um starting to become an entrepreneur, which was a new challenge for me.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Really glad you mentioned that, and I'm sure that will really I'm trying to use a different word to resonate, Scott, but resonate with with many people uh are listening. And Scott, I'm sure you have a thousand. I'm just asking you for one. A story from from your grandma as as it um relates to communication, on her take on communication.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I th every new person I ever brought around, uh, my grandmother Betty, every new person, she would always do two things. She'd one, she'd greet him with a with a warm hug and a kiss, like a wet kiss and on the cheek. Uh, but she'd always feed them. And this is a principle that you know, I think when we're looking to connect with people, is that she would find a common ground through food. And so in many respects, I I probably have done the same thing throughout the course of my career as a leader. When we identify a common interest and a thread that that weaves us to somebody else is so important to create general, genuine connection, real, as I like to say, you fully trusted, which is one of my pillars of the three I teach, when we want to create genuine connection. So just watching how she would nurture and feed literally and physically, nurture the soul, but also feed the body in every new encounter she had with anybody that we brought around from uh all of my brothers and I, anyone we brought to her house. Um, it was just, again, she had a special gift. And I don't know that she necessarily, you know, she would describe herself as a simple fall girl who grew up in the Great Depression and didn't the family didn't have anything at all, really. And I think she'd probably discounted how how gifted she really was at connecting with people.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Was there a moment when you realized that your biggest growth edge wasn't necessarily skill or strategy, but it was communication? You know, take me back to that moment. Pi, it's most salami. Quick question. What's the next breakthrough that you're aiming for, but you haven't yet figured out how to unlock? If you're an impact-driven overachiever, ready to master high performance without the burnout or the guesswork, I'm offering a complimentary 30-minute high performance coaching session to help you clarify your goals, reset your strategy, and identify the next steps to scale your impact and your fulfillment on your terms. In this session, we'll look at what's holding you back, what strengths you can double down on, and how to frame your high performance journey for even better results. Go to mostsalami.com forward slash coaching to schedule your free 30-minute session. That's mostsalami.com forward slash coaching. And let's get you moving. I'll link it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I think I've always intuitively realized that my gift was connection. And ironically, I I do very remember very explicitly an opportunity that I had to present in front of a large um a large gym in high school. And my mother describes it as they almost had to pry the microphone out of my hand. And so, you know, I just always felt like this energy to be in front of a group would fuel me and feed me, not from a performative standpoint, but just like, hey, I want people to understand who I am and what I stand for and what I'm about. And I, you know, I think back to that one moment in high school where they literally probably, if they had a hook, they would have pulled me off the stage. But then, you know, then I found myself not wanting to be in the spotlight. So it was interesting, kind of the dynamic of living with anxiety early on in most of my adult life, is you go from wanting to be in the spotlight to not wanting to be in the spotlight. In fact, you do almost anything not to be in the spotlight. I always wanted to figure out a way to get back in the spotlight in a way that wasn't necessarily about me, about others. And so, you know, kind of my leadership style was to be the one behind the curtain wearing all black so nobody would notice in me. But what I realized is that maybe probably wasn't serving as many people as I possibly could. So uh now I'm thinking about this journey and this mission I'm on is to serve as many people as I possibly can. Hopefully share my story in a way that m ignites uh you know someone, one person, Mo, literally one person listening to your podcast to say who suffers from anxiety, who realizes that you know life is passing right in front of their eyes and they're missing opportunities. I hope that I can inspire people that it's never too late, number one, to do something that you're really motivated to do. But maybe more importantly, it's like take that risk, put yourself out there. You know, that's my hope. And obviously, my content and what I do and what I do is secondary, but how I do it is so important for me personally.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

What I heard was that the anxiety almost dissipated because when you were on the stage, for you it was more about service versus performance, and that resonated with the audience. Is that is that a good summary?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, it was this, I mean it's a pretty significant shift from you know, from that high school moment through my corporate career where I didn't want to be in the spotlight to today, you know, that was one of the things I really had to confront when I started my own business is like self-promotion. Self-promotion was was this label, this fear. And when I reframed it, look, you're not self-promoting, you're you're now serving others in a way that's rather beautiful and unique and interesting, hopefully, for people. That's just reframing things and for me personally helped me get past uh and overcome that hurdle.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So most people have a fear of public speaking, and there's a word. If I get the word wrong, listener, Google and find the right word. I believe the word is glossophobia, which is a fear of public speaking. So you had none of that from the beginning. Is that is that fair to say, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

I didn't have it until I did. So when high school I didn't, after my first panic attack, oh I did. Every opportunity, every presentation, every board meeting, every sales meeting. I was on literally on the stage for a living for 30 years. It scared the heck out of me before every presentation. And once I got on stage, I always would find my nerves would calm. And it's still to this day, I don't get as anxious as I used to. Here's what I would say the reason why so many people struggle, struggle with uh presenting and anxiety, and you know, I think it's the second most significant fear we have other than death is speaking in front of another group of people. Oftentimes, what I have found in my work is directly related to we have so much information we want to share and we don't know how to organize it in a way. And so when we are left to that thinking and that mindset, it makes it really, really challenging because we get off track and then we start to second guess ourselves. So one of the things I do, and it's the first pillar in the resonance edge, is just simply how do we ensure that we're clearly heard heard, which is clarity. Clarity is the pillar, clearly heard is the idea. I give everyone a framework that I work with so they can start to organize their thoughts in a simple way. And it's so simple that if I were to show you like, well, that makes sense, it's intuitive. But it's just that simple act of organizing our thoughts in a way that's clear and concise to us, bullet point driven. Oftentimes people try to memorize their pitches, and I think two things. One, you can you know when somebody's memorizing what they want to say, uh, and second is you're easily tripped up. So you're the anxiety, not only are you anxious to be in front of people to present, but then you're anxious about what if you're gonna remember what you say. So it just compounds itself. So I teach people a bullet point-driven method uh so that you can if you get lost, if you lose your way, you simply pause, you grab your bullet point, you re-engage, and now you're connecting. And because the thing about scripting, and you've seen it, I'm sure, Mo, you can see if somebody's memorized their presentation. I know at least I notice it almost immediately because there's a glossiness of their eyes. And what ideally what we want to create, again, around the resonance edge, clearly heard, deeply felt, fully trusted. And if I've memorized everything I'm gonna say to you, Mo, and I'm presenting in front of a group, I'm not able to connect. It's impossible. It just is. They're not gonna feel you, and um, I measure the resonance edge with what I call the RQ. So it's a simple evaluation, 20 questions, you go through and say, How are you perceived and received? How do you make other people feel? And when we memorize, especially if we're anxious, one, we're not connecting, two is we're lost in our own head, kind of thinking about where we're gonna what we're gonna say and go next. And so I help eliminate that fear by giving them the simple every you know, my clients a simple framework to work through.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

So a couple of things to unpack there. So, first of all, if you're listening to this, Scott just said it, do the RQ questionnaire straight after you listen to this podcast. Any links will be in the show notes. And I just want to circle back to the framework. So if you could just give an overview, and I know you just have I really want to rubber stamp it, uh just give an overview of the three parts and then dive in a little bit more to that clarity piece because I know that's very important as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Sure. When I started thinking about like, look, here's a few principles. Number one is most training doesn't work, it just doesn't in corporate settings. We spend a lot, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as organizations to hire trainers to come in and most of the time it doesn't work. That's number one. Well, why doesn't it work? Well, one people people might say, well, the follow-through, I would say it starts even more practical is that most of what we're training isn't received in a practical way. In other words, can I apply it immediately and can I apply it often so that it in fact sticks. The second thing that I've noticed with leaders and salespeople especially, but uh leaders also um specifically, my you know, the people I work with are twofold, really sales leaders and leaders, primarily. We are if we if we have clear direction but we don't communicate in a way that we're deeply felt, then people aren't gonna be motivated to do incredible work on our behalf as leaders. If we're really warm and uh and refreshing and connect with people, but yet have no clear direction, then everybody's gonna love us, but they're not gonna know what you want me to do or where you want to take us. And so I started to think about this in a practical way. Again, simple kid from Indiana Mo. How can I bring something into the marketplace that captures all of the great characteristics of every really great leader I've ever been a part of and package it in a way that helps them communicate more effectively so that they are truly inspired, believed, and people want to act on their behalf. So I developed a framework called the Resonance Edge. The first pillar is clarity. Are you clearly heard? And I referenced that a little bit, it's like how and I'll walk through more. How do we organize our thoughts in a way that are audience focused, not me focused? And there are a step-by-step process I take through people. What I've seen time and time again around messaging is oftentimes it's what I think the audience needs to hear. And I've flipped it around. So if we were to think about, for example, the situation, the context, what's happening with my audience, what do they really fear? What do they need to hear? What steps do I are they reasonably going to take? So we do a deep, deep, deep audience analysis to start, and then we develop the talking points. So uh clarity. The second is around tone. Am I deeply felt? The energy, the frequency, how am I how am I regulating myself before I go speak to someone to make sure I am not bringing my apprehensions, my fears, my issues, my concerns, my dread, all of the emotions and energies of salespeople and leaders go through on an everyday basis. There's so much work, and I know you know this mode because this is your expertise. There's so much work around mindset. And we all think it's a private endeavor. Like, oh, you know, if I just get more discipline and I focus on my mindset, and if I our mindset is more public than we possibly could have anticipated. Mindset is not private, it is very much public. And if we're not regulated as leaders and salespeople, the salesperson, for example, if I'm dreading, if I'm behind plan and I'm getting pressure from my leader, I am going to bring that energy into the room unless I am very consciously aware that I cannot bring that energy into a room because scarcity can be felt. So we focus on tone. How do we regulate our own energy before we go in and communicate, before the big message, before the big town hall, before this the rollout with the shareholder meeting as the CEO? And then lastly is connection. Am I fully and deeply connected with the person I'm or the group I'm in front of? And so I developed a process within that as well. Like, how do I make sure and how do I know whether or not my message is being received in a way? So the resonance edge, that's the three components, RQ measures those three elements in a way that's really simple. Because I felt like there was a gap. We have IQ that measures intelligence, we have EQ that measures our emotional tone and well-being. But are we not measuring how we're perceived and being received as a communicator, as a leader, as a salesperson? And so that's why, you know, that's where I'm spending all my time and energy in the work that I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

When you work with leaders and sales leaders and leadership teams, have you found that communication is almost underestimated? Or do they and then you have to now educate them as to why it needs to be estimated, if you will? Or have you found that most leadership teams and sales teams are right there? They understand the importance of communication.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

If communication will stop being re considered a soft skill once it's considered a hard skill, then I think we've won. Until that point, until we're we're back investing in training and development for our sales teams and our leaders, it's not a soft skill. In fact, we can see a direct correlation to increase in revenue, engagement, all these, all these statistical measures that we're seeing. We've seen a lower engagement level. The lowest engagement level in the history reported, reported in the history was in 2024. People are disengaged across across enterprises, across the world. It's unequivocal. Like engagement is struggling. Well, why is engagement struggling? And we could point to a lot of different factors, but I still unfortunately be I think a lot of folks still view this as a line item that's fungible on the balance sheet. And if we're not investing in the level that we need to around communication training development. And it's it's at the core of successful enterprises, and the data supports it 100%.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Right. And how do you, I guess backing up a little bit, how did your struggles with fear, anxiety, if you will, has that had an effect on how you now train sales leaders and leadership teams? Of course, because I can see it immediately.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

You know, in fact, we did a pilot study. There's an uh an organization in the Silicon Valley that reached out to me. It's called Voice Era. They have a product called Sincerity, and we piloted it with 15 salespeople. I was very interested. They use artificial intelligence to measure nonverbal and verbal cues. And I'm like, okay, well, let's give it a run. So I had a Fortune 300 company that I was working with and with their sales force. We had 15 people. We used the Voiceera software. Sincerity is what's measured. Sincerity is a proxy for trust. Now I think connection precedes trust. So if we are able to connect, then we can therefore increase trust. 15 to 15 people in one coaching session. In other words, benchmark presentation, videoed it, uploaded it, one coaching session teaching the residents edge, and we saw it increase across the board in level of sincerity. So we can measure it. Residents can be merit measured by improved communication skills. I think about this practically. If we knew for a fact that if you did some work, for example, with me or anybody else that teaches these pro this process and this method, by the way, and you can increase level of sincerity, i.e. trust, wouldn't that be valuable to somebody else in a corporate setting? I would argue it is, but I think we're still not investing where we need to invest in the right type of train development for our for our organizations and our leaders. I heard recently we're in a trust recession, trust pandemic. I think we're in a believability recession.

unknown 26:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And believe believability precedes trust. Most people don't believe most things people say. To me, it's lack of resonance, which is why I'm so passionate about this work, as you can tell.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

So outstanding. And I know for a fact that Dr. Stephen Covey happens to agree with you because he says, uh he said, I guess, nothing is faster than the speed of trust. So very, very, very interesting there. What patterns do you see consistently with clients who struggle to connect? Like what are the patterns you see there? Alright, quick pause. Hi, it's most salami, and I wanted to share something that I've created for you. If you're a successful entrepreneur and you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure what to focus on next, I put together a strategic recalibration toolkit to help you restore clarity, sharpen your decisions, and protect your momentum without adding complexity. Go to mostsalami.com forward slash toolkit to download it. That's mostsalami.com forward slash toolkit, where you'll get three concise frameworks that are used with high-level founders to regain direction and confidence. You can grab it now at mostslami.com forward slash toolkit. I'll link it in the show notes. Okay, back to the episode.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

The overarching theme is masking. 100%. This is this is really the cause of what I see in organizations. It's this perspective perception, this feeling that we have to be performative in a certain way. We need to do X or a Y or Z. I see it. I mean, I was with a client last week, Mo, and I saw with every single person that I worked with. And there were a lot of people in that room. There are 40 people in the room that we worked through the course of a two-day session. Where people would uh effectively, and this is not a necessarily technical term, that they hide their light, their unwillingness to really unveil who they truly were and their full potentiality. Like I would see it time and time again. So I think that's the pattern I see is like, why are we so unwilling to really truly return to who we are authentically, the God-given ability that we all have? Some might say, well, it's confidence. I'd say that's probably not a that's not an invalid argument. It's lack of confidence. But it's our unwillingness to really just be ourselves. And again, I don't want to discount that because you know, just go be yourself is such a, I think, a false way of thinking about this. It's like, what if we just return back to ourself, like the non-performative self? And I saw this, and you maybe saw this keynote as well, since we're a member of the same uh entrepreneur group. My friend Tavia talks about this, is the first thing we do when we're born is we scream. We our voice is is heard on a very, very loud, large scale. But yet we learn these lessons too well throughout the course of our career, and we're unwillingness to our unwillingness to really be uh and to share our true, our true voice. And owning our voice is probably the most powerful, well, it is one of the most powerful things that we could do is own our voice.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

So that inability or limit of owning your own voice, have you seen that from the leaders, sales leaders, leaders, or from their team, or a little bit of both?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah, it's from it's all it's across the board. And again, this kind of goes down to tone regulation. It's when we're under pressure to deliver results, which is obviously every publicly traded company finds itself under pressure to deliver results from the top down. I think that that pressure to deliver results is really a tone damper. And so we see as it trickles down into the organization, this tone, this frequency, this energy is is is accepted by everyone in the organization. And it it shows up as a passive, a passive characteristic, if that makes any sense. But in reality, if we just start to amplify and improve the tone, even if we start at the bottom and work our way up into the top tiers of the organization, and start to improve the frequency inside the organization, the energy, beautiful things happen. And you know, I think about my own career where I always thought I was like an entrepreneur within these large organizations I work for. Like, hey, if I can change the frequency of my little domain, then hopefully that energy reverberates like an you know an echo throughout the organization, and then we can start to create a ripple effect that raises the rest of the departments and areas and organizations. And I found that to be true most of the time, that if you did really amazing work within your team in a large, large 20 plus thousand organization, that you'll get noticed and you'll change that environment. So although I was really reluctant to have a spotlight on myself, I'm like, hey, if we just amplify our work here, let's let's raise the frequency inside our own group. Incredible things will happen with our group. The organization will notice, people want to be a part of what we're doing, and we can create a ripple effect that way. So, you know, to those inside of large organizations that feels like they can't make an impact, you absolutely can make an impact. Start with your own group, improve the tone of that organization, and it will make a difference in the rest of the organization. I've seen it firsthand.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Wow. So create that ripple. Again, you teach uh resonance as that intersection of clarity, tone, and connection. So I guess my question is how does resonance differ from persuasion? And why is that important?

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Persuasion to me, this is just my thinking on a mo, persuasion is I'm trying to convince someone. I would argue that if you resonate, you don't have to try. You just are, you're just being. And that in of itself becomes magnetic, and people want a part of that. And so what I see with sales organizations is that if we can one create a consistent message, so that's the kind of the what, but then the how is we deliver it in an unfiltered way with true emotion and frequency, believability. It creates attraction, and I don't have to persuade anybody. But the very act of delivering a message that's unfiltered, that's just authentic, genuine, to me, people want to be a part of that. And you know, I think that's the thing. I think that's kind of this this uh this you know, sales bro culture is like, let's just go in for the hard persuasive close and the energy. And I think, you know, sure, could you see results on the on the front end, i.e., increased sales short term? Of course you will. Deepening relationships, advancing stickiness of relationships, I I think it's I I would prefer a resonance path than a persuasive path.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Scott, I think you're an exceptional, amongst other things, storyteller. So I wonder can you share a transformational story where a tiny shift in communication had a massive change in results?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Personally for or for a client, or does it matter? Either or. When I think back to maybe some of the more successful demonstrations of residents, it's really around dramatic change management in organizations. Maybe not necessarily a positive story, but I'll tell you why it's so impactful for me in just a second, is that I was charged with closing a large office at one point, and thousands of lives were going to be impacted. We were going through an outsourcing initiative as an organization to the point where at the time the organization was pretty concerned about my well-being and safety. I literally had two armed guards with me for 24 or 7 for two days in a row, two and a half days. And you know, through those projects and initiatives, a lot of a lot of people are involved, and rightfully so in large organizations, because you want to not only protect the well-being of the associates that are being impacted, but also organizationally, you want to protect uh from any legal ramifications. So a lot of people are involved. And the messaging did not necessarily connect with me. I thought it was hyperscripted. Uh and rightfully so, again, Mo, I'm not criticizing the process because at the end of the day, it's around liability and the legal implications. I understand all that. But that was one moment where I just couldn't deliver what they asked me to deliver because it was so it wasn't, it was factual, but it was just not sincere, heartfelt. I mean, we're talking about a lot of people's lives impacted. So I literally just put the script that they gave me on the table and I just shot everybody straight and talked about why we're closing office, what the impact would be to them and the organization. That on the surface, it probably didn't make a lot of sense to them, but under you know, the broader scheme of what the organization was trying to accomplish, this is why. And you know, a lot of people a lot of those individuals in that room came up to me and thanked me for just being real and being heartfelt and sincere. And I think that may be a lesson for you know those in corporate America is like I understand that we have to protect our our uh protect ourselves legally. But at the end of the day, um, people just want to be treated like people, like human beings, like real souls that they are. And I have found that most people are really, really, really, really resilient if you're just honest and direct and show to them and demonstrate to them that you care about them. So that's one example. Another quick example is I I can remember very vividly where I got it all wrong. I mean, all wrong. We had a very, very angry client, a lot of mistakes happened, and I brought in the technical experts to talk about the technical implications of why the just why we made a decision. And it was the absolute wrong call. So I am far from perfect. I learned from that lesson, but and the feedback we got was that all it would have taken was just, I'm sorry, we screwed up, it's our fault, we own it. And that was an example four or five years ago that was just a colossal blunder. Um, so again, lessons learned. People just want to know that you care. And they want you to demonstrate that you care, and they want you to communicate in a way that's sincere and thoughtful that in that you care. And to me, I think that's the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish with the Residence Edge is like be yourself and communicate in a way that's genuine and authentic. I happen to put in a framework because it's easier for us to absorb and it's easier for me to teach in workshop setting. But at the end of the day, that's really what it comes down to. And that's what my grandmother did so well. She showed people she cared every single moment she was in a room with them. And so that's what I'm trying to model.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

So outstanding. You mentioned earlier that you've lived for a long time with public speaking anxiety, and at the same token, you're leading at the high, or have been leading, are leading, still leading, at the very, very highest level. How do you manage to cope with that every single time? Is it like a reframe? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how'd you manage to cope with that public speak and anxiety? And has it dissipated a bit with time?

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Well, I don't know. I mean, kind of looking back on it and in all transparency, honestly, I don't know that I necessarily coped with it. Probably had a pretty dramatic impact on me physically and emotionally. And you know, now that I've worked through that, it doesn't anymore, and I don't nearly have that level of anxiety, anxiousness. I get excited about it now, but I obviously can reframe it. Not ironically, the very thing I'm teaching everybody that I work with with the Residence Edge are the very things I did to make sure that I was able to communicate effectively back then. And mainly it was around preparation structure. So when you have that level of anxiety, the last thing you want to do is be surprised by anything. So the process I take people through, particularly especially around the clarity pillar, is every step I would take as an anxious, really super anxious executive before I went into a board meeting, a sales pitch, a presentation. I we were selling multi-billion dollar deals. And so the way I would overcome it was I would just make sure I was out preparing everybody. I would and I would anticipate every hypothetical situation, scenario, question, observation, rebuttal, everything. And then I would develop the message in a way and craft it in a way that would address any concern or issue so I would avoid being put on the spot. That's how I would protect myself. And so this is the exact same thing I teach people today.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

When leaders work with lots of leaders, sales leaders, leadership teams. And what I'm about to say next is probably common for for all of the above. When they feel stuck or burnt out or guarded, what's really going on?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

It varies for everyone, but at the heart of it it's fear. And yeah, maybe even the level like we all want to be accepted, I think, at the end of the day. We want to we want to know we're doing great work. We want to know that I haven't met anyone that doesn't have great pride in what they're trying to accomplish.

unknown 40:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Um, you know, imposter syndrome comes to mind. I don't necessarily love that phrase because I think it's it probably diminishes really what's happening behind the scenes, but it's it's confidence or their lack thereof. It's it's concern about how you're being perceived. It's wanting to do really great works because you have the burden to carry. And so you're supporting your family, your kids, your family, your multiple generations of family now, if you're in the sandwich generation like me. All of this pressure that we carry with us every single day. And the pressure can show up for everybody in a very, very different way. But I think that's fundamentally what I've experienced is that it's just the pressure, whatever that whatever we however we want to define that pressure, whatever that person's experience. That's what I see in the work that I do with executives and leaders and sales leaders and organizations I work with. There's an element of that. And, you know, I think for sales leaders, it's just the pressure to deliver the number. That's the surface level, but there's always other stuff happening. For example, we have two daughters. Now they're 24 and 22 years of age, Michelle and I. I always had something else going on. Always. There was always another pressure, not just delivering the number, delivering quarterly earnings at a shareholder level. There was always something else. I would just absolutely encourage everyone to understand that whatever you're bringing into the conversation, presentation, sales presentation, regulating that is so important. I probably did a really poor job. I kind of look back now. Could I have been even more effective? Probably. Because I wasn't regulating myself on a frequent basis like I am now through meditation, yoga, breath work, exercise, uh, you know, all of these things that we can do to diet, all these things we can do to regulate our emotions and our energy. Uh so, you know, again, I'm still growing and learning every single day, but I think that's at the heart of it, it's just pressure. It's just pressure, man. Where so many of us are under so much pressure to deliver. I would just caution is that that energy is a hundred percent felt if we don't we don't regulate it.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

I love that so much, and I'm gonna circle back to this again right now about regulating yourself as a leader before you you know speak to your team, guide your team, lead your team. What's like a one-line of why that's important? I really want to drive this home for our leaders and sales leaders listen to this. The importance of regulating yourself.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

So one of my favorite quotes ever is music is the space between the notes. Tone is felt long after we're gone. Whatever tone or energy we bring into a conversation is felt long after it's finished. So I think that's the thing I would I and I think back to I think about a uh a young woman that we know very well in our family. Uh she plays for the US women's national team. And we were watching here in Jacksonville, watching her first cap, and she's standing on the sideline, and you just noticed something was you know, she you could tell she was a pretty excited, anxious. Maybe even her body language wasn't quite how she normally is. And then you watch Emma, the U.S. manager, come over and say something to her. And now we didn't know what she said at the time, obviously, because we're not on the sideline. But then we saw the social media clips afterwards, and she said what she ended up saying to Avery, the player. She said, What would your nine-year-old self say to you in this moment? And Avery's response was, have fun. And Emma, the U.S. women's national team coach, just said, Well, then do that. Then do that. Three words. That's it. Not any additional technical instruction, not like overcomplicating the moment, like just understanding. Because what she did was she read the room, literally, read the moment, understood the gravity, first cap, U.S. women's national team, young player. And Emma wasn't without pressure either because she's a huge youth movement in the U.S. women's national program, went from all these household names to a bunch of no-name young women. Everybody understood the moment, the gravity. I mean, everybody had to perform. But Emma in her wisdom just said, then do that. Then do that. Three words like, hey, just go do it. And as we watched Avi run on the field, like, okay, she's she's ready to go. You could just see the joy that she brought back. So, you know, I think this is a really important message for us as leaders is that we are responsible for the tone of our organization, for the tone of our people, for their well-being. Let's not overcomplicate it. Just make, but we, but if we're not regulated ourselves, then how could we possibly, if Emma wasn't regulated, how could she possibly know that that what Avery was going through that moment? She couldn't. She was clear enough to understand. It was a beautiful thing. It was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

It sounds like it. And just to be clear for the listener, we're referring to soccer, aka football. Sorry. And is that correct? Because I when you said Emma, when you said Emma, I thought, okay, that's Emma Hayes. And why is it that when we return in this case to what our nine-year-old self would say, which is enjoy it, why does it have an effect? And what effect does that have on that result that we want?

SPEAKER_01 46:18

I think we oftentimes take ourselves way too seriously. And Emma gave Avery in that moment the freedom just to be herself and to return to her joyful, playful self. Again, I think back into these moments as young, you know, adolescents or young people, we have such freedom. We lack any fears, most fears and anxiety. You know, think about like little toddlers and they're just fearless. So what happens? What happens between having this fearful mindset to being an adult and riddle with fear? Life experiences occur. I would argue that we learn these lessons too well. I learned the lessons too well. I learned my lessons way too well until I unlearned them and started to create new experiences and lessons that are more productive, less fear-based, less inhibition. And when I think back to Avery and Emma in that moment, as she steps onto the pitch for the first time, like, wow, what a beautiful, beautiful experience that was because she gave her permission. The outcome's irrelevant. I'm going to give you freedom to return back to your nine-year-old self. What a beautiful thing to enable someone to do. And I used to tell my team all the time, there's nothing you can do that I can't undo. There's nothing you can break that I can't unbreak. Just go deliver. Do your very best. Like that's all we can ask.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

What a great cloak of safety. There's nothing you can do that I, as the leader, can't undo. That's such an amazing uh cloak of safety. Again, we've gone through it today. You teach a really great message, communication message and framework. What inner work does the leader have to do in advance, or do they have to do any inner work for the message to truly resonate?

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Look, I would say start with one thing. And the reason there's so when I think about resonance, and there's a very again, it's not necessarily something that's in the common marketplace and not mainstream resonance isn't something it's we all use the word, like, oh, you that resonated with me. I think of there's such a fine line, this is why I call it the resonance edge, there's such a fine line as leaders between resonance and dissonance. And so I think of it like a tone dial. So if if I have a dial and every morning I evaluate where am I between resonance and dissonance, where do I show up in that moment? Am I feeling anxious, angry, hostile? Like there's ranges all along the tone scale. You don't have to always be resonant. Like this is kind of an unfair expectation, unreasonable expectation to affect that every single day. I am going to be operating at 100% of my capability. And I'm going to be joyous and thoughtful and truly resonate every single day. A ripple effect. Four decades of research have been done on these phenomena. There's a reason why negative water cooler chatter is so destructive and toxic. Like toxicity in organizations spreads like wildfire. This is statistically proven, factual, research-based. But just calibrating yourself every morning, okay, where am I? And then how can I just make one incremental improvement towards resonance is a great place to start. If if leaders listening to this were just to start there, an honest self-evaluation of where am I between resonance positive, dissonance negative, and the energy I'm bringing to work that day, and then say, how can I incrementally shift it one degree, two degrees, three degrees? It's a great place to start. But if you're, you know, if you're going to give you a town hall and you're not in a good spot because you too are impacted by what's happening in the organization and you bring that energy, there's other research that says that if what I say and how I am by nonverbal body language aren't congruent, we're gonna we are going to, as an audience, take your nonverbal cues as the truth. We're gonna believe your nonverbal, not what your words you're saying. So it's so important for us to be aware of these these dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

And that is how you put a bow in it. I did say at the top of the call that we have a gift of a guest. And it all came true. And um, well, I already knew that I know Scott. Scott, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Mo. And how do we learn more from you? And if we have a leader or sales leader listening to this, they're thinking, yes, I have found our coach or our next speaker at our event. How do we learn more from you?

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yeah, thank you, Mo, for having me. It's such a pleasure to spend time with you again. It's nice to see you. thescotraymy.com or thescotramy.com. We talked about the RQ assessment, it's on the website. Talked about the framework, it's on the website. I have a white paper. If you're into technical and you want to see the research to support this, the white paper is on the website, Under Thought Leadership. So all the resources, everything, how to get in touch with me, everything is on the website, the thescotramy.com.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Go to the links in the show notes. Everything's there. And again, Scott, thanks for being here. Absolute pleasure having you here today. And uh thanks again. Thank you, Mel. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Mo. Thank you for listening to Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salomi. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help others discover the show. You can find links and resources and show notes at our website. And if today's episode inspired you, check out one of our other insight-filled, value-packed episodes. Next week we'll have another amazing guest, so stay tuned for even more real stories and actionable insights. Work on your mindset, work on your skill set, and always move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want. And until next time, do the best you can consistently. Ciao.