Why Your Expertise Isn't Enough (And What to Do About It), with Robert Kennedy

Robert Kennedy III [00:00:03]: Welcome to Building Your Leader Brand. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Robert Kennedy. Your job as a leader is not just to say, well, suck it up, buttercup, and get them out of the way. Your job is to figure out how you can get the best out of your people. And so sometimes as a leader, that requires that you adjust how you operate. You're— you adjust your baseline a bit so that you can generate the results. That you want, inspire your team, get everybody moving and rolling in the same direction. Speaker B [00:00:37]: Hi there, and welcome back to Building Your Leader Brand. My name is Bob Gentile. And every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing, and monetizing their expertise, and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. While you're here, before you do anything, take a moment, deep breath, and hit the follow button or the subscribe button. And I bring this to the front as well because I'm shocked. You're shocked. People get to the end of the podcast and they just— as soon as the interview is finished, they're gone. They're doing something else. Speaker B [00:01:09]: So before we go carry on, if you're into this topic, you will love the Personal Brand Business Roadmap. 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. Hit the link in the show notes. Or visit amplifyme.agency/roadmap. I nearly forgot the URL there. We're going to have a lot of fun today, ladies and gentlemen. This week, for one week only, Robert Kennedy III. Robert Kennedy III [00:01:42]: Oh, my confetti didn't work. I had confetti coming up. It's all right. I've got dancing people though, so I don't know, maybe— oh, actually, you know what, I just switched systems, and it's not working for me, but that's okay. Yeah, did you hear my music at least? Did you have a little bit of fun? Yeah. Speaker B [00:02:01]: I knew this was going to happen today. Yes, so it's all right for the listener. I get pitched about 5 to 10 times every day for people wanting to come on the podcast, and I have a very itchy delete finger. It's less than 1% of people get through my non-existent filter. My filter is literally I occasionally open an email.. And when I saw Robert's email, I thought, you know what? Yes. This just looks like too much fun to turn down. And the topic's really important. Speaker B [00:02:28]: So, Robert, for people who are meeting you for the first time, we've had a little bit of time together. Robert Kennedy III [00:02:31]: Yes. Speaker B [00:02:32]: But who is Robert Kennedy III? Robert Kennedy III [00:02:35]: Robert Kennedy III is a father. He is a business owner or a leader. I run a company called Kinetic Communications where we teach business leaders and professionals how to share their storey on stage and on video so that they can generate more income, attract their ideal audience, and yeah, be better people overall. So that's kind of who I am, what I do in a nutshell. And there are a lot of other interesting pieces inside of that that I'm sure we'll get into as we go on. Speaker B [00:03:09]: I love the name Kinetic Communications. I don't think it's an accident. Robert Kennedy III [00:03:12]: It is not. Speaker B [00:03:13]: It rhymes, that's lovely. But one of the things that really stood out was kinetic. You don't have to go and Google it if you don't know what it means. You're not stupid. It's really talking about things that move and dynamism in it. And these are the things that capture attention. Yeah. And everything in your ecosystem lives up to that, which I really enjoy. Speaker B [00:03:36]: Thank you. So I'm not sure where to go. The reason for this is there's just so many places. One of the things I sense is true about you is your business is not just about money, which I love. I think I can spot somebody who's just focused on making money a mile off. And I'm pretty sure commercially you do just fine. But I sense somebody who gets up in the morning with a bit of a mission. That's where I'd like to begin. Robert Kennedy III [00:04:04]: Yeah. So if you look at my website, our business website, Connecticut Communications, there's a line underneath it that says, because your words deserve to be heard. I believe that everybody's words deserve to be heard. And as a matter of fact, in a lot of people's cases, their voice has been taken away from them in some ways. I was born on the island of Jamaica. I live in the United States, but I was born on the island of Jamaica. And in Jamaica, we have these people that are around us called helpers. In the United States, they may call them maids or nannies or people, but sometimes we have helpers. Robert Kennedy III [00:04:41]: And to have a helper, you don't necessarily have to be a wealthy family, right? A helper may be just teenage people that are there to help grow the kids, laundry, those types of things. And so when I was a kid, my mom told me that I talked a whole lot. I started speaking sentences at about between 7 and 9 months. And so I asked a lot of questions and I would hear all the time, Bobby, you talk too much. Bobby, you ask a lot of questions. Bobby, you talk too much. And so somewhere around the age of 2 and a half or 3, I, I stopped talking. I stopped asking questions. Robert Kennedy III [00:05:13]: I became very silent. I was known as a shy kid. I was known as the kid who would rather be in his room playing with the trains than being out at the party. And so for a very long time, I didn't really talk much outside of my immediate family. Somewhere around college, I made a conscious decision to step out of that. And at that point, it just became a lot more important to me to make sure that other people knew that they had the ability to amplify their voices. They had the ability to share their stories. They had the ability to speak up because you have a voice for a reason, and nobody has the right to tell you to squeeze or to silence that voice. Robert Kennedy III [00:05:54]: And so I want everybody to know that whatever's happening in their space, whatever challenges you're going through, whatever experiences you have, whether that is in the business space or the personal space, in a meeting, whatever it is, your voice, your storey deserves to be heard. So that's the mission that I wake up. Speaker B [00:06:12]: With. So it's interesting, when I saw your stuff online, it would be very easy for me to point and say, obviously an extrovert. I'm actually wondering if that's the case. And I think this is important. Robert Kennedy III [00:06:27]: It is not. Myers-Briggs identifies me as an INFJ, an introvert, right? Or is it INFP? One of the two, but introvert nonetheless. As a matter of fact, when I go to networking sessions for a very long time, I was sharing this with my business developer yesterday, for for a very long time, I would go in and I would sit at the hors d'oeuvres table, put food in my mouth just so I didn't have to talk to people. I was looking for the quickest time to exit stage left from those sessions. And so I want to be clear with people when we talk about introvert, extrovert, it's not necessarily a, oh my gosh, gregarious versus shy. It may be just how we process energy. And so for me, when I speak a lot, if I have to do workshops and keynotes and trainings in a week, if I do 2 or 3, I'm drained energy-wise. And I've got to sit and I've got to have some alone time to rejuvenate. Robert Kennedy III [00:07:29]: And that's okay. I just have to mentally prepare myself for the result that I want. But yes, from a label standpoint, definitely introvert. Speaker B [00:07:40]: I think the reason I ask is a lot of leaders, and you work a lot with leaders, yes, are— they will often use 'I'm an introvert' as an excuse for being invisible. Oh yes. And because I, interestingly, Myers-Briggs also INFJ, and for me, visibility was crippling for a very long time. It was impossible. And I found a way through. And for me, it's become quite normal now. Going on up on stage, it's not something that appeals to me at the moment, but I know I could do it. I could desensitise myself and I could normalise it. Speaker B [00:08:22]: Yeah. But we have incentives and reasons for doing this. There's a motivation there. It's kind of why I asked about the mission aspect of it in the beginning. Yeah. One of the things we know about leadership is it's asking for visibility more and more, and people find it very challenging. And I think a lot of leaders as well, they get to a certain point in their career and they think, I'm a complete human being now, who I am is who I am. And I think it's important because I think you're a role model of that. Speaker B [00:08:52]: That's not the case. You're not set in stone. You can grow into visibility as an introvert. Yeah, actually, and discover that it's an extension of your superpower. Robert Kennedy III [00:09:03]: It is. It is. I believe introverts are, if we look at the studies, naturally observant. We're thoughtful about how we operate. I have also discovered, so when people say, that's how I am, or they decide that they're just going to respond a certain way and everybody else must accept it, that's just how I am. I believe that's an excuse. I believe we all have the ability to choose how we show up in any circumstance from a leadership perspective. I used to do some workshops around situational leadership. Robert Kennedy III [00:09:39]: And so as a leader, you might be an authoritarian type of person, or if I, if I lean into some other personality types, you might be a driver. As a leader, you're not as patient, you're not as —your results-driven, and so that may show up in a harsh way. But if you have team members that are not responsive to that, or as a matter of fact, shrink because of that, your job as a leader is not just to say, well, suck it up, buttercup, and get them out of the way. Your job is to figure out how you can get the best out of your people. And so sometimes as a leader, that requires that you adjust how you operate. You adjust your baseline a bit so that you can generate the results that you want, inspire your team, get everybody moving and rolling in the same direction. So in communication, I believe that is the same. If I don't speak in a way that allows my wife to hear me, then our relationship is going to have some unnecessary challenges. Robert Kennedy III [00:10:47]: Or we may no longer have a relationship because I've decided that I only want to operate in the way that is known, comfortable, and important to me. So I've got to determine what is the result that I'm after and adjust according to that. Speaker B [00:11:04]: So when people are coming to you, they're probably coming for a number of different reasons. What are the classic reasons somebody ends up on your doorstep? Robert Kennedy III [00:11:15]: Metaphorically? Several reasons. One, I get people who feel like they're not being heard. Maybe I'm saying the wrong things. Maybe I'm saying it the wrong way. I'm not showing up in a powerful way in my meetings. I had a person who was in government, who was working in the office of the mayor of DC, Washington, DC, that came to me that said, yeah, I speak all the time. I just don't feel like my messages are landing. I don't feel like when I say certain things or if I share my messages, I feel like they're politely nodding at me rather than saying, oh my goodness, and moving to action because of that. Robert Kennedy III [00:11:56]: How can I become more powerful? How can I become more confident in the messages that I share? I get those types of messages. I hear people talk about they're not sure if they are able to connect with executive leaders. They feel like the language that they use is very execution or detail-driven while an executive leader is more strategic and high-level, and they're not sure how to bridge that gap and create that connection. So I have those types of conversations regularly, and then the basic one, oh my gosh, Speaking in public freaks me out, dude. How do I get over that? So those are at least 3 of the messages that I get. Speaker B [00:12:46]: It's interesting. The first 2 are actually really deep. It's like I'm speaking, I'm transmitting information, but it's just not landing. It's not galvanizing. It's not really going deep. It's not resonating. It's not creating any emotional impact. And I think that's actually much harder than people realize. Speaker B [00:13:05]: Well, I say it's much harder than people realize, and we can get into in a minute maybe how simple it can be. But I think like a lot of simple things, I was speaking to somebody who was talking about something being an art form more than a science. And the thing with any art is if you're a painter, you'll learn about the brushes, you'll learn how to use the paints, you'll learn about the medium you like. If you're a musician, you learn an instrument. Yeah, you learn the music. If you are a communicator, if you haven't learned how to use the materials, you're going to struggle to create anything anybody wants to pay attention to. Yeah. And we can maybe get into some structures and frameworks for supporting that, and maybe now is a good time for that. Speaker B [00:13:53]: Yeah. So obviously I'm a really nosy guy when somebody's coming on the podcast. Yeah. And you know where I'm going. Yes, sir. You have a video. I can't remember exactly where I found it, but you're talking about the EASE framework. And I loved that video because everybody who knows me knows I love a framework. Speaker B [00:14:14]: Frameworks foster freedom was a phrase from one of my very early podcast guests, Mike Vardy. Never forgotten it. And I've seen lots of public speaking frameworks. I've never seen one that's as ridiculously straightforward to execute. And also it's one I could probably remember in the moment if I had to tell somebody something that mattered. So do you want to tell us a little bit about the EASE framework? Robert Kennedy III [00:14:43]: Yeah, so before I jump into the framework, I'll lean into what you said about frameworks foster freedom. I love that. I hadn't heard that before, but, but I'm going to remember it now. I was hired several years back to work for a training company, and typically if I'm hired to deliver somebody else's content, they say, hey Robert, here's the PowerPoint, go put your sauce on it, go for it. This company said, hey, we have a specific way that we want this delivered, and as a matter of fact, in the presenter notes, there's a script that we want you to follow. Now, I said, okay. Cool. Let me do this. Robert Kennedy III [00:15:18]: And so I started to learn the script and as I was learning it, I just felt so constricted and constrained and I was memorising and they wanted me to know the transitions. And every time I delivered it for them, they said, yeah, that sounds cool, but we know you've got more. Or the reason that you're even here with us is because your interview was phenomenal. So I kept memorising this script and delivering it. And the first 2 times that I delivered it for some of their clients, they said, eh, it's okay. The 3rd time that I delivered it, the CEO of the company, she was there. And she said to me about halfway through the day, she said, Robert, I finally saw you come through. Here's what happened. Robert Kennedy III [00:16:09]: The script. Because I'd memorised it so much, because I memorised the framework so much, it was now deep down inside of me and I could add my natural flavour and flair on top of it. Right. And so that's what I believe frameworks do. And I want to make things easy for people. So the EASE framework is E-A-S-E. For those that are just listening to this via audio, E-A-S-E stands for energy. Ask, story, explain, deliver it forwards, create it backwards. Robert Kennedy III [00:16:42]: So what do I mean by that? Well, typically when you are sharing information with people, we want to give them the information. We want to give them the data points pretty quickly and immediately. People don't always resonate with just the data points. They want to know why they're doing something. They want to emotionally connect to this challenge or the information that you're sharing with them. Because our brains don't like open loops. Our brains want closed loops. And so when you share information with somebody, our brains go through their mental Rolodex or the mental dataset and says, okay, did I experience this? Do I know what this is? Have I experienced it before? Do I want to experience this? Do I not want to experience this? Our brain is looking for the what next. Robert Kennedy III [00:17:28]: It's, it's creating a pattern.. And so I use the framework to say, okay, what is it that you want people to know? What is the explanation? What is the point that you want them to know? Okay, cool. Once you understand what that is, then is there a storey that you can tell that highlights or brings meaning or context to that point? Once you understand, once you've gotten the story, is there a question that you can ask that allows people to mentally search their minds or their experience dataset to connect to that storey that you're about to share with them. And then the first E, energy, is, okay, what type of energy do you want people to have here? Do you want them to be excited? Do you want them to be enthused? Or do you want them to be reflective? Because the energy that you're after determines the type of question that you ask. So you might ask, if I'm thinking about energy or something enthusiastic, I might say to somebody, when was the last time that you were excited about going to a movie? Okay. And so now they're thinking about exciting times. If I want them to be reflective, I will say something like, do you remember when you had a bad experience? Do you remember when was the last time that you had a negative experience? And so they'll now start to reflect a bit differently. Okay. Robert Kennedy III [00:18:59]: So I want you to think about the energy that you want to create so that you're not asking random questions. So you deliver it, you create it backwards, start with the explain, figure out the story, figure out the question, determine the energy, but you deliver it forwards. Okay. Come with the energy, ask the question, deliver the storey and say, okay, I'm sharing this information with you, I'm sharing this storey with you because— or here's what I want you to take away from this. Speaker B [00:19:24]: What you just described there is essentially what every great teacher in history has done natively. It's just been part of the way they presented information, but it's pulled together in a really clear structure so that it becomes teachable. Yeah. And I think the storey aspect of it, it's easy to gloss over. It's easy to just let you talk about storeys and we can go on and we can talk about tactical stuff and how important it is for leaders to communicate. But the one thing you and I and everybody listening will know is that every great leader in history who could move people was a storyteller. Yeah. Before you can tell stories, you need to know stories, you need to capture stories, you need to map them out, which most people don't naturally do. Speaker B [00:20:15]: There's very few people naturally remember the rich tapestry of storeys that they actually have at their disposal. So if somebody's listening thinking, I don't go into stories, how do they go from feeling like they've got nothing to say to, wow, I had no idea? Robert Kennedy III [00:20:35]: Yeah. Well, so there's another framework that I use quickly called the 3M storey framework, and that's moment, meaning, message. Moment, what happened? Meaning, why did it matter? And message, what does this help others see or do? Some of us don't understand the meaning or the message until we share the moment. I don't know if you've ever had a situation where You relayed a storey or you're starting to share a story, and then while you're sharing it, you're like, oh my gosh, you pull another point from it. I'll give an example. I, several years ago, I was talking with one of my mastermind groups and they were, we were talking about storeys and I shared with them a storey of when I learned to ride my bicycle at the age of 8. And at the end of me telling them the story, they're like, Robert, why have you never told us that storey before? I said, dude, it was just a regular story. I learned how to ride my bicycle. Robert Kennedy III [00:21:31]: They said, no, man, there's so much inside of that. So here's the quick synopsis of the story. I was home. We were in Montreal, Canada. I was at a friend's house. I decided that I wanted to learn how to ride my bicycle that day. And he said, look out the window. That's how you learn how to ride. Robert Kennedy III [00:21:46]: Looked out the window. There's some parents pushing their kids along. So happens that we were home alone that day. Just me, him, and his sister. This was back in the day when you could leave 8-year-olds at home alone without consequences or repercussions, right? And so I said, listen, I need to learn how to ride today. We ran out to the garage. He grabbed his bike. I grabbed his sister's bike, and I tried to learn how to ride on the street without parents pushing us. Robert Kennedy III [00:22:10]: Couldn't do it. I don't know how I figured this out, but I noticed that his driveway was on a decline down underneath the house, and the garage was underneath the house, and I figured out that I could coast the bicycle down the driveway, and it would allow me to balance much easier. And so I did that for a little while, did that for about half an hour, and, you know, got my turns in. And after that, I said, let me take my talents to the road. I went up on the road. I was able to balance a little bit better, but I wasn't able to ride for that long. At the end of the street, there was a hill. And so I got the bike over to the edge of the end of the street and perched at the top of the hill. Robert Kennedy III [00:22:48]: And pushed the bike off, and this bike started to go down the hill with me. Started to pick up speed, as you can imagine. And so of course I put my feet on the pedals and I'm pedalling along and I push and I'm pedalling along. And after, after a little while, the bike is going so fast that my feet fly off of the pedals because I can't keep up with it anymore. And this bike is getting closer and closer to the bottom of the hill. Oh, by the way, at the bottom of the hill, there's this intersection. I'm getting closer to this intersection. And this bike is going faster and faster and faster and faster. Robert Kennedy III [00:23:18]: And I look over at my left-hand side and there is a lawn because this intersection is coming up closer. And it just hits me at this point that there was one thing that I forgot to teach myself in the driveway, how to brake. I didn't know how to stop this bike. So I noticed this lawn and I take the bike and I just kind of throw it on the lawn. I fly through the grass. I messed up somebody's garden pretty bad and I slide to a stop. As I slide to a stop, I look up, I see my friend at the top of the hill looking down like, oh, but instead of crying or doing anything, I stood up and I raised my hands like Rocky in the movie. And I'm like, yeah, because I had ridden the bike and I'd made it through. Robert Kennedy III [00:24:03]: What were the lessons in that that my mastermind pulled out? They said, dude, If you're teaching this, are you sharing that storey with a corporate group? All of them have had been on a project where it felt like they were out of control. Their feet flew off the pedals and this project was just going without any guardrails or any guidance, and they just didn't feel like they had any more control of it. You can pull that out of it. What about at the bottom? You go through all of this stuff, you go through this experience, and you're getting closer to the bottom and you realise there was something that you forgot. There was a gap. There was an important skill set that you forgot to teach. That's in the story. What about you getting to the bottom of the hill and sliding through the garden? And at the end, you raise your hand, you're celebrating something great that happened, even in what seems to be a big failure or mess to everybody else. Robert Kennedy III [00:24:58]: That's a lesson inside of this. What about the beginning? Your friend said the only way to learn how to do this is by having parents push you., and you were like, no, I'm going to figure out another way. That is a lesson. So I tell this storey and there were like all of these different points that come out of it. So I tell the moment and they're able to pull out why it mattered and share that with me, or I'm able to pull it out after telling the storey so many different ways and so many times. And so what does this help others see or do? That's the message that is underlying. And I can say, here's why I'm. Speaker B [00:25:33]: Telling you this story. Yeah. One of the things that I think a lot of people struggle with is thinking, I'm not very creative. What you just described to me wasn't, I just thought something up. Yeah, there was a process. You put some work into it. And I think as leaders, if we know communication matters, it's not going to happen by itself, right? A little bit of training can be a good idea. If you want to be a good communicator, go to the gym for communication, but you can also do some work at home. Speaker B [00:26:06]: And I think this is where little things like journaling and prompts can come in. Your storeys are all living in the unconscious, living in the subconscious, and you need a process for making them conscious. And this isn't self-indulgent whimsy. This is business. There's good practical applications for this, which you kind of highlighted there. One of the things I saw you talking about— in fact, we were speaking about this earlier— storey prompts. How can we build this backlog of storeys so we have a repertoire for when we want to make a point? We've got a toolbox for that. Robert Kennedy III [00:26:45]: Yeah. Speaker B [00:26:45]: Yeah. Robert Kennedy III [00:26:45]: Part of the reason we're not able to pull storeys is because we don't capture them. There's a great book by Matthew Dicks called Storyworthy, and he's got a practise that he implements every day. He writes down on a sheet of paper 5 things that happened that day. Doesn't even matter what it is. I went to the gas station to get gas. I saw this show on television. My friend called me, writes down 5 things, and then he draws a line. And on the right side of that, what lesson did I learn from this? Or what lesson can I pull from this? That gets you in the practise of 2 things. Robert Kennedy III [00:27:24]: Number 1, capturing moments that take place in your life. And then number 2, assigning meaning to those moments. Because so many of us have moments that happen each day. And because we haven't slowed down or stopped to assign meaning to the moments, the moments just pass us by and we don't realise the goal that we have in each day. So I love that concept that he's, he's done. And I've taken that and I'm doing something in a few weeks called the Story Vault Remix, where we'll have people sit down and we'll give some prompts and you'll be able to pull a storey from your experience based on the prompt that we give you. And you have that captured in your own storey vault. And we walk you through a framework so that you can then utilise those storeys in meetings. Robert Kennedy III [00:28:15]: You can use them in conversations.. You can use them in speeches or talks or workshops. The point is to get used to capturing and then implementing or utilising stories. And the more that you do that, the easier it becomes to recognise which. Speaker B [00:28:30]: Storey is the right storey for that moment. And I think if you're a business and you want to move towards being purpose-led and you want a team that really feels like they belong in this business, they kind of need to know what you're for, what you're about, especially if it's a large organization. Insular leaders, technocratic leaders, they don't really galvanise a movement. And if you want a business to thrive, you really need to think like you're building a movement, not just a business. And so this activity is core business for a leader. Yes, you need to be operationally good,. But if you can't bring people along with you at scale, often when you haven't met them in person, you're going to struggle. And I think this is such an important part of the toolbox. Speaker B [00:29:28]: I can't overstate that discovering legacy storeys and capturing storeys as they come, it'll go straight to the bottom line in terms of being able to galvanise action and attention internally, externally, in so many different ways. Everything from having your cleaners show up on time all the way through to. Robert Kennedy III [00:29:48]: Investors saying, that's my guy. Yeah. For me, the other thing inside of that is when you are able to pull from a storey bank, you just become a more interesting person. Instead of just sharing information, you rely on or you share experiences. And guess what experiences are? Human. Humans have experiences. And if people can say, oh my gosh, that is similar to something that I experienced, oh my gosh, I had that experience, or oh my gosh, that is something that I want to experience, or no, I never want to experience that— that is connective tissue. That is all you tapping into emotions. Robert Kennedy III [00:30:28]: And when you tap into emotions, there is a biological function that happens. At that point. Hormones are released, right? You've got oxytocin, you've got cortisol. These hormones are released. And when those hormones— the more that you can tap into those for human beings, the more connection. Oxytocin is that bonding— this is known as the bonding hormone, right? When mothers have babies, part of the reason that they put the baby on the mother's chest right after birth is to create bonding. And they say that releases more of the oxytocin hormone. If you can do that with people, if you can be memorable, if you can be interesting, that creates more of a bond. Speaker B [00:31:12]: And that bond ultimately leads to trust. It's a little bit like the cartoon cat imprinting on the— it's a little baby chick when it hatches imprinting on the cat because it's the first thing it sees. And that your description was way better than mine. I think ultimately we're all leading. We're all leading ourselves. We're leading the people around us. And this leading needs to happen in public and it happens through communication and this kind of communication. One aspect that I think probably trips people up and you'll recognise this, a lot of people will think, well, 'Who wants to listen to me? Who cares about my stories, really? Who am I to be trying to communicate in this way? Why should people pay attention to me?'. Robert Kennedy III [00:32:03]: What's your response to those people? So as I've been growing in business, one of the statements that stuck with me was the person who you are best positioned to serve is the person who you once were. So there is meaning in every experience that you've had. There's meaning in every situation, good or bad, that you've had. And the fact that you've been able to navigate it and show up and be at the place that you are today is a journey. It's a story. It's something that's got meaning, and it's meaningful not just because it is nice to hear, meaningful because there's somebody that may be behind you in the journey that is processing, that's navigating, that is going through that. And they're looking for answers. They're looking for, how do I make it through this? And they may look up the algorithm on Facebook or LinkedIn might pass your video or your statement by their eyes and they'll get caught and they'll recognise something. Robert Kennedy III [00:33:08]: Something's going to reach out to them because they're, it's connected to a situation or a challenge that they're walking through and they'll stop and they'll say, oh my gosh, Bob shared this thing online. Let me hear a little bit more about what Bob's saying. In the meantime, Bob's saying, uh, that wasn't a big deal. Speaker B [00:33:23]: I just decided to talk about it today. You're talking about those who are where you were. Yeah, but I think there are also people with seniority to you, or perceived seniority, in lots of different ways. So there might be leaders of, we'll call it potential clients in my space who are operating at a corporate level far above what I would professionally aspire to. But that doesn't mean at a human level, I may be further ahead. They may be looking at aspects of what I present and think that's what I really need. So I guess what I'm getting at is we're not entirely linear in the way we progress. It's not like we move from one level of a computer game to another. Speaker B [00:34:13]: You often hear of the CEO going for a drink with the guy with a mop and coming away a changed man. It's the same kind of situation, but it's often at the hand of a story. It's never data. Stories are what connect, and storeys are what, like you described, the connective tissue psychologically. And it's the connective tissue of value at the end of the day. Absolutely. So when people are working with you, I know you work in several different ways. You've got a few businesses. Speaker B [00:34:46]: There's a red thread that runs through them all. But what does that look like? What does a great client look for. Robert Kennedy III [00:34:53]: You— look like for you, rather? A great client. Well, our great clients are corporations rather than individuals. And so a great client is, is a client who walks through a customer journey with us. We have a process called Voice, Vision, and Value. So the voice is really connecting with how to amplify your individual voice, how to speak with confidence more effectively. The vision is now you're in the leadership space. How do you cast a future-paced video or a situation so that people can follow along? How do you speak strategically? What are, What's the languaging that you use that inspires trust, that inspires additional thought and ultimately action? And then the value is how do you then outside of the corporation create connectivity with customers, with prospects, with those who may need the service or the solution that you offer? So a great client walks with us through those paces. And great client is a corporation that may not know that they need all three immediately, but they're at least willing to say, we don't know what we. Speaker B [00:36:14]: Don'T know about communication at this point. I think what I love about it is it's a very non-traditional perspective on internal and external communications. Uh-huh. It's a much more human and humane perspective. Robert Kennedy III [00:36:27]: Yeah. Speaker B [00:36:27]: One thing, if you're up for it, I'd love to have you back sometime to talk specifically about video for leaders. Let's do that. I would love that. That's something I think would be really interesting to talk about because lots of leaders delegate video. They get somebody to come in and they put on a suit and they talk to the camera and then they wonder why it never goes anywhere and it's unsustainable. Yeah. I think the sustainability building video and building communication at scale as a habit, as something you become comfortable with, much like going to the gym, is going. Robert Kennedy III [00:37:03]: To become a fundamental leadership skill. Yeah, well, I'll say this in advance of that. We are in a time right now where we have AI technology and people are saying, hey, create an avatar or use a clone to do your, your videos. And you're going to see that more and more and more and more. It's going to become even more critical for leaders to be able to connect. And video is one of the ways to do that. But the reason that I would not recommend any leader regularly utilise avatar or an AI clone of themselves is because the AI clone, as good as they are, will never be able to replicate natural human connection. And human beings, whether we are able to verbalise it or not, when we see something that is different in person than it is on video, we're able to pick up on it. Robert Kennedy III [00:37:56]: And when that little seed of doubt or, or uncertainty is implanted, trust breaks, whether people recognise it or not. So you want to, as much as possible, create connection in a way that when people get closer to you, that. Speaker B [00:38:13]: Connection continues to build and not break. I'm going to emphasise a couple of incidents where this really comes into focus. I was watching a TikTok video, as I want to do when I want to be entertained or diverted, and I was about 2 minutes into quite a long TikTok video, and, and it was at that point I realised this person I'm listening to, they're not real. And I felt cheated. A friend of mine was telling me about a book that she was reading. She was halfway into this book. At that point, she realised just— there was a couple of. Robert Kennedy III [00:38:53]: Clues. Speaker B [00:38:54]: Hold on, this book's AI-generated. Now, she felt cheated. She was angry. And we think what this does for a brand, if somebody has invested in you and then that investment hasn't been honored, right? They feel cheated, and that will destroy your brand, and it will destroy— with limited justification, people will just assume you have no integrity. They will fill that vacuum with judgment. Yeah, you do not want that, which is why I, I use AI a lot, but I would never use it as a proxy for visibility. That's right. I have to do this, and AI is a great way of finding space to do this, not to find excuses and ways not to do it. Speaker B [00:39:39]: Right. So if people want to get closer to Robert Kennedy, how can they do that? Robert Kennedy III [00:39:43]: Where do you like to hang out online? I'm mostly on two platforms, LinkedIn and Substack. Those are the two places that I hang out mainly. But if you go to robertkennedy3.me, you can see programs, my sites. That's the main hub. Speaker B [00:39:59]: To find out anything that you need about me. And the Story Vault thing, I want to get in on that. Robert Kennedy III [00:40:05]: Where's that going to be happening? That if you go to storyvaultremix.com, you'll see the registration information there and sign up. We're going to spend about 90 minutes together walking through the prompts, walking through the stories, unpacking and excavating some of the storeys that you may have inside of you that you may— you didn't think were useful. And then sharing with you how you can implement and utilise them in situations. Speaker B [00:40:32]: That are going to be useful and connective. And is that a paid thing or. Robert Kennedy III [00:40:36]: Is that a free thing? Speaker B [00:40:37]: No, it's a, it's a free event. Oh, amazing. Count me in. Bob loves a freebie, and I will get behind turning the heat up on that. Robert Kennedy III [00:40:48]: Yeah. Speaker B [00:40:48]: Robert Kennedy III, you have been awesome. Thank you, man. I do want to have you back sometime. It's just been a lot of fun. But at home, that does bring us to end of another show. If you've enjoyed this, you will love the Personal Brand Business Roadmap in the show notes. Go get it. Also, wherever you listen to podcasts, a 5-star review would be amazing. Speaker B [00:41:11]: It does help a lot. For you at home listening, thank you very much for your kind attention today. And Robert Kennedy, you have been amazing. Robert Kennedy III [00:41:18]: Thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. Pleasure to be here.