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Conversations can be difficult, especially when the subject of conversation is you. The higher the stakes, the harder it can be to deliver your message, achieve your objectives, and have the positive impact you intend. Remember that job interview when you ummed and uhhhed your way right out the door? Or that performance review conversation that still makes you cringe to think about? Or all the times despite your best intentions, you just couldn’t get the other person to understand you and you failed to project the kind of confidence and clarity you know you had in you?
Unfortunately, we are all human. Emotions get in the way, and our desire to be good or to look good can limit our self-expression and ability to achieve our objectives in communication.
But fortunately, we are all human. Because as humans, we have a natural ability to communicate with each other. The capacity to connect with others, build relationships, inspire, and listen are innate gifts that we share. You already have that charisma, magnetism, empathy, and brilliance inside you. It just sometimes needs a little help to shine forth.
At Communicate Yourself, we believe that the best way to succeed at work is to be yourself. That’s right. Your actual self. Not some technique-ified, polished, “branded” version of you that you think will go over better with your target audience. Just yourSELF. Just as you are. Warts and imperfections and idiosyncrasies and all. It is those things that make you human. It is those things that open the door to connection and relationship. It is those things that will inspire and compel others to help you fulfill your vision. Without your humanity, you don’t stand a chance. And life wouldn’t be much fun anyway.
Through Communicate Yourself programs, you will uncover your natural ability to be you. Your natural abilities to:
And if you are like our past clients, in addition to the freedom and joy you will experience in being who you are, you will also succeed more at what you do.
Communicate Yourself programs give you the chance to uncover your own stories – the experiences that make you truly unique. You will also learn how to tell those stories so that no matter where you are – in an interview room, in an elevator, or at a networking event – you can be yourself and trust that you are interesting and engaging the listener. In the process, you will also deepen your awareness of how awesome you are.
We've delivered the Communicate Yourself workshop to companies, organizations, and MBA programs around the country including:
Please see the links to the left to learn more. All Communicate Yourself programs can be delivered live, in person, or via interactive webinar.
To find out about our next live training session or about upcoming webinars, contact us.
She was just born this way.
Angela Guido, President of Communicate Yourself Inc., has spent her career empowering individuals and organizations to communicate their messages more effectively using the power of story. She is an accomplished professional with over 15 years of experience in strategy, communications, and training, an award-winning writer, and a lifelong student of the art form of story. At KPMG, she designed curricula for staff training in business English, effective communication skills, and leadership development. In addition to her client work during her five-year tenure at the Boston Consulting Group, she managed BCG’s Women’s Initiative for North America where she planned and executed conferences and other growth and development opportunities for the firm’s women. In the process, she also managed recruiting for the firm, developing programs to help women at the nation’s top business schools tell their stories better and succeed in BCG’s competitive interview process.
She has since worked exclusively in communications consulting, where she has trained hundreds of individuals across the country to discover and perfect their personal stories, assisting them in advancing their careers or gaining access to top MBA programs and highly coveted professional positions. She recently developed a groundbreaking program for MBA hopefuls that teaches them the how to use the principles of storytelling and effective communication to achieve their goals. She brings an in-depth understanding of consumer insight and the power of narrative to move individuals and groups to action. Angela holds a BA in Philosophy from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Chicago, where she was a Siebel Scholar.
Angela’s story started at a dinner theater in San Antonio, Texas. She auditioned for a play at the age of 5. Although she didn’t get the part, she fell in love with the idea of telling a story and exploring different characters. She acted her way through high school, where she also discovered a love for languages. She spent a good part of her teenage years locked in her room deeply immersed in Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. Yes, she was a nerd. She knows it.
At Yale, she majored in her second life’s passion, philosophy. She just couldn’t get enough of life’s seemingly unanswerable questions such as: What is the nature of existence? What is truth? And how can we be true to our own unique experience, when it is doomed to only be a partial and very limited perspective on the universe? Angela’s degree in Philosophy led her to a very prestigious position teaching English to three-year-olds in Korea. Yes, Angela can sometimes be sarcastic. She knows it.
But teaching turned out to be a passion too, and it is something she has done as a formal part of her career ever since. At KPMG in Seoul, she designed and delivered leadership development curricula to help the firm’s senior staff communicate more effectively with clients. She also helped shape the firm’s human resource strategy, drafting clear strategic objectives for employee growth and job satisfaction. So finally, she had found her fourth and final (for the moment) passion: business.
After earning her MBA at The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business where she was a Siebel Scholar, she sought further training in strategic thinking as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Once while she was staffed on a client project in Omaha, she took acting classes at the Omaha Community Playhouse, where Marlon Brando, one of her idols, got some of his acting chops.
It seemed that the story, philosophy, and teaching bugs would not relent. So Angela transitioned to managing BCG’s Women’s Initiative, where she planned and executed conferences and other growth and development opportunities for the firm’s women. In the process, she also managed recruiting for the firm, developing programs to help women at the nation’s top business schools tell their stories better and succeed in BCG’s competitive interview process. During these years in her spare time, she completed intensive courses in screenwriting, honing her own storytelling abilities, and producing several short films.
When her on-the-job training at BCG had run its course after 5 years, she struck out on her own in 2009. She has since been a dedicated communications consultant, working with hundreds of individuals worldwide to discover and perfect their personal stories, assisting them in advancing their careers or gaining access to top MBA programs and highly coveted professional positions.
Her work with exceptional individuals across the world has led her to a few key convictions: her personal answers to some of those challenging philosophical questions:
All of her work is designed to help herself and her fellow human beings bring out their natural ability to communicate, collaborate, and connect with each other. Finally finding a way to unite all four of her passions, in her free time these days, Angela just meditates and walks by the lake.
From job interviews to performance reviews to networking events, being able to talk about yourself with confidence and self-assurance matters. While many of us worry when the conversation turns to weaknesses or mistakes, ironically it is our own success that gives us the most trouble in conversation because our culture frowns upon “tooting one’s own horn.” As it turns out, we can foster the deepest connections with others when we embrace our own greatness and communicate our successes with humility.
In this keynote/workshop, we will:
Unfortunately, to err is human. While most of us would prefer to keep our failures private, there are inevitably times that we are required to confront and communicate about them. Knowing how to talk about failure transforms it from a source of shame and disconnection to an inspiring vehicle for personal growth. Whether in a job interview, a performance review, or even a casual conversation, communicating about our failures gives us new power to grow, move forward, and connect with others.
In this keynote/workshop, we will:
Performance couldn’t happen if we didn’t track it – it is measurement that separates performance from the undifferentiated mass of life. While most of us resist evaluation, if we want to advance professionally, we ultimately can’t avoid it. The good news is that reflecting honestly on our own performance and learning to communicate about it effectively can not only accelerate our personal growth but also lead to a deeper sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in our own work.
In this keynote/workshop, we will:
Job interviews, even for internal positions, can be some of the most stressful conversations of our lives. The higher the stakes, the harder it can be to deliver your message, achieve your objectives, and have the positive impact you intend. The key to successful job interviews is fostering a connection with the human being(s) on the other side of the table. And the key to creating that connection is communicating yourself confidently and powerfully no matter what questions come at you.
In this workshop/training session, we will:
Performance couldn’t happen if we didn’t track it – it is measurement that separates performance from the undifferentiated mass of life. While most of us resist evaluation, if we want to advance professionally, we ultimately can’t avoid it. The good news is that reflecting honestly on our own performance and learning to communicate about it effectively can not only accelerate our personal growth but also lead to a deeper sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in our own work.
In this keynote/workshop, we will:
Collaboration is how we make the world go around. No great accomplishment was ever achieved by one individual contributor alone. Working effectively with others, especially those with different backgrounds, experiences, and functions requires a different kind of listening than we are accustomed to. When we are able to understand the differences of our teammates, then we are able to communicate more effectively, dramatically improving efficiency and outcomes.
In this workshop/training session, we will:
Got questions? Feedback? Requests?
We'd love to hear from you. Call, write, or join our list!