Hey everyone and welcome to our throwback episode. In our throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes.

This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past.

And it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time. Enjoy.

Mariana, thanks for joining us today.

You're welcome. Great to be here, Kwame.

Yeah, it's great to have you. So how would you get it started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure, absolutely. So I'm Mariana Swallow. I live in Chicago where my business is also located.

And I am a professional executive public speaking coach.

And I also teach presentation skills workshops in addition to being a professor of business

and professional communications at Loyola University in Chicago.

Fantastic. And full disclosure, audience, I wanted to have her on the show just so i could get a free consultation

here so everybody be ready for a masterclass i'm excited for this and so the three things that

we're going to focus on today first we're going to talk about the importance of having the right

mindset before these conversations next we're going to talk about the approach to the conversations and the biggest mistakes

people often make.

And then we are going to end the conversation

talking about the ask, which is often the most important part

and the part we will make mistakes.

So let's start off with the mindset.

Absolutely.

So Kwame, when people want to make a persuasive speech or something like a sales call,

the common knowledge around it or the common thought is I have to convince them.

...