In this course you learn to communicate like a financial executive and communication skills are one of the six traits that distinguish financial executives from financial professionals. And throughout this course, we learn to communicate like a pro. But sometimes effective communications begin with listening. And in fact, your executive presence can get eroded when you interrupt others. When you interrupt someone, it's like saying to them, I really don't care what you have to say, because what I have to say is more important. From time to time, we all display interrupting tendencies, but raising our self awareness, we can train ourselves to become better listeners.

So do you regularly display any of the following tendencies? For example, assuming that we know what someone else is going to tell you and finish their thought for them? Are you someone who finishes someone else's story or draws your own conclusions from their stories before they finish? Or do you cue off something said, thinking about your next point, instead of actively listening to the other person's point entirely or Perhaps you like giving advice when the other person just wants the opportunity to vent to you. Or finally the desire to be the nodal and take over a conversation. When we interrupt, it often backfires and actually reflects badly on us.

Recognize when you are talking too much and read the nonverbal cues, when you're listening, when you're getting those cues that perhaps you're talking too much. Stop talking and get someone else talking. Communication is always going to be the two way exchange of ideas. One way exchanges of ideas is called advertising. So let's wrap up this course on communication skills and little recap some of the key themes to keep in mind before I send you on your way. First of all, bear in mind the principles of persuasion that we started with ethos, logos, and pathos, pathos and ethos tend to be the drivers of perception, and perception is often reality regardless of the logic, the logos, messages that are big into your presentation.

Secondly, we learned about delivering the message, we learned about telling stories about using precise and concise language about spinning language as necessary to help you persuade your audience to act in the desired fashion. And finally, you learned about developing your own level of executive presentation skills. And here is where we recognize that there's much more to our executive presence than what we say, but more how we say it. We looked at our body language, our tone of voice, our gesturing, all as important elements of the overall presentation, and communication. When all facets of our communication are in sync. Our message is more likely to be heard and acted upon.

And that is why it's one of the core skills. There are five other courses that round out, developing your own executive presence, including building your confidence, relationship building. resilience, credible leadership and personal branding. So we encourage you to take a look at those courses as well.