Yesterday, I had a thoughtful conversation on Janelle Villiers’ podcast about something I see leaders struggle with every day.

Most leaders don’t need more authority. They need a better way to lead the room.

We talked about what happens when leaders stop trying to control meetings and start orchestrating them instead. Not by talking more. Not by tightening the agenda. But by paying attention to energy, structure, and presence.

One of the biggest takeaways from our conversation was this:

Your energy enters the room before your words do.

If you walk into a meeting anxious, rushed, or distracted, the team feels it immediately. If you walk in calm and intentional, the room settles. That’s not personality. That’s physiology.

I shared a simple practice I teach leaders: a brief breathing ritual. Before you walk into a meeting, pause. Breathe. Reset your nervous system. Decide how you want to show up before you ask anyone else to engage.

We also talked about the framework behind my book, The Meeting Room — the Meeting Symphony™, and the 4 Ps: Purpose, Participants, Product, and Presence. Great meetings don’t happen by accident. They’re designed.

If you’re leading meetings right now and thinking, “There has to be a better way than this,” I think you’ll recognize yourself in this conversation.

You can watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FkmCFrIW8c​

My hope is that it leaves you a little calmer, a little clearer, and more confident that this is learnable work—not a personality trait you either have or don’t.

Lead with intention. And watch how things shift when you are inside the meeting room.

Warmly,

P.S. Here’s the Amazon link to my book: https://a.co/d/1QpVuFi

If you have already finished the book, leaving a review would help the book reach more readers who need to hear this message.