Why Presence Beats Performance in Leadership (Most Founders Get This Backwards)

The Vault Unlocked - Kayvon Kay

This episode explores how AI-driven speed is eroding human connection, emphasizing presence over performance in leadership. Renee Moreno, a former Broadway performer and author of 'Becoming a Master Communicator,' shares

Key takeaways

• Presence builds trust more than performance

Transcript preview

We all live on AI now. I do. I run half my day through it. But somewhere in all that speed, something is quietly going missing. The thing that actually builds trust. The thing that closes deals, holds families together, and makes people feel like they matter. Human connection. My guest today spent years on a Broadway stage, eight shows a week, learning how to read a room and move people in real time. Now she teaches founders and operators how to do thing off the stage. Her name is Renee Moreno, author of becoming a master communicator. We get into why your brain is moving too fast to connect, the two questions to ask before you ever hit send and how to use AI to become more human, not less. Let's unlock it. we're talking about a world where we're living in is all about AI and we want to make sure that is great because I'm a lover of AI I think I live on AI but somewhere along the way there's a concept that we're gonna lose and forget this thing called human connection and today we have Renee Moreno with us who is all about how do we keep the human connection in a world of AI. Renee welcome to the show I'm so happy to be here and talk about this very important topic. I love it. I know just before the show we were talking about your little bit of your past of you being abroad I'm gonna call you a Broadway superstar but it was interesting because as we're talking about that you were saying how the audience is live and every day or every evening I should say there's there's something called connection right you gotta have this connection the energy has this connection so is that where you've that where you've learned this connection so is that where you've like let's say this connection and starting to see how people are getting disconnected with AI. 1 million percent and I'll actually rewind from there because where it really began for me was growing up as a little girl Italian American in New Jersey. The most commonplace you could find me was sitting around the kitchen table with my family eating of course we're Italian eating, talking sometimes arguing but nonetheless communicating and connecting. So that element of connection for me was just bread. It was bred into me and I thought that it was the norm, right? Because I'm like, oh, I come from a family that if something was wrong, my parents would say four words to me that I realize now made such an effect on who I'd become, let's talk about it. So if I was upset, if I happened to go to an audition and I didn't get called back, my dad would say, let's talk about it and we would talk about it. And then I started getting into the real world when I went away to college and I started to see, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, isn't the way everybody communicates. And I really got obsessed with understanding how people communicate and connect and why. And that really connected so well to me being a performer, because being a live performer, especially Broadway, it's all about connection. And as you shared, once you get into a show, you're on Broadway, it's the same show, eight shows a week, right? It can feel monotonous. You feel like, oh, I'm doing the same thing. never ever felt that way. Number one I was doing I was getting paid to do what I loved my hobby and number two feeding off of the energy of the audience is what it's about because sometimes you get on stage and the the audience is just really subdued and you're like come on people you got to get me through this to show day but what you do is you find those other parts of yourself to bring forth to bring your best foot forward but then other days it's so easy it's so easy because you get out there the audience is so pumped up, they're screaming, they're on their feet. And as you know, probably even getting on stage now as a speaker, it's the same thing. You move forward through the energy and the connection of that audience. Absolutely, I mean, the energy is what feeds everything. So speaking of that, you know, let's take a step back here. How have you taken all of this, this idea? And I love what you're saying growing up in an Italian. I grew up in a small little town, what you're talking about. I was just thinking about that and made me smile. But how did you take that and bring that concept into like whether it's in the business or your keynote speaking and even how you're seeing that effect like you know where we are with AI today? My journey has been so unconventional and I love that. I have always done things differently than you know the powers that be say you should even when it came to pursuing Broadway. You know, I always always followed my gut and now what I teach. I have a seventh step connect method. Step one is having that communication with yourself, right? If you don't know who you are, what's going on within, you're not able to tune into that quiet voice of your gut instincts of your soul because that's the truest part of you and it's always guiding you with exactly where to go, what to say and how to say it. So for me, this was nothing that I ever even thought that I would do. starting your own business or being an entrepreneur. I mean quite honestly, Kavon, I didn't know what being an entrepreneur even meant. But in 2000, around 2017-18, I was doing my most recent Broadway show, which was Pretty Woman, the Musical, just like the movie. And I started seeing this need for help in the area of communication, especially with everybody on their phones, people forgetting how to make eye contact, if you call someone on a telephone on a telephone, they're like, what is that and I was like wait a second something's wrong here then we wonder why we have issues in our relationships when people are trying to have serious conversations through text messages so one of my dreams was always to write a book a book about this and I know I want it to be about communication but what part of communication right it's so broad and then one day I happened to be at a restaurant with a friend of mine we're catching up we're chatting and next to us it's a family of five parents a teenage son and two young kids under the age of six and Kavon when I tell you none of them spoke for two hours straight because they all had their heads down in a digital device and my heart sank because I thought to myself they are missing out in these beautiful moments of connection to be tied to their phones and that's when the light bulb went off and I said I got a this is what the book needs to be about so my book is called becoming a master communicator and the is balancing a new school technology with old school simplicity because it's all about right bringing in both worlds as we say AI is an amazing tool it's an amazing resource to help us be more effective in our lives in our businesses but if we're using that as the only tool that's where we go arise so it's about bringing in what I call those old school ways of communication face-to-based conversations handwritten making others feel seen, heard, and understood. So that's when I started writing my book. When that show ended at the end of 2019, my gut instincts were like, Renee, you're ready to activate your other gifts of speaking. You want to get this book published. And that's when I decided to take a course through Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi, two of my dear friends and mentors now, of how to start my own business. And again, I didn't know where this was going, but I didn't know where this was going, but I didn't, but I didn't know where this was going, but I'm going, but I'm very, but I didn't know where this was going, but I'm very, but I'm very, but I'm very, much a person and I teach us now like imperfect action right take the freaking action even when you don't know what the next 10 steps are even when you're afraid so I take this course and a month later the world shuts down and it's over so it was divine timing I wouldn't have been able to perform even if I wanted to and through that that time period I got my first book publishing deal I started teaching business owners and entrepreneurs how to get on camera and connect and communicate and and it's just taken off from there and now it's amazing I get to speak on stages all over the world and I get to work alongside Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi and host their events and facilitate for them so it's been such a beautiful journey and there's still so much more to go. That's I love I mean I love it right like it's interesting when you say that I don't really talk about back in that the COVID days I'm I'm I'm We did not talk about it but I said back then when we were in the midst of it and I said there's going to be two two types of people there's going to be the first type who's going to come through that and they're going to look at this as a vacation and they're going to look at this as a And this is before I even knew anything. I just knew into like my intuition just was like telling me this and I said the other group is going to take this as an opportunity to change to evolve to start asking the questions of what wasn't working and what do I want what do I need and when they come out of this there's going to be two sides and I love it because you just prove that you know that to be true. So I love that you said master communication what does that mean to you say master communication the master communication the master of the master What comes up for you when you hear that? The person who knows the right time and place to communicate what I call more directly face to face through a phone call through Zoom versus knowing the right time and place to send that through an email to send it through a text. I don't know about you but I have seen more miscommunication and missteps happen because of an inability to decipher which way do I have seen more miscommunication and missteps happen because of an inability to decipher which I communicate and people are getting it all wrong. We forget that text messages, emails,