Leading in Your Own Voice with Dia Bondi - Ep. 39

When you can tell your story in a compelling, confident way, you can change the lens through which everyone views you, your accomplishments, and your potential.

Dia Bondi, a TEDx speaker, author of Ask Like An Auctioneer, and executive coach, joins Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson for an exceedingly energetic and entertaining conversation focused on communicating effectively as a leader. In between some fun tangents, they dig into how to uncover and craft your origin story to tell a more compelling narrative, why doing live demos on stage needs to go the way of the dodo, and how to raise more funding without a pitch deck. They also discuss their favorite examples of leaders who are actually doing this well and showing the world who they really are. Strap in for a fun and informative fifty-two minutes that every aspiring leader needs to hear (or watch if you’re on Spotify or YouTube).

Also, Matt mixes up 1960s movie characters named Felix and Craig channels his inner Sully as he desperately attempts to land multiple planes.

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Critical Takeaways

• When someone asks you who you are, don’t rifle through the bullets of your resume. Instead, tell them the narrative of your origin story. Include the core things that drive you, the context around why you set out to do X, and who you really are.
• Speaking on stage is too expensive for you to have a live demo of your product that doesn’t work. It’s much better to have a pre-recorded demo for your presentation and then give people an opportunity to interact with a live demo at your booth where things are lower stakes if the product fails.
• Founders need to realize when to hand off the tactical duties in their all-hands meetings, such as being the emcee or running a slide deck. Your team needs you to show up at the status that matches the role that people need you to play in the world.
• All-hands meetings are extremely expensive, especially the ones that are run poorly and time-intensive. You need to allocate your team’s time carefully based on what is most important to the company’s mission, so make sure not to squander that precious time.
• Being a compelling communicator is not about being perfectly polished, it’s about staying true to yourself and adapting your natural approach to each context while maintaining authenticity.

Sponsored Segment

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Chapters

00:00 - Intro

00:20 - Craig comes Straight Outta Compton

00:58 - Fun Facts about Dia Bondi, Matt, & Softball

04:09 - Introducing Dia Bondi

08:20 - The Impact of Establishing Your Voice

12:13 - What is Founder Unrest & When Does It Show Up?

15:19 - How Founders can Find Their Own Voice & Unlock Their Origin Story

20:42 - Why Understanding How to Tell Your Origin Story Matters

31:12 - Dump the Live Demos from your Presentations

33:15 - Wait, How Expensive are All-Hands Meetings?

38:20 - Two Big Misconceptions about Communication

43:44 - Examples of Leaders with Great Perspectives & Well-Developed Voices

50:04 - Craig Compliments Sam for Displaying Basic Competence

50:24 - Wrapping Up

Epic Quotes

• “ Founders are always going into conversations that are bigger than their britches. That's kind of like a job requirement.” - Dia Bondi
• “ To win and to differentiate today, we need the founder to reach trusted superstar status as fast as possible.” - Craig Rosenberg
• “ I think of founder voice as something you lend to your venture.” - Dia Bondi

Connect with Dia

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dia-bondi/
• Website: https://www.diabondi.com/
• Dia’s TED Talk: https://youtu.be/mFtHKTgyjyU?si=oElL9kWENAiSMary
• Ask Like An Auctioneer (Book): https://www.asklikeanauctioneer.com/
• Dia’s Resource Library: https://www.diabondi.com/resources

New Terms:

• Buttwing (v): To guesstimate. See Also: Ballpark

Shoutouts

• Claire Sua-Amundson: https://uclabruins.com/news/2013/4/17/208207255
• Claire Pitching to Dan Le Batard: https://youtu.be/o-HM5Sm5omA?si=3yzu1TtT_tD5mUyq
• Funny Article about Claire and Matt: https://vault.si.com/vault/2005/06/06/-hitting-the-big-time
• Dan Le Batard: https://lebatardaf.com/
• The Odd Couple (1970-1975)
• Howard Schultz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardschultz/
• Howard Schultz Interview on Acquired: https://youtu.be/A0fvX-wV70Y?si=-Ljn1jqTYP5aGEaR
• Starbucks: https://www.starbucks.com/
• Jensen Huang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhsunhuang/
• Jensen Huang Interview on Acquired: https://youtu.be/y6NfxiemvHg?si=bfv8w-1wgTZk5l6A
• Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/
• Nick Mehta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmehta/
• David Solomon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-solomon/

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