GROW 2020 Interview: Cindy Ashton

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Cindy is CEO of Minerva Enterprises, LLC, an elite level presentation strategist, professional speaker, singer and award winning TV show, host of Cindy Uncorked on E360 TV. With 20 years of experience, she's an authority on presentation skills, speaking voice, body language, content delivery and leadership experience. She's going to bring so much to the Grow Retreat and whether you're networking in a sales conversation, pitching the media or onstage or speaking to your team, how you present yourself will make or break the sale. Isn't that the truth? So even the most confident person can lose a sale by unconscious habits. Little things we don't know that we're doing. And that's what Cindy is going to be helping us with during the Grow Retreat.

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This accidental job I had has turned out to be a life passion. There's nothing like helping other people to get their voices heard on stages across the world or be able to sell better and be able to service somebody in a better way.

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The whole trend for years has been telling your story but people should be telling their story after they've gone through it and come out the other side. So many speakers choose speaking topics based on the trauma they've been through, that they think they're over, but they're really using it for therapy and to save other people and it's not coming from the right space. And then they wonder why they're broke, why people say, "Oh, you are so inspirational, but no, I'm not buying from you." If you look at the whole of that person, they have so many layers of genius and goodness to give to the world that's so much bigger than their story.

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People either come across as overly aggressive or overly insecure. So there's a few things Cindy always teaches business owners and one of those things, the first thing, is that we need to learn to take time every day to breathe and ground. And that sounds really strange, but when you're present in your body, then you can hear and listen to others. Because one of the things that's really interesting, and we're going to do Improv at the Grow Retreat because it's not just fun, but when you do comedy Improv, you can tell who's losing sales and why they're losing sales, because you can watch the interactions of how they're listening, how they're responding. For example, if we do the storytelling one, you can always see the people who are thinking ahead when they're listening to the other about what the response is and they are actually stopping listening to others.

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We need to learn to take time every day to breathe and ground.

At the Grow Retreat we're going to be doing some really fun posture exercises. We're going to be up and moving, releasing all the habitual tension that we all live with. 73% of Americans live with chronic stress. 70% have had some kind of a traumatic event in their life and 50% of Americans live with a chronic illness. All these things actually affect how you come across. So when we have a lot of stress that we're holding in our body, it actually changes our speaking voice and our posture and our body language and our energy. And those are the things that are the subtle pieces that will make or break the sale and make or break if you could command $5,000 or $10,000 for your services.

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The power is in your voice. Let your voice be heard. The world needs you. This isn't about self aggrandizement. This isn't about building a six or seven or eight figure business. This is about giving the world your gifts in a way that they want what you have. It's a powerful, powerful tool. To join Cindy, Anna and Stephanie at The Grow Retreat simply go to www.thegrowretreat.com and apply to attend.