Most CEOs assume they are being evaluated on execution: the numbers, the hires, the product decisions that compound into a company's trajectory. Mike Acker, an executive communication coach who has trained CEOs and executives at organizations ranging from General Electric to companies preparing to scale, argues the assumption is only half true. A second variable runs alongside execution the entire time, and it never stays neutral. It either multiplies what a CEO has already built, or it quietly caps it.
Acker calls this variable presence. His framing is diagnostic, not aspirational: presence is not a soft skill layered on top of the real work of running a company. It is a structural input with its own compounding effect, and the CEOs least aware of the gap are usually the ones who most need to close it.
Acker's own hiring story shows how presence operates independently of execution. Early in his career, he interviewed for a role at Patterson Companies, a Fortune 500 global distributor, against roughly two hundred other candidates. He had no experience in the field and no formal education for it. What he had was the ability to show up. The hiring manager's verdict, relayed after the interview, was blunt: no experience, no education, but the best hire in the pool.
Execution is the pillar most CEOs default to measuring — whether someone works hard, knows the domain, and has put that knowledge into practice over time. It is necessary, and it is insufficient. Presence made up the difference in Acker's case: at a high enough level, it can make people believe someone is capable of more than they have yet proven, and it opens doors execution alone cannot. The corollary cuts the other way for a scaling CEO. Strong execution with weak presence does not get evaluated on execution alone either — the presence gap caps how much of that execution ever gets recognized, trusted, or acted on.
Acker locates presence in how a leader shows up: emotional intelligence and interpersonal skill on one side, presentation and communication skill on the other. Both surface long before a CEO opens a quarterly report — in the investor meeting, the all-hands, the customer call, the moments where trust is extended or withheld before the substance is even reviewed.
What makes this a CEO-specific problem, rather than a generic communication tip, is visibility. Acker's contrast is a McDonald's cashier versus a McDonald's CEO: a low-average speaker working the counter barely registers a gap, because little is riding on it. A CEO whose leadership sits at a ten but whose speaking sits at a five will feel that disparity, because communication is expected to track leadership as scale increases — and for leaders like Steve Jobs or Satya Nadella, speaking and leadership run in close alignment rather than pulling apart.
This is the cost Acker wants CEOs to see before it becomes visible to everyone else: the gap does not shrink as a company scales. It becomes more expensive, because more people — investors, media, boards, teams — are watching the CEO communicate at exactly the moment the company can least afford a credibility miss.
One reason CEOs misdiagnose the gap is that confidence and its counterfeit are indistinguishable from the outside. Acker traces confidence to its root — grounded trust in one's own capability — and argues that no amount of polished delivery creates trust where no underlying competence exists. When someone displays confidence without the substance behind it, that is bravado: the same display, without the trust it's supposed to represent. Acker points to Elizabeth Holmes as the case where bravado eventually got mistaken for the real thing before it was exposed.
The practical risk for a scaling CEO is not that they lack confidence. It is that neither they nor their team can always tell the difference until a decision is tested under pressure — precisely the wrong moment to discover the gap.
Acker separates fear from its usual opposite. Fear, in his framing, is simply the response to perceived danger — sometimes accurate, sometimes a false read where the perceived risk outsizes the real one. The opposite of fear, he argues, is not confidence — it is action; waiting to feel ready is what keeps leaders stuck. For a CEO weighing whether to accept a media opportunity, represent the company publicly, or hand off a high-visibility moment to someone else, this reframing removes the excuse of waiting for a feeling that may never fully arrive.
The instinct many CEOs bring to this problem is to look for a single high-leverage fix. Acker rejects that framing directly, comparing it to hiring a running coach: someone who is already a capable runner benefits from a small correction, but someone starting from a genuine deficit needs a structured process, not a tip. Two variables determine how quickly the gap closes — starting point and commitment level — and the starting point is fixed; it simply has to be worked with, not judged.
The variability in outcomes is instructive. One client, having just sold his company for roughly thirteen million dollars and facing a high-visibility speaking engagement, closed the gap in thirteen days through high-intensity, fully committed work. Another client, Dr. Tanya, took twelve months, moving methodically through the same process from a different starting point. Acker's conclusion from both cases: consistency beats intensity every time. The outcome depends on the two inputs a CEO controls, not on a fixed timeline or a guaranteed method. What each client leaves with is individualized too — Acker asks every client to name three words that define what they want their speaking to become, and success is measured against that personal target, not a universal bar.
The clearest evidence that this is a leadership problem, not a personal-growth exercise, comes from a founder-CEO of a company generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue across more than twenty countries. His anxiety around speaking registered at a ten out of ten. The triggering event was concrete: he had passed on an opportunity to be interviewed by a nationally recognized media outlet because the anxiety was too high, despite recognizing the interview could meaningfully expand his company's reach and revenue.
Working through Acker's one-on-one coaching curriculum, his speaking anxiety moved from a ten down to a two. The consequence was not simply personal relief. He began accepting speaking engagements and representing organizations he had previously avoided. Years later, asked to refer an executive coach, he told Acker he considered Acker his own executive coach — because the work on speaking had, in his own framing, multiplied his ability to lead. That is the throughline Acker wants scaling CEOs to sit with: the fix did not add a new skill so much as unlock the execution that was already there.
The final constraint Acker names is not effort or awareness — it is feedback quality. He describes asking a room of below-average soccer players for feedback on his soccer skills and getting uniform praise, or running a sub-13-minute mile among a field of 13-minute milers and concluding he is fast, when the accurate comparison set would show otherwise. Most CEOs asking their own teams for feedback on their communication are running the same flawed test: the people evaluating them often share the same blind spots, and the answer that comes back protects feelings rather than surfacing an accurate starting point.
The takeaway is not that every CEO needs a coach, and it is not that presence outranks execution — Acker's own story shows presence opening a door that execution then had to justify. The takeaway is that treating a declined media opportunity, a hesitation to represent the company publicly, or a team slow to extend trust as isolated incidents, rather than symptoms of the same gap, is a diagnostic error that gets more expensive with scale. The starting point is fixed. The commitment level is a choice. What is optional is whether a CEO seeks an accurate read before the gap becomes visible to the people whose trust the company depends on.
Mike Acker is an executive communication coach and founder of Up Level Communication, where he trains CEOs and executives on public speaking, presence, and communication through corporate engagements — including work with organizations like General Electric — and one-on-one coaching. He is the author of Speak with No Fear and Speak with Confidence, and has coached founders and executives through communication training tied directly to leadership outcomes.
Connect with Mike Acker on LinkedIn.
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:
00:00 Why CEOs Need Communication
03:03 The CEO’s Core Responsibility
04:09 Mike Acker’s Communication Journey
05:19 Execution Versus Executive Presence
07:22 What Presence Really Means
11:22 Confidence Versus Empty Bravado
12:50 Understanding the Roots of Fear
15:44 Why Action Defeats Fear
19:54 Communication Requires a Process
24:18 Consistency Beats Intensity
26:23 Transforming a Fearful CEO
34:40 Getting Honest Communication Feedback
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Mike Acker (00:00)
The opposite fears, action. This person has no experience, no education in the field, but he's the best hire. Bravado is when you are displaying confidence. Now the speaking became a multiplier to it. Consistency beats intensity every time.
Jeff Holman (00:14)
Welcome back to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman with Intellectual Strategies. we're here talking with with Mike Acker today of Up Level Communication. Mike, welcome to the show.
Mike Acker (00:25)
So great to be here. Thank you so much for having me on the show to talk with you and to your audience.
Jeff Holman (00:31)
course. Yeah, no, I'm excited. I saw you we we we've chatted a little bit back and forth to get this scheduled and I and I'm like I I really am excited to talk about the you know the things that you've done and and the insights that you can bring into the into the conversation around, you know, scaling CEOs, building businesses, navigating these pivotal moments and and trying to do that at at you know at the at the top tier of performance for their team and everything
One thing that and we might as well dive in. I want to hear more about your company a little bit, but I w but I wanna dive in a little bit just so people know where we're headed with the conversation. And and really I think w where I think the conversation would be beneficial for the for the audience is to understand that CEOs while we hold them on a pedestal sometimes or maybe we love them or hate them, I don't know. It depends on the CEO and where we're at sometimes. But CEOs in these companies,
They seem like they've got it all together a lot of times. They seem like, you know, we we hear about the high performance, we hear about the results, but there's that's not that's not the full picture, is it?
Mike Acker (01:36)
No, no. So I mean CEO is often like this like it it's a celebrity title that we put on top of people. Yeah. And so some people really lean into that. It's it's like have you seen the Keanu Reeves stuff where he's just this down to earth person? He's
Jeff Holman (01:51)
Riding the subway, yeah.
Mike Acker (01:54)
Right. And he's just down. So he's a celebrity, but he doesn't hold on to the celebrity title. Versus you see those other posts, it's like, what celebrities treated you awful? And it's like this person, this person, this person. And they're literally this person said to me, Don't you know who I am? type deal. And so they lean into that title. Mm-hmm. And over the years I've worked with a whole bunch of CEOs. I coach a lot of executives. And some would really fall into that classification, like that person.
comes across that way. And other people, it's like the most down to earth. I was with one CEO. He actually had me come out to Mexico to work with him, work through a big presentation he was giving. So I flew in there. It's obviously he's staying at this villa on the water. It's this incredible place. But he's also the most down to earth person. And he doesn't fall into that CEO stereotype at all. I mean he's talking to the guy at the guard gate and like their best friends and such. So very different
way than some others come across. So there can be this title that it come kind of comes into it, this role, this way that they come across. And then there's of course the actual definition of the word. It's the chief executive officer. So that is the person who is chiefly in charge of getting things done. Yeah. That person is the one that makes or breaks the company because if they're not getting things done through the company, then the company is not doing anything.
So the chief executive officer is ultimately the person responsible for getting things done. That's what the actual name implies.
Jeff Holman (03:28)
Yeah, that makes and and and they're the ones who are the voice of the company to get things done, both inside the company, outside the company with investors. So communication is, you know, paramount in i in what they do. so I I'd like to just to give the audience a preview, I think I'd like to talk because you've written books on fear, you've written books on confidence, we're gonna talk about scaling CEOs. before we do all that though, let's give the let's give the audience just a flavor of the things that you've done.
you know, why we're talking to you specifically about these things today. Give us give us you know, co some of the milestones or highlights from your career that have g brought you here today.
Mike Acker (04:09)
Yeah, so at the core of what I do nowadays is coach communication, corporate training. I just came back from Budapest working with General Electric, getting them ready for a whole bunch of stuff. I'll be next week in San Antonio. So this is what I do at the core of what I do is training communication. Part of that is my story, is that I was not one of those natural communicators. I came out with a speech impediment. People couldn't understand what I was saying. At the age of five, I worked with a speech therapist, got over that. Then I moved to Mexico, had to learn how to speak in Spanish. I was
Terrified, I'd have to get up in front of the class. Everybody would laugh at me every week. It changed how I thought about myself. I became the class clown, even as the kid who was serious, because everybody laughed. Moved back to the United States, had all kinds of failures, went to a public speaking class in college. Someone saw something in me. He said, You should join the debate team. I later realized that he just needed more bodies. And he trained me in speaking and trained me in debate. And I went on to nationals, won all kinds of awards.
My speaking got me my first job. My speaking then led me to become the executive director at the age of twenty six. And then the company just kept on growing, growing, and growing. Did that for 10 years, joined some staff, went into corporate. When I went into corporate, this is when I realized a principle I talk about again and again and again that there's two pillars of success. And one pillar of success is execution, and one pillar of success is presence. So
When I went into interview for this company, it's Patterson Companies. It had been a Fortune 500 company, massive distributor, global distributor. When I went into this company, there was literally a couple hundred people who went through the interview process with a recruiter. And after I got off the phone call, she called the hiring manager and said, This person has no experience, no education in field, but he's the best hire. Really? Now, let's go back to the two pillars. In one
In other words, I had no execution. I had no experience. I had no education. I did work hard. But the pillar of execution is basically: do you work hard? Do you know what you're doing? Do you have experience doing what you're doing? Yeah. So you're a roofer. Do you work hard? Do you know how to roof? Have you been putting that knowledge into practice for the last several years? Okay. And that's a huge part. Now a lot of people focus on that. In fact, they get pretty high in their career with execution.
But presence makes up the difference. And presence is the multiplier. And presence, if you have high level eight presence, but low execution like I did, people actually think that you can do the job better than you actually can. No. Okay. Yeah. The presence got me in the door. Then I had to learn the education experience right away. So I wasn't BSing it. But that's when I realized, my gosh, presence can get you indoors. Execution alone can.
Jeff Holman (06:59)
What do you mean by presence? I mean, just so we just so we can put s maybe a definition to it, because I think a lot of people that's a that sounds like an ambiguous word to me a little bit. And but maybe that's my attorney background kicking in. What's w what does presence mean? But but if if you've got a CEO, they're walking into an investor meeting or they're walking into, you know, a customer meeting, or they're walking into a team meeting, where does presence show up?
Mike Acker (07:22)
Yeah. So at the core of presence is going to be how you show up. Okay. And the how you show up is going to come across in your emotional intelligence. So your interpersonal relational skills and then your presentation skills, your speaking skills, your communication skills. So ultimately, it's your how you show up interpersonally and publicly. So if you walk into a room and people like you, or people can respect you, they might not like you because you're negotiating something.
Yeah. But people respect you and can believe in you and trust in you. It's that interpersonal aspect. And then you come across in a way that instills confidence. So if I come in and I'm telling you that you should get our x-ray, because I sold x-rays. Yeah. And I come in, I'm like, yeah, and I'm not looking at the eyes. Yeah, yeah. You know, well, I mean, they're they're pretty good on this. And I'm looking away, I'm disconnecting. And I kind of mumble a little bit while I'm talking. And it's just so it's got these qualifications very good.
Jeff Holman (08:20)
Face it facing your hands, like
Mike Acker (08:22)
Yeah, face and hands, arms crossed, just negative. And and you I don't come across very trustworthy. Then even if I have years of it and I can speak to the specs and everything about it, and I'm actually going out there working hard and I'll personally install it or whatnot. Yeah. You're not gonna buy from me. And at the end of the day, people don't buy products, just products, people buy from people. And the larger the number goes, the more important that is. That's why.
When you have a company that has a massive failure at the CEO level, what happens? There's a lack of trust and a lack of buy in often in that in that product because the CEO represents it.
Jeff Holman (09:05)
think here because because you've got you got CEOs. What about there's the other side of the coin, right? Like where you have, I don't know if it's this bravado or overconfidence or overcompensating or something like that. Where does that fit in? Because I think a lot of people would and and let me let me back up just a moment here because I think there's two lenses here. I think we've got the lens of the CEOs. I think that's who's listening to our podcast mostly. That they're gonna say, hey, how do I myself
view how do I get the perspective that somebody else who isn't me, I mean I think I'm doing a good job, but how do I get the perspective of somebody else who isn't me about whether or not I have this presence that that we're talking about. And then I think there the other lens is a a lot of times we we when we're not the CEO or we're you know working under other leaders, we we seem to say to ourselves, you know, there's kind of this this I don't know default to
I don't know. Th I don't necessarily respect people that have authority over me or I I'm a little bit standoffish because, you know, I'm I'm a worker, I'm employee. I there's so there's a CEO perspective, there's the employee perspective. I think they're different, but to a an extent, this CEO also needs to understand not only their own perspective of themselves, but the perspective of the employees or the people who are who are viewing them, right? There's so there's just different lenses, I guess.
so when we're talking about presence we've gotta we've gotta not just that I feel good about myself and I everybody else should recognize that, but I feel you know, I feel good about myself and other people hopefully feel good about me too.
Mike Acker (10:48)
Yeah, I mean this is why I mean this is such a big topic that it's why the undercover CEO and the undercover boss type shows hit because also the CEO starts seeing it from the perspective of the everyday worker and goes, my gosh, I didn't even realize this was happening in the life of the person at the the starting point of of my of my business. So it's it's it's huge. Confidence is an interesting word. So fidere is where we get the fiddence from.
And Federia means trust. And then con is just a modifier. So it's more trust. And so ultimately, confidence is grounded trust in what you do. So if you said, Mike, do you have confidence in repairing cars? Do I have grounded trust, an increased level of grounded trust that I can fix cars? Now, no matter what I can say, and no matter how well I can say it, I shouldn't have confidence because no, you should never trust your car's well-being.
To my mechanical prowess. Yeah. Because I don't have it. So in this case, even if my speaking ability is great, yeah, I can do that. I'll take care of it. Yeah, it's only going to be twenty thousand dollars. Hand it over to me. No matter how confidently I come across, the confidence shouldn't be there because there's no grounded trust. So that would be the bravado. Bravado is when you are displaying confidence. You are saying that people should trust you, but you don't have it. Elizabeth Holman.
who started that company years ago kind of following in the Holmes the footsteps of Holmes. Yeah.
Jeff Holman (12:21)
I
I have to have to distinguish just slightly. Elizabeth Hol Holmes. Yeah.
Mike Acker (12:26)
Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. It's been a little bit since I've read about that. Thank you. Yeah. And she was, you know, wearing the black turtleneck and she's showing great confidence, but it's bravado, because it was fake. Yeah. And unfortunately, sometimes what comes across as confidence later on gets revealed as bravado. So that's bravado is the same display, but without the substance.
Jeff Holman (12:50)
Okay. On the other end of the spectrum, where does where does fear fall into this? and and do you have a like a specific definition of fear or or how do you help CEOs think about fear probably as as backdrop so that you can then work with them on confidence?
Mike Acker (13:06)
Yeah. So ultimately fear is the sense of danger. Okay. And so if you're up super high and you go, my gosh, I'm afraid of heights, it's a sense of there's a danger with me being up this high because I could fall. Sometimes it's a false fear. You're in a completely protected area. Yeah. And you can never fall. And therefore you have an issue where you have disconnected reality with unreality.
Then other times it is real and it's it's good fear to have. You are super high and you should have fear. In fact, if you don't have fear, that's actually a a problem, and you should have some degree of fear. So fear is the response that we get to when we have danger. Now, what happens when we get in front of people and we are gonna go speak? We feel sometimes like we're in danger. We're in danger of being criticized, we're in danger of being rejected, we're in danger of
Of this not going well. We're in danger of, and often the danger is much larger, the perceived danger is a lot larger than the actual danger to us. Typically, if you speak, and I write about this in one of my books, Speak with No Fear, I talk about imagine the worst. Typically, the worst that can happen when you're speaking is not actually that bad other than embarrassment. Right. Now I said typically, because obviously there are some times where you could get in front of people and it really could be.
But most of the environments we're going into, we're not in danger of dying. We're not in danger of massive, massive amounts of loss of of revenue for most of our speaking. Yeah. And we're not in the loss and we're not in the in the danger of losing a whole bunch. Now there are again times that that's the case, but the majority of times it's a missed opportunity. It's a delay. It's not a complete rejection.
And so there's a fear of getting up in front. And honestly, the majority of time it's a fear of being embarrassed. I'm not gonna look good.
Jeff Holman (15:08)
Yeah, it lo losing so people losing respect. So when I when I hear you say that fear, it doesn't sound like you're calling fear the opposite of confidence. It's maybe just one of the the factors that comes into play that you allow or don't allow to influence your presence.
Mike Acker (15:26)
Yeah. So the opposite of confidence would be insecurity, where you're looking at yourself going, I don't have confidence. I don't have trust in myself. I can't do this. I'm no good. Is it more on the imposter syndrome and then confidence? The opposite of fear it is not not actually it's not actually confidence necessarily. The opposite of fear is action. It's taking action regardless and going for it. So speak with no fear is the title of my first book.
Sold over 100,000 copies, been translated in six different languages, and continues on bestseller lists. I think just the other day I looked, it was 40,000 on Amazon. Out of all the the millions of books on Amazon, it was number 40,000. And one day it got up to 560 on Kindle apps, which is crazy. So the reason why that resonates is because there's a lot of people who feel like they're in a dangerous spot speaking and they're anxious. We often say that the number one fear in America.
is public speaking. And so part of it is because there's so much sense of what will people think about me. There's a classic joke by Jerry Seinfeld that speaking is the number one fear. Most people would rather be in the casket at a memorial than the one giving you the
Jeff Holman (16:39)
Speaking
speaking in the memorial. that's funny. Well, so I I love that you say action. but I've had this philosophy with my clients. I work with a lot of innovators, right? And they are creating new things and and I ran into this, I don't know, I observed this this this behavior over and over and over where people super excited about their invention would come to me, they they'd go make prototypes, they'd they'd try to get a patent. But when you said, Hey, have you sold this? Have you
Have you taken it to market? They're like, no, not yet, not yet, not yet. And then eventually they just never do it. And I and I realized, wait a second, why are they not taking action here? What is it that's holding them back? And a lot of times I think it was fear of, you know, being criticized or critiqued for something that they really loved that helped define them who they were. And so they just didn't take action. And and I came to the conclusion that, like you're saying, fear
Well, the way I put it was, and I don't you know, I'm not the expert here, so you can correct me. I'm probably mis misstating some of it. But I came to the conclusion that fear is i is always future based. We're worried about something that's gonna happen in the future and that in our our view of what might happen in the future is what stops us from taking action. And so the you know, the the remedy for fear is to take the action. If you start taking action, the future is no longer in the future, it's now in the present. Like you bring
Action brings the pr the the future into the present and therefore there's not really even a basis for fear anymore. You might not like the results that you see, but but it that's different from being afraid of what could happen in the future. So is
Mike Acker (18:20)
Is there no absolutely so actually I walked through seven strategies in my book and speak with no fear? And the seventh one or sixth one is to be present, to be present in the moment. You know, depression is reflecting on the past and what didn't go well. Anxiety is reflecting on the future and what might not go well, or fear is reflecting on the future and what might not go well. But the gift is the present. And so right there in the present, live in the present. And one of the things that we can do to live in the present in public speaking is.
is enjoy the process along the way, not be thinking about how are people going to receive this, but what do I know of value that I can put down on a piece of paper? Yeah. I'm not going to delegate this to Chat GPT and Claude. What do I know that I could use in my own story to help someone else? And so we start prepping instead of thinking about what will people think and we're jumping ahead a day or two weeks or a year to the presentation. What do I know that's going to help people?
Okay, now when you get up there and speak it, how can I help people right now? Again, not what will they think. Then afterwards, what did I learn from that? Yeah. And what can I learn right now so I can improve right now?
Jeff Holman (19:31)
And
is is this is this the is this the framework that you use with CEOs when you go into there and to talk with them and help them prep for speaking? I mean w what do you I guess what do you see when somebody calls you up and they and they say, Hey, I need some help, Mike. Like I'm I got this presentation coming up or or maybe I wanna start speaking and sharing my company's message more. Like what is that what does that look like?
Mike Acker (19:54)
Yeah, so typically I don't do kind of one off type stuff. Partly because I compare it to to running. Like I love to run. And yeah, at one time I hired a running coach just to see my form, but I'd already been running and I just needed some tips. I just wanted to make sure that I was on the right path. Yeah. But that wasn't going to give me a lot of help. When I started running, that's when I used to coach and I used a three month program. And for three months I worked worked through a coaching program and I got to a spot where I could run. I understood a whole bunch. And then from there on, it's just
checking in maybe periodically. But most people just getting feedback on one situation, it's like that running situation. You actually probably should be pretty decently good already. Most people need a process that they're going to get to. for some reason people have this erroneous d idea that public speaking, learning public speaking, communication training is like a cheat code. I just need to learn something. I can put it into practice tomorrow.
Okay. But that's not the case. Yeah, again, if you're already a runner, yeah, just give me some pointers. I didn't even realize I was doing that with my footfall. Sure, okay, I'll correct that. Because I already know the language, I'm already a runner on this. Yeah. I can already run easily ten minutes.
Jeff Holman (21:08)
adjustment at that point. Not a learning from scratch.
Mike Acker (21:11)
Right, right. But if I'm at the beginning, or even if I've gotten some bad habits, I need to unlearn some different things. And I don't need a cheat code. I need a process that's going to get me from couch to five K to ten K to marathon. Yeah. And I need a process. So with that, what do I do with CEOs? It always starts with an assessment. What what are your strengths and your weaknesses right now? Okay. And so there's two things that are going to dictate how fast you become a better speaker.
First is your starting point. If you're a zero, you're just neutral, then that's gonna be better than if you're negative seven or negative seven.
Jeff Holman (21:49)
Being anxiety over
Mike Acker (21:51)
Really bad, yeah, bad habits, super anxious, nervous. Okay. But if you're a level five, you've actually done something in the past, then you're gonna be closer to ten where you want to be. Got it. So your starting point. The problem without your starting point is although it's helpful for me to understand how long it's gonna take, it's useless to you because your starting point is your starting point. Right. The second ingredient on how fast you're gonna become a better speaker is your commitment level. Again, if you want to become a runner and you run one day a week, that's very different than the person.
Who does stretching and runs four times a week? Right. And does other stuff. Now that person's commitment level is higher. So they're going to make it further. So the first thing I do is let's start seeing what your starting point is. Okay, your starting point's really good. You do this, your starting point's a negative four. Your starting point is here. What do we have to work with? What's negative? What's positive? Let's go from there. Then what's going to work with with you? Do you want to do this every week? Do you want to do every
Other week? Do you want to do once a month? So I've had people who've cruised through one guy did it in a record 12, no, 13 days. And my gosh, he now goes out and he speaks all the time. His commitment level was extremely high. He had just sold his company for something like $13 million, and he was going to go speak at an event, super nervous, not good. He got on the call with me. He's like, Let's do this. He did the entirety of everything I trained people on from start to finish.
Rocked it. Now literally he gets paid to speak.
Jeff Holman (23:22)
He's coached a marathon right there or a couched a marathon right there. So so well that sounds like a six that sounds like a success story with somebody who started pretty was did he start pretty high on the on the scale already or or he just was dedicated to get
Mike Acker (23:36)
Dedicated. So for him, for example, I mean, like literally, he's putting in full out full days. I mean, the typical CEO that's been successful is not shy at hard work. Yeah. And he had the time and he put in the work and he treated like a job. Now there's another person, Dr. Tanya, and she comes in and she took 12 months to do it. And she just had a lot of stuff going on. But she did it very methodically through the process. So she took a lot longer. But
Incredible, incredible results to the point where it was so emotional at the end that she's tearing up and she's like, I never thought I'd come this far. So her starting point was not ridiculously far back, but her commitment level was high, but just slow. Yeah, I tell people consistency beats intensity every time. Now, of course, the guy who did it in 13 days, I mean, it was consistent intensity for him. But most people, it's just about, let's do this, let's take you through the process.
In four months you can be in an incredible spot.
Jeff Holman (24:37)
And and when you say that they got there in thirteen days or they got there in in twelve twelve months, is that when they were giving their first kind of presentation or what what was what was the their part of that?
Mike Acker (24:49)
Yeah. So every person that comes in, I ask them, What are three words that you want to define your speaking? Okay. And then that's the goal. For example, if you said, Mike, I want to be a runner, and then Bob says, I want to be a runner too. And I said, Well, what does that look like for you, Jeff? And you said, I want to start running marathons every other month. And Bob says, I want to be able to run around the block with my kids and just not be wheezing afterwards. Well, completely different. Okay. And as long as Bob
puts in some effort, he's going to get to that goal faster than you. Yeah. But if Bob, if Bob does super slow and you go super fast, you're going to get to your goal even faster than Bob can get to his. So the goal though is not the same. For him, I'm not going like, well, you didn't run a marathon, Bob. I'm saying, hey, are you able to run around the block and feel good with your kids? Versus for you, I'm going to say, Jeff, are you running marathons? And you say, no, but I can run around the block. I'm like, okay, we didn't achieve the
Jeff Holman (25:45)
We're not there yet. So got it. What where have you seen some success stories for CEOs in business, maybe beyond the, you know, CEO turned public speaker or type of persona? Do you have you have you worked with some CEOs where the communication part of their job was significantly improved? And I mean, you said you were in Budapest with with GE people. I I'm I'm sure that's a
corporate communications type of setting as much as anything. Where have you seen some success with with CEOs doing that?
Mike Acker (26:20)
Yeah, yeah. So so part of the story is I was working in corporate. I wrote this book because I was coaching people on the side, purely doing some public speaking lessons on the side. Literally, people would Venmo me money and I would take a walk and coach them as I took a walk. And it was just side money, fun stuff. I wrote a book out of the most commonly asked question was how do I overcome my fear of speaking? So I wrote down my seven strategies, published it, people started reaching out. During that time, I had a gentleman reach out to me. And when he told me the company he worked for, I was.
you so you work for this company? Well, actually, I started it. I'm the founder of it. I'm the CEO of it. And it's a company that people would know here. Yeah. And it was it was one of those, wait a minute. My reach is my reach is getting beyond what I had really planned or thought with this book. Yeah. And as I started working with him, I said, What's your anxiety level? Which is often a question I ask. So his anxiety level to speak was 10 out of 10. And it was just super high. Now here's the guy who started the company.
The company is hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a global company with well over, let's say, well, well, well over twenty countries that it's in. The brand is recognizable.
Jeff Holman (27:31)
What what had prompted him to to wanna re like, did he have a a team meeting coming up or was it just like a personal goal to be a better speaker?
Mike Acker (27:38)
Or yeah. So he he's he passed on an opportunity to be interviewed by a nationally recognized media outlet. And the
Jeff Holman (27:45)
Because of the anxiety.
Mike Acker (27:47)
because of the anxiety. The fear was so high that he and he just thought, you know, what am I doing? And here's a guy who's extremely physically fit. He's got a beautiful wife, beautiful kids, very well liked, great friend, super personable, just the type of guy that's got everything going for him. You know, he does some incredible vacations, just a really nice guy. Most important,
Just a really quality guy. He looks at himself and he goes, Why can't I get up there and speak? Why am I saying no to national coverage for my business that will increase our scope and reach and revenue by millions by doing this? Why can't I get out there and represent my company? What's my problem?
Jeff Holman (28:26)
Yeah. Talking about the thing he already knows, right? Like he built the business. He it's not like he doesn't know the answers. He just something inside of him said, I'm not comfortable with this.
Mike Acker (28:36)
Yeah, it's this is dangerous sense. And there's different reasons for it without going in. But here's a guy who's at the top, let's say level ten of leadership, but he feels like his speaking's at level one. And and that disparity, and the higher the higher of a producer you are, the greater that disparity feels. Like, hey, if you work at McDonald's, that's where I started when I was 18, right? When I you work at McDonald's, if your speaking is at a two, you work at McDonald's.
You're not feeling the disparity a whole bunch. But if you're the CEO of McDonald's and your speaking's at a level five, the disparity is there and you're gonna feel it because your your communication level should be closer to your leadership the higher you go, or even beyond your leadership, like a Steve Jobs and a Saya Nadella and a Jamie Diamond, their speaking and their leadership are right on par. And so they become something that works together. So he comes in and he's like, My speaking is not where it's at.
I don't like how this feels. I don't like what it does for my company. Enough is enough. I'm done with this. And I had just put together a program beyond just taking a walk in public speaking. So I think he was the first or second person who joined in my one-on-one coaching program where I take people through a curriculum, one-on-one coaching and A to Z. And the effects were so crazy amazing that his speaking went down from a 10 down to a two.
Organizations that he had not joined because of fear. He started speaking at and joining. He started representing places like Make Away Foundation and other things because now he didn't have that fear. So I I reached out to him a couple of years later. We did some work together and he had me out and do some different things. But I reached out to him at one point in time and I just asked him, Hey, I'm looking for a friend. he's looking for an executive community or executive coach, because I don't do executive coaching anymore.
Do you have anybody that you would re refer? And he goes, I'd refer you. You are my executive coach. And I just thought, what a what a huge difference in his mind that he said that this guy has helped me speak. Therefore, he has helped me lead. He's helped me with my presence. Therefore, it's multiplied my execution.
Jeff Holman (30:54)
Wow, that's that's fantastic. And well what kind of I'm sure that opened up so many doors, you know, sp like you said, speaking with other organizations, maybe even representing other organizations, I believe you said so. i is that the same thing as somebody finding their voice?
Mike Acker (31:11)
not not necessarily finding a voice. So finding a voice, I would say is part of finding your confidence. I wrote a book called Speak with Confidence. And it's kind of the the follow-up to speak with no fear. Now speak with confidence got traditionally published. It was once I was doing this full time. And in that book, I talk about the three pillars of confidence, the three sources of confidence. It's my speak with confidence framework. And so you have identity, message, and skills. So you want to really understand who you are.
You want to learn what to say and you want to know how to say it. So think about skills. If I if I'm if you said, Mike, let's go play lacrosse. No thanks. I'm not going to feel confident. I'm going feel insecure. I might even have a little fear because I'm getting embarrassed. I'm in danger of getting hurt and embarrassed on the field because I don't have skills. I don't know how to hold the stick. But you said, Mike, let's go play soccer. Now I'm going to feel confidence, maybe more than I should.
Maybe some bravado, because my inner 17-year-old's going to come out where I grew up in Mexico playing soccer. So you're like, all right, let's go for it. I have the skills. I know how to do it. Let's do it. Now the second is your messaging. Your messaging is like knowing the roadmap. If you said, Mike, come visit me in Budapest and drive to the store. I have no idea where I'm going without a GPS. But if you said, Mike, you live in Austin, Texas, you're from Seattle, drive from Seattle from here to here. Yeah, let's go for it. I know the roadmap.
So I have confidence because I know where I'm going. Now the third is that conf that that confidence comes from identity. And that's where finding your voice and finding out who you are really. Who are you? One of the things that happens is every single time that you stand on stage and on in some kind of audience, anytime you put yourself out there, it magnifies your insecurities. So whatever insecurity you have, if you haven't dealt with it, it magnifies it. I'm 45, my hair has receded.
It's not what it once was. And I have dealt with that insecurity. It's something I kind of joke about nowadays. I wish it wasn't there, but I've accepted it on that. Now some people haven't. That insecurity is still part of it. And the moment they get up in front, any insecurities, conscious or subconscious, gets multiplied. Yeah. And yeah, magnified. And ultimately what you want to do is really dive into yourself and you want to learn, yeah, what do you accept about yourself? What do you appreciate about yourself?
What do you need to improve about yourself? You need to deal with those insecurities, deal with those areas of your life so that when you're in front of people, you know who you are, you have dealt with who you are, you have made peace with who you are, you've accepted, you've appreciated, you've applauded who you are, you've made a plan to improve who you are instead of wondering who you are in front of people.
Jeff Holman (34:00)
Man, you've got frameworks, you've got books, you've got like I feel like and I feel like I've peppered you with some questions here. I'm trying to I'm trying to synthesize all this. For a for a CEO who's listening to this and saying, Yeah, I feel I feel pretty good about this, but I but you know, I this resonates with me. I probably have some gaps here or the disparity is larger than I want it to be. Like like w what are the what would be the first steps for somebody who's saying, I think I want to take some action
around this in my leadership role or personally. W do they do they call? Do they read your books? Do they like do a self assessment? What where do they turn typically?
Mike Acker (34:40)
Yeah, I mean, would love to set up a call. You can go to myacker.com and set up a consultation with me there or go to the coaching part. But and and it's like I have a team of people who coach, and then I coach typically executives and such. But perhaps one way to do it is to get some honest feedback. Now, I say honest and let me specify feedback because there are some people who listen and go, maybe I need to do that. And then they go,
Hey team, how's my communication? The team who doesn't communicate very well either says good. And the other person says, I don't need it. Yeah. Okay. So Satya Nadella in the nineteen nineties was the the classic just speaker. Okay. Yeah. If you look at the I I have five levels of of speaking. So you have bad, you have average, you have good, you have professional, you have celebrity. So celebrity is where you can break all the rules. They can do whatever they want because they have a big enough name.
That nobody cares. It's just they're there. Malcolm Gladwell is not a great speaker, but I'd listen to him speak because I like his books. Right. He's a celebrity speaker. Professional is someone who actually gets paid for it. This person better be pretty darn good when they're giving their keynote. Because if you're going to charge $20,000, your your product bet better be pretty good. This is not the homemade burger anymore. This is a professionally developed burger. And then in the professional life, most people are going to be bad, average.
Or good. And the reality is most low average. Yeah. But when they look at other low average, guess what? They fit in. Because they're low average and everybody else is low average. But that only gets you so far.
Jeff Holman (36:25)
They're not trying to be Bill Clinton or or, you know, Steve Jobs or whoever we might think of as the real dynamic speakers out there.
Mike Acker (36:33)
Which is sad because what is it that got Steve Jobs to where he is? His speaking. He had high execution, but he had high presence. He had he could show up. If you look at Saya Nadella, what went first? Sometimes people's ability to get elevated to the top goes first, but it's usually hand in hand. Their speaking is close to their ability to get things done. Now, at one point in time, Saatya Nadella had to go through some communication training, not with me, before I was doing it.
But he was working on his communication. And now people go, man, he's a great speaker. Now some people just naturally work on it along the way. Warren Buffett says, out of every degree I've ever gotten, the best degree I've ever received was the one I did for public speaking when I was right out of college. He says it's the only one I have posted on my wall.
Jeff Holman (37:24)
Really.
Mike Acker (37:26)
So you think what went first? It was their ability to speak. Now the speaking became a multiplier to it instead of a subtractor. So when you're looking at it, get honest feedback. Because if I go to a whole bunch of people who are bad at soccer, but think they're good, think they're good enough, and I say, How are my soccer skills? They're gonna be like, my gosh, you're amazing. Right. So I'm gonna walk away going, I don't need a soccer coach. I'm amazing.
If I go run a race and every single person is running a 13 minute mile and I run a 12 minute mile.
Jeff Holman (38:01)
AKA walking almost.
Mike Acker (38:03)
Yeah, that is a walking. That's exactly what it is, a fast walk. And and I walk and I run a twelve minute mile, which is like a five point five a speed. Yeah, I'm gonna be like, I fast. I'm fast, check that out. Right. But if I join a marathon and people are running, this is crazy, a four and a half minute mile for a marathon. Right.
I'm going to realize that I am far behind. So don't compare yourself with some average bad. Go get some honest feedback. And my dog is so passionate about this that he's agreeing with me, right? Like in the background there. Yeah. Yeah. He's speaking up. He's like, this is right. This is right. Get this. So look at who you are for what your role should be. If you're a cashier at McDonald's, I'd still want you to be better at cashiering than anybody else along the way. Yeah. And you want to grab a hold of that.
And go, where should I be? Also, not where are you now? If I'm a cashier at McDonald's, I don't always want to be a cashier at McDonald's. I want to be the manager. Shoot, I want to start my own chain. Shoot, I want to start my own restaurant and I want to start a franchise. I want to be the next Chick-fil-A. Now, the cav average cashier doesn't have to be very good. But the cashier that's going places, that person needs to be great. Yeah. So where do you want to go? Your speaking can lead.
the way and open up doors for you then to have the right education and experience along the way.
Jeff Holman (39:24)
There's probably a whole probably a whole other episode we can talk about what that path looks like for people as they as they're as they're progressing from where they are to where they want to be. but we'll leave that for another day. But Mike, it's been it's been great having you on the show. I really think that there's I guess there's a lot more to this this topic than what we've discussed today. So people can go and they can buy your books, speak without fear. Is that
Mike Acker (39:50)
Yeah, speak with no fear with no fear. Speak with confidence.
Jeff Holman (39:52)
sort of confidence.
Yeah. And and I think you might have a few other books. And if they want to get a hold of you, what's what's your website where they can schedule a meeting, get in touch with you or your team?
Mike Acker (40:04)
Yeah, Mikeacker A C K E R like Tracker, Mikeacker.com. Easy to go in there, find me there. The company I started is up level communication dot com. So up levelcommunication dot com or mikeacker.com.
Jeff Holman (40:20)
Fantastic. Well it's been such a pleasure having you on the show today. I really appreciate you coming and sharing your insights. maybe we'll have to do a round two at some point and figure out how to how to dive deeper into some of these things. But but for today, I was so glad you could share these these thoughts with our audience.
Mike Acker (40:36)
Hey, thank you so much, Jeff. So glad to be here with you and your audience.
Jeff Holman (40:40)
Thank you so much. And for our audience members who who joined us again today, we're always glad to have you on the Breakout CEO. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence.
Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.
