194. Incremental. Intentional. Impactful. with Alfred Poor

This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:00:21 Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess. Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours. Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at Coach. Sandee Sgarlata, enjoy the show. Alfred, what an honor and a privilege to have you on today. Thank you so much.

Alfred Poor 00:01:41 It's my pleasure. I'm glad to be here.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:01:44 I was tripping over my words because they're coming to pick up the recycling right now outside my window. And I'm like, of course, hopefully nobody can hear that. But hey, this is real life, right?

Alfred Poor 00:01:56 Exactly.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:01:57 So I'm looking at your bio and I love everything that you're doing and we're going to dive into all of that. And I want to talk specifically about how you're helping people with their online presence because right now, in this day and age, it's so important on so many levels, like whether you're applying for a job, you're doing a podcast. There's so many ways. But before we dive into all of that, I want to know about you because you and I were in we're in the mentor studio together. I see you, we talk on calls and whatnot, but it's always business related or masterminding all those great things. Tell me about you. I mean, we all have a story. So what is your story and how you got to where you are today?

Alfred Poor 00:02:42 So my story starts as I was a Biomater in college. So I've always had an interest in science and technology, taught middle school science straight out of college for a couple of years and discovered in the process that I'm a very good teacher, but I'm not suited for the classroom. I don't work well in 40 minutes segments. Yeah, I discovered that every day when the next bell rings and the next class walks in, you know, there's some kid in that room who who's ready for you today. This is their moment and you need to be on if you're going to reach them. And I'm just not that consistent. I probably get more work done in a week than most people, but it might happen Tuesday morning and most of Thursday. I'm not consistent the way a classroom teacher really needs to be, but I've learned to teach through other mechanisms. I ended up writing for PC Magazine for over 20 years, helping people understand computers and that technology when it was all new. As I like to tell people, when the computer you want cost $3,000, you care which one's best. When it costs $300, you don't care so much. So PC magazine sort of wound down. I stopped writing for them shortly before they stopped printing a paper magazine, but I was their expert on displays, and that was the time when people were we were doing the switch from analog to digital broadcast in the US. And people were confused about what's HD and what's digital, and do we need a new television and what's this flat screen? It was confusing plasma with LCD.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:04:21 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:04:22 So I helped them understand. I had a good five year run helping people with that. But again, the $5,000 television becomes a $500 television and you don't care so much. So for the last, I don't know, six years or so, I've been editor of a website about wearable technology for health and medical applications because I believe that the healthcare system as we have it structured now, is not sustainable. We don't have enough money, we don't have enough people to make it work. And to me, the only way out of the box is technology. So again, I'm explaining technology concepts to people in ways that they can put to practical use.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:05:02 Right? Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:05:04 That's two minute quick summary of the checkered career.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:05:09 No, that's really awesome. And I love how you know yourself so well, because I'm kind of the same way, where I'm really good at what I do and I know that it would not transfer into the classroom. Yeah, for sure.

Alfred Poor 00:05:24 I have great respect for people who can do things that I'm not good at.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:05:29 Teachers, we need them. We need good ones, and they're such an important part of the whole world, not just here in the United States, but worldwide. But it does take a special person to do that work. Yeah. So what got you involved in technology? Because I'm married to a tech geek, so I'm guessing you're probably very similar. Yeah. What is it about technology that draws you? Because it's definitely something that's not appealing to everyone and it's hard. It's a lot to take in. It's confusing.

Alfred Poor 00:06:05 So I think one thing I can share about the genesis of all this, one of the things well, first of all, I'll tell you, one of my favorite lines is, yes, my father really was a rocket scientist, and yes, my son really did brain surgery. We don't know what happened to me. We must skip generations or something.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:06:27 So when you say it's not like brain surgery. It's not like rocket science.

Alfred Poor 00:06:31 Right, exactly. Well, I got that in my family. But I think one of the interesting things about growing up is my dad was always interested in clocks and watches and stuff, and when he had a clock that he couldn't repair for whatever reason, he'd give it to me to take apart. And I think that early exposure of seeing complex instruments and how pieces fit together to accomplish things gave me an interest about how things work and wanting to look inside, which is part of what led me to biology, obviously, because it's how living things work.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:07:17 Right.

Alfred Poor 00:07:18 But then in high school, as part of our math program, I stumbled into computer programming early on. And though I probably haven't written more than one or two programs in the 40 years, 50 years since I got out of college, I understand some programming, but that's what introduced me to the power of the kinds of things that computers and digital technology can do for people. So I have an appreciation of it, but also have somewhat of an affinity for that kind of information. But again, the superpower is being able to take that complex technology and explain it to people in ways that they can go ahead and put it to.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:08:04 Use well, and that's what trips most people up, is that technical?

Alfred Poor 00:08:10 There are a lot of people who are much better on the technology than I am, and there are a lot of people who are much better communicators than I am.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:08:16 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:08:16 But there are not too many people who are as good at both as I am.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:08:19 Yeah. And it's the technical writing side of it. I'm a writer, and don't ask me to write anything technical because I wouldn't be able to do it because so it's a totally different skill set that you've been able to master. Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:08:34 So one of my favorite exercises, I've written manuals for computer programs and all kinds of stuff like that. One of my favorite exercises with my middle school science students was I was trying to teach them about science and observation and being able to document things carefully. And I would walk out of the classroom, then I'd walk in and I'd do something like pick up a ball and put it on the chalkboard and move something else around, and then I'd walk out and then I'd come back in and have the students read back what they wrote down about what I did. And so I would act out literally what they said. No, you turned right. I meant to tell you to turn right as I start walking into the walls and stuff like that. So I think it is a real skill that a lot of people don't encounter about how to write clearly and document things in ways that will help somebody understand rather than confuse them or make it more difficult for them.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:09:36 Yeah, exactly. So my podcast is all about happiness. And before we started recording, we were talking about how you work with people and we want to dive into that and how you help people with their online presence. So I'm like, okay, we're going to relate that to happiness. And so folks, the next time you do a job interview, it's probably going to be virtual, maybe not. You may be a guest on television. You could be a guest on a podcast. There's all different types of applications, right? And I want you to be happy about it. And this is the man that's going to tell us how to do that. And he was explaining all the things that he has. I'm like, wow, I'm using the camera on my computer here, and I do have a really good microphone. Can I send you the invoice after we're done? When I have to upgrade it, when I feel like I have to upgrade everything that you're going to teach me today?

Alfred Poor 00:10:34 Well, the cool thing is you don't have to upgrade everything. And one of my key points when I'm working with a client is we start where they are, right, with whatever equipment they've got, with whatever skills they've got, whatever preconceived notions they have about presenting to people. And we start with that as the foundation. And basically I have what I call the three eyes of improvement. You want to make changes that are incremental, intentional, and impactful.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:11:06 Let me stop you right there and hold that thought.

Alfred Poor 00:11:10 Sure.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:11:11 Because that's a golden nugget right there for life. And when you're working with another person or you're communicating with another person, you're in a relationship with another person, you meet them where they are. That's the best way to start out, right? You meet them where they are, not expecting them to be where you are. You meet them where they are. But the three eyes, repeat those again, because that's really.

Alfred Poor 00:11:40 I came up with this about making improvements for your online appearance and the impression that you make. But if you think about it, this really applies to any change, any change you want to make in your business or in your personal life or anything, for sure. You just don't go around making changes at random.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:12:01 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:12:02 So again, the three eyes are incremental.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:12:04 Okay?

Alfred Poor 00:12:05 Don't try to boil the ocean. Don't try to change everything at once.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:12:09 I'm writing this down as we're talking incremental, intentional, right?

Alfred Poor 00:12:15 And again, don't just accept the defaults. You want to do the things on purpose rather than just fall into it and impactful. Do the ones that are going to make the most change for looking good online. Yeah, you could go out and spend tens of thousands of dollars and build a studio and get video people and audio sound people, and wardrobe people and makeup and all that. You can do all that. But is that going to have the impact? Is that going to give you the return on your investment that's going to make it worth it, right? And in some cases, yes. But for most people, you don't need to go that far. And so there are a lot of little things you can do that can have a very impactful difference on how you come across online.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:13:04 So incremental. I'm just going to talk about how we're going to apply this to Life, and you're going to talk about how you apply it to your technology. How's that can we play that game, Alfred?

Alfred Poor 00:13:13 Absolutely.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:13:14 Okay. So incremental, if I'm making changes in my life, right? You want to lose weight, you want to build muscle. It doesn't happen overnight, right? It's baby steps. Baby steps. It's incremental. Same is true if you're trying to give up a habit or whatever or trying to start a new habit. Sometimes it's best to just take things in little pieces, and then you build upon it. And another thing I just want to add to just keep this relevant to personal development, 1% better. I was working with a client yesterday, and he's an actor, and he was working on a script, and I said, he's like, I'm just not getting I go, just work on 1% better a day if you can do 1% better every day. And he was like, I'm like, because in seven days, you'll be 7% better. He's like, oh, my gosh, thank you.

Alfred Poor 00:14:06 Actually, it compounds.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:14:08 Compounds, right.

Alfred Poor 00:14:09 In seven days, you're probably going to be about 10% better.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:14:12 Right? Exactly.

Alfred Poor 00:14:13 Yeah.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:14:14 All right. So that's my personal development on your incrementals to talk about.

Alfred Poor 00:14:19 Well, I recently lost £20.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:14:21 Oh, cool. Congratulations.

Alfred Poor 00:14:24 And it didn't happen all at once. Of course not. Part of it was making space in my life and making a priority out of exercise. I needed more aerobic exercise. So I did that and established that. And then the next thing was to become more aware of what I eat and when I eat it.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:14:43 Right.

Alfred Poor 00:14:45 And so it was just a series of one step at a time, because a lot of people, I seem that when they want to do weight loss, oh, I've got to exercise. I got to get a new wardrobe. I've got to change how I eat. I've got to go over these restaurants anymore, and it's overwhelming. And don't eat the elephant all at once. One bite at a time.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:15:07 Yeah. So how does one use that, being incremental when it comes to their online presence?

Alfred Poor 00:15:16 Okay, so one of the things we were talking about when I first came on camera, he said, oh, you like the way I look because I'm standing up.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:15:24 Yeah, I love it.

Alfred Poor 00:15:26 It's not so much that I'm standing up. Okay. You see more of me.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:15:31 Right.

Alfred Poor 00:15:32 And I was talking with a psychology professor from Stanford who's done a lot of studying about communications in the world of zoom with online meetings and conferences and stuff, and he made some really good points. One of the ones is most people were framed like this when they're on a zoom call or whatever. And his point was, you're too close. It's like you're coming out of the screen at you, right. And you're invading the other person's person.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:16:04 Like, trying to move back.

Alfred Poor 00:16:05 And actually they're going to start rack by backing up, which is the opposite reaction. You want to engage, you want to draw them out. His research shows that the more of your torso that you show on screen, the more trustworthy, the more approachable, the more friendly you appear.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:16:22 Oh, wow.

Alfred Poor 00:16:24 All right. But don't take my word for it. Don't take his word for it. Watch television. All right? Watch your favorite news channel.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:16:32 You're right.

Alfred Poor 00:16:33 What does it look like when the host is talking or some of their guests? They're not framed like this.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:16:40 No, they're not.

Alfred Poor 00:16:41 They're not. You're going to see somewhere between the bottom of the sternum, the rib cage and the belt, they're going to be framed like that.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:16:49 Right.

Alfred Poor 00:16:51 And another advantage is if you talk to speech King coaches. Speech coaches one of the things people always have a problem with what to do with their hands. A lot of speaking coaches teach that this is the zone of power. You keep your hands in here, you don't go flying all over the room, but you keep your hands controlled and you make the gestures meaningful. Now, if you're cropped here, your hands are out of the story, or you have to bring them up here, which is unnatural. Right.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:17:26 I talk with my hands, so my hands are always flying all the way. I'm the person when you're out, they're like moving glasses out of my way.

Alfred Poor 00:17:36 But if I want to demonstrate something, this looks like a toothpaste commercial or something. It's not natural. Whereas if I can hold it down here, it looks much more natural.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:17:47 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:17:48 Okay. The one simple thing that everybody can do is get further from their camera. Get far enough away, you can be seated. I mean, I could be seated here, but I get more energy by standing.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:18:03 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:18:04 I'm like moving my and in fact, in my entire office here, I have no chair.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:18:10 Okay.

Alfred Poor 00:18:11 I committed to standing almost ten years ago. Burns more energy, tightens the core muscles. Got rid of my back pain. Whole lot of advantages to standing all day. Wow.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:18:25 Well, they said standing or sitting is the new smoking. They said that probably five years ago. I heard that.

Alfred Poor 00:18:31 That was about almost ten years ago. Yeah. I ended up building my own treadmill desk back then as I got into it, because from sitting to standing burns about twice as many calories, and from standing to walking is another 50%. It's pretty impressive in terms of what it can do for you. But I could be seated in a chair at this point, and you could still have this kind of framing. Again, on television, almost all the people are seated.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:19:09 You're right. And you see them at least you're.

Alfred Poor 00:19:11 Still going to see them somewhere in.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:19:12 Here, like even on the news, you see them usually from around their belly button up exactly. Sitting at a desk or whatever. Wow, what great advice.

Alfred Poor 00:19:23 And it's impactful. One of the things I do is do a lot with virtual event technology. I help a group called the Virtual Events Group, and in that, I get just called in for demonstrations of a lot of the new platforms that are coming out. And so this one company was very interesting product. It's a metaverse kind of setting, but people can walk around the room, and you can sit at a table and see each other in real time. It's not avatars. It's your photo moving around the room. So it was kind of cool. But the woman who we were meeting on Zoom first before the demonstration started, and I was just a couple of minutes late getting in. And so when I popped up on the screen, she blurted out, oh, you look so professional. Now, this is somebody whose job it is to do online stuff and look good at it. And she wasn't complimenting me. She was just like a reaction.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:20:27 It was a reaction that she an excited utterance.

Alfred Poor 00:20:29 Yeah, right. And she was just surprised by it. And the fact is, people do notice. They really can tell the difference when you're making this a better impression. And I believe that's a competitive advantage at this point.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:20:46 Absolutely right.

Alfred Poor 00:20:48 What you're doing. And the other part of it is we're going to be continuing to do online meetings a lot more than we did in the past.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:20:58 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:20:58 It's not going with the pandemic being over. Yeah. If we were to do this interview, it's unlikely that one of us would travel to the other's place to record this for a half hour.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:21:13 It's not feasible. I mean, I've interviewed well over 200 people in the past two years. More than that, and it would never have happened.

Alfred Poor 00:21:20 It would never have happened. And so, yeah, we're still going to be doing things in person, and that's great. But this online thing is so convenient, so effective that we're going to keep doing it. And the better you are at it, the more success you're going to have with it and the happier you'll be.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:21:40 Absolutely. All right. Intentional. So I love this so much. And then you even said on purpose, because everything we do in life has to be intentional, whether you're I always say I was on a friend of mine's podcast this morning, and it was like he talked about the pursuit of happiness. How do you define happiness? And I go, well, it's definitely not the pursuit. It's not the pursuit of happiness, because then it's the end game. Then it's like you're trying to reach something and being happy is a journey. It's not a destination. In order to keep your happiness as a journey, you have to be intentional about it, and you have to practice it and choose to be happy every single day. So talk about with what you teach, how you make sure it's intentional and on purpose.

Alfred Poor 00:22:35 One of the things I'm sure I taught my kids this, but it's something I will tell people when the situation arises, that not making a choice is a choice.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:22:46 That's right, absolutely.

Alfred Poor 00:22:51 If you choose not to take action, that's a choice. If you choose not to pay attention to something, that's a choice. One of my points is intentionality. Right. The problem I have is I know these seen a lot of executives who look you put them on stage, you put them in a boardroom, they look great, but you bring them onto a zoom meeting, or you bring them onto an online conference and have them do a presentation. And I like to tell people it looks like they've joined witness protection. And the way they present themselves is not on brand. Not on brand for them, personally, professionally. It's not on brand for their company. It's not on message. And had they thought about how they're coming across, I'm sure they wouldn't actively choose to do that. But they just take the default. They open up their laptop on their kitchen table. They've got the up the nose view, you've got the ceiling fan in the top spinning around, and they just do that by default without thinking about it. And so one of the ones that here is a tip that everybody can do right today when you get off of this. Almost all webcams have a setting that automatically adjusts the exposure, so when the light changes, it keeps the exposure. Right. Turn that off.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:24:27 Okay.

Alfred Poor 00:24:29 Switch it to manual.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:24:31 Go ahead.

Alfred Poor 00:24:32 Because you don't need it to make changes. You're not going anywhere. You're not moving from room to room. You're sitting in one place, and nothing good can come of it if it decides to make changes. I have a dear friend who did a wonderful presentation, webinar style presentation, and she was wearing a fairly saturated red sweater, which looked really, really nice, except her webcam was changing the exposure. So it was red. No, it was magenta. No, it's red again. It's magenta now. Now it's back to red. And it kept flipping back and forth throughout her presentation. It was so distracting.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:25:18 Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:25:19 Clearly it's not something you would choose to have happen.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:25:22 Right. Interesting. So that would be in your camera settings.

Alfred Poor 00:25:27 So it's in your camera settings. And different cameras have it different ways, but there'll be a slider or something for exposure, and there'll be a little checkbox to make it auto. Just clear that checkbox, move the slider around until you've got the lighting looking the way you'd like it to be. And that way you can eliminate surprises.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:25:51 Yeah. That's huge. That's really huge.

Alfred Poor 00:25:54 So your last eye, that's part of the intentional, don't just take that default setting, right. Choose control over how you're going to appear.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:26:08 Love it. Yeah. And as soon as we get off, I'm going to actually check my settings. I have no idea. All right. Lastly, we have impactful. And this is so huge because whether you're looking to make an impact on yourself or the world around you, if you're making positive changes for yourself by default you're going to impact everyone around you. I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with that came to me because of one specific result they were trying to get. They get the result. Oh, and by the way, the relationship with one of my kids that wasn't so great all of a sudden is amazing. And it's because when we change how we show up in the world, everyone around us begins to notice it and they respond in a different way. So impactful is not just because I think sometimes people impactful, they think of making an impact on the world. No, dumb it down, dumb it down, right. You can't change the world but you can change your environment. You can make changes in your own life. That can be so impactful for everybody that you love.

Alfred Poor 00:27:25 Absolutely. And for me there's also a bit of the return on investment aspect to it. I'm sure if you and I may not have done this ourselves, we certainly know people who have been in the well, I'll just take one more course and that's going to explain everything I need to know. I'll just get this one more coach, I'll get just this one more thing and they just keep adding things on without focusing on the delivery and what value are they going to get out of that and what value. So for me the thing to do is find the things that's going to be most leverage. Basically we all are limited in time, right? We only have so many hours in the day. And so you have to choose how you're going to use those best for whatever the many, many ranges of goals that you might have. And most of us don't have unlimited funds. So what are the things that can make the biggest change for you with the smallest investment of time and money? And again, just moving back from the camera costs you nothing.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:28:40 Exactly.

Alfred Poor 00:28:40 But it can have a big impact.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:28:42 I love that. Wow, this has been so insightful. And I know that the audience will be able to take some of these things because I know I have a lot of other coaches that listen and consultants and I think everybody in today's world we're on camera at some point or another. And if you're working, a lot of my friends are stay at home moms and they never get on camera. Right. So it just depends. But thank you so much. So how can people find you and also share a little bit about if an executive came to you and say, how does that process work with you?

Alfred Poor 00:29:23 Absolutely. So, first of all, it's kind of easy to find me. I'm Alfred Poor. P-O-O-R. Like no money. I'm Alfred Poor on LinkedIn. I'm Alfred Poor on Twitter. I'm Alfred Poor on Facebook. If you want to email me, I'm Alfred@Alfredpour.com. My website is Alfredpour.com. So it's kind of easy. One of the nice things about getting into technology early is you get to grab your name before somebody else does. But then in terms of process, again, you and I may not fall into this category, but there certainly are some people who have spent a lot of money on trainings and coachings and other programs that wasn't a good fit or turned out to be kitchen sinkware where they just threw everything into the online course.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:30:16 I've taken a few of those in the past few years. Yeah.

Alfred Poor 00:30:20 To wade through it on your own and try to find the nuggets that are relevant to you. And I've always tried to do business in a way that I wish others would do business with me.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:30:30 I love that.

Alfred Poor 00:30:31 And so for this, this is a very custom kind of approach. Don't put people through courses because it's.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:30:40 Not a one size fits all. It can't be.

Alfred Poor 00:30:43 It's absolutely not. And so it's start where you are, pick the one thing and move on from that. And the first step is call me. First step, let's just get to know each other and at the end of the call, we'll both have a better idea of whether it's a good fit. Fantastic. But I don't want to take anybody's money until we've had a chance to explore how we might work together. I've got programs that range from one thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars. So there's something within range of most people. Yeah, it's customizable and it's all very customizable, but rather than go into details, let's have a call, see what might be a good fit for you and take it from there.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:31:29 Fantastic. Alfred, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been so insightful. For those that are listening, his contact information will be in the show notes. Please reach out to him. And if you're on camera, use some of these tips because you bet my next webinar I'm going to be standing up and I actually, there we go about that before and I was like, maybe I should be standing up now. I'm definitely going to.

Alfred Poor 00:31:56 Good. Excellent.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:31:57 All right, Alfred, thank you so much and my pleasure. Yeah. Just such a joy to talk to you today.

Alfred Poor 00:32:03 Thanks.

Sandee Sgarlata 00:32:15 I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace. Joy and happiness. Take care, everyone.