The Power of Relatability: Why Humor and Vulnerability Win Every Time

In this powerful conversation, Elaine sits down with Salvatore Manzi, a corporate speaking expert who helps purpose-driven leaders translate complex, data-rich ideas into clear, compelling messages. With decades of experience coaching executives and teams, Salvatore shares practical tools to elevate communication, build presence, and lead with authenticity.

You’ll hear insights on:

• 🔹 How to break down complex ideas so people lean in instead of glaze over
• 🔹 Why executive presence is less about perfection and more about authenticity
• 🔹 The art of “taking up space” and showing up with confidence in any room
• 🔹 Simple techniques to practice presence, improve delivery, and embrace mistakes
• 🔹 Why practicing in silly accents or exaggerated voices might be the best hack for memorization and confidence
• 🔹 Navigating the double standards women face in leadership communication—and how to find your neutral

This episode is packed with actionable wisdom, relatable stories, and those “aha moments” that will leave you inspired to stretch outside your comfort zone. Whether you’re speaking to one person or thousands, these insights will help you communicate with clarity and impact.

👉 If you know someone who wants to uplevel their speaking, presence, or storytelling—share this episode with them!

Resources & Links

To order his new book: https://www.salvatoremanzi.com/ccpb/

• Learn more about Salvatore Manzi: www.SalvatoreManzi.com
• Stay tuned for his upcoming book Clear and Compelling, releasing this fall
• Connect with Elaine at https://zoomwelaine.com/meet/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review Captivate the Mic—it helps more people find these conversations and join our community of conscious, purpose-driven leaders.

Salvatore Manzi, a facilitator with several decades of experience designing and leading transformative conversations for teams, executives, and organizations. Salvatore specializes in guiding high-stakes meetings, leadership retreats, and strategic planning sessions that lead to an inclusive, high-performing culture. 

He has facilitated leadership summits for Fortune 100 companies, coached executives from start up through IPO, and led sessions that have helped nascent and seasoned teams navigate complex organizational shifts. A life-long public speaker with a degree in communications and organizational behavior, Salvatore began his career by focusing his passion on helping others own their stage moments until a pivotal moment came when he volunteered to help lead a support group and witnessed a master facilitator create the space for true transformation within the group. 

With a new focus on how leadership and facilitation align, he applied his research into the psychology and neuroscience of  communication strategies to the facilitation sp

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Transcript

0:04

Hello and welcome to Captivate the Mic with Elaine Williams. I am committed to having an entertaining podcast that also has great content and helps you be a better speaker, communicator, whether you're on stage, on camera, guesting, on podcasts, leading meetings, and everything in between. And I am so excited for you to listen to the interview today. I met this man. We met through LinkedIn. And do you ever just meet somebody and you're like, this soul, this human being is so precious. This man, his name is Salvato Manzi, and he is a corporate speaking. Expert and he helps purpose-driven leaders who are in big organizations who have big concepts to explain. He helps them speak in clear and compelling ways so that they are super effective with their communication and so that they're able to explain complex ideas and projects and issues and break them down. So that they can be effective leaders and fix whatever they're working on, and he has a book coming out in the fall, this man is a true master. I felt like I grew and upped my game in the very short. Interaction that we had. I am so delighted for you because I think you're gonna really love this conversation. And if there's anybody in your life who wants to be a more effective communicator, storyteller, whether they're speaking to one person, or thousands, please share this. Episode with them and please subscribe, rate, and review because that's how we get out more and that's how more people hear it. So thank you so much for being here and being part of the community. I'm so glad you're here and I can't wait to hear what you think about this amazing interview with Salvatore. Hi everybody. Welcome to Captivate the Mic with Elaine Williams. You are in for such a treat today. This guy is, I would consider a communication master. Oh, wow. So Salvatore Manzi, thank you so much for coming. Welcome. We're so happy that you're here. I think it is such a joy to be here. It is such a joy and your smiling face is just lighting me up already. Let's do this. Let's do this. So I am Salvatore and I met months ago and then, life happens and had a dozen, the family, and I'm so grateful I. That we were persistent and we kept, we were back and we ma we're making it happen. Salvatore, can you tell the listeners I would love to know how you got into the work that you do. You work with executive leaders with executive presence. I always love to know the story behind how you, how what started you. Thank you. Yeah. I work primarily with data-driven leaders who are trying to make complex concept clear and compelling, and which is the name of my book coming out in September. Clear and Compelling. Yes. I know. The idea being that a lot of these data-driven leaders have very complex data rich information. That it's hard to just like download onto people. And so with communication strategies, I help them to create, I. Start having engagement and start having impact and influence. So I work primarily with leaders and their teams to elevate communication so that they can have more inclusive, high performing culture and have more success with what they're doing. But to answer your story, I grew up in the speaking world. My dad was a communicator. He would go to conferences, speaking on finance. Budgeting, how to organize your budget, all these kinds of things. I was inspired. I got up in stages when I was in college. I spoke on what was then called multiculturalism. Now. I know, right? We've evolved so far. And now you can't say DEII know. It's God forbid, where are we? What is going on? Anyway I had a lot of fun up on the stages, but I, people keep coming up and asking me, how do you do it? How do you do it? And so I started sharing with other people and found. I found my passion really is in helping people find the ability to authentically express themselves and feel comfortable while doing so and evoking that sense of presence, that, that factor that causes people to lean in. And I know that we share a lot of work. We work with a similar audience and we coach along the same lines. It takes a lot to feel. Empowered to take up the space, to be myself, to let myself be seen and to go into that boardroom or office or whatever the meeting is and make my point and be there. I love it. I love it so much. Yes, and I always tell people, I work with a. A lot of females and if you're watching somebody who's good on camera, don't worry. They made a lot of bad videos that they have since taken down. Nobody rolls outta bed, da. And like Jerry Lewis, he was an amazing entertainer. He grew up on vaudeville. So there's, there's something about the mastery of it and it reminds me, Salvatore, I went to see this play in La Jolla at La Jolla Playhouse, and I was with my old agent and. And it was still being workshopped. It was in the previews. Got it. And it was this amazing plan, a lot of young actors, and you could feel they were still getting their sea legs for the characters and for the stage. And then the woman playing, the mother walks in and I was like, oh, she had this presence and she sat at the kitchen table like. Smoking a cigarette and you could just feel like it was mastery. Do you know what I mean? She was so good and it was just like everybody else was in black and white and she was technicolor, and that comes from years and years of being on the stage and being comfortable and working on your craft. And I like to tell people it doesn't have to take you years. And how do you get better at something? You keep doing it right. You practice. You gotta get outside your comfort zone. You've gotta make mistakes. You and I both, we do trainings. We coach people if they're not willing to go that extra limit to make themselves silly. I. In front of me, the coach or the trainer of the group. If they can't do that they're not gonna break out of the mold there, right? You're not gonna get from here to there by doing what you've been doing already. You've gotta use your voice in a new way. You've got to learn to. Move your body in a different way. See how it feels, right? And it's gonna feel awkward and embrace the awkwardness of it in the safe spaces, right? You can learn from it versus getting into a high stakes engagement and trying this thing for the first time, right? I'm gonna speak louder today. I'm like, no, not a good opportunity. Let's practice first. Yes. I love my, I love doing warmups, tip of the tongue, the roof of the mouth, the lips, the tongue and the teeth. And I'll be like, now do it Shakespeare. And just to get them to stretch now, do it little, do it bigger. I thought everybody knew how to warm up and then I realized nobody knows how to warm up. Nobody wants to warm up. But it's so good when you can get in that habit. My, my number one hack for my clients who have to deliver a keynote, I've helped a couple of people present at the United Nations. Oh my gosh. And that's a high stakes. You've got cameras, you've got a lot on, and they're how do I memorize my speech? Yeah, there's teleprompters, right? But you wanna, and I'm like, first of all, don't memorize it. Yes. That's the death. You'll forget one word and everything will fall down like dominoes. Don't memorize bullet points. Make your bullet points. Yes, use staging, but the best technique I've learned from memorizing, use a different accent. I. Go through and give your speech and a totally different accent that's out outrageous for you. What happens is it engages a different part of the brain to be engaged in that new persona that you've created, which allows the content to seep in deeper. You become more intimate with your content and you learn. Your presentation or speech in a new way, you'll actually find new like brush strokes to put into the speech. Oh, wow. I love that. I use a similar I say, chunk it down okay. Yeah. This first thing, what's one word? Intro or one word blue, whatever. And then, and I tell, I always tell people, try to memorize the key word. Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. It's, and it's hard to get them to do it. We'll be proud. I'm like, just give me a southern accent or give me a New York accent. They're like, oh no. I'm like, why are you feeling shy? Go outside your comfort zone. We can feel so self-conscious if you're not used to it, so you help execs take up space. Yes. I love, we were talking about presence and the idea of taking up space. There's a song called Take Up Space, sis, I hope it becomes everybody's anthem. It's my favorite song out there. The idea being that physically people walk into a room and take up space, and we see them as more confident. We see them as having presence because there's an ease. A perceived ease that we judge they have if they're so comfortable just spreading out their shoulders, spreading out their elbows, keeping their elbows off their sides when they're gesturing. There's an idea of, not crossing your legs. What happens, and I put it in the terms of agency to relational. Where are you on that continuum at any moment contextually. One of those behaviors is gonna be more appropriate, right? We can all be the sovereign. We know how to show up with sovereign energy when we need to, when that moment calls forward, and we all know how to be the adjuster, we know how to bring some levity and ease to the situation, make people feel comfortable, use a lot of gestures, and make ourselves small to give them everywhere on that continuum. Is gonna be contextually appropriate for a different situation, right? So I need to read the moment, but here's the aha. We are conditioned throughout our lives how to behave. We were taught how to behave in certain circumstances and certain people among us because of systemic issues, racism, sexism, gender inequality, orientation, challenges. We have been conditioned to show up in a way instinctually that may not be appropriate. To the situation. So I have to become aware. I need to become a new sort of self-awareness of what, where on that continuum am I showing up and is it appropriate for what I wish to achieve in that situation? Do I need to show up with more space? Do I need to take up a little bit less space and finding the right thing and finding out what's triggering me? To show up in a particular way so that I can counter it. Oh my gosh. I'm like, salvatory, I wanna marry you. Like I'm just amazing. I can't wait for your book. We'll have to do another one when your book comes out. So many golden nuggets, right? Yeah. Think about it like inside voices we get put into this box, which is great if you're a student in elementary school and you need to write. And then if you have to walk in and present something and enroll people, how do you do that? I love so many juicy nuggets in there. Yeah. I. I have a whole chapter on my book devoted to this agency versus relational behaviors. The idea being that challenge yourself to reset to a neutral state. What's your neutral? Today's world, we go from virtual meeting to virtual meeting to virtual. Like we don't even have time to like. Check our lipstick. Oh yeah. I don't have my on today. We don't have any time to like actually check ourselves before the next meeting, but it's important to reset to a neutral space, take up space, remind ourselves our presence, fill in the space that we are, and then even bring our voice down into our body rather than yes. Like that little thing of becoming an embodied presence because that is what people lean into. They wanna be that presence. I love it. Who do we elect? We elect people with deeper voices. Who do we invest with? We like that woman who do Theos. You're this very affected deep voice. I think one of the reasons she got away with whatever, all the things she did,'cause she sounded so authoritarian and. People were like, okay, lemme give you billions of dollars. So I love that. Letting, allowing yourself to come more fully in and to tap into that, because we had it as kids and then we get socialized, especially for women. Don't be bossy. Don't be too much. You're too much. You're too loud. Don't brag. And, but also read the room right. I love it. Hey, I, let's just be honest. Women have a no win game here, like it really is. It's threading the needle every time they open their mouths, every time open, showing up in a meeting. It's not fair. The men can cry in a meeting and still be seen as strong women are immediately labeled as emotional and dismissed. For a fair season or two of their career because they showed emotion. Like it's not fair what women have to overcome just to show up. But it's where we are for now. It's okay. That means you and I have worked we'll always be working. I had this other client tell me one time that when a woman walks into a room in a business situation, either she comes across as a loof. Competent and maybe the B word or warm and approachable, but less smart and underestimated. And I was like, I resemble that remark. And that is just an automatic way. And then luckily we get to break that hopefully, but that is an automatic listening for women in business situations. Do you agree? There's there, it's an art, right? It's an art in how we show up. Like how do I wanna be perceived and am I showing up intentionally? I. To the situation. Am I meeting the moment? What I recommend is to start with a neutral. What is your neutral? Somewhere between because male or female, we have the ability to show up in either one of the ways that you described, right? What is the neutral place between the two? Can I make my voice flat, but still engaging? While communicating what it is that I need to communicate. That way I don't come across whether aloof or overly warm, like how do I find the neutral part to, to start to set the dials and then work from there. Wow. It's not an easy game, but if I can find that neutral starting point and then meet the moment, I love. A OC has a, had a documentary, I forget the name of it down. Oh my gosh. I have to immediately go watch that. Okay. Yeah. Knocking down the house, I think is what it was. But she was talking about, she had to go into debate and she was doing all these motions and. And doing all this. And somebody was like, what are you doing? She, and she's I've gotta take up space. She's a small she's not a very tall person. She's small. And she had to go into this me like a debate with the other person and take up space. So she was physically preparing herself for that moment. Wow. Taking space, building herself up. I love it. I had the opportunity to facilitate a session at the World Economic Forum, and when I went into it, my imposter monster was in football rage mode. Okay. It was like, whoa. So I want everyone to hear that. Salvatore, you've been doing this forever and this was a next level, big time, world stage and you had imposter too. So everyone hear that? We all have it. So the imposter monster is always gonna be there, right? Dammit, but sorry, it's not going away. We just get better tools of how to manage, navigate, work with collaborate. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry, I interrupted, but I just thought that was like oh, that's yeah. Thank you. Okay. It doesn't, yeah. Yeah. Come on. I wrestle with, I named my imposter Monster Perry. I call him Perry, the perfectionist. I love it. I love it. I had to be perfect in order to be loved, in order to be enough, right? Yeah. I had to be perfect to be loved, and it, that Perry comes out every time I start to speak. Oh, you didn't say that right? Oh, you chipped over your words. Oh, you're not making sense. Oh, that person's giving you a look like, obviously they're confused here. I'm like, Perry enough. So turn the volume down. Okay, so I'm sorry, I interrupted. So you're speaking at this world. Oral economic forum, I'm facilitating in a session, and I was imposter monster raging. And I called my coach and he had me marching around the conference room and he was saying, why do they deserve to hear your voice? Why is your voice important? Why is your message important? And I'm like, marching around and it was like, do this, the, it having somebody support you sometimes or finding ways to support yourself. Yeah, asking those positive questions, those questions that point towards the positive that helps support you, get you in, into a generative, resourceful state on our own neutral, go to the one way or the other way depending on what the context calls for. I love it. And how did the talk go? Oh, it went really well. Someone told me, one person on their feedback, of course, I'm gonna call out the negative thing. Of course, we all, there's a hundred rave reviews and we focus on the one that. One person said this one thing. I'm like, I'm not even give air to it. No, it went really well. I got great reviews. One person had some critical feedback that I've incorporated into future sessions. We'll leave it at that. Okay, good. I get it. I, I spoke on college campuses for years and every once in a while I would have a student activities person who, and it was always a woman. And they would give me feedback. Whether I wanted it or not. And there were definitely a few times I was in my hotel room crying alone and tired. I'm sorry, it makes you stronger. And a lot of times I realized that was all about their stuff. They had projected onto me. And what a gift that I could receive it and then go, oh, you know what, I'm gonna give this back. Thank you so much. I'm, and I'm really good at. Yeah. Oh, I did that. Okay. I'm good at looking at my part. But every once in a while I'm oh yeah, that is, that's all you girl, you, And now a quick word. Are you an expert and you would love to be an expert on Podcasts as a guest, but you're not sure how to get started. Maybe you're a little nervous. Maybe you haven't done very many interviews. Maybe you've never even done media training. You're listening to my podcast and you know that I am a speaker and a speaker coach and a comedian, but I love to help people get comfortable and feel confident doing interviews because it's one of the best ways to grow your confidence. To grow your influence so if you wanna find out how to be a fabulous podcast guest, or even how to get started, let's set up a call. I know all the info will be in the show notes and I would love to just have a chat and see if it's the right fit and find out where you want to go with your speaking or podcast guesting and see if I can help. So now let's go back to the show That was a pivotal moment in my career. I was at an ice cream parlor. I'm gonna give you the whole story. Here it is. I want the whole story. I was in an ice cream store. There was a line of people and I just wanted ice cream, right? And I'm watching the line move and I'm watching the three assistants and they're back there. Finally got to be my turn, and the person comes to me and goes, what do you want? I was like, oh. Oh, this is my moment of joy. How could you, why are you, what did I do to offend you? If I've been too, IM impeachment. I must have been too. Im impeachment. I didn't smile enough, he's afraid. And I was like, wait a minute. This has nothing to do with me. This person's attitude, problem, all that. It's not about me. And it was a pivotal moment, not about me. Became my mantra before I go into a presentation. Yeah. Before I go into an important meeting, I say not about me 10 times to remind myself their reactions are on them. They probably have good feedback from me, but their reactions, their sour face, their confused looks like 99% of what's going on in their world is about them, not about me. And I, I can't take that personal and do my job. I love it. So about me became my mantra. I love it. I'm a big post-it note girl. And I need to do that again. And I tell my clients. Yeah it's not about you. It's about what's the value you're giving, what's the story you wanna tell to uplift, motivate, educate. It's not about you, but when you step into something new, it feels, it's very self-conscious, right? Yeah. I gotta ask you, I know that you have a gift for humor and you coach a lot of your clients in adding, infusing humor. How do you do that? It's I remind people, first of all, you don't have to be like me'cause I'm like over the top. I think everybody has the potential to be funny. It's, and to find your own flavor, because what is comedy tragedy plus time, right? And so if you're trying to be funny, sometimes it's forced or pushed. But if you can be truthful in the moment are you kidding me? So I, I try to help people find the funny in their stories or, can you insert something where you're laughing at yourself? Because when we can, I don't care what the topic is, right? But we, when we can share our humanity it helps people lean in and then they can hear you more. I had a client, she was perfect. She was like, size six. Gorgeous, brilliant scientist. Like beautiful. And I said, okay, if I'm a woman and I'm having a day, I don't feel good about myself, and you walk on stage in front of me, I'm gonna hate you for a minute. I hate to admit that, but there's that cave woman in me that's she's perfect. I hate her. And I. I think that happens for a lot of people. And so I said, if you can come on stage and make one self-deprecating joke about oh, you should have seen me 30 minutes ago, was covered in milk or something, so that we know you are human again, I can hear everything you're saying versus who is this lady? Oh my God, she's perfect. Look at what she's wearing. She's perfect. How does she have kids? She's, yeah. So that's something I just. Encourage people to do and it takes a little something and it's not for beginners for sure. This is something about presence, like the humanity is a part of presence. Because presence is the combination in my mind, presence is authenticity meets comfort. That's presence. And too many times people will get up there and they'll introduce themselves and they give you this entire encyclopedia of all their accomplishments. And now I'm, yes. And now let's get into the topic. And I'm like, okay. I. Stated by you, I can't connect. There's no mobility for me to connect with that speaker because they've positioned themselves up here in this lofty position. Yep. If you could say one personal thing, it doesn't have to be a really deep share. It could be something just personal that I can relate to them on. Yeah. Yeah. That makes the whole topic relatable. I love it. Yes, it's so true. And I think it's counterintuitive, right? Because the menu, you step in front of a group of people, you wanna look like I have it all together, I'm polished, right? I am. And so sometimes it feels so scary to be vulnerable. And you can be too vulnerable. Like I've made, yeah, I've made some mistakes. I was super vulnerable in Montana. Do not be vulnerable in Montana. Trust me. Noted Montana. Just avoid it. Learn from my mistakes kids. Don't tell too much. I get it. I love it. I love it. So you grew up like watching your dad and then did you study communication? I have to say my father spoke at conferences when I was a child and I never got to see him actually speak, but I remember him coming home from those events so lit up. It was just, it was he was and livened by the experience. I had to figure out what is that? And. Let's be honest. Getting on a stage is like setting yourself on fire, right? No more no. More so than comedy. Can we talk, right? Can we talk a minute about it? Because I did take a standup comedy just to see. I wanted to find out like, what is this standup comedy thing? So I took a standup comedy CL and I swear it was like I was on fire. I went into the, I went onto the stage and I was just like, please laugh. Okay. It went really, I'll be honest, my first set was just, I crushed it, we were in a course, we spent six weeks preparing our five minute set. I crushed that. Then I got invited to do it again for another audience. Did not pivot or change the jokes at all to meet the audience where they are and it, oh. Bombed. It tanked so bad. Woo. So I've had the high and the low on the standup stage, and I have full appreciation for what you do in your craft. It is an art. It is definitely an art. It is such an art and it's so hard. But gosh, I love it. I can't, I took a break while I was caretaking for my father. But I've been writing and I'm so excited to get back on stage soon. Yeah, what people kept saying, Elaine, you're funny. And I was newly sober and new in New York City, so I was like, what do you mean I'm not supposed, I'm supposed to be the next Meryl Streep. And I wasn't trying to be funny, but I was like this angry victim. And people kept saying, you really? So I took a class and I was horrible. I was horrible. I would get crickets. And I was like, just finish the darn classy Elaine. Just finish it. And then when I got to the dysfunctional family stuff during the showcase, the whole room like lost it. And I thought, oh, light bulb moment, I'm supposed to help people. And my life made sense, like on a whole other level. I appreciate that. I love that you found your voice in, through the trial. Like you, you stuck it out and you went all the way through it, and then you found the moment that was able to like blossom into a whole expression of your purpose and the way you wanna show up and the message that you have for the world. And that's beautiful. That's really beautiful. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. If people wanna know, so your book's coming out in September, and if people are curious or oh my God, you need to meet my boss, or We need to bring you in, how can people find you? Salvatori? I would love to meet your boss. I'd also love to meet you, by the way. I would love to connect with people. I wanna find out what works, what doesn't work. What does your imposter show up? What strategy have you found that work really well? Contact me at LinkedIn. That's okay. LinkedIn, salvatory Manzi. And I'll have the, I'll have all that in the show notes. Yeah. And I'm actually, I'm coming to Colorado twice. And once in August and once in September. So that would be really cool to meet you in person. It would be fun to see you if I'm here. I'm always traveling. You travel a lot. So in wrapping up, Salvatore, what is one final super tip for somebody if they know they wanna work on their communication? Or they know they need to work on presence or in anything you wanna leave with, leave us with. I like to leave with spot it. Got it. That is my principle for you have an ability to, I. Do whatever you see somebody else do that you think is great. If you can recognize this, somebody else did something that is quality, you have the ability to do it yourself. Just takes the courage to get out there and try it in a safe space first, then try it in the high stakes place. But if you spot it, you've got it. I love that. I love that. And thank you. That is a perfect ending for this amazing episode. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks everybody. All right, take care.