Why you should do podcast interviews... and it's not why you think

I just had the most amazing conversation with Karen LaMarsh for her Real Life Startup podcast, and it made me realize why I enjoy being interviewed so much.

Sure, we all want to build our credibility and visibility through sharing our ideas and intellectual property via speaking and interviews.

But here's the REAL reason you should be doing podcasts (and speaking, and creating video, and writing...): Every time you open your mouth to talk about your ideas, they get better.

Especially when you have a host asking you questions and restating your ideas. At least three times today during my conversation with Karen, I had an aha moment about my own message and my own marketing.

She rephrased things I said and reiterated my ideas in a way that helped me gain even deeper insight into what I want my message to be!

When we explain, interpret and clarify our ideas via speaking or writing, our ideas often become more clear to ourselves.

Maybe you'll get more clients and customers if you get interviewed on podcasts or speak in front of an audience. But also, maybe you'll get more clarity on your message, continuing to improve and refine it as you go! 

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Successful speakers stay curious

Are you a curious person? Do you always need to know WHY? WHAT? WHO? WHEN? WHERE?

When a car starts up at 11:30 p.m. in my neighborhood and drives away, I wonder why.

The other day I stood beneath a tree for a good 5 minutes trying to find the bird that was singing! (It was the ever-elusive Hooded Oriole!)

My Google search history is full of questions like "Are most serial killers white?" "How to pronounce Aix," "Can Supreme Court justices be impeached?" 😉 And "Did Gerald Coffee write a poem about eating half a bug?"

I literally consider every experience I have to be a potential metaphor for public speaking. Everything I see, hear, and learn is something that I can turn into an unexpected lesson for my clients and my audiences.

If you're a speaker, you can't be telling the same stories in the same way for years. You can't be using the same examples, same images, and same analogies for years.

Sure, sometimes you have a really great example that stands the test of time. We all do. But I've also pulled out stories that happened so long ago that they're just not current anymore. And I know there are more current examples I can use.

Your presentation still needs constant refreshing, because new things are happening in the world all the time.

When you can use new, fresh examples and stories that people can resonate with NOW you're going to make a better connection. Your audience will learn and retain more of your content and be more inclined to take action.

And if that's not the purpose of presenting, then I don't know what is!

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Some storytellers are just born that way

In 2016, Michelle Dobyne and her neighbors escaped from their burning apartment building. Michelle, who had been cooking breakfast at the time, gave an animated and upbeat interview with the local news, which immediately went viral.

You've probably seen it, but I was reminded of it recently, because my husband and I found ourselves saying "Not today," in Michelle's cadence, but not remembering exactly where we heard it.

Not only was Michelle's interview entertaining, it was memorable!

There's a lot of emphasis on storytelling in presentations these days. But now speakers think they need to overdramatize stories and stage them like performances, and this can get in the way—especially for a less-experienced speaker—of just connecting with the audience in an authentic way.

Michelle Dobyne is a natural storyteller. I'm pretty sure she didn't have time to write and rehearse this before the news media showed up. When asked if she was putting on a show for the cameras, her husband said, "This is what we do every day. Our household is a fun household."

Not all of us are natural storytellers. It's a skill to be learned and practiced. And even a natural storyteller like Michelle could improve her skills if she so desired.

But you can already learn a few things from Michelle. Her story is brief, just 31 seconds. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It has characters, a plot, and a conflict to be resolved. She uses humor, vocal variety and facial expression to bring the story alive. It also has a happy ending, which stories don't necessarily need to have, unless you're a speaker who wants to end your audience's journey on a positive note.

News 6 in Tulsa caught up with Michelle two months after the video went viral to see how she was doing with her newfound fame. Her response pretty much sums up what we want to do as storytellers:

“I told the world what was going on and how it was going on,” she said.

See the original interview and read the story here.



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Let go instead of holding on (to your content)

"Perfection is finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aircraft designer and author of The Little Prince

I'm fortunate that, in most of my speaking, I'm not required to be particularly concise. My speaking engagements are mostly trainings that range from three hours to three days, and there's a lot of room for spontaneous stories and discussion built into my workshops.

Of course, I still have to leave out a lot of content that I would like to use, because even over the course of three days, I will not be able to cover everything I know about public speaking.

But in the process of preparing for the upcoming Storytellers Project event in May, I'm having to approach my speaking in a way that is unfamiliar to me. I have to tell a story that took a year to unfold, in the course of 8-10 minutes. I have to be brief!

Ironically, I spend a lot of time working with clients who have very short presentations to deliver, such as keynotes (that might last 30 minutes) or speeches during public comment periods at city or county government meetings, that might only be 2-3 minutes long. I'm really good at helping them get rid of anything not critical to the core message while still maintaining emotional engagement, stories and the most important details.

In my Speak to EngageⓇ trainings, I display a slide with an image of a cleaver, and the words "Be brutal." You may have heard "kill your babies" or "kill your darlings," variations on the expression "Murder your darlings," originally attributed to Arthur Quiller-Couch, from his 1914 lecture "On Style."

What all of these expressions have in common with each other, as well as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's quote at the top, is the concept of cutting, culling, thinning out, simplifying, tightening, reducing and narrowing down.

Notice that no one suggests improving your presentation (or your writing, or your aircraft) by adding a bunch of stuff. Even Coco Chanel was quoted saying "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off." Or something close to that. Which would be a problem for me as, lately, I'm only wearing earrings. I'm not sure I'm ready for the one-earring look.

Yes, we would all like to add more to our presentations: More facts, more data, more content, more humor, more persuasion! But as you add, so must you subtract. 

In fact, cutting and culling can be painful. It requires the ability to let go of something we want to hold onto, a piece of writing or a story we think will make all the difference!

For example, adding humor doesn't necessarily mean adding more words. It means rearranging what you've written so that the right words, in the right order, make the line funny. And we all know, logically, that adding more facts and data just confounds and exhausts our audiences.

Good writing and speaking are about how you express your ideas, in terms of how compelling, creative, intriguing, provocative or thought-provoking your words are. The number of words you use is not even a factor, except for the literal time frame you're given to express them.

The "New Beginnings" story I'm telling on May 9 for the Storytellers Project (tickets available here) is one of the shortest presentations I've ever given. It's not even a presentation. It's merely a story. I have ten minutes total, but right now it's at about eight minutes, and I don't want it to be much longer.

First of all, I have to memorize it! *Stomach does flip flops*

Second of all, I want it to be lean. I want it to be entertaining, and I want there to be enough detail and color so that the audience can feel connected to my story, and even feel like they're inside the story. But I don't want to go on and on, saying something in 25 words that I can say in 12.

It happens that I have a history of being too brief. In high school and college, when I was asked to write a ten-page paper, I couldn't stretch it to more than eight. Even the Storytellers Project story clocked in at five minutes the first time I delivered it to my coaches. They asked me to add more detail, so I did. But I'm a fan of brevity, a clean structure, and an easily navigated journey.

Still, this is a challenge for me, as I typically don't need to be quite so lean and quite so brief!

How about you? Are you a good self-editor? Are you willing and able to cut out the extraneous so that the beautiful and powerful core of your message can shine through?

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I can't believe I did that

When's the last time you said "I can't believe I did that" (and not about something naughty, like toilet-papering your neighbor's house when you were thirteen or shrinking your best friend's sweater in the wash and telling her it was in your lost luggage somewhere over the Atlantic)?

When's the last time you took a risk—a good risk—and felt your heart grow three sizes with anticipation and hope? When's the last time you did something you were scared to do and stockpiled a whole new stash of confidence in your back pocket?

For me: Yesterday. 

I was scrolling through one of the Facebook groups I'm in for authors, and came across an article promoting a storytelling event in my area. They were looking for participants to fill four upcoming events in 2018 with the themes "Love, Romance and Other Disasters," "New Beginnings," "On the Road," and "Holidays and Family."

I'm not a storyteller. Or, to be more accurate, I tell a LOT of stories, but they're not memorized and they come out different every time. I tell stories in my everyday life, I tell stories as a trainer, I tell stories in my book. So I'm not unfamiliar with stories, but I am unfamiliar with the formal art of storytelling. Not to mention the fact that most presentations I give are several hours long, if not days long, and the stories told at this event are 8-10 minutes long. I can barely say my own name in ten minutes.

But when I saw the theme "New Beginnings," I immediately knew I had a story to tell, and without hesitation, I filled out the application form and hit the submit button.

What is wrong with me? I would never do this. While I am indeed an Activator (Gallup StrengthsFinder® #1 strength, in fact), I do not just willy-nilly apply for every speaking engagement that comes my way. I like to ruminate, cogitate, ponder, consider and chew over every submission to make sure it's right for me and for my business. Like most people, I find it scary to get out of my comfort zone, so when a new opportunity comes along that I'm not sure I can pull off, I spend a lot of time procrastinating before I make a decision.

And exactly for that reason—because it's scary to get out of my comfort zone—I regularly take the opportunity to push myself, and I did it yesterday.

There's a note on my office white board that says, "Your next comfort zone awaits." I can't very well expect my clients to take big leaps in confidence if I'm not constantly putting pressure on myself as well. So, yep. My application will be reviewed and, whether not I get accepted to tell a story, I will have a new stockpile of confidence in my back pocket just for having applied.

So, back to my original question: When's the last time you said, "I can't believe I did that" because you took a risk and took a baby step toward getting out of your comfort zone?

And if it's been a while since you challenged your speaking skills and comfort level, could you use some help getting there? Perhaps you don't even have a speaking comfort zone yet! But if you do, you know you need to dare yourself and fracture the walls of that safe space in order to grow and upgrade your skills.

I've got the perfect environment to offer you, both encouraging and challenging, where you can explore your next level of skills and confidence, in a small group format, over a leisurely couple of days this spring. In a mansion. With llamas and chickens.

Check out my Shake Up Your Speaking retreat, March 19-21, in Ojai, California. It's exactly where you need to be if you're ready to stop procrastinating on your speaking goals and take a transformational leap forward.

I'll keep you posted on whether I get selected to speak at the storytelling event. It's a challenge I hope I get to tackle!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Storytelling in 30 seconds - can you do it?

It's been a while since I posted about a TV commercial (ah, the beauty of the DVR), but here's one I came across recently that perfectly demonstrates the concepts of concise, compelling and clear storytelling. The message is delivered in 30 seconds, through visuals, music and exactly two spoken sentences.

Can you be this concise, compelling and clear in your messaging? Can you paint a picture with a few words and some visuals? I dare you to try!



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There's a fine line between honesty and inspiration

I spoke with a client this week about the presentation he gives on real estate investing. He is clearly trying to persuade his audiences to invest, but at the same time, he doesn't want to deceive them into believing that it's a way to get rich quick, or that it's necessarily an easy process.

He knows that to lead them down the wrong path during his presentation will only lead them to disappointment and disillusionment later -- and not only will they suffer from their failures, his future business will suffer as well.

In my presentations on public speaking, I face the same challenge. I want my audiences to feel inspired and motivated, so that they'll make efforts to add more speaking engagements to their calendar, get more experience and build more confidence and enjoyment with the tools I've given them. But I don't want to give a false impression that becoming a great speaker is a quick and easy process. It takes work, dedication, willingness to face your fears and failures, and resiliency to bounce back when you've blown it. The rewards are great, but the road to get there isn't always smooth.

Many of us find ourselves in this tough position as speakers. We want and need to be honest with our audiences. We want to be authentic and straightforward about the challenges they'll face if they choose to take action. But ultimately, our goal is to get them to take that action, and for them to walk away with the feeling that success is attainable. You want them to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I find that one of the best ways to achieve this is to use success stories. All of us love a good rags-to-riches or failure-to-success story. When we hear the story of someone like us achieving this seemingly faraway goal, it makes it seem more real and more possible.

Sometimes the success story is my own, sometimes it's the story of a client, and sometimes it's just an inspiring story I've read. The key is to use a true story about a person your audience can identify with. The more like your audience the subject of the story is, the more they can imagine implementing your tools and tricks and making them work in their own lives.

Do you have a topic where you're balancing honesty and inspiration? Share in the comments how you make it work!

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Turning Republicans and Democrats into Americans: a talk by Mickey Edwards

I may be biased, because this speaker in this video is my uncle, former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma Mickey Edwards, but I really enjoyed this talk based on his book, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.

What I enjoyed most about the presentation are his authentic, conversational style and his storytelling. He makes the majority of his points through stories and examples (I like how he refers to Congress as two NFL teams or two private clubs). He allows you to come to your own conclusions based on the persuasive examples he uses which, by the way, are bipartisan and include plenty of self-deprecating humor about how full of himself he was as a politician.

Whatever your political leanings, I hope you'll take the hour and watch this presentation. Some of the best conversation is in the Q&A, although I seem to be missing the discussion about bipartisan political change organizations like No Labels (of which Mickey is a co-founder) -- they might have trimmed the video to make it fit into an hour.

I've transcribed a couple of his shorter stories below, in case you don't have time to watch the whole video.

Summary: Former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma Mickey Edwards argues that American government has become dysfunctional because we've created a political system that rewards intransigence and incivility and punishes cooperation and compromise. We've allowed political parties to manipulate our elections and even our governing systems for their own partisan advantage. He says to fix the problem and get government working again, we have to change the political system itself.

Here's the link to the original page, in case you can't see the video here.



Quotes

"Is there something that the first four presidents agreed on? Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison agreed on one thing that I've been able to find. One thing.

They didn't even really like each other that much. They disagreed about tariffs, or they disagreed about how much westward expansion and how soon, or whether they were pro-British or pro-French. What was the one thing that all four of our first four presidents agreed on? That they talked about, they gave speeches about, they wrote about?

Do not create political parties. They said it over and over. Do not create political parties.

And what they meant was the kind of political party we have today. Where it's not just getting together on two or three things, but where every day, on every issue, it's your team against the other team on everything."

---

"One day I'm a Republican candidate running on the Republican ticket, and I get elected. I step across - I thought - a magic line, and now I'm not a Republican candidate, I'm a member of Congress, with all the obligations that entails.

I took an oath of office - I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution which, by the way, is the only pledge anybody should ever take. To uphold and defend the Constitution...

And we were there together, Republican and Democrat standing side by side. The people who were in that freshman class with me and became my friends - Al Gore and Dan Quayle and Dick Gephart, we were all there together. And that was 'Kum ba yah' - and that lasted 30 seconds.

Because immediately after that, we voted on who would be speaker, and all the Democrats voted one way and all the Republicans voted the other way. And then we decided how many people would be on each committee, how many Republicans and how many Democrats; the Democrats voted one way and the Republicans the next way.

It was that way every single day of the 16 years I served in Congress. Every day.

It's like you're permanently divided into two camps. Not Americans, but Republicans and Democrats.

So let me give you an example. I have a chapter called 'Rearranging the Furniture.'

There's something about this room, right? Even though I can't go and do this (I wouldn't know how to stand at a lectern) but here you are, and there's A lectern. And if you have a speaker here (except for me), they stand at the lectern. And wherever you are, whatever meeting you go to, your civic club or any other club you go to, there's a place for the speaker, there's a lectern.

Not in the US House of Representatives. There are two lecterns! There's a Republican lectern and a Democrat lectern.

If you're a Democrat, you stand at the lectern facing the Democrats. And if you're a Republican you face over here at a lectern facing the Republicans.

And I am so full of myself, and I'm so, 'God I just know I can persuade anybody of anything,' and so I... my very first speech on the House floor, I said, 'I think most of the Republicans are going to agree with me; I'm going to get the Democrats.'

And I stood at the Democrat lectern and I talked to the Democrats. And there was this gasp.

And people, both Republicans and Democrats, came up, 'No no, you can't do that. You have to stand over here.' Like I'm going to get cooties if I touch the wrong lectern."

---

"You can't have coffee or eat a sandwich on the House floor. You can't talk loudly about football on the House floor. You can't make phone calls on the House floor. It's unseemly. So what do you do? You go to the cloakroom.

But there's not a cloakroom. There's a Republican cloakroom, way over here, and there's a Democrat cloakroom way over here, and the people who are our members of Congress don't even have soup together. And because they're in Washington working three days a week, they don't even know each other."

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Friday Fun: Graham Norton red chair survivor!

Wanna know if your story is any good? Sit down in Graham Norton's red chair, and if you walk away without being tossed out on your head, you've told a good story!

In this episode, Russell Crowe was handling the chair lever, and before Ivan, had dumped everyone -- including one would-be storyteller because he was from New Zealand.

Watch how Ivan gets right to the point of his story, includes a beginning, middle and end, and walks away -- in 25 seconds!



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Speaking lessons from a social entrepreneur

I had the great pleasure of hearing Zhena Muzyka speak at a luncheon yesterday hosted by the Santa Barbara chapter of NAWBO.

I've known Zhena for a long time, as the owner of Zhena's Gypsy Tea and a vendor to the specialty foods market where my husband has worked for many years cultivating relationships with vendors. I remember when her business was new, Zhena's elaborate and exotic booths at trade shows and her beautiful belly dancing outfits. I've always admired her loving and gracious approach to her work and her customers (even those of us on the periphery who show up at a trade show once a year!).

Since those early days, her business has boomed, and she has become a titan of the socially responsible business movement and has branched out into writing, speaking and coaching.

She's a role model in many areas, and yesterday she shared her philosophy and some of the concepts that have propelled the success of her business. Not surprisingly, these concepts will also help you build success as a speaker!

1. Identify and share your mission and your calling.

This may seem a little "out there" to some of you who are giving presentations you're not particularly in love with. But bear with me.

As I've talked about before, you need to have love and gratitude for your audience, because (quoting myself) "When you allow yourself to show love and gratitude to your audience, you can't help but forget about your own woes and distractions. When you allow yourself to be open to creating a human connection with your audience where you give them all your passion and energy and receive it back, you will find your anxiety and nervousness -- if not completely conquered -- at least greatly reduced." So there's one good reason for showing love and gratitude.

But think of it this way: If your mission is only about making money, how is that serving the audience? If your mission is only about getting the next client, how is that serving the audience? That's about you, but it's not about them. And "them" is what they care about.

The audience is there to receive something of value from you. Are you giving them what they need, want and care about?

You must always have a deeper mission and a deeper calling for what you are bringing to the audience. You won't get customers and clients if you don't have a deeper connection to truly helping them accomplish something as a result of your presentation.

2. Entrepreneurs must see the invisible.

Zhena shared a great quote that the manager of her tea estate has made into a sign to motivate the tea workers. It's a lovely example of seeing the invisible: most of the workers don't speak English, but in the future he envisions, they will. "One who can see the invisible can do the impossible."

This quote is meaningful to me both as an entrepreneur and as a speaker. As an entrepreneur, I envision things every day that don't exist. Then I bring them into existence as programs, services and products that serve my clients and customers. I envision the shape, size, and design of my business and then I go about making it so. If you're an entrepreneur, have you seen the invisible?

As a speaker, seeing the invisible can mean many things. Do you envision yourself on a big stage, reaching hundreds or thousands with your message -- but it hasn't happened yet? That's seeing the invisible! Do you imagine a time when you'll feel self-assured and confident in front of any size audience? That's seeing the invisible! Do you fantasize about creating an experience for your audience that's engaging, intriguing, entertaining, inspiring, and also income-producing -- but you don't quite know yet how to make it happen? That's seeing the invisible!

Seeing the invisible means you have a vision and can move forward in the pursuit of that vision. It's an amazing superpower, but when you learn how to harness it, nothing is impossible!

3. Know your worth.

Zhena told a story about a potential investor in her company who was ready and willing to invest some sorely-needed cash. He asked her what she paid herself, and she told him (a very low figure by pretty much any standard), proud of herself for not taking a big salary and investing her profits back into the company. He told her it was "Way too much." You should have seen the audience's jaws drop and heard the audible gasp in the room when she told this story. Courageously, she walked away from the money.

If you don't value your skills, expertise and experience, who else is going to? If you don't believe in yourself and your message, who else is going to?

I have learned over the years that it's not worth it to me to undervalue my services just to get work. If someone doesn't want to pay my fee, I'm willing to negotiate lesser services. But I am not desperate for business, nor do I want to appear to be desperate by accepting low ball offers.

The practical truth here is that it's going to be hard to promote your business or your speech if you don't have a sense of your own self-worth. Your skills, expertise and knowledge are worth more than you think. Own it, value it, charge for it. And above all, give and expect respect in all your business dealings.

There was so much more to Zhena's talk that I can't possibly share here. She told inspiring stories, funny stories, and shocking stories. She came with an authentic and human approach that drew everyone to her, and it was clear that she practices what she preaches:

Encourage and support others.

Believe in yourself.

Build trust.

Add love and heart to everything you do.

Valuable lessons for anyone in business, and valuable lessons for speakers at any level.

Learn more about Zhena's speaking, coaching and other services here.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Can you convey your message without words?

This spot is only 30 seconds long. There's very little dialog. But you are instantly drawn emotionally into the story (only someone with a heart of stone could look at that little girl's expression and not feel something). The whole thing plays out visually, an entire story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Take a look:



Speakers speak. And therefore, we use lots of words. But if you want to make an emotional connection with your audience, words cannot stand alone.

If you want your audience to do something as a result of your presentation, you have to persuade them, convince them, move them. This is where emotion comes into play. Words, facts, statistics, charts and data are not enough. Your movement, gestures and facial expression are all key components to filling in the spaces where words can't finish the job.

I have a deep aversion to rehearsed gestures and facial expressions for anyone but actors. As a speaker, you have to be in the moment with your audience, not so rehearsed that those gestures and facial expressions come across as wooden and robotic. So do practice how you want to express the more emotional aspects of your presentation -- the parts of the presentation that will make your audience feel joy, outrage, sadness, confusion, amusement, disgust, surprise, anticipation -- but leave some room for spontaneity when you're in the room with actual people, being real and authentic.

Here's another favorite Subaru ad that you've probably seen. Another 30-second father-daughter spot that expresses a lot of its message through emotion.



These ads have mastered the concept of "Show, don't tell," a mantra for writers and actors that expresses the requirement that audiences experience the story through the characters' actions and emotions rather than through narration and descriptions. You can "tell" the audience your point of view and your opinions and your facts till you're blue in the face. But "showing" them so they experience it emotionally for themselves --that's how you make a lasting impression.

And finally, one of my all-time favorites for a message with no words at all, but incredible emotional impact. Yes, another family-oriented ad. I guess I'm a sucker for them, and I don't even have kids!



Read my analysis of this commercial here.

So let me ask you this: Are you relying on words to convey your message at the expense of emotion?

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Six bowling balls

In the documentary, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead," Joe Cross is on a mission. He's on a mission to lose weight, regain his health, and build a community of healthy-eating partners across the U.S.

The story doesn't really pick up for me until he meets Phil Staples, a morbidly obese trucker who realizes he is on his way to an early grave if he doesn't change his sedentary and junk-food-eating ways.

Phil takes on Joe's challenge, starts a 60-day juice fast (the central theme of the movie is losing weight by juicing), and starts exercising.

Phil becomes so transformed emotionally and physically, he starts giving talks and sharing his story.

He's a sweet and engaging man, but what really demonstrates his ongoing success is when he lines up six bowling balls and tells the audience that's how much weight he's lost so far.

Six bowling balls.

I didn't even have to do the math to figure out how much six bowling balls weigh -- it varies, of course.

All I had to imagine was wearing those six bowling balls on my body. Walking with them. Sitting, sleeping, climbing stairs.

What a visual! What an amazingly concrete illustration of the pounds and heaviness that Phil had lost.

Phil had already told a great story before that, but the bowling balls gave his words real meaning for anyone in the audience wondering what it feels like to be as large as Phil.

How can you give your words more meaning with demonstrations, visuals and props?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Is your speech spammy?

Today I was scrolling through Facebook, you know, for work... and came across a story that didn't quite seem believable to me. Yet several people I know had shared and commented on it. I Googled the subject of the story, and sure enough, part of the story was true, but the part that people were upset about was a complete fabrication.

You've seen these kinds of stories. They start out seeming credible and possible, but somewhere along the line, details get embellished and become more dramatic and farfetched, and pretty soon everyone is up in arms, reposting and calling for someone's head on a platter.

Posts like these clog my news feed every day, and are an utter waste of space. Yet it never occurs to those who post them to take a few seconds to Google the topic or visit Snopes.com to verify the story before they spam the rest of us with this junk.

This, of course, made me think of presentations that are embellished with dramatic stories, quotes and statistics that have never been verified but are repeated endlessly by speaker after speaker. Here are two that make me crazy.

Think of this unsubstantiated information as spam. It takes up space in your presentation where valuable content could be. It wastes your audience's time when they could be learning something true and relevant to their lives.

Furthermore, if you are misleading your audience, you are not just doing them a disservice, you are deceiving them - even manipulating them - to get the result you want. Is that how you want to influence people? Is that how you want to get your results? Maybe you know your audience is gullible enough to believe you, or maybe you're truly misinformed yourself. That doesn't excuse passing along unresearched material as fact.

What happens when they find out the truth?

1. At best, you look misinformed and lose some credibility and trust.
2. You look out of touch with reality.
3. You look like an outright idiot.
4. At worst, you look like a liar.

After the Facebook post I mentioned above, I was treated to another example of (to say the least) misleading information being used as a metaphor for personal growth. It's not a bad metaphor and people can identify with the pain and suffering described in the story, but it's completely false! Below, the short video I'm referring to. And here's the link that debunks the story.



Please take the time to make sure your material is solid, honest, truthful, verified and not manipulative. Nobody likes spam, but people especially dislike being led down a path that turns out to be a route to nowhere.

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Relating to the audience, TEDxWomen-style

How often do you get to hear one amazing woman after another speak on critical issues that affect us every day as individuals and as a global community? Not often enough.

But yesterday's TEDxWomen brought 30+ women and men, in New York and Los Angeles, together through the magic of the Web. Joining them were more than 100 simultaneous TEDx events around the world showing the live stream as well as introducing local speakers. I attended the closest local event, TEDxOjaiWomen.

There were a couple of common threads that tied many of these presentations together and made them compelling and powerful, and I don't mean topic-wise. The style of the presentations was overwhelmingly personal, and I want to talk about why this made them so effective.

1. Emotion

Many speakers are afraid of emotion. Any emotion. Emotion that's too real, too raw, or too personal has no place in public speaking for many people.

But the only way you will connect with your audience is through emotion. Not facts. Not statistics. Those are interesting and will flesh out the details of whatever point you're trying to make. But if the audience doesn't CARE about what you're saying, you've failed. And people don't CARE unless you stimulate them emotionally.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who made the documentary MissRepresentation, teared up while talking about the different treatment her son and daughter received from friends and politicians when they were born. Tan Le, technology entrepreneur, held back tears as she told the story of her family's dramatic emigration to Australia when she was a child. Matt Petersen, of Global Green USA, choked up when he talked about women he met in the Congo who were still able to dance joyfully, even after surviving multiple rapes. And Jane Fonda not only got teary-eyed, but sniffled, as she introduced Gloria Steinem, someone who is clearly a hero to her.

Besides the tears, there were many speakers who engaged me through humor, through intensity, through aha! moments. My emotional engagement allowed me to take in and absorb more deeply the speakers' messages.

2. Storytelling

If there was a common tool used by most of the speakers yesterday (especially our local ones), it was storytelling. I've never heard so many personal stories from a group of speakers. I don't know if it's because most of the speakers were women, and personal stories are a shortcut to building connection and helping the audience relate to the similarities in our lives. I don't want to overanalyze it, but the stories made for a constant stream of fascinating speakers.

Alana Sheeren shared how she learned to grieve, stay present with grief, and help others who are grieving, through stories of painful loss.

Poet akka b told us of "coming out" as a poet, and how strange it was to call herself that once she gave herself permission.

Writer and editor Suzanne Braun Levine described her experiences jumping off a 90-foot cliff as a celebration of turning 50, and gathering the courage to say "NO" when informed by her Outward Bound guide that she was expected to climb back up the way she came down.

Communicatrix Colleen Wainwright asked us "Are you sure it's impossible?" as she took us through the harrowing and "impossible" process of raising $50,000 in the 50 days leading up to her 50th birthday (yes, she raised the money, and more -- and has the shorn head to prove it).

Dyana Valentine, self-proclaimed instigator, made her entire presentation about the incident and epiphany that brought her to be speaking on the TEDxOjaiWomen stage.

Why do we like stories so much? Here's one reason: "Stories help us to keep tabs on what is happening in our communities. The safe, imaginary world of a story may be a kind of training ground, where we can practice interacting with others and learn the customs and rules of society. And stories have a unique power to persuade and motivate, because they appeal to our emotions and capacity for empathy." (Read the rest of that blog post here.)

Stories help audiences relate to a speaker. Stories (and analogies) take concepts that may be unfamiliar and translate them into real-life examples that anyone can understand. Stories paint mental pictures of things your audience can't see in person. Stories bond us together in a common experience.

3. Authenticity

I'm not sure I've ever come across such a large group of speakers who radiated such confidence and realness. There wasn't a single person throughout the entire day who appeared stagey, fake or overly rehearsed. Some lost their place and recovered gracefully, some speakers used notes with no apologies (Barbra Streisand had black notecards... interesting). Not once did I sense a speaker showing off, condescending to the audience, trying too hard to be profound or to impress, forcing enthusiasm, or doing any of a hundred things I've seen bad motivational speakers do.

It was refreshing. I felt that I could sit back, relax, and take it all in without the stress of cringing every five minutes feeling embarrassed for the poor sap who oozes insecurity.

I'm not saying that these speakers weren't nervous on the inside. Or that there weren't a few feeling desperately anxious to be liked. Or that some of them weren't completely faking their confidence. But I'm not a mind reader. I can only guess that these things were going on because I'm a speaker and I know speakers, and these things are happening internally much of the time.

This talented and knowledgeable group of women and men pulled themselves together, decided to just "be," and gave us a day full of insights, laughter, hope, tears, debunked myths, pride, promises, joy, struggle, memories, epiphanies, clarity, reflection, possibilities, passion and love.

If I had one complaint about the day (and I didn't get to see the whole live stream, so it's possible that some of these issues were discussed), it's that I would like to have seen more presentations on what innovations are happening in the fields of rape and domestic violence prevention and gender equity education -- topics that aren't warm and fuzzy or easy to talk about, but are part of our world nevertheless. However, it's not easy to cover, in one day, all the ways girls and women are re-shaping the future.

Well done, TEDxOjaiWomen!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Using all your tools: Adele tells a story

If you watched the MTV Video Music Awards, you might have seen the following performance by Adele of her song, "Someone Like You." If you didn't, please take a few minutes to watch below. And then take a moment to think about what public speaking lesson you might learn from her.



This is an emotional performance, no doubt. Adele tells a story here, but she tells it not just with her words, but with her voice, gestures and facial expressions. She builds the emotion of the story to a crescendo, drawing in the adience subtly at first and then with raw and palpable sorrow and anger toward the end.

As much as many business presenters would like to leave emotion out of presentations, your message just doesn't have as much impact without an emotional component.

As a speaker you are privileged to have the use of your face, body and voice to convey the emotional core of your story. Your presentation is not just words; if that were the case, you could e-mail everyone a report and stay home. There is a reason we present in person, and that's to make a case, to stand up and face our audience with all the tools available to us.

Take this lesson from Adele. She doesn't have flashy visuals, a shocking costume or an orchestra behind her. She simply tells her story, using all the tools at her disposal, and tells it spectacularly.

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Death of a hamster: a well-told story

Graham Norton typically ends his talk show with a a storyteller in his red chair. If Graham (or a guest) deems the story to be unsatisfactory or told poorly, he pulls a lever and the storyteller is tipped out of the chair backwards. I'm always rooting for the storyteller to have a good enough story to be allowed to walk away.

Check out Jake's story about the loss of a pet hamster. In under a minute he is able to tell a story that has all the elements needed to keep the audience's interest. It's crisply told, in a simple, well-organized chronology; it's emotionally engaging; it's funny; it's memorable; and it has a twist at the end. And Jake gets up and walks away!



If you can't see the video here, view it on YouTube.

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An aha moment

I love this series of commercials for Mutual of Omaha. They're about people's "moment of clarity... a defining moment where you gain real wisdom -- wisdom you can use to change your life."

I like this concept both as a speaker and as an audience member. As a speaker, I look for aha moments to help me improve as a speaker and coach and to grow in my career. As an audience member, I look for aha moments provided by speakers with great insight and passion.

Some of these commercials are particularly moving. I can only link to the page, not to an individual commercial, but check out the young woman on this page, Stacey, with the title "Sobriety opened my eyes."

Your stories may not bring tears to your audiences' eyes, but can be authentic and powerful in their own way. Funny? Great. Embarrassing? Awesome. Horrifying? Go for it.

Use your stories the way the people have in these commercials, to instruct and inspire with your own aha moments.

I shared a big aha moment in my panic attack series... my aha being that, not only is it okay for people to know that I struggle with panic attacks, but that I can actually help others who are dealing with anxiety, because of my own experience.

Have you had an aha moment that could be part of your next presentation? Please share in the comments!

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Stop making excuses for your data dump

For those of you who insist that data cannot (or worse -- shouldn't) be presented in an interesting and engaging way, I will once again point you to Hans Rosling. He is not the only speaker who makes data fascinating, but he is probably the best at it.

Notice how he takes his time, during his talk at TEDIndia, to set the stage to make his main point. He talks about his own history in India as a student. He illustrates historical milestones in 1858 through images and stories. He references Twitter for humor, and then brings out a new "ecological and recyclable version" of the laser pointer before he gets started.



Rosling does it all: He delivers meaningful content, making it engaging and easy to understand for everyone in the audience. He uses visuals, props, quotes, analogies, demonstrations and personal references (his 100th birthday was a nice twist at the end). He's passionate! He builds anticipation for the big "reveal" of his prediction.

And he does it all in just over 15 minutes.

I think every speaker should watch Hans Rosling's TED talks at least once a month for inspiration. I'm not saying you should be Hans Rosling, or even similar to Hans Rosling. After all, there's only one Hans Rosling.

However, I do want you to understand that data is not inherently boring. Presenters are boring when they think they have no options for how to present data. But data itself is a tool, just like any other tool in a presentation. It's what you do with the numbers that makes the presentation effective -- or makes it just another "data dump" that puts your audience to sleep and doesn't teach them anything.

I want you to rethink the way you perceive your topic. I want you to take some time to think about what your core message is and what your audience hopes to get out of your presentation. I want to you stop coming up with excuses about why you can't give a better presentation.

Poverty and child mortality are hardly entertaining topics, yet Rosling always finds a way to get his message across, to report the numbers but also show the bigger picture, and to be accessible, authentic and memorable in the process.

You can see two more of his TED talks here.

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A message with both kinds of impact

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When a message delivers, it can hit you subtly a minute or two later, sinking into your brain with a slow realization. Or it can slam into you like a ton of bricks.



Analyzing this public service announcement using my six favorite principles of sticky messages, SUCCESs (from Chip and Dan Heath's book, Made to Stick), let's talk about why this ad is so powerful.

Simple

Three people sitting in a living room are the actors. A small table holding a bowl of glitter is the only prop. There is no dialogue, and very little movement. There is no clutter, no distraction from the message.

Unexpected

Never in a million years would I have guessed that this man would be "saved" by a human seat belt made by his wife and daughter. This highly effective approach was surprising and creative.

Concrete

I didn't need any help to understand what was going on. The pantomime was as clear as day; the "seat belt" completely obvious with no explanation needed.

Credible

The ad was credible to me because I've been in car accidents before -- as I'm guessing many of us have. We all know the importance of seat belts, but that doesn't mean everyone is wearing one. The scene was made to mimic what happens in a car accident, and we all know what that looks like.

Emotions

There's no doubt that emotion plays the biggest part in making this ad effective. Can anyone watch this and not experience the fear, dread and then relief painted on the actors' faces? I've watched it four or five times now, and every time I still get choked up. At first, the laughter and smiling seem over the top and almost contrived, but it turns out to be a fabulous contrast for the moments to come.

The slow motion, the widening eyes, the fairy-winged girl descending like an angel, the musical crescendo, the implied physical impact, the human seat belt that metamorphoses into a family embrace, and the falling glitter all combine to create a wrenching emotional scene.

Stories

This is not only a pantomime of a person surviving a car crash. There's also a story of a family here. I believe the story is ambiguous enough that each of us can make our own meaning, a clever method in advertising.

I see a typical happy family that will be destroyed if seat belt warnings are not heeded. I see a father who lives for his family. I see a mother and daughter who will do anything for dad. The slogan, "Embrace Life," also implies that your seat belt is like a warm embrace by people who care about you.

This short commercial says everything it needs to say without being preachy, without having to spell out the lessons learned. There are no statistics, there are no facts and figures. It's a simple pantomimed scene of near-devastating consequences, and that says it all.

How can you say what you need to say in your presentations with fewer words and greater impact?

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Super Bowl SUCCESs

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Even if you didn't watch the Super Bowl, you can still see one of the better ads right now on YouTube.

There are a lot of reasons this commercial for Google worked. I'm going to approach it from the perpective of Chip and Dan Heath's "Made to Stick." Let's see how it stacks up against their acronym SUCCESs as a memorable or "sticky" message. First, watch the commercial if you haven't already:



Simple: You can't get much more simple than showing a person searching on Google. Google is the tool and the product, and that's all you see. No dialogue, no actors, and only a simple piano melody drives the action. There are soft background sounds and voices to support the story.

Unexpected: I find the simplicity itself to be what was so unexpected about this ad. Especially in the middle of the Super Bowl, when most of the ads went over the top to get attention, this one was delightfully subtle.

Concrete: We all know what Google is. We all know how to use it. We don't have to stretch our imaginations to understand what's happening on the screen.

Credible: What's not to believe about the topics or methods of search? We've probably typed in similar searches about movie directors or "how to" do something or when a flight is arriving. We've used Google maps, and we've all had Google correct our spelling when we've misspelled a word.

Emotional: At first we're curious. Okay, so someone is searching on Google for study abroad programs. Then we realize it's a chronology of one person's experiences and we start to put the pieces together. We're drawn in; what will happen next? Long distance relationship? No, a job in Paris! Then, suspense! As the person types, we see all the possible search strings below... is he searching for how to tie a tie? No. Is he searching for how to assemble a computer? No.

Awww... "how to assemble a crib." A happily-ever-after ending with a baby giggle in the background. (A good friend of mine from college met her husband while studying abroad near Paris and is still living there with him and their three children. It happens.)

Stories: This ad takes random searches we've all done and strings them together into a storyline. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. We look at the search string "Tu es tres mignon" and surmise what has happened. We mentally create the story as each search is revealed. Google has given us the tool, but our brain's desire to make sense of the data is what's so fun about this commercial.

It isn't every day that a commercial can pass the "Made to Stick" test. How about your latest presentation? Have you held it up to the SUCCESs model yet?

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