High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 347: Own the Room When Speaking with Dierdre Van Nest, International Speaker & Creator of the Crazy Good Talks Blueprint

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Deirdre Van Nest is the go-to expert on the topic of speaking to groups. She is the creator of the Crazy Good Talks® Blueprint, a system that teaches financial advisors, leaders and sales pros how to bring in business faster and impact more lives through the power of speaking. She is the host of Crazy Good Talks® TV and is called upon for interviews on podcasts and TV talk shows. Deirdre is an international speaker and trainer, a Certified World Class Speaking™ Coach, a Certified Fearless Living Coach, a contributing author of the Amazon bestseller World Class Speaking™ in Action and author of “Fire Your Fear™.” Deirdre is an Italian/Irish New Yorker living in Minneapolis where she tries hard not to scare people with her loud voice and enthusiastic hand gestures.   In this podcast, Deirdre and Cindra talk: · What is a “Crazy Good Talk” · How to stand out and own the room EVERY TIME you speak · The barriers to own the room · How to overcome fear and self-doubt when speaking · A formula for telling a good story You can find Deidre at https://crazygoodtalks.com/. HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/dierdre HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong   Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams,

and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man. Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to episode 347 with Deirdre Vaness. This is your host, Dr. Cendra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Two things I'm pumped to share with you today on the podcast. First, we started a Facebook group to help you connect and share behind the scenes of the High Performance Mindset podcast, where we'll share more tangible

strategies and inspiration to help you be your best self every day. So you can head over to High Performance Mindset Podcast Community on Facebook. We can't wait to see you there. And if you don't know this already, we're hosting a podcast giveaway. You can head over to drcindra.com slash giveaway. That's d-r-c-i-n-d-r-a dot com slash giveaway where you can find all of the details. And I'm giving away $500 in cash, a free coaching session with me personally, two subscriptions to the Beyond Grit Academy, and 50 people get a free best-selling hardcover Beyond Grit book. So there's lots of ways to win. Again, you can head over to drcindra.com slash giveaway.

In today's episode about owning the room, I interviewed Deirdre Vaness. And I think this is such an powerful, important topic for all of us. Because all of us present in some way. And having more confidence to own the room will also continue to help you thrive in your job or among your team. So Deirdre Vaness is a go-to expert on the topic of speaking to groups. She's the creator of Crazy Good Talks Blueprint, a system that teaches financial advisors, leaders, and sales pros how to bring in business faster and impact more lives through the power of speaking. She is the host of Crazy Good Talks TV

and is called upon for interviews on several TV shows and podcasts like this one. Deirdre is an international speaker and trainer, a certified world-class speaking coach, a certified fearless living coach, and a contributing author of the Amazon bestseller, World-Class Speaking in Action. She is also the author of her own book, Fire Your Fear. In Deirdre's words, she says she is an Italian-Irish New Yorker living in Minneapolis where she tries hard not to scare people with her loud voice and enthusiastic gestures. In this podcast, Deirdre and I talk about what is a crazy good talk, how to stand out and own the room every time you speak,

what are the barriers to own the room, how to overcome fear and self-doubt when you're speaking, and then she also shares a formula for telling a good story and how to be an engaging, impactful presenter. Here's my favorite quote from this podcast. She says, as soon as you're given the floor, whether it's one minute, one hour, one day, it's your show. And you owning everything that happens while you're standing and giving the floor is key. If you enjoyed today's episode, wherever you're listening,

head over and subscribe and give us a five-star rating and review. This is the review of the week from Kip0021. As a collegiate coach and having worked with Cinder in that capacity, I've seen how beneficial she can be for athletes individually and collectively. These podcasts are a little free insights

into how to make your team stronger, even your business team stronger. Great resource to have. Thank you so much, Kip0021. I can't wait to read your review next week. So again, wherever you're listening, head over and leave us a rating and review. This just helps us reach more and more people each week, and I would be so incredibly grateful. And be sure to share this episode with a friend. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening or take a screenshot and share it with a friend via a message. Without further ado, let's bring on Deirdre. All right, awesome, Deirdre. I'm so excited that you're joining us here for the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I've wanted to have you on for a while, so it's really awesome to have you on

today. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about just great presenting skills and telling great stories. So I want to dive in and just ask you a little bit about what your passion is and just give us a little insight on what you do right now. Yeah, you know, I absolutely love helping people stand out from the crowd and make an impact when they speak. I really, Cinder, I really just believe that, you know, God put a unique personality and a message in all of us.

And to have someone not be able to get their brilliance and their contribution out into the world because they don't know how to speak in a way that gets others to sit up and listen and take action absolutely breaks my heart, and I can tell you I used to be one of those people. People are shocked when I say that, that I was terrified, terrified to speak in front of groups, like wouldn't do it. And, and, and I learned, I learned a process for doing it. And, and so I love giving back and helping others do the same. Awesome. Well, we're going to really dive into that. So just give us a little bit of insight onto like how you got there to here and what was it like when you really were nervous presenting

in front of people and then what's your journey been now with Crazy Good Talks and the company that you have now? Yeah. So the reason why that I was terrified to take the stage is actually in ninth grade, I was really into acting. I had been into acting for years and I usually got these really great roles. And unfortunately in ninth grade, I got up and I read a scene with an acting partner. And my acting teacher at the time in high school looked at her and was like, Jennifer, you could be the next Meryl Streep, right? Which was an amazing compliment. Can you imagine getting that compliment? Well, I had beat Jennifer the year before for the lead role in our eighth grade musical.

So when he said that to her, what do you think I'm thinking? I'm thinking, oh my gosh, who is he going to say I can be? Like, I can't even imagine who I can be. So I'm, I'm looking at him. I'm so excited. And he looks at me and he says, Deirdre, that stunk.

Oh man. I was devastated. And I don't know if that's ever happened to you where someone says something that just throws you, you're like, what? Like, it's like a stab in the heart, kick to the stomach. That's how I felt. And I'll tell you what, I wish that I had chalked it off to a bad day or a bad opinion or had a thicker skin, but I didn't do any of those things. And the other thing I didn't do

was I literally did not take the stage syndrome for 24 years. Oh my goodness. 24 years, no speaking, no acting, no nothing. And I'll never forget when I got my master's degree, my final year of graduate school, my classmates came up to me and they said, Hey, would you want to run for president next year? And I said, do I have to make a speech? And they said, yeah. But I said, Nope, I'll run for vice president. Like that's how much I avoided this type of activity. Wow. So did you just like quit the play at that point?

Or I just, yep, I wasn't in a play. It was just, it was like, you know, an elective class. So after that semester, I had to, you know, go for the rest of the semester. And I just quit. And it makes me so sad to think that poor little 14 year old girl who was just I wish I could just talk to her and tell her something different now because I loved it I loved acting so much so I missed out on so much of letting that fear get in the way but I quit the play and I just thought I never want to hear those words you stink again publicly and so I just

did everything I could to avoid it well that also your, your mess really turned into your passion now. So sometimes I look back and I think about, well, this led me to where I'm at. Maybe that difficulty was meant to be there. Right. And, and although I don't want to, I don't want to discount your experience and just the impact that teachers and leaders can have. Right. What happened was in 2008, I got certified as a, what's called a certified fearless living coach. It's actually a real thing. It's a real thing.

And I was in my community teaching business owners like you and me how to get past the fears and excuses that were holding them back in their business. Right. So I was doing a lot of mindset work and everybody told me, Deirdre, you really should speak. Like you need to get out there. And it's because I was just doing the one-on-one networking and they're like, you know, you should speak. This is a great topic. It's a great message. You're going to impact more people and you're bringing more clients if you speak. And I was like, no, no, I am not doing that. But the problem, Sindra, and you know me, I walk my talk.

And so it quickly, the irony of me coaching you on getting past your fears, but me not speaking because I was afraid was not lost on me. And I realized I got to do this thing. Like I, I, not only does it make good business sense, but I got to be an example to my clients. Right? Right. So I got out there and I started speaking. Oh my gosh. I was terrified, but I clung to a couple of things.

One was my faith, right? I really relied on my faith to get me through. And then the other was learning a process. I started looking at what great speakers were doing. And I stumbled upon a man who is now my mentor and my colleague and my friend, Craig Valentine. Have you met Craig before? I have not met him, but I know of him. Yeah. Oh, Craig's amazing. And so he wrote an amazing book called World Class Speaking. I happen, I'm sure God led me to that, right? I happened to find this book. And I'm like, yes, yes. These strategies are great. These tools are great. And I thought, okay, if world-class speakers are using these tools, like how bad could I be? So I started just by using what he said to

do in the book and started feeling some confidence and success. And, and so that's how, that's how it started. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. And now that's what your business really is about is giving good, crazy, good talks and helping people do the same. So it's cool how you've like gone full circle. And that was 2008. That was 2008. And then what happened in 2000, I think it was 10, I met Craig and he said, Hey, you know, I'm certifying a group of coaches. Would you want to be one of my speaking coaches? And I was like, me? Uh, I don't know if I could do something like that. And so at first I said, no, but then, uh, prayer, talking to people, situation of events. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go

for it. I'm going to go for it. And, and I dove, and I dove right in. Um, and I didn't really expect that I was going to create my own system from what I learned from cragging out in the trenches. But what was happening was what I found was there was nothing in the industry that was helping people be like an amazing keynoter or trainer, but also teaching them how to bring in clients from the back of the room. I had to go to a bunch of different places to kind of piece it all together. And I

thought, you know what, I just want a one-stop shop. And so I created a system for me to help me do that. And then I started sharing it with my fearless living clients. I would be like, hey, Sindra, you know what, next time I give a presentation, try this. And then you try it and you'd get great results. You'd be like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. What else do you have? And then it started turning into a passion and a love. And I started seeing success in my own business with getting paid to speak, but also bringing in clients from the back of the room.

You started seeing success and it evolved into what it is today. And this has obviously been 12 years in evolution, but today it's called the Crazy Good Talks Blueprint. It's based on my early learnings with Craig, but then it's also adapted for my audience, my personality and everything that I've learned in the trenches as a speaker and a presenter and bringing in clients from the back of the room over the last 12 years. Yeah, that's wonderful.

I remember, I'm trying to think of exactly how many years ago this was. I don't know, maybe four. It's where I heard you speak for the first time. You crushed it. And like, what you're saying is the people who said yes to working with you. I mean, at the end, everyone's going to the back of the room to sign up, you know? So I was like, yeah. And that, that hadn't happened to me. I tried that for, and we were talking about failure earlier before the, before we, you know, started recording. I had tried that multiple times where

I tried to get people to sign up and it just wasn't, it wasn't happening. And I didn't know how to do it where I didn't sound like a used car salesman or feel like a used car salesman. You know what I mean? Like I was, I don't know how to go from one part educator to now making an offer. It feels very awkward. So that's what I had to learn over time. That's what I have finessed. And I don't want to say perfected because I think there's always growth, but that's what I've kind of got really dialed in that I now can use myself and teach my clients how to do. Yeah, that's great. And that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you, Deirdre, is like, tell us about a time you failed. You already just did that.

There's lots. There's lots. What do you think failure means to you when you think about, if you go back, take a step back and think about what does it actually mean to you to fail? Oh, you know what I think it means? I think it means empathy. I think I'm so much more relatable and empathetic to my clients and to my audiences because I can say, Hey, you might look at me on the outside. I look like, you know, well-polished speaker person, right? I have the, I have the mask that we all wear. We all wear a public facing mask, whether we're trying to or not, right? People, people see us through their line of syndrome of someone they've experienced like us. Right. And so pretty quickly in my presentations or working

with clients, I'm able to do, have the discussion we just had, like, Hey, listen, I have, first of all, I don't have it all together. I don't think I ever will because I'm human. But I have experienced probably a lot of the emotions and things that you have or may experience. And I get you. I'm not sitting here from an ivory tower saying, hey, you should do this, you should do that. No, I've experienced this stuff. And if I'm recommending you do something, it's because I know it works. And I've been there. So even though I'll be honest, I don't like to fail. I grew up in our education system like you did too. I'm sure where failure was not something that was promoted, right? We're not supposed to fail.

So I've had to learn how to have this relationship with failure that's okay. And now I realize it's a way to learn and actually to get better. And it's probably the best way I can actually be useful to other people. Yeah. And I love what you said about like this really early on in your talks, your relationships with people's like saying, Hey, I, I don't, I'm not standing here in an ivory tower. I think sharing your failures also shows that you're vulnerable and it helps people relate to you. And I'm sure that's going to be something you're going to talk about when we dive into a little bit more about stories. Okay. So before we dive into what it means to be an impactful presenter and how do you

tell great stories? One of the things I just caught you saying was like this fearless living coach. And I know one of your keynotes is about like how to overcome fear and self-doubt. So what do you think holds people back from believing that they can be a good presenter, no matter if it's like on stage, like you and I as a keynoter, but I mean, we have to present all day long as business people and coaches even, right? Because we're presenting our ideas to get people to follow. Absolutely. So I think there's three things. There's a lack of preparation. Yeah. There is lack of skill. So not realizing that being what I call a crazy good presenter is actually a learned skill. There is a science behind this. When I work with clients, it's an ABC process. It's a formula. So this idea that, oh, some people are just born that way and I'm not

so I can never be good at it. If you're thinking that, I'm talking to your audience right now, if you're thinking that, throw that out the window, please, because that's absolutely not true. You would not believe the clients I've worked with who you might look at them and go, there's no way this person could be good at this, who'd rock it once they learn what to do, right? It's like athletes. You've seen this syndrome, right? I mean, if you take an athlete, sure, there's athletes and speakers that are more naturally gifted. But if that person doesn't hone and train their skill, they can be surpassed by those who have hunger and desire, who are less naturally gifted. Would

you agree? It's the same, right? And sometimes it's like that hunger is like, it's like maybe even more important than the skill sometime because they're able to get back up and say no I deserve this right right so I fail I can I can I can keep going yeah I heard I think it was Will Smith I love Will Smith I think he's amazing and I just love it I heard him say once and I'm gonna paraphrase I'm gonna butcher it but it was paraphrased basically like I might not be the most talented person out there but no one will work harder than me. No one's going to outwork me.

Yeah. And that's how I built my career. And so it's that, it's kind of that, it's that mentality. So, so the, so, um, you know, getting yourself some skills, getting a coach, getting a teacher. Um, if you want to be great at this, that's an absolute, you just, there's just no way around it. I don't care how good you already are. You cannot reach your potential in this area without outside coaching. And then the third, and I think this is where you were leading with

this fear conversation is mindset, right? Your mindset around it. I know that's, that's your big area of expertise, but I'll tell you a couple of things that I've noticed about myself as I go through this journey and my clients. So the first thing is, I used to think that it took confidence to be successful at doing something. I used to think you had to feel confident before you actually attempted to do something. This is why I left the stage for 24 years. And I told myself year after year, well, just wait until you feel more confident. Then you'll take the stage again. It never happened. So what I realized through my fearless living training is that it actually takes courage, not confidence to be successful. So you can be scared as heck and that's okay. Being scared doesn't mean you're not going to be good at something.

One has nothing to do with the other. It just means you're scared. So, Sindra, when I started learning that scared just meant I was scared, it opened up this whole world for me to take action. So that's what I tell my clients. Scared just means you're scared. Doesn't mean you're going to do poorly. Yeah. Right. You get to tap into courage. The other thing, and I want to give, I want to give your, your viewers and your listeners a, uh, uh, maybe a perspective shift on presenting. Let's talk about owning the room for a moment. So you own the room when you're prepared, right? With your content, you own the room when you have some, some solid speaking skills under your belt and you've practiced, but you also own the room in your mind. So let's talk about what

that looks like. Many presenters make the mistake when they take the stage. I'm going to use this word very liberally. So when I say take the stage, and I'm going to use this word very liberally. So when I say take the stage, what I mean is what you and I do all day long where someone's actually introducing us to a stage, or you're just standing up at a board meeting or a leadership meeting or a team meeting or a BNI or a chamber or whatever it is, that's taking the stage. Okay. So whenever you're given the floor, what many presenters do is they think of themselves as a guest. They think of themselves as a guest.

And if you think of yourself as a guest, you will never own the room. Here's what I mean by this. Let's unpack guests for a moment. Sindra, when you go to someone's house and you're a guest, like let's say I was having a barbecue and you came to my house. Right. And as a guest, how are you going to act in my presence? Just kind of, let's just brainstorm. I'm going to be like, uh, whatever you need, I'd love to help you, you know, just like really

grateful. Um, I'm going to follow you. You're going to follow me and you're going to be very deferential to me. Right. Okay. As a speaker who wants to own the room, that is not how you want to show up. You do not want to show up as deferential and following. Okay. You have to show up as clearly the one in charge. Now it begs the question, well, if I'm a guest at someone else's event, right. How do I do that in a way that's not obnoxious? Right. How do I do that in a way that doesn't put people off? So the way that I teach my clients and the way I think about it, as soon as you're given the stage, you have now assumed the role as a gracious host, gracious host. Or if you like it, I joke and say a benevolent dictator but basically you have to realize as soon as you're given the floor whether it's one minute

one hour or one day it's your show and you own everything that happens while you are standing and given the floor okay so if you if you're now the gracious host and I come to your house, how might you be towards me? If I'm the gracious host, I would thank you, but I would also be more in charge. Yeah, you'd set the parameters, right? You'd be like, hey, we're eating at five. Here's the bathroom. We're hanging out outside. And if you came inside and you saw me in your bedroom rummaging around in your nightstand, what would you think or say?

Yeah. No, you'd be like, there's a party downstairs. Let's go downstairs, right? You're not going to let me because I want to rummage around in your nightstand do that. That's inappropriate. So it's the same mindset. When you own the room, you're going to be kind, you're going to be gracious, but you're going to be clearly defining how things are going. And that means just because there's one of you and five audience members or one of you and 5,000 audience members, you are still in charge. They don't get to dictate how things are going to go. One of the ways that I see presenters get pushed around is they're in the middle of making a point and someone raises their hand and wants to ask a question. And instead of saying, you know, okay, hold on,

you know, question, I'll get to that in a moment, or, hey, we're gonna have questions, you know, towards the end, I'll let you know when that is, they just let the audience sort of interrupt what they're going to do. Does that make sense? It makes sense. And then all of a sudden you've like lost the authority. And I feel like when that happens, lost control of what's happening. 100%. And so for me, and I think, Sindra, you're in the same boat. I speak a lot in financial services, which is a highly male-dominated industry, right?

And I think you're in the same boat. Yes. So I had to learn early on how to command an audience of men, primarily men, and still maintain my femininity. Yeah. Right. I would love to talk to you more about that. Yes. So we could do a whole podcast on that if we were female listeners, if you want. But this is one of the ways I do it is I recognize that as soon as they turn the floor over to me, I'm in charge. I am in charge. And I'm in charge in front of male audiences a lot, right? That I have to really be aware of that. And I would love to talk to you a little bit more about like, okay, still owning that femininity, but do you think that it can be too much? Like one time I remember on stage, like laughing and then I was like, oh man, that was like, that was this little too much

femininity. I was like, okay. Okay. That was a little crossing the line. And maybe it could have been just like the audience I was speaking in front of, but more about that line there. I don't know without seeing it. I mean, I feel like we want to be ourselves. Right. So I, I mean, I, I think if, if, um, I don't know, I think that's a hard question to answer outside the context of a specific situation. Right. Just think like if the moment warranted laughing and you were being you, I think, I think it's great. And, and here's the thing. This isn't just, this isn't just for, for women, this strategy. So if you're a man and you're listening, please don't tune this out. I've had a lot of men that I've coached who I've gone

to their presentations and I've watched them and they are way too deferential to the audience. You know, they are not maintaining their authority. They're not maintaining that they're in charge. So this isn't just a female issue, but I do think women have to think about this just a little bit more than men because our natural tendency is to be socialized, to be very deferential in a lot of situations. Would you, would you agree? Yeah, I totally agree. And then give us an example of like maybe what not to do, just so people can kind of paint a picture of like the differences between like this gracious, gracious host and like what you've seen people do that maybe hasn't been effective. Yeah. I think something like getting up and saying, oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. It's so great that you you've had me here, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

that kind of stuff. I mean, first of all, you never want to open any kind of message with that because that's going to bore people and tune them out. But also if you start getting into this, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's sort of like the audience is doing you a favor and it's like, no, actually you're giving them the gift of your wisdom. Right. So while if someone brings me in, I am grateful to be there. I'm not going over the top with this whole, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Type of posture. Yeah. The other thing where I notice it is in, um, in, in questions with, with, with Q and a is, is really letting the audience dictate what you're going to answer and how many questions you're going to answer. So I'll give you an example. I was watching,

this is two male advisors. I was watching two male advisors deliver a workshop several years ago. And one of the advisors said, okay, we have, you know, five minutes for questions, which is great. That's what I teach is that you teach people how long you will take questions for. So you might say we have five minutes for questions or we have time for three questions. Well, at the end of the five minutes, what happens? Someone else raises their hand, right? So now if you're the benevolent dictator or the gracious host, you're going to say, oh, Sindra, I love that you have a question, but our five minutes are up. So just come talk to me after the presentation. I'll be happy to answer whatever it is you have to say. That's being the gracious host. The guest does what he did. And he was like, oh, and I could see him hesitate because he knew he shouldn't take the

question. He's like, okay, what's your question? Let the audience member dictate how the presentation is going to go. The audience doesn't get to do that. Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally makes sense. Yeah. It's different than if you're giving a presentation and maybe you feel like I'm losing the audience for some reason, then they dictate what, then you're going to make a course correction and say, you know what? I kind of need to tell a story here. I need to do an activity to get the engagement back, but that's you reading their cues, not them saying, Hey, Hey, we want to do this. We want to do that. Not letting the audience be in charge, really. You're still

reading the room and understanding what, how you need to adjust. Exactly. And, and it's really also, you know, when you first stand up to deliver a message or you first take the stage, just owning, it's like owning that power, that authority that you've been given to you. Like, again, this is a gift. I get to stand up in front of a group of people and share my heart and share my wisdom really feeling that energy and and and knowing that you're blessing people with your message and so that you're actually delivering a gift and owning that moment that's, that's wonderful. It's almost more a sense of who you're being rather than what you're actually doing. I really appreciate that.

When I think about my evolution as a speaker, it's more about how I show up than what I say. And it's more about like just being my authentic self. And it's okay if I don't say it perfectly this way or this way or this way, but it's more about like this place my authentic self and it's okay if I don't say it perfectly this way or this way or this way, but it's more about like this place I'm coming from. And Deirdre, one of the things I'm thinking about, what got in my way at the beginning, what I see a lot of people, like the thing that gets in people's way is like, they are thinking about them as they're speaking

instead of thinking about the audience. Like what does the audience need right now? And so they're worried about maybe what people are thinking about them. Do you see that as like something also that gets in the way? 100%. I used to, I mean, in the beginning, I think as all new speakers do that, right? I mean, it's, I think it's really hard not to. And so I likely like you have, have trained myself not to do that. And, you know, one of the ways that the more prepared you are, the less you will get into that type of thinking, right? I also have learned that 99% of the time, I cannot actually predict what someone is thinking by the look on their face or their body language, because people, right?

I've had people, I'm sure this is happening to you, that I thought absolutely hated what I was saying and were completely closed off, come up to me at the end of a presentation and go, that was the best. And I'm thinking, did you see your face during the entire presentation? Like, I thought you hated me. I didn't say that, but I'm thinking that, right? And so I realized that I am not a great predictor of what people are actually thinking in their head. And so what I tend to do is focus on those people who are like nodding. I call them my happy people and get my energy from there rather than trying to make up stories about everybody in the audience. Right.

Because that's not helpful. Now, here's trying to process something that you said or really trying to figure it out. Yes. And here's the cue. Okay. So if you're talking and everybody's looking at you, I don't care how they're looking at me. If they're looking at me, then I know that I've got them because they're engaged and different people have different facial expressions. And so I'm not going to judge that. The problem is

if people are distracted, if you're noticing their heads are down, that means their phones are out, or maybe they're chatting with someone else. That's when you need to course correct is that people are distracted, but I wouldn't necessarily course correct just based on how people might be looking at me. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. So I think all of this fits with like this idea of being an engaging, impactful presenter. So Deirdre, what does that mean to you to be like engaging and impactful? Yeah. So for me, it means adding what I call curb appeal to your content. Okay. We all have a body of knowledge that is ours that we know really well, right? And when you're delivering a presentation, you're basically, your task is to take that body of knowledge and then tell it,

teach it to others, right? And so what a lot of people will do is they'll think, all right, well, how do I, you know, how do I, how do I want to say this or how do I say this? But what, but what they don't think about is how do I say this in a way that's engaging for my audience? How do I say this in a way that gives my audience an experience of me and of the content rather than just hammering them with the content? Right. So what, what needs to happen to make a talk crazy good and super engaging is you need to add what I call curb appeal. Right. So if you think about curb appeal, the real estate industry has this like locked and loaded, right? They know if they decorate the front of a house, people are more likely to go in it because they're going to make an emotional connection with it. People are more likely to buy it.

Because they're going to make that emotional connection with it. It's the same with our content. You have to take your footprint of knowledge like you would take the footprint of a house and dress it up with things like stories, analogies, questions, being very conversational, activities that actually add that curb appeal and bring your content to life so that people want to come in your house, if you will. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. I wrote down stories, analogies, questions, activities. You and I have been in places and presentations where it's like, oh, information, information. It was just like too much. And there's not enough of stories. I also really appreciate what you just said is about making it conversational. So tell us a little bit about what you mean by that.

Yeah. So what I mean by that is you would, you want your presentation to sound like we're sounding right now. You want your presentation to sound like you're having a cup of coffee with one person. And what that means is you're going to, first of all, you're going to avoid industry jargon. If you're speaking, if you're consumer facing, you need to avoid industry jargon, right? You don't want to be using words that you'd only use to your colleagues and in your industry. Right. So here's an example of that. When I, when my husband lost his job, he was downsized. I want to say it's like three years ago now. I came home from work that day. And one of the first things I said to him was, Peter, if we need access to cash, where are

we going to get it? I did not say to him say to him hey Peter do we have enough liquidity in our portfolio sure right but that's how when I talk to my advisor clients I use that example because they really get it they might say something like that to an audience do you have enough liquidity in your portfolio your consumer will never use those words even if they do get what you're saying it doesn't connect emotionally because it's not how they talk yeah you want to talk like your clients, like your listener would talk to their spouse or to their friends. You want to use those real words. The other thing you want to do is a lot of people speak like they write. You don't want to speak

like you write. You want to speak like you speak. When you speak like you write, it's using more formal words like, well, my perspective is, or my, I perceive this to be this way versus, you know what? I took a look at that and I said, that's no good, right? Like speak like you speak. So it's avoiding formal jargon. It's avoiding industry jargon. And then it's also using the word you as much as possible over using pronouns that will put them in a big group. So what a lot of speakers will do is they'll say stuff like, how many of you have the book grit? Right? I see the book in the background. How many of you have? Yes. How many of you had the book grit? How many of you this? How many of you that you that? Does everybody have this? Does anybody have that? There's no

how many of you's in the audience. There's no's there's no anybody's it's just a bunch of singular you's so you want to use the word you so do you have the book grit raise your hand if you do have you ever done that right so you want to use that singular you because the more you use the word you the more people will feel like oh my gosh cindra is talking right to me yeah awesome yeah you know one of the other things I love Deirdre about your website it's. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. You know, one of the other things I love, Deirdre, about your website is like, I went on there and I learned about you. I mean, I've known you for a while, but I was like, wow, I learned some really cool

things about Deirdre I didn't know. And it just was really alive. And I got to know you personally. And tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that. And I bet that's going to connect to my next question I have about stories. Stories, yes, exactly. Well, do you want to ask the question about stories also

so I can blend them together? Because I might say- So why did you choose to put your website that way? Like it's full of stories, which I absolutely love because I got to know you a little bit more at a personal level. And then just tell us about the power of storytelling in general as leaders or as presenters. Yeah. So stories are what connects people's hearts,

right? It, I mean, that's one of the things, right? But that's one of the main ways to connect to another human being is through stories. And if you think about the movies you've seen, the books you've read, the presentations you've gone to, you probably don't remember the facts and figures, but you remember the stories that the presenter told or a certain scene in a movie, right? Or a certain part in the book. You remember stories. And so as a presenter, you want to make sure your content, again, whether you're talking just for a couple of minutes or a day has stories woven into that experience with you. And there's three types of stories that I tell my clients as business owners and as

leaders, they should be telling. The first is what I call your why story. Your why story is a story that tells your clients or your audience why you do what you do and why you care about them. If you want to increase trust, connection, likability, and do it in a matter of minutes and do it quickly, that's the story you tell. Okay? The other type of question is what I call a desire story. And a desire story are stories about clients that have gotten great results working with you or using your system or your products or your services.

And then the third are stories to just simply illustrate a point, right? You're talking about some point that you want to make memorable and understandable, and you use just a real life, everyday situation to illustrate that point. So those are the three types of stories. And so what you saw on my website is not only do you want to be blending those stories in when you're speaking, you actually want those stories on your marketing materials. You want them in your social media posts. You want them on videos. You want them on your website. You want them on your LinkedIn. You know, one of the things that drives me crazy right now is you go to LinkedIn on the about me page. And for most people, it's a resume. And it tells me nothing about you or who you are. Your about you page is an amazing piece of real estate for you to tell a story that shows how you are and who you are as a human being. So if you want to check out like my LinkedIn profile, go to my about me section and you'll see it's story-based. My experience is also story-based.

In fact, on my about me section, you'll see a version of a why story, and then you'll see a version of desire stories on the experience section. But if you go on my about me page on my website, you're going to see, you're going to see a why story, right? And so I think that's what you're meaning is that I use stories everywhere I communicate because that's how people get the sense of me as a human being. And that's, what's going to connect us and get someone more likely wanting to say, yes, I'm interested in talking with you or interested in interested in hiring you. Oh, super great. So

your why story, your desire story, and then illustrate a point story. And that's what I, on every single page of your website, I saw a story. And it also did create more trust really quickly and more connection between you and I, because I was like, oh, I know Deirdre at this deeper level now. Yeah. Give us a sense of like, how should we go about crafting a story? Yeah. So, okay. Here's the thing I will say. I want to give a caveat.

Storytelling's a big topic and you know that as a speaker. Okay. So, I mean, I have a whole eight module course just on storytelling that I teach leaders and, you know, client facing folks and advisors. So, what I, what I want to say is it's, it's a bigger topic than we can obviously cover in the time we have here today. So I want to recommend to your listeners and your viewers that go get trained on storytelling, right? I mean, that's like, I think it's, I might be biased, but I think it's

an absolute because the skill is a game changer. But I think the thing to understand at the most basic level is that it is, there is a science and an art to storytelling. And so having a framework to structure the story is the most important piece to get started with. So it's kind of like having the blueprint of a house. Yeah. Right. Where most people fall down at storytelling is one, they don't know what kind of stories to tell. So your stories have to, even though they're about you, they have to connect to your mission and your content and your audience. If they're not clearly connected, if it's just some random story about you on your website, that has nothing to do with what you do and why you care about people, it's going to be a mess. And people are going to be like, TMI, why did he just tell me that story?

It makes no sense. So there has to be the connection, right? But then you also want to make sure you have a blueprint for crafting the story. Because what I see a lot of my clients initially do when we first start working together is that they either ramble, right? So they're like not making a clear point. They're giving too many details. They're giving details that we don't need in the story

or they're putting in details that are very distracting that are completely irrelevant to the story. So it's like just because it happened in real life does not mean that those details should be in the story. You know, the paradox of storytelling, Sandra, as you know, is that you have to make this emotional connection and paint this compelling picture. And you have to do it in as few words as possible. Right? Yeah, so you don't lose people. And I've been in situations where maybe you were at the same talk that I was at, but it was like,

she gave way too many details. I was like, wow, I can't even follow the story anymore. Yeah, I don't know what to say. But I'm not thinking of one specifically, but I've been to many that are like that. And that, that is not an example of great storytelling. Like at that point, it's probably better not to tell a story. Yeah. Right. And so that's why really knowing that storytelling is important, knowing you need to weave them in, um, knowing there's three kinds of stories, but then get some extra training, you know, whether it's with me or somebody else, get training in this area. Because even if you're not a presenter doing keynotes and trainings like Sindra and I do, as a leader or client facing, you want to be sharing stories in your one-on-one meetings with people, with team members,

with clients, if you're recruiting people to your team. Again, you want to put this on LinkedIn, you want to use it in webinars, videos, like they need to be everywhere that you show up. Yeah. And I really, what you said, I appreciated what you said about like on social media, even telling stories. And I was thinking to myself, I do that a little bit, but probably not as much as I can. So such great, like, Deidre. I think we're gonna have to have you back. I would love to come back. I would love to come back. Just to kind of dive into this a little bit deeper. Here's what I got so far from you. And I wrote down a few notes. I loved what you said about like just being yourself and having more conversation from like while you're speaking. I think that's a really

powerful message for people. We talked about failure at the beginning and just like how failure actually allows you to connect with the other people that you serve and helps you be empathetic. You talked about three things that are holding people back, a lack of preparation, a lack of skill, and how actually skill is learned, right? This idea of speaking is learned. And then this mindset, and I appreciated what we talked about that, you know, you don't have to be confident to get started, but it's about being courageous and you're going to have the fear, but it's about, you know, choosing courage over fear. And then loved what we talked about of like this curb appeal making sure that you're telling stories

that you're asking questions you're maybe doing activities and then at the end like these three types of stories your why story your desire story and or desire stories and then to illustrate a point so I definitely encourage everyone to go check out Deirdre's website, Crazy Good Talks. It's a great example of a really polished website that told great stories. And then tell us a bit more about how we can reach out to you if we want to have you come talk to our team or learn more about your eight module storytelling. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. Can I make one comment on one comment you just made? Yeah, of course. This is is going to sound like this might sound weird. Well, the first comment that you made when you said about being yourself and being authentic, I just want to say, if it's hard, if it feels hard to be yourself,

it is hard to be yourself. And I think that's weird to say, it should be the easiest thing in the world. And I just want to say, Sindra, I don't know how you have felt, but as a presenter, so I've been speaking since 2008. It is, what is it, 2020 now. I don't think I really started feeling myself until like the last year and a half, two years. It took me a long time to figure out what that looks like when I'm up in front of a group of people presenting. And so I want to say that to normalize it. I, you know, I think the, you know, our advice, Oh, just be yourself. It's like, it's kind of, it can be really hard. And so if you're feeling, if someone's watching or listening and they're feeling like, Oh my gosh, what's my deal? Why, why do I struggle with this? It's hard. And so I just

want to normalize that. And you just keep doing it, right. And you keep doing it and you'll figure out your voice and what yourself is and how it, how you show up. Are you going to make a comment about that before? I think that's, I really appreciate that, that it's like you were able to kind of step into your authenticity the last couple of years. I feel the same and I have been on my own journey to do that. And I know that it's a fear. It's really other people's opinions, right? Like what will other people think? I'm really working on that from a mental standpoint. And, and I think you and I, I appreciate you saying that because I completely agree. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. So you asked me how people can

get in touch with me for speaking engagements or the emotional engaging advisor. Okay. So the best place for, for speaking engagements, or if you're interested in learning more about becoming a crazy good speaker and what that whole process looks like and how we would work together is to go to my main website, which is crazygoodtalks.com. Okay. And then there there's buttons on there for, if you're a corporate client or an individual, just kind of click the right corresponding button. And then you'll see there's, there's, you know, it'll show you how to connect with me and my team. So that's that. In terms of the Emotionally Engaging Advisor, so that's the eight module storytelling course

that right now is geared towards financial advisors and leaders in that industry. The information is relevant, quite frankly, to anybody, but it is specifically geared for them at this point. Sandra, I am going to come out with another version of it called the Emotionally Engaging Expert, likely 2021, so that everyone feels included. But for now, the Emotionally Engaging Advisor is at crazygoodtalks.com forward slash E-E-A. So if you want to be just a top notch storyteller, if you want to learn how I how to use what I call results driven and transformational language when you speak and when you write emails or show up online, that course will teach you exactly how to do that. and great value to everyone. Thanks everybody for watching us live on Facebook. We got some comments over there

and so I want to be viewed. So thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for having me. It's been awesome. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else?

If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.