Insights on being a transformational speaker.

"People today make promises, break them blithely and then excuse
themselves by saying, “I tried”, when the truth is, they did not."
Kevin Hearne from “Hammered: Book 3 of the Iron Druid Chronicles”

Lots of people attend self-help motivational presentations every year. Some folks do this year in and year out. And yet, there they remain stuck in place. Sometimes, the only thing that actually transforms is a declining balance in their bank account. Inspirational speeches can show “What” is possible for you to achieve. Motivational speeches can clarify “Why” it is important for you to achieve a goal. Without the key “How” you can get from a truly Transformational speech, you’d be stuck without a clue how to achieve your goal.

All of the insights and wisdom in the world will not help you achieve a single thing if you do not know how to put them to work for you. That is what makes transformational speaking such a powerful communication form. Transformational speaking brings the What and the Why into the potentially attainable by engaging the listener in the How they desperately seek.

Transformation is when something experiences a thorough or dramatic change in either form or appearance.

TRANSFORMATIONAL SPEAKING

Transformational speaking is most effective when it shares a story that provides an audience with an insight into How they can transform from where they are to where they liked to be.

I had planned to share a story about my father’s experiences as a salesman to help you understand the transformational How of achieving success. But, as I was writing this blog, I had a chance to view the Tom Hanks film, Cast Away.

While watching this profound story of a castaway’s struggles to survive, I saw in the  Castaway the same attributes I saw in my Dad. They both had a firm grasp of the most critical step in How a person can achieve success. They both understood that, to succeed, you need to make and honor promises to yourself. You must accept that these must be promises you will not break.

The castaway’s inviolable promise to return drove him to find his How through the use of his inner strength and ingenuity. He made a simple promise to return and he would not turn his back on it. Though he struggled and failed, he would not relinquish the promise he made, not only to others, but to himself. Ultimately, he succeeds in fulfilling his promise. It is a small triumph when compared to the challenges he will face when, after five years of living a solitary life, he must reintegrate himself into society. There’s a lesson in this too.

Every success brings new challenges. The promises you make and keep are the key to achieving any goal.

THE HOW OF PROMISE

How often do you make a promise to someone and then go out of your way to keep it? For most of us, because we live by the phrase, “My word is my bond”, we will do handstands if that’s what it takes to keep a promise. But, what about the promises you make to yourself?

Are you less worthy of having a promise kept to you than everyone else is?

The journey to success is not easy, but it is worthwhile. There will be many obstacles, starts, stops, attempts, shortfalls and overshoots. Without a promised-based plan to achieve your success will be massively unattainable. You have to be committed to the promises that will engage the How’s of your transition to achievement.

Booker T. Washington said, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” Overcoming challenges, like the castaway, requires flexibility and a deep commitment to the promise of a greater goal. Transformation is about the How. The How includes the promises you must make to yourself that you will not break during your journey to success.

Remember, Success is only a landing place, representing the journey you took to get there. It is not a destination. If you rest on your laurels, you will soon find new goals are slipping below your attainable horizon.

THE KEY INSIGHT TO TRANSFORMATION

For speakers and leaders who desire to influence their audiences, you will achieve your greatest affect when you connect through stories. Stories that inspire the What of Possibility, the Why of Potential, and the How of Promise.

The biggest insight, within the world of Transformation speaking, I can offer is to find solace in knowing there is always a How. Start by make yourself a goal-focused promise and then do everything you can not to break it. Make your speeches conversations of value. Dig deeper within your knowledge core to find the nuggets of wisdom others will embrace and eagerly pay forward. To be an influence, you must be willing to give of yourself without reservation. When you do your influence will move from ripple to wave to tsunami.

Thanks for your support as a reader of my blog and I eagerly welcome any comments on how you’re thinking about achieving the possibility of your promise.  Also, I would appreciate any suggestions you might have for future posts in this blog on a topic near and dear to you in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Where are you in the audacious and tenacious stories you tell when you speak?

"Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories."
George R. R. Martin

One of the great joys of speaking may be found in that moment when something you say inspires or motivates your audience. There are two ways you can make this happen.

The first is through sharing deeply profound insights that clear the cobwebs from your audience’s mind, allowing them to see clearly through to an outcome you envision.

The second is through the telling of inspiring and motivating stories.

If you take option number 2, you should tell stories of audacity to inspire and tenacity to motivate. When you tell these stories, they will have greater impact on your listeners if they have you as the hero.

AUDACIOUS TALES

I have heard many speakers, keenly intent on inspiring their audiences, tell heroic stories of other people’s accomplishments. True as these stories may be, they lack the first-person credibility a speaker needs to add gravity to the inspiring point they seek to make.

One reason for this, is many speakers do not feel comfortable telling stories of their own audacious experiences. They view this act as “bragging”. But, it is not. It is merely the opportunity to humbly share lessons learned through your own experience at the crucible of life.

Audacity (being audacious) is the ability to take bold risks. If you want to really inspire your audience, take the time to reexamine your life and look for those moments when you stepped outside of your comfort zone. It could be the story of your first time away from home or you're the time you took on a project without any idea of how you would pull it off. Audiences are inspired when they hear stories about the possibilities of human endeavor. The stories that resonate the most with them are delivered through first person testimony.

When audiences hear you tell stories about the achievements of famous people, the listening rule they follow is “If the story is not about you, then why are you telling me?” To be your most effective as a speaker, open up and let them hear about your trials and triumphs.

TENACIOUS TALKS

When I speak on success, I often ask my audience if they have “A capacity for tenacity?”

My goal with this question is to help them gain an understanding that success is not an instant experience, but an accumulation of many instances of success over time. In other words, you can motivate your audience to see why a dream is possible if they can attach themselves to the bigger vision with a massive amount of tenacity.

One story I tell is how I trained my dog to ring a bell hanging by our back door to alert us when she needed to go outside. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but for the dog and our family it was. This story combines elements of overcoming the nay-sayers, calling upon extreme ingenuity and innovation, patience, understanding, commitment to the vision, teamwork and success.

When your audience learns, through your stories, that no dream of theirs is too small to be given their all, they will become motivated to reach for newer and bigger goals.

HEROES AND VILLAINS

George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series said, "Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories."

To be a really effective speaker you must feel comfortable being the hero of your stories. To inspire your audiences, you will need to seek out the memories of where you have boldly gone and look for the wisdom within the tale. You can use this to drive home the critical point of what you want to say. To motivate your listeners to new heights, you will have to revisit the life experiences that will help others learn the value of focused commitment as a means toward achieving greatness.

Have no fear, speakers can be heroes too.

Thanks for your support as a reader of my blog and I eagerly welcome any comments on this post or suggestions you might have for a future blog on a topic near and dear to you in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Do you know what the 3 stories are that every executive must be able to tell?

"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me,
because I'd like to hear it again."
Groucho Marx

Once upon a time there was an idea that struck a very eager entrepreneur as the basis for the creation of an amazing enterprise. As time passed, this visionary’s dream began to generate amazing products and services that not only changed the world, but the way the people who used these great products and services began to see themselves. One user of this company’s fantastic, revolutionary, and cutting-edge technology transformed itself overnight into a dynamic, global leader in people to people commercial exchange and a paragon of social action and responsibility.

There are no names to put to this story. There is really no need to. Because, whether the facts are real or imagined, the elements of this story are essential to the culture, growth and sustainability of every business. The stories within this larger epic are the three basic stories that every executive must learn and be able to tell with unbridled enthusiasm, humility and sincerity.

Do you know the three stories that every executive must be able to tell?

Allow me, please, to share some insights with you regarding the three stories and how you can use them to promote yourself and your business.

First, what are the three stories?

The three stories every executive must be able to tell are:

1. The Origin Story

2. The Product Story

3. The Customer Story

Let’s look into each one and see how it might best serve your needs.

THE ORIGIN STORY

Origin stories are tales of passion. They ignite the imagination of the listener and ask them to surrender their attention to the details of a rise from nothingness to established existence. Some origin stories are about unlikely partnerships uniquely forged upon a spark of genius. Others portray courageous visionaries steadfastly pursuing a dream from a garage or a dorm room.

Whatever story relates the foundational moments of your enterprise, as an executive, you must learn how to embrace it, retell it and infuse it with a passion equal to that of the originators in your story.

You must be ever mindful of the many audiences a good origin story serves. Origin stories can inspire investors, recruit top talent, establish a solid ground for a longer relationship, and provide the fundamental core behind a business’s culture and its proud traditions.

Without exception, the telling of the origin story is a primary duty of every executive from the middle to the top and back again.

THE PRODUCT STORY

Once the purview of marketing and public relations, the proliferation of social media into business marketing channels has enabled all executive players within an enterprise to relate the value, features and benefits of every product in the line.

Behind every service or product is the story of why it exists, how it came to be and what unique qualities justify the loyalty of consumers or end users. The product space is crowded in this arena, (social media) where the best, boldest and cleverest grab the lion’s share of the bandwidth shared by readers and raters for shoppers and buyers.

Today, people exhaust all avenues to uncover the good, the bad and the ugly of a product before making their “buy” decision. An artfully crafted and well told product story can have enormous effect on cementing a product’s ranking in search engines, blogs and other aggregators of opinions and reviews.

As an executive, you must know these stories down to the deepest detail. You must be able to recall them with enthusiasm and purpose. The product story is an incredible opportunity to relate value, innovation and excellence in a single experience.

THE CUSTOMER STORY

Whether you read or hear a review from a customer, it has real bearing on your perception of a company and its products. The customer story is a powerful way to relate to prospective customers the deep levels of satisfaction your company and its products have achieved.

Many executives ignore this fertile ground of storytelling, failing to understand its powerful role in breeding new customers and retaining current ones as well.

A well told customer story is a powerful testimonial bearing witness to the passion, promise, and reliability of doing business with your organization. It extends beyond the performance of a single product or products to reach the much more significant value of a relationship built on trust and fidelity. Every executive should have a briefcase (or backpack) full of customer stories suitable for sharing with a vast array of audiences.

THE STORY YOU HEARD BEFORE

As Groucho Marx quipped, “If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again." As an executive storyteller, you will. Likewise, you will become used to telling these stories and yearn for the chance to do so at every opportunity. The telling must never be done rotely or robotically. Instead the telling of these stories should be fulfilled by those within any organization with a high degree of passion and the honor it bears.

An executive telling any of the three stories, The Origin, The Product and The Customer, should never tire of the unique opportunities they afford to build, buoy and bond a relationship for the betterment of the served and the server.

I deeply appreciate your support as a reader of my blog and I eagerly welcome any comments on this post or suggestions you might have for a future blog on a topic near and dear to you in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Now you can easily create and share engaging stories with The Brain Tamer's C.A.R. technique

"If you're gonna tell your life story, you gotta be honest, or don't do it."
R. Kelly, American Musician

Today, in corporate and professional speaking circles, storytelling is all the rage.

This come as little surprise to me. Humans have been communicating through stories since the first cave dweller put a flame to a twig. Let’s face it, humans are storytelling machines.

People tell stories in all kinds of settings other than after the daily hunt. They tell stories at parties, while networking, in meetings, when training, on sales calls, on the phone, over a meal, and especially during job interviews. Perhaps you do as well.

A story has the power to inspire, motivate and transform its listener. The goal of a story is to convey an experience of value from one person to either another person or to many people. The purpose of the story is to either persuade, inform or entertain the listener in the process.

Regardless of the setting, the basic structure of all stories is the same with a clear beginning, middle and end. When some people speak, it is not uncommon for their story to seem fractured with disconnections between the three basic parts making it difficult to follow and hold your attention. This most commonly happens when the storyteller jumbles the order of the events within the story. It’s similar to hearing the punch line before the joke.

The best stories are the ones we cull from our mind. They’re made truly engaging when the details they contain are placed in their proper and most effective chronological order. It really helps when you are constructing a story to have a method to guide you in this process. So, today, I am offering my C.A.R. Technique to help you create and share engaging stories with your listeners.

THE C.A.R. TECHNIQUE

Whether you look at your resume or a roster of clients, every instance of experience or performance tells a story. The story has elements common to all good storytelling. By using my C.A.R. Technique you will be able to quickly construct an engaging and meaningful story with relative ease.

What does C.A.R. stand for?

C.A.R. represents the three basic elements of every experiential encounter. They are:

• Challenge

• Action

• Result

By simply recounting these three basic elements you can craft a story that will engage your listeners.

Let’s look at each element.

CHALLENGE

Every fictional story ever written or told begins with the lead character having to meet a great challenge. Think about the experiences you have had in your life. Without over dramatizing it, everything you have learned or mastered began as a great challenge. From learning to walk to learning to ride a bike. From getting into college to finding a job. Each experience begins with the challenge. So, does your story.  So, begin your story with the challenge.

• Think about the challenge you had to meet.

• Think about how you would define the challenge.

• What were the circumstances that created the challenge?

• What was at stake if you did not meet the challenge?

• Why did you take on the challenge?

The beginning is where you build your listener’s anticipatory interest in how your story will end.

Once you have clearly established the intensity of the Challenge you will meet, you will want to move the story along by detailing the Action steps you performed.

ACTION

Every summer, moviegoers stream into theaters around the world to gobble up the latest action film. Action sells, because it tantalizes the reader, viewer or listener with the possibilities of human achievement. Through the action of your story, you will inspire your listener while demonstrating your creativity, resilience, and resolve. In your story, you may not save the Universe, but you may have surpassed a sales goal, or discovered a new process for doing something, or earned the loyalty of a customer.

Remember, in every story, it’s the action that captivates, inspires and engages your listener.

Once you have detailed the action steps of your story, it is time to bring it to an end with a triumphant Result.

RESULT

Think about the stories you’ve read, heard or seen. How do they end? Some stories might end with, “And they all lived happily ever after”. Others with, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” The ending justifies the meaning of the story.

Think about how you’d like your story to end. What is the one thing you’d like your listeners to remember about the story you are telling?

The ending of a story should represent a triumph of some sort. There are many varieties of triumph from the utterly spectacular to the completely amazing. The end of your story will detail the effect of the Result that came about due to the Action(s) you took to meet the Challenge you faced.

The Result need not be too long. In fact, the one thing you really don’t want to do at the end of your story is ramble on or rehash the story you’ve already told. Instead, think of how you can wrap it up in one sentences or two. Think about how you can summarize the story with a pithy line, turn of phrase, or tag line.

STAYING TRUE

American Musician R. Kelly said, "If you're gonna tell your life story, you gotta be honest, or don't do it."

One of my executive speaking coaching clients was asked to deliver the keynote address at a trade conference because he had written a paper about a technical process. His first instinct was to deliver a presentation detailing the paper with lots of slides that had a ton of detail on them. After working with me, he delivered a keynote that told the story behind the paper and the process. His keynote covered the Challenge he faced, the Action steps he took and the Result he achieved.

My client’s keynote received a standing ovation and he went on to speak and travel for many years based on this one success. He succeeded because his story came from his mindful truth. He engaged his listeners by sharing the truth of his story without the need to embellish beyond the actual and the factual.

YOU CAN DO IT TOO

Click here to download my C.A.R. Technique Worksheet to help you on your way to crafting engaging stories of your own. This worksheet will help you construct clear, concise and accurate stories to support your speeches, interview responses and networking conversations.

From the beginning to the end of your story, my C.A.R. Technique can help you remain true to the details of your story while crafting an engaging experience for your listener. No speaker is ever at fault for being too truthful. In fact, there is no such thing as being “too truthful”, there is just the truth governed by a level of disclosure deemed appropriate to the situation.

When a speaker tells a story, there is only one way to tell it, honestly. As a speaker-storyteller, you will have to learn to trust the truth of your story as being important and impactful enough to warrant your listeners’ awareness, attachment and appreciation.

I trust you enjoyed learning about how you can use my C.A.R. Technique to create engaging stories for your listeners. Storytelling is a pivotal Content Creation skill enabling you to speak effectively as a thought leader, subject expert, or executive. I am grateful for your support as a reader of my blog and I welcome any comment on this post or suggestions you might have in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer