Speaking is a combination of content and personaliy - Talk Marketing 73 - Mary Gardner
Speaking is a combination of content and personaliy – Talk Marketing 73 – Mary Gardner
Click through to the good bits.
00:19:20 How are you qualified to talk about developing and presenting keynote speeches?
00:32:13 What is the benefit of being able to present in a career?
00:37:43 Are public speakers born or can they be made?
00:40:56 How to deal with stage fright?
00:43:56 What’s the difference between a keynote and a presentation?
00:47:37 How do you develop a keynote?
00:51:20 What is the most important content or presentation?
00:55:03 The challenge with scripting your keynote.
00:59:58 Do you have to have achieved something amazing to be a keynote speaker?
01:07:54 What effect have Ted Talks had on the public speaking industry?
01:15:16 What should people read?
01:18:21 How have you found this experience of appearing on the Talk Marketing show?
Introductions.
Martin Henley: [00:00:17] Hello there. My name is Martin Henley, this is the Effective Marketing content extravaganza and if you’ve spent a second here, you will know that I’m on a mission to give you everything you need to be successful in your business. Providing that is, that what you need to be successful in your business is to be more interested and more effective at doing sales and marketing. So I’m here giving you everything I know about sales and marketing. We are bringing you the marketing news every two weeks. I am reviewing the very best and the very worst of marketing content on the internet and whenever I can, I am pulling in anyone I can find, anyone I’ve been introduced to who will have knowledge that will be useful for you if you are interested to be more successful in your business. [00:00:59][42.1]
Martin Henley: [00:01:00] That’s what today is about. [00:01:01][0.8]
Martin Henley: [00:01:01] Today is Talk Marketing and today’s guest is a communications and political science graduate who has been working in the public speaking industry since 1986, when she was a celebrity booking agent. Since then, she has worked as a publicist and PR expert, founded the Coaches Certification Institute Lifestyle Communication, Inc.. So that’s founded the Coaches Certification Institute and the Lifestyle Communication Inc. and been the radio host of Star Causes for CBS Sports. She is currently running her business Mary Gardner Communications, is an executive coach, professional speaker, TV host, reporter and as a spokesperson has appeared on CNN, Fox, CBS, etc. and is a contributor to the Orlando Business Journal. She has worked with Mark Kelly, the astronaut, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, among a host of others, and presented at more than 100 universities. What you might not know about today’s guest is that she healed her son off of the autism spectrum and wrote a book about it. There are several books. There are several programs, too many to mention. We will talk about those. Today’s guest was introduced to us by the wonderful Tim S Marshall. Today’s guest is Mary Gardner. Good morning, Mary Gardner. [00:02:24][82.7]
Mary Gardner: [00:02:25] Martin, how are you doing? [00:02:27][1.2]
Martin Henley: [00:02:27] I’m a little bit breathless now having to say all the stuff that you’ve been doing. It’s worn me out just talking about what you’ve been doing. [00:02:32][4.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:02:35] Well, you know, it’s been kind of a long career, so it’s not all at once. If you’re in a career for any length of time, you get little nuggets and you, like yourself, want to share it with the world and it’s like when I’m coaching people, I think, oh my gosh, that’s good. So write it down and share it and after a long time you have a lot of content. [00:02:57][22.7]
Martin Henley: [00:02:58] Yes. Before long you do have a lot of content. I remember when I started my business in 2005, somebody said to me, you need more content on your website because it had five pages on it and had a home page that said, this is Effective Marketing, and then it had a services page and then something else and then a contact page and and that was it. I remember saying to the guy, well, what on earth am I going to write about? And now, of course, the web page, the website is thousands of pages, this will be 13,000 words. This will all go on the website. So there’s always content. I tell people, I’m speaking too much. I will shut up in a second. I tell people that content is a little bit like love. Do you know the song? By Wet Wet Wet? [00:03:41][42.6]
Mary Gardner: [00:03:43] No, I don’t know that. Would you like to sing it for us? [00:03:45][2.3]
Martin Henley: [00:03:46] No. The song is the song is Love is All Around and this is what I tell people. For money, I have to teach people, people this to marketing and when I teach them social, when I take them, I teach them content marketing I tell them that content is like love. It’s all around and you just have to get into the habit of collecting it and presenting it. That’s what I tell people. W e’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you before we talk about, you know, all of the stuff that you’ve done around sales, marketing, presenting, like you’ve done a lot of stuff. I’m really interested in this healing your son off of the autism spectrum, because that feels to me like an enormously powerful thing to have done alongside all of the other things that you’ve done. I think. [00:04:33][46.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:04:33] Yeah. [00:04:33][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:04:34] I don’t know if it’s the state of our society now, but it seems like people tend to roll over, I think, easier than they did historically and they would just accept maybe that their son is on the autism spectrum. But you didn’t do that. What did you do? [00:04:46][12.1]
Mary Gardner: [00:04:47] Oh, no, absolutely not. Well, all right. Well, thank you for for talking about this. First of all, my son now is 22. He is absolutely a phenomenal human being. He’s in great shape. He looks like a superhero and he is just he’s doing amazing. I want to encourage anyone who has any childhood chronic issues that everything can be healed. I truly, truly believe that everything can be healed but you have to know that. There are many dark times when you are going through a period of wanting to heal anything in your body, but our body naturally wants to heal. What happened for us was that my child at age five, was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. He had sensory issues before that and sensory processing disorder. So he was really uncomfortable in his clothes. He was overly hyper. He couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He had low muscle tone and so he couldn’t sit up like in circle time with children that are sitting up during naptime or whatever. There were things that he would do, break his pencils or his crayons because he couldn’t hold it, he would hold them too tight, then he would get in trouble. He was in a Catholic school at that time and they were very regimented and so it was just hard to deal with him. Transitions were very impossible, could not get him to get to a place, couldn’t get him to get dressed. Once I got him to sit down and eat, then he didn’t want to leave. Once I got him in the tub, he didn’t want to leave. I couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do transitions. I just started with intuition. I’m like, What do I do? I can’t live like this. We can’t go to a grocery store. We can’t do anything because he runs away and it’s impossible. So I just listened to my heart and I started massaging him and I said, I got to, we got to do something about it. So I started massaging him, spending more time with him. I started playing really light music, peaceful music. I started reading to him the Old Testament, the Psalms and the Proverbs, just to be there at night with him. I didn’t know what I was doing. There really wasn’t any books or anything. There weren’t any books to guide me in this. When I went to the experts, they said, finally, when you get diagnosed, there is no known cause and there is no known cure. And I’m like, that’s B.S, that’s B.S. I don’t really freaking care what you say. I’m healthy. He’s going to be healthy and we’re going to do this. So I started a support group locally and I started inviting speakers in doctors, mommies, network, marketers, nutritional people. I did not care if it was network marketing, traditional medicine – if someone had success with it I brought them in and we ended up having a huge amount of people that were in our support group. We were the first ones to really talk about gluten free and to go out and do cooking awareness type of stuff. I had people from all over the city show up for those, it was ten, 11, 12 years ago that we started this, there were no support groups, there was nothing online. [00:08:14][207.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:08:15] Then Jenny McCarthy came out with a book and I read her book and how she did it also. So it really, for me, and for us, was not just one thing. It was stress, it was food, it was exercise, it was attention. Me giving him attention, me giving him time, my time. Then slowly, slowly, slowly we integrated things like magnets and filtered water, canyon water, the alkaline water. We added nutraceuticals, vitamin supplements. We did chiropractic and energy medicine. We did no food dye, no high fructose corn sirup, we did gluten and dairy free. So over time, as I integrated and learned more about the nutritional aspect that a body needs in order to thrive, Jeremy just started doing well, and by the time he was like in junior high and high school, he was fine. [00:09:08][52.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:09:08] He was still a little hyper here and there, but we found out he had food allergies. Gluten made him very hyper and dairy made him really like drugs, like he was just on drugs. So cheese and everything made his sensory processing disorder his hearing slow, it swelled his brain. When you realize that your body needs to be cleared out and eating healthy things in order for it to function at its best. Before I was, like a busy mom working on Wall Street and run, run, run, run, run. Oh, here, let’s go down and have a, you know, spaghetti meal with meatballs and spaghetti and that was poison to his body. Pizza. Poison. Poison. Goldfish. Little crackers. Poison. So I didn’t realize all that and over time, now, we eat really healthy and he’s now, you know, on top of his diet like crazy. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. He does intermittent fasting. He’s a good cook. So, yeah, I’m I’m so proud. It’s the thing that I’m most proud of in my entire life. [00:10:13][65.2]
Martin Henley: [00:10:14] Wow. I mean, that is an amazing thing. I think the world has changed and the way we eat has changed and the way we get on together has changed and I think we’re seeing this in the health of people. I really do. I really do think that industrialisation of the food industry, the industrialization of everything, education, like both parents working very often. I don’t think really, I don’t think we’re really on subject for what we’re supposed to be talking about. But I do think we’re talking about something really important, which is that the world has changed. I don’t think people are really paying enough attention to that and the effect that it’s having on children. Like ADHD, we may have had a hyper kid or two in our school. Now it feels like every kid is on Ritalin. I don’t know but it feels like that, you know. I did some stuff in schools like ten years ago; there would have been a kid or two in our year at school, out of 400 kids, who might not read. When I gave these kids something to read, these were 13, 14 year olds a third of the class put their hand up saying, no, I can’t read. It’s incredible, actually, the change that’s happening, I think a nd I don’t think people are paying attention to it. [00:11:40][85.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:11:41] It’s it is tragic. One out of five children have chronic illnesses now. As I found, it isn’t one thing, you could blame something like, let’s say a typical thing that an autistic family who starts the research is going to blame the vaccines, but it’s never only the vaccines that may trigger something in people, but it also is the food that you’re eating and digesting. It’s your lifestyle. It’s like you’re saying. You know, these kids, they can’t read. Are they spending ample time with their parents? Do they get hugs? Are their bodies being worked out and running? And, you know, oftentimes if they’re if the parent is working and the kid is sitting home in front of the TV or in front of their iPad, it’s not generating their bodies, not getting the work. When we were growing up, we were outdoors, we were running, and it is a different day and time. I would just encourage everyone, to me and here’s what I had to do, because I ended up being a single mom after, you know, a lot of families that go through hardships like that end up divorcing and I did. A lot of parents, whether it’s a male or female, oftentimes it’s only one parent that wants to dedicate themselves to this because it is a restructuring of your lifestyle. You don’t take on the same amount of stress. You don’t put your kid in every single sport. My child, when he was in sports, was too hyper and a lot of the instructors just couldn’t handle him. I took him out and I took him to the pool, swimming was a really, really great place for him to be because when you’re swimming laps, you’re getting linear exercise with your brain and it’s helping you focus. So it may seem dull in the in the pool, but it helps your brain quite a bit. That’s why I look at like Michael Phelps. I think Michael Phelps, if you ever look at him, his mouth droops. I think he’s got sensory issues. He may have been on the spectrum at some point. He may have had low muscle tone when he was a kid. Oftentimes, if you don’t do the work and get your body in a good place through food and nutrition, you will self-medicate through alcohol and, you know, stuff like that. So it’s important that parents learn to do this for their children when they’re young. [00:14:03][142.4]
Martin Henley: [00:14:04] 100%. Yeah, 100%. I really am inspired by that because I think, because this is the way it feels to me, I don’t have experience of this, you go to a doctor and they just say, Well, this is how it is. You know, there is no there is no cause, there’s no cure, basically wear it. I have every respect that you actually overcame that, that’s an incredible story all by itself. [00:14:31][26.5]
Mary Gardner: [00:14:31] It’s a lot of work, which is a lot of dark days and a lot of crying, a lot of tears. I found things also. I take a blue green algae. It’s by E3 Live. I don’t know if it’s available worldwide, but it was something that kept me calm. I do a lot of things to keep me calm to, you know, nutritional products because the anxiety, I think, is what drives so much of us. You know, we’re living a hyper focused world right now. Yeah, but I’m happy to talk to anybody. If they are interested, plug them in to there’s lots of groups on Facebook where mommies are sharing information. And so yeah, you just have to plug in. [00:15:13][42.2]
Martin Henley: [00:15:14] Okay, Supercool and you wrote a book. What’s the book called? [00:15:16][1.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:15:17] Yeah, I did. My book is called Blessed Chaos and it’s surviving and managing ADHD and SPD with Family, Faith and Food. I used my faith a lot because you are in such a dire place when you’re having issues, whether it’s your child has cancer or whether they have whatever it is, oftentimes you’re really isolated as a as a person and as a parent and you still long for your child to have the ability to go and play with kids. I have a lot of friends whose children right now are not thriving and they don’t know why, certainly I have my opinions about some stuff, but we don’t know. Every child is different. It really is up to the parent to detox their child, to feed them the best whole foods possible. Really, I believe that gluten in the United States is not healthy for anyone. If you’re using it as the basis for core of your your food. The weight has changed so much, it used to be that wheat would grow tall and thin and then they started putting in preservatives and now it grows short and fat. Wheat is just not a healthy preservative, you know, for us to put in our bodies. So we do all gluten free. [00:16:35][78.4]
Martin Henley: [00:16:36] Yeah. And there are, we should get off this subject because it’s not really what we’re here to talk about. But I am fascinated. Yeah, I don’t think people really are quite as aware. When I was growing up, I’m not too far behind you. I don’t think the population has doubled. The population of the planets doubled and the way we have literally engineered feeding the planet has evolved enormously, like you say, like the very nature of wheat. So people are kind of dismissive of this idea that people, you know, always ate bread whatever, but they’re not they’re not seeing that the transformation that agriculture has gone through and like they’re the dairy farming has gone through and meat farming has gone through because it really has it’s changed dramatically in the last 30, 40 years. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, that’s a truly inspiring story. Well done you. [00:17:36][60.1]
Mary Gardner: [00:17:38] Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. If I can get my kid, he’s fixing my light. My circle light that fell. He’s quite mechanically inclined so he’s fixing it right now. If I could get him to join me, that’s all right, Jeremy So, yeah, live TV. One time I was on live TV showing a bunch of products, and right before I went on, everything toppled on to the ground and literally I had about 15 seconds. I threw everything back on the table was back you just go with it when you have live stuff happens. Yeah, yeah. We got a light back. We’re looking good. Well. [00:18:16][38.0]
Martin Henley: [00:18:17] I really have to go. [00:18:18][1.0]
Mary Gardner: [00:18:19] Oh, he’s got to go. Okay. [00:18:20][1.0]
Martin Henley: [00:18:20] Okay, no worries. Okay, good. [00:18:23][2.6]
Mary Gardner: [00:18:23] Anyway, let’s see. I could keynoting. [00:18:26][2.3]
Martin Henley: [00:18:27] Yeah. Should we bring some order to this? That’s what we should do. [00:18:29][2.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:18:30] Absolutley. [00:18:30][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:18:31] So, you know, there’s only five questions, so I’ll repeat the five questions for you. You don’t have to remember them. I’ve memorized them. There’s only five. I’m not difficult to do that. So the first question is, how are you qualified to talk to us about your specialist subject? Your specialist subject is supporting leaders to develop and present keynote speeches. Yes. Is that correct? [00:18:55][23.7]
Mary Gardner: [00:18:56] Yes, it is. [00:18:56][0.5]
Martin Henley: [00:18:58] Okay. So the second question then is who do you work with? How do you add value to their lives? The third question is, what is your recommendation for people who want to get better at developing and presenting? Keynote speech? Is the fourth question really easy. What should people read? The fifth question who can you throw under the bus who might enjoy to have a conversation, or endure maybe, to have a conversation like this with me? So those are the five questions. [00:19:20][22.4]
[1114.3]
How are you qualified to talk about developing and presenting keynote speeches?
Martin Henley: [00:19:20] So, how are you Mary qualified to talk to us about this thing, developing and presenting keynote speeches. [00:19:29][8.4]
Mary Gardner: [00:19:30] Yeah. Yeah. So I started off my career. I always I guess I never was really that popular in high school. When I was in seventh grade, I was sitting in my drama class and this gal Tracy popped her head in the door and said, Hi Mrs. Long, and Mrs. Long our drama teacher turned around and said, Hi Tracy. Then everybody in the entire class was like looking at her. And Mrs. Long said, you know, there’s only some people that when people walk in the door, everybody looks and Tracy is one of those kind of people. It was that point of time I was like, I want to be one of those kind of people where you’re noticed and people have a good feeling about you. So I started kind of studying popularity and how to get it and how do you get to that influential state. So I started studying it and I think by college I had mastered that by getting to know people, by joining the right groups, and by being a part of successful groups and participating and volunteering. As a leader, I started doing speaking and also on my Catholic retreats and things like that I started speaking. So I had a real interest in it personally, and I majored in communication in college. Then I decided, where do I want to go? So I went to Capitol Hill to make my money, you know, and to make my millions. Well, I realised quickly that working on Capitol Hill was a bunch of 25 year olds running the country. It’s a lot of young people who are very self-important and very intelligent. [00:21:06][95.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:21:08] I didn’t love that but then I landed as an agent at Kepler’s Speakers. It’s one of the top countries speaker bureaus. I started, for seven years I got to watch the top speakers in our nation go out and speak and entertain audiences. As an agent, I was meeting university presidents and students across the United States and meeting people who had the hunger to impress people and to to influence people. So back in the day, I was booking and working with like Robert F Kennedy Jr, who was talking all about the environment at that point. I was working with and representing Sarah Weddington, the attorney that argued Roe versus Wade. I put her in debates against Phyllis Schlafly, the Eagle Forum, right wing woman. So I would have these huge debates. Some of the other agents would just book the event and it would be over but I said, No, you got to go to the liberals and you tell them that the other side is going to bring posters, but no posters are allowed inside the auditorium. You tell both sides that, hey, the other side is bringing posters, but you cannot bring them in the auditorium. They’re like what, they’re going to have posters, they’re going to have picketing. Oh, my gosh. So I would help them create a riot outside their school. Of course, the media would show up and it would be this big thing. I know that I helped educate lots of people around the United States for many years on these two issues, on the issue of pro-life, pro-choice. [00:22:40][92.0]
Mary Gardner: [00:22:41] I was always into helping people understand. So marketing was a big part of it. Having creative ideas was a big part of it. And when you have somebody who is a genuine thought leader, they have to be good on stage. So I got to travel with the speakers. Then I opened a PR firm at one point where I was helping them craft speeches and get out and do TV tours and write books. Then I was starting to coach and there wasn’t a business called coaching. I called it personal consulting and I was charging people $150 a month. If you have questions about your speaking career or your brand or whatever, call me. I’ll help you do it. So it was the early days before coaching and so I started doing that. Then I heard that coaching was now a profession, so I jumped on board and started coaching speakers. So I’ve been probably one of the longest running speaker coaches in the nation. I then started a coach training company where it wasn’t just speaking. Speaking was at the highest end of the pinnacle, but it was all about, how do you do it? What questions do you ask? How do you get certified? So we had five workshops that were a total of 80 hours of training. We were training hundreds of people in coaching. But honestly, my passion lied more with helping individuals find their purpose, and that was through influencing the world and serving the world. So I started writing speeches and so it’s just been a long career at this point. I’ve worked with NFL players, Hall of Famers, Olympians, people on TV, people who won Dancing with the Stars, people who are medical doctors. I landed on my favorite, to really help introverts. Introverts are individuals who are thought leaders and intelligent, but oftentimes don’t have the boldness to go out, an the courageousness, to go out and say, hey, I got something for you. They wait oftentimes to be tapped on and to be seen. So now I help people infuse them with confidence. They will go out and they will talk because it’s important that we hear them, too. I’ve been working now in the fields of health care, hospitals, medical, insurance, financial, technology, construction and engineering. So left brain fields where the people are genuinely operational, logical, intelligent humans and I say now I bring the sizzle to their steak. So I help these thought leaders become phenomenal on stage through their bodies, and their emotions, and their content. It is my passion and I love it and my motto is, we inspire the inspiring. So that’s what I do. [00:25:23][161.9]
Martin Henley: [00:25:25] Wow. Okay, good. It feels like if you’re happy speaking about this, feels like you’ve spoken about this before. It feels like this is your passion. That’s what it feels like. Do you want the good news? [00:25:35][10.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:25:37] Yes. [00:25:37][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:25:38] Yeah. I’m happy to accept that you are eminently qualified to talk to us about developing and presenting keynote speeches. [00:25:44][6.5]
Mary Gardner: [00:25:46] Thank you Martin.. [00:25:46][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:25:47] You’re very welcome. This is the highest accolade, you thought certifications blah, blah, blah, presenting to hundreds of universities – no, if I think you’re qualified, then you are absolutely qualified. [00:25:58][10.7]
Martin Henley: [00:25:59] But it’s not without its issues, is it? It’s not without its issues. I think, great market. Obviously, it’s the introverts who need the coaching. The extroverts, they don’t need the coaching, I mean, they might need the coaching, but they won’t be as aware that they need the coaching. So good market. What did I want to say? [00:26:16][17.4]
[403.0]
How could we be supporting people in schools to go on and have personality and speaking type careers?
Martin Henley: [00:26:20] You started a school, I don’t think, and I don’t know if it’s the same in the US education system as it is in the UK system. I don’t think. I don’t think the education system, certainly where I came from, supports people like us who go on, and I’m happy to accept you on a completely different level. I was always the lairy Kid at school. I was making people laugh, getting attention, all this sort of stuff. Nobody ever sat me down and said, Martin, you know what you’re going to be a salesperson and you’re going to be a presenter, and that’s what you’re going to be, and you should go in this kind of direction. They sent me out the class, is what they did. It seems to me that the way we do education doesn’t really support people like us who go on and have, I think, personality type careers. If you’re selling, if you’re managing, if you’re leading, if you’re presenting, that’s a personality type career. What do you think about that? I mean, you were sitting in a drama class. I also took drama. [00:27:28][68.1]
Martin Henley: [00:27:28] I don’t know if you consider yourself, I know you’ve done more marketing type stuff in your career other than this, but it seems to me like lots of marketers and lots of marketing is kind of performative. It attracts a lot of people with a performer’s bent. What do you think about those ideas? That we should be, somebody should be saying to those lairy, kids in the schools, this is what you’re going to be and this is the way you could develop to towards that already. Rather than sending them out without even knowing that these careers are available and then and then having to get really lucky, I think. [00:28:05][36.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:28:05] I love that. Yeah, I know. That’s really interesting. I think by the time people are in college, they’re studying entrepreneurship now, and in the elementary and junior high and high school, there are charter schools where people can really delve in and do the creative arts or whatever. But what you’re suggesting is even more, it’s it’s that personality. I truly never did acting. I did the drama class, but I never really did acting. Speaking is a little bit of a combination of content and personality. There are a lot, just like there are a lot of actors who are introverts, there are a lot of speakers that are introverts because knowing and memorising content is really important if you’re going to be a keynote speaker. I love your thought about grabbing those kids. You were probably one of those athletic type that needed to be out on the field most of the day and running all out and and then coming back. You know, I know schools are not capable of handling a lot of high energy people. I agree with you. I tried to send my son at one point to a camp environment school and it just didn’t work out. There are things available when parents recognise that. The problem is sitting your child down and round pegs, square hole, whatever. It’s like you really have to identify what is your child need in order to thrive and what are those those natural things and feed that. So I think if parents are in tune and it comes down to then are they too busy? Do they have too much anxiety to really pay attention to what their children need? So I think there’s a lot of let’s call it let’s support the parents. Let’s let’s do workshops. I agree with you, Martin. I think that’s a fabulous idea to take those kids in a personality driven and to start working with them. I know here in Florida, they have at fifth grade, they all have to do a speech on stage. So I’ve been lucky enough to help some of these kids be able to speak and do that. One of the kids ended up winning in high school the Florida thing and then went and worked in the White House and was working under President Trump in the White House and now he’s going to law school at Georgetown. So it can work, you can find those kids that have it and nurture them if you find it early. [00:30:26][140.4]
Martin Henley: [00:30:29] I think so. I think if I were more settled, I’d want to be doing that, like going to the school and saying, give me your troublesome kids, you know, because because I think there’s something about that, you know? I mean, I think there’s something about I don’t know, that strength of personality. Like if you’re going to be in sales, you don’t want to be accepting everything everyone says to you, you know, I mean, because you’re never going to sell anything. [00:30:49][20.7]
Martin Henley: [00:30:50] You want to hear. Two funny things I do. I did acting when I was at school. I auditioned for the part of Oliver Twist for a BBC production, but, you know, I didn’t get it. And they told me that I was 12. They told me because my face was too fat. [00:31:05][14.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:31:07] Oh. [00:31:07][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:31:10] It’s over, I’m over it now. The other funny thing that happened is we had careers guidance and because I had done drama. I did drama in school, I was in all the plays I auditioned for some things, and then I did theater studies at A Level, that’s like 16 to 18, I did that. So I had some career guidance and they said, What do you want to do? I said, I’d be really interested to work in TV. And they said to me, Well, there’s a TV factory in the industrial estate, so maybe you can start there and work your way up. So this is maybe why I’ve come to this attitude, which is that these lairy kids like me. I don’t think the schools maybe it’s much better now. It sounds like it’s better there. Maybe it is much better now, but maybe they don’t realise that a percentage of people go out into sales roles or into marketing roles, or into like these kind of more creative things. Then are not, certainly when I was there, it was a long time ago, they weren’t geared up for that. So that’s one thing I think. [00:32:12][62.2]
[343.1]
What is the benefit of being able to present in a career?
Martin Henley: [00:32:13] The other thing that I think that’s interesting when I speak to presenting people is I don’t think people appreciate how valuable being able to present is. [00:32:24][11.4]
Mary Gardner: [00:32:26] Mhm. [00:32:26][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:32:27] In a career you know, because the people who can present are such a minority, who can and are prepared to present are such a minority that it’s almost like a free lane all the way past all of the other stuff, you know? [00:32:44][17.5]
Mary Gardner: [00:32:45] Yeah, absolutely. Those people get a lot. Yeah, that is true. [00:32:50][4.5]
Mary Gardner: [00:32:50] Let me chat about that but let me jump back to your story about being fat. [00:32:53][2.7]
Martin Henley: [00:32:54] And I never said I was fat. I had a fat face. [00:32:56][1.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:32:58] Regarding the acting and this is something to note. I have a friend whose child just went through the drama thing she applied for the lead role she didn’t get it.And so managing expectations of a child because that could really hurt and destroy somebody’s self-esteem from the part of the director having a chubby face would not reflect the role because they were looking for somebody who was, like, weak and like, please sir I want some, oh, you know, skinny and swollen and sunken and all that. So that was that was important. However, that story is really good. Martin, for you on stage, I have a client that just is he shared with me. He’s a up and coming CEO and he told this story of how when he was in high school, he was literally fat. He was 450 pounds. The coach called him out in the middle of a gym in front of hundreds of students and made fun of him right in front of everybody. This kid was at that point, he got so embarrassed and so frustrated, ultimately, he decided to do something about it and say, nobody’s going to make me, you know, in a certain way and I’m not going to be called fat again. So he got in great shape, became a phenomenal athlete, a state champion and then by his senior year, the coach came back to him and said, hey, I want you to join the football team. The guy said, over my dead body and then he told this story on stage how, you know, things happened to us and he got his first standing ovation. So my point being. Martin, that’s a really good story for you to tell on stage. [00:34:28][89.9]
Martin Henley: [00:34:29] Okay. Well, we need to have this conversation because. I that’s 32 stone 450 pounds. Because we do stones and pounds. You don’t do the stones, but we do stones. That’s really heavy 450 pounds, 32 stone. That’s twice as heavy as I am now. Okay. [00:34:53][23.2]
Mary Gardner: [00:34:53] Oh yes. Was. Oh I see. With weight. Yeah. He was absolutely. He was enormous. [00:34:57][4.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:34:59] Then the other point that you made is that these skills are really valuable in a career and it’s absolutely true. What happens is, and how I teach is, most people that I’m working with are engineers or they’re accountants. They’ve learned that expertise in their career matters but there’s a certain point when they’re starting to become better, and better, and better that they need to grab back and start mentoring younger people. That is when the competencies of leadership take over. So there’s a there’s a dry period any time that we’re building competencies, there’s a period where you’re not so good, but you need to be learning those competencies, which are about creating vision, strategy, communication, coaching. These things are so pivotal and so key and at that highest level, being able to speak and motivate and inspire your team is the public speaking component that people have to work on. It’s a combination, as you mentioned. It’s a combination of having good content, having charismatic words; words that electrify people and inspire and give hope to people, and also that they’re in sync with their body and that they can be able to present it in a way that makes sense and that can really stimulate people’s thought and to take action. So you’re right, it’s a great career move to learn. [00:36:19][80.3]
Martin Henley: [00:36:20] Yeah, I think I’m going to go further because I remember when I started presenting, I was working for an IT company. I was a sales guy. I was the least technical person, I was the least competent person, but I was the only person that could actually stand up in front of a group of people, and we were presenting to the boards of international banks and insurance companies and those kinds of things. I was the only person, so I was just I was there doing that thing. I became really valuable because I was the only person who could do that without without melting into nothing or just sounding completely stupid for how however long it was they had to speak for. So I think more than that, I think if you can present just on its own, I think the rest of the stuff the people around you can help you with, but if you’ve got that way, you just don’t mind and I’ve never minded, I’ve never cared for a second. [00:37:22][61.6]
[00:37:22] So this is the other thing that I want to have. We’re coming to the second question, which is what do you do for people and how do you add value? Who do you work with? How do you add value maybe with that? Okay. [00:37:33][10.8]
Martin Henley: [00:37:33] So question number two for when we clip this up. [00:37:36][2.7]
[310.8]
Are public speakers born or can they be made?
Martin Henley: [00:37:37] Who do you work with, how do you add value to their lives? Here’s my assertion. Here’s my question. Are speakers born or can they be made? That’s my question. [00:37:48][11.7]
Mary Gardner: [00:37:50] I love that. That’s a great question, is who do I work with and how do I work with them and can are speakers born that way or are they made that way? We’ll start with that, because I do believe, like in your case, you have natural and natural energy and you have a natural charisma and you have this thing in you that drives and really wants to help serve people through performance and through education. So you’ve got a gift in you and I always believe if someone has tapped into something that they love, that is the most important thing that you express in the world, because people are going to be automatically attracted to that. When you have that passion, it’s magnetic. Some speakers have that natural charisma some leaders have to be brought out of. [00:38:37][46.7]
Mary Gardner: [00:38:37] How do I work with these people to tap into that charisma? How I tap into that personality is by finding out who they are and things about them that are really important. So how I do it is I interview them and the first part of the interview is all about their early childhood, their life. What did they do? Were they doing sports? What was their relationship with their families? How were they? Did they have siblings? Did they have fun? Did they have tragedy? So we look at their whole life. The second part of the interview is about their choices as a career. Who do they end up as? What did they do? What kind of values did they create in their careers and how did they gain the success that they have? What were the decisions that they made and why? So I start to look at their entire life, and then in that we put together a motivational speech. So I actually put together a speech for them. Normally we start off with a story from childhood or something that was very impactful for them, something that gripped their heart that they will be able to tell from the stage in an authentic way that really will just grab everybody. So in that regard, the introverts, if they’re willing, oftentimes it’s too close to home so I have a bounce back formula where we create a story. If it was something that was a tragedy, we don’t go all the way so they’re going to burst into tears on stage. We tell and we practice a story that is something that is going to manifest a good feeling ultimately. So we look at their lives. What were the lessons they learned and now how can they appeal? Put them together in a keynote or for their audiences now? So I interview them. I write the speech. Then we practice is how I work with them. [00:40:27][109.7]
Martin Henley: [00:40:28] Okay, good. Because I think you’ve got already to the other talking point, which I’m not quite ready for yet? I still. I still want to think about this. Okay. I mean, you were answering the questions early, maybe. [00:40:46][18.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:40:48] Well, let me share a little bit more about that, because. [00:40:50][1.9]
Martin Henley: [00:40:51] Can I just say what I what I’m thinking because I’m going to forget. [00:40:54][3.7]
[192.5]
How to deal with stage fright.
Martin Henley: [00:40:56] I’ve never cared. There’s never been a time where I’ve got up in front of an audience and I’ve been nervous or concerned or anything, I’ve never had stage fright. I’ve never. I’ve got theory, if I may? [00:41:11][15.1]
Mary Gardner: [00:41:11] Yeah. [00:41:11][0.0]
Martin Henley: [00:41:13] I think if you are nervous when you get up on stage, you’ve got it completely wrong. If you’re nervous for you, you’ve got it wrong. The key to that is to understand that it’s actually got very little to do with you and it’s all about delivering value for the audience. If your focus is on you, then your focus is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. What you need to do is take your focus and turn it around 180 degrees and know that it’s about those people in the audience. That for me is why I’ve never had stage fright. I’ve never stood up in front of a group of people and thought this could go badly, because my mission is always I’m here to do my very best for them. Do you know I mean. [00:42:01][47.5]
Mary Gardner: [00:42:02] So I didn’t know you had content in your head that you knew you were going to deliver. You weren’t just going to get up there and dance. [00:42:08][6.0]
Martin Henley: [00:42:09] Well. That’s interesting because, not always, no. Okay. Yeah, because what? Because I think I’ve got some sort of ability to. When I’m in front of a group of people, that’s my flow state. You know, the idea of flow, then it all just happens. Then I’m awake, all the lights on, everything is happening. I’m fully functioning, you know, that’s my flow state. I think I’ve got some kind of ability to kind of know what needs to be said. You know, if you stand up at a family function and someone says somebody has to say something, then I kind of feel like I know what has to be said. So I don’t have to have content. Also, when I when I present, I like to think of it as a conversation I have with them. So because I’m also nosy, I’ve got like a head full of questions. So if I run out of things to say, I’ll just fire a question. Then I think the the really good stuff comes from the interaction because it’s like everything in marketing, in life, until you test it, you haven’t got a clue if it’s working. You can do as much research, spend as much time as you like preparing the content but unless you’re actually looking for that feedback, you’ve got no idea if it’s landing or if it’s appropriate or whatever it is. So that’s kind of my idea is I’ve always had a full head full of questions. I throw soldiers around the room for when they engage in stuff so I’ve developed a whole stupid thing, but people really like it, you know, and I really like it. [00:43:55][105.3]
[173.9]
What’s the difference between a keynote and a presentation?
Mary Gardner: [00:43:56] The difference is that a keynote is a presentation that is not normally interactive. That’s different from what you’re doing, which is really warming up the crowd workshop or meeting type of thing where you’re here to engage questions. I love that too. That’s my favorite. I have a course called The Charisma Course, which is teaching people how to be interacting like that, how to have that, what you just identified – it’s not about me, it’s about you, and how can I serve you and how can I bring the best out of you. I say, when you walk into a room, you say, This is my party. And if you’re having a party, then you’ll get everybody doing something. This person over here, you take care of the food, you take the coat, you take the purses, let’s get everybody working together and so that’s the concept really of a workshop. Which is a great skill because then it’s fun, interactive, you’re getting everybody working. [00:44:51][55.5]
[00:44:52] Now, a little side note, introverts don’t always like interacting like that. [00:44:58][5.4]
Martin Henley: [00:45:00] No they don’t. [00:45:00][0.0]
Mary Gardner: [00:45:00] Sometimes they’re sitting here like this and they’re like, okay, arms crossed, don’t want to interact. I’m private, don’t want to do it. So they’re also in addition to that, there are techniques to be able to get people to loosen up and to move your body in a certain way. It’s almost like I have little cats, I have two little baby kitties, which if they keep going by me and with kitties, you can’t grab them because they’re going to run out. The way that you approach them is really quiet and you get down on the ground and you blink your eyes in a way that makes them see I’m vulnerable and then they come over to you, put your little finger in their nose. So introverts are often like cats. You don’t come on gangbusters like, Hey, everybody, get a buddy. Like, they’re like, oh, so yeah, there’s also that. I know that Martin Because you’re good, and you’re a genius at people, and you have high emotional intelligence, you understand that you’ll see people that are shying away from that. I know that because you’re good at what you do, you will understand that intuitively, to not become so bold in front of somebody who’s, like, offensive or just like shy. So you learn those things over time, but you’re describing a really fun environment. That’s the warm up crowd, not the keynote. [00:46:21][81.3]
Martin Henley: [00:46:23] Right, okay, good. People have said that to me before and I kind of agree. So we’ll go to what keynote is then and how you develop a keynote. I think people have got a much better sense of this because of like the TED thing, so people have got a sense of that’s what a keynote is. [00:46:45][21.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:46:46] Okay, good, right? Yeah. [00:46:49][3.1]
Martin Henley: [00:46:49] Okay, so we’ll go to that. The other thing that I want to talk about is this idea of content versus performance. So what you said to me is that I must have had some really great content for some reason. [00:47:02][12.8]
Martin Henley: [00:47:02] So what I’m interested to know is and I kind of get a sense of what the answer might be anyway, but is it about content? Can content carry the presentation on its own? Can presentation carry the presentation on its own or the keynote on its own? What is the relationship there with the people you work with you really like to work with now the extroverts, what is the more important component of those two things? [00:47:29][27.0]
Mary Gardner: [00:47:31] So I work more with introverts, not extroverts, but introverts. [00:47:35][3.3]
[210.2]
How do you develop a keynote?
Mary Gardner: [00:47:37] As you mentioned previously, someone like yourself, if I were working with you, I would sit down and maybe we would be taping it and riding a bike or something. So you would not have to be sitting there in your, whatever. We’d accommodate you or I’d interview you and you’d get to talk and then we’d put it together. A keynote is just like what you said about the TEDx talk. It is a condensed talk or it’s a presentation that is scripted. It’s got an introduction, it’s got a body and it’s got a conclusion. Hopefully the conclusion is the call to action that gets people to take action. So the the introduction of your presentation needs to be a story, hopefully a personal story that will grab the attention and the heart. When you’re doing a presentation, you want to justify persuasion. If you’re doing something persuasive, persuasion, or if you’re telling a story, you’re going to give details and you’re going to give story. Persuasion is about justifying on facts and logic, and then people buy off emotion. [00:48:42][65.1]
Mary Gardner: [00:48:45] Like you started out with me, Mary, what’s your credibility? So giving the data, giving the facts, and then sharing the stories, those are a good combination. So in in the context of your keynote, you’re going to have both. You’re going to have the data, the facts, the issues, the stats, whatever, and you’re going to have the story. That makes up a really good presentation. So there are different types of keynote, there’s persuasive speaking, there’s informative speaking, there’s storytelling, there’s motivational speaking. So it depends on what your intention is for the keynote. When we’re doing our boot camp, we’re helping people write their motivational speech, and that’s about success and it’s about choices. The majority of them, everybody has the ability to do a motivational speech, even if they’re a homeless person, because they got to do choices. One of the things that we talk about, don’t be telling stories if you’re still in, we call it the shit pit. I apologize for using that word, that’s just what we call it. If you’re in the doldrums and you’re in a really bad place, it’s hard for you to be a motivational and tell that as a story. You can reach back in life that you’ve already gone through hard things but we get people in your story at the worst moment that you ever went through, and then we take them out of the shit pit into the sandy beach step by step, by step by step. When you’re on the sandy beach, you’re drinking a pina colada, you’re sitting under the sun, under an umbrella, and you’ve made it and you go back into your story and say, here is how I did it. That is the maker of a really good story. So the, you know, basically a keynote, after a keynote, people are going to remember maybe two stories that you told and they’re going to remember how they felt about you. They may remember one stat or two or just got clarification, but they’re going to remember how they felt around you. So you asked what is more important, the content of the personality? I would say they’re both important. [00:50:49][124.4]
Martin Henley: [00:50:50] When somebody goes up on stage and only delivers good content and they’re giving a PowerPoint, they’re talking to the PowerPoint, the speaker fades into the woodwork and they don’t even remember who that person was. They could have just given a TED talk or say here’s a video for a TED Talk or here’s my paper. You can do my white paper. So my opinion is that every thought leader who is going into leadership, who wants to inspire people to have success in their career, needs to learn how to speak in public, telling stories from the heart. That’s my opinion. [00:51:19][28.9]
[218.4]
What is the most important content or presentation?
Martin Henley: [00:51:20] Good. Excellent. I didn’t mean, I meant performance, I think is what I meant. So is it content or is it performance? So I’m kind of imagining someone who is more introverted would need the crunch of a really strong content to give them the confidence maybe to deliver the performance. Maybe someone who’s more performance capable wouldn’t need such strong content. You’re absolutely right. It’s the key the two things together. [00:51:50][29.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:51:51] Yeah, it is true. I apologize for not going into that, but it’s like the story can be the performance. I’ve seen a TED, we have a TED talk speaker that we show in the boot camp and she’s a high introvert. She’s trying or she’s Korean and she escaped from Northern Korea, I think it was or Southern Korea. I can’t remember, sorry. She’s very quiet and the whole time she’s telling her story like this, but her story is riveting. So in that regard, it fit who she was and what she went through. It was a very sensitive time, how they were hiding in the the rice paddies and how they, you know, people were getting captured and killed. Her performance was not vivacious. It wasn’t charismatic. It wasn’t somebody who was wowing the stage but her story was riveting. You could cut the air like a knife because she was so amazing. So you have to fit the story with the performance and the personality. [00:52:48][56.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:52:49] What I do with a person like you. I would say, all right, Martin, we’re going to take a serious point in time and instead of you being so vivacious on stage and talking fast and being loud, we’re going to take you to a place of where you’re humble and you’re quiet and you’re going to capture attention by being less than and not by being extra. I’m going to take your personality down to a level, and maybe you’re going to talk really fast. You’re going to give some data and give that stuff. So we’re going to balance your personality just like an extrovert, I mean, an introvert. I’ll take them and have practice being loud. I’ll have them scream across the whole room and get out of their body because we all have a typical way of being. My job as a speech coach is to take you and scramble you up and allow you to feel what it feels like to be your opposite and then to present that opposite person on stage. Then your heart and your head are in alignment, and they reach everybody in the audience. For every person to know, introvert, extrovert, you are performing and you need to show both sides of your brain and both sides of your personality. I take people to get like you, I take them back to when they were 13 years old, hanging out at the family reunion, hanging out, hanging with their childhood friends and their cousins, where they’re being rambunctious and silly and having fun. So I remember and bring them back to that state so they can perform that on stage as well. [00:54:18][88.9]
Martin Henley: [00:54:20] Cool. Excellent. What am I thinking now? Now I’m thinking it’s interesting because you’re talking about introverts and I’m talking about extroverts because I’m getting it wrong. I was once at a thing. It was a workshop thing, and I was a participant and what they asked us to do is they asked us to go around the room and you had to tell everyone you encountered in the room whether you thought they were introvert or extrovert. Basically the room was about 50/50 split. People who had seen me speak and people who hadn’t seen me speak, anyone who saw me speak said I was an extrovert. Anyone who hadn’t said I was an introvert because I’ve always had this thing either I’m running the room or I’m not. I was that rowdy kid that disrupted classes at school so I don’t want to be that anymore. [00:55:03][42.8]
The challenge with scripting your keynote.
Martin Henley: [00:55:03] So I think it’s kind of interesting. What’s the other thing that I wanted to say? I wanted to say? For me, I did a stand up comedy course. I did stand up comedy because I was presenting a lot it was a kind of development. What I didn’t know about standup comedy until I did it is that it’s entirely scripted. That for me, that and a keynote, is the scariest thing because if you’ve got it wrong, you’re on that track. Do you know what I mean? There’s nowhere for you to go. That, for me, is the scariest thing. Like, I really want that engagement and that feedback to know that this is landing or that it’s the right thing or whatever that might be. So this idea of standing and just giving for 20 minutes. I’m sure I could do it, I did okay at stand up. I came I came out with something quite original funny but for me, that’s the least that’s the most scary thing. [00:56:06][62.4]
Mary Gardner: [00:56:07] I agree. Yeah. It’s hard. I agree and I’m glad that you said that and that you’ve gone through that scripting process. That’s why it’s easy or better, I think, and you can share with me what your thoughts are on that, to be able to collaborate with someone. Oftentimes if you’re just trying to write yourself, you’re not getting that energy and you’re not like your brain isn’t like coming up with the best of. Yeah. So did you write your your comedy? Was it just by you going out in the world and then, oh, that was good? Or did you sit down and write? How did you come up with your comedy? [00:56:41][34.4]
Martin Henley: [00:56:42] I did a comedy course and it was absolute genius. It was absolute genius. Because what we did is there were 20 people on the course and it went on for 12 weeks, every Saturday afternoon for 12 weeks. What she did in the first couple of sessions is tell us how to write jokes and then basically every Saturday afternoon we get up in front of each other and just share the stuff that we’d been writing. It was genius. It was so brilliant. The point of that is that’s the only way, that’s how you do standup comedy. If you listen to the most famous standups, what they do is they write stuff and then they go out and test it. So I suppose that kind of comes into somewhere where I am, where I want that immediate interaction, that feedback, to know that this is a good thing or not. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s really interesting. [00:57:30][48.3]
Mary Gardner: [00:57:34] I’ve always thought, you’ve got a sense probably that I’m kind of running away from my responsibilities. There are easier ways to make money on YouTube. There’s easier ways for me to make money. I’ve always thought that I should put together a motivational hour and come to the United States and flog that with my accent and my weird, quirky way of presenting. I thought maybe I could make some money. Maybe I need to get on one of your workshops. [00:57:58][23.8]
Mary Gardner: [00:57:59] And boot camp there 100%. Yeah, it’s hard, I will tell you, for someone like you or like me too because one of the things that drives us so much is people. I finally got to a place where people are phenomenal but if I don’t take my content and deliver it and do something with it, and monetize it, then I’m not going to be able to be with people because I’ll be on the streets or living in whatever. It’s a discipline. You get to a place as an extrovert who need people to monitor your time a little bit better. I think over time, I’ve become more of an ambiavert and I’ve become satisfied. I had to do a lot of things. I write in a journal and that keeps me solid. I take the brain on, so that keeps my brain happy. I exercise as much as I can, so I get out of that energy because that person who is high drive extrovert has a lot of energy and you need to manage your energy. Then you’ve got the focus to be able to sit down and actually accomplish things. [00:59:06][66.9]
Mary Gardner: [00:59:07] Then I also look at someone like you or like me. There are many things I cannot do as a high extrovert personality type, and I need that introvert to be able to organize me to put my business online and to do the technology and things that I’m not so great at. So the thing that’s so wonderful, Martin, is that we all need each other. Those introverts need you in order to bring that sizzle to their work and the the extroverts need the introverts to be able to be solid and get the information, get the glean out the real data and the information that’s helpful to people. So together they make a great presentation. They can make a great keynote. So I think you would do very, very well at doing what I do, which is help introverts become influencers. [00:59:56][49.2]
[285.0]
Do you have to have achieved something amazing to be a keynote speaker?
Martin Henley: [00:59:58] Potentially. What I’ve always seen, what I’ve always thought is it needs to be a personal story, so for example, the people who demand the biggest fees are the people who sailed solo around the world, climb Mount Everest, did something phenomenal. I am interested in this. I thought I thought that I’m just ordinary, just an ordinary upbringing, an ordinary kind of career, blah, blah, blah. So I don’t have that, so it would make it more difficult. I think there’s something in the ordinary, like there’s something from going like if you’re not what’s her name? The woman who sailed solo around the world. Like, if you’re that amazing person, then that’s not necessarily motivational for people. What I think is in sales and marketing, in presenting and teaching and all these things, you have to find people where they are and you have to take them to the next step, the next place. You know, that’s really as much as you can do, whereas you’re not really doing that if you’re …. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’ve run out of steam, say something. [01:01:17][79.1]
Mary Gardner: [01:01:20] I want to share with you one of the things that I am thinking about are speakers that did exactly what you’re saying. They didn’t do something extraordinary. They didn’t go out and save the world. They didn’t go on a magical adventure. They didn’t climb Mount Everest. Here’s what they did. They saw who are the most expensive speakers? What are the trends in speaking? What is the title or what could I do and create a keynote? So I’ve a friend. His name is Giovanni La Vera. I’m telling you, creative genius. Creative genius meaning he was a magician and he’s been at the height of the level of magic. He was the guy that invented, I don’t know if you’ve seen those things where they shoot the T-shirts into the stadiums, if you’ve ever seen that? They shoot T-shirts. He invented that. Then if you go to a basketball game and they have people walking around with a big basketball hoop on the top of their neck and throwing the basketball and they get a T-shirt or whatever. He invented that. So he was the official magician for the Amway Arena, for the Orlando Magic here in Florida. [01:02:26][66.4]
Mary Gardner: [01:02:27] Then somebody challenged him because he was doing corporate gigs as a magician and then someone said, Geo, why don’t you create a leadership talk? So he went out and wrote a leadership talk and then he inserted a couple little interesting things in it. One of the things he did was a he brought four people up on stage. He has them all standing kind of like in a square and one by one, they sit down and they start sitting on top of each other. Before long you have four people sitting on top of each other and they’re all like in sitting position and they’re all holding each other up. It shows you that a good team leader will get people supporting each other, so they’re all setting up. It’s so magical. So he presented something on stage that looked amazing, and then he threw out into the audience like everybody had these little because he’s a magician, he had little pieces of paper, and then you have to fold them and see if you can get a penny through it. So he gives you a penny and he gives you this piece of paper and it’s a little thing of magic. So he did these little, antiquated, fun, little entertaining thing along with his keynote. Guess what? Giovanni Libera was a $20,000 speaker because he had a great presentation. He was not really a leader, but he created and he was a leader in his field of magic, but he was a creative genius. He sat down, he wrote it, then he marketed it, and he was a successful keynoter. So there are a lot of people like yourself who have big personalities, who think what should I do? Digital marketing. I’m going to write an amazing keynote on digital marketing and I’m going to show through science something on stage where I’m going to take somebody and I’m going to all of a sudden, now you’re an influencer. How did I do it? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you wow the audience with this thing. And that is how you go from obscurity into celebrity by doing something magical and something creative on stage. [01:04:26][119.4]
Martin Henley: [01:04:29] Good. I would have to do that or else I can’t be bothered. I’d have to create something really amazing. I can’t be bothered and so probably what I am right now is I can’t be bothered. I’m feeling like I can. I’m feeling like I’m finding my energy and I’m kind of coming back and I’m engaging with brilliant people like you. [01:04:45][15.5]
[280.4]
The 3 really interesting things that people will never understand if they are scared of public speaking.
Martin Henley: [01:04:47] You see, this is for me where it gets interesting because his keynote has much more engagement and in the way that I would want mine to have and this is what’s interesting. So for the people who are, for the people who, bless them, say they’re more scared of dying than they are public speaking for those people, they are so wrong because it’s not about them, we’ve covered that. There’s much more interesting aspects to it, like this idea of social compliance. When you stand up in front of a group, people, you are leading them and they will be led. That’s fascinating to me. That is fascinating. The fact that you can do that. The other thing is about how you actually motivate people. I tell you, I throw soldiers around the room, I do all these things. What I realised quite early on, when I started running my business and presenting marketing type stuff regularly, is that it’s not particularly easy to motivate British people. We’re not like Americans, so we can all start wooing and stuff and everyone gets excited because we’re much more reserved than that. I developed this militaristic bent, because if you can elicit some kind of Dunkirk spirit from these people, then they get really excited. Like Churchillian, that sort of thing. Yeah, that’s really interesting to me. The really interesting thing in all of this is how you actually motivate people. How you find those really quirky ways of landing the message where you give them like 80% so that they have to work out the last 20% themselves so that then they feel like they’ve come to a realisation of their own, or you don’t even know the 100%, but you can get them to 80% and they’ll do the 20% of work for themselves. So those three things like the social compliance that goes on. I forgot what the middle one was, but the last one, like how you deliver these messages in a way that people can really engage, or not engage with, but people can really work with, be motivated by, being moved by. Those are really interesting things and it just seems to me like this entry level, it’s scary standing in front of people is just such a non-sequitur, it’s ridiculous. Shouldn’t happen. Okay, but you’re in the world fixing that. That’s good. We’ve got 9 minutes left. [01:07:22][154.9]
Mary Gardner: [01:07:23] I think we should do a quick coaching session for you. [01:07:25][2.1]
Martin Henley: [01:07:26] No, we can’t. We’ve got three questions to go. I would love to do that. This has been, you’ve seen through the facade, this has been a coaching session for me. I think I’m going to come and get on one of your bootcamps. Before we get to the last three questions. Here’s the last question I want to ask you now. I know you’re benefiting because you’re coaching people to do Ted X’s and Ted’s and those things. Yeah. [01:07:54][27.3]
[184.3]
What effect have Ted Talks had on the public speaking industry?
Martin Henley: [01:07:54] Has Ted X and Ted, what effect has that had on the industry? Because clearly now we get to see many more speakers. What effect has that had? Has it made it a better place to make a living or a more challenging place to make a living? What effect is that had? [01:08:13][19.0]
Mary Gardner: [01:08:14] Yeah, absolutely. TED Talk is a really good brand, and so it’s a nonprofit organization and what they’re looking for is an audacious idea. So they actually have a section where you can apply for an audacious idea, but they’re looking for the big idea of something that you have accomplished, something that was life changing and it’s usually one idea. It doesn’t have to be a whole business. It could be one simple idea. [01:08:39][24.9]
[01:08:40] I had one client who was a physician, and his one simple idea was that in hospitals it would be good to check in with your bosses and the doctors. He told a story about how he went through a period where there was a little boy who passed away and he was still had his living organs and the family decided to donate his organs. What happens is they automatically go out and they give those donor, you know, they say, oh, you’re going to get a donor heart, you’re going to get a donor eyes, whatever and at the last minute, the family changed their mind and they decided not to donate the organs. What happened was everybody in the hospital was crushed and it was so hard because then all these other people that were waiting could have died and didn’t get the the the heart would, all that stuff. So it was very depleting and depressing for all of the staff. So the social worker came to Larry, my client, and he was saying, how are the people on my staff? How are they doing? And she said one question to him that changed his life. She said, They’re fine, Larry, but how are you? And he started crying and he realised, oh, my God, what is happening to me? And what happened was the top of the hospital and all these the leaders don’t get asked, how are you doing? So he made a culture in his medical environment. Check in with your leaders, because you know what they’re hurting, too. Right now, leaders and doctors, dentists, veterinarians are the highest level of suicide. That was one little idea and that idea has permeated through the hospital profession that, hey, check in with your check in with the doctors. How are you doing? Just asking that. So, yeah, one little idea. It can make a difference in your career because once you stand up in front of an audience, even if it’s in front of your team and you do a bang up job, it can totally change the trajectory. [01:10:40][119.9]
Mary Gardner: [01:10:41] I have a client that I worked with a couple of years ago who was working as a fundraiser, and she came to me, she said, I want to do something big. We’re having a meeting where we tell what we did last year with our fundraising goals and how we accomplished them and what we’re going to do next year. I said, let’s write a speech. So here it was. Everybody else just shows up. So at the speech was the CEO of the hospital, her board directors and her associates, who were also fundraisers. So Dawn stood up in front of the audience and said, Do you remember when you started here at Florida Hospital a few years ago and you drove up to the driveway, the circular driveway you parked, and then you walked in the door. The first couple of days you looked at all the people, like, I wonder if I’m going to like them. Are they going to like me? Well, after a week like you, I knew this was the place for me. We over the past year have been able to accomplish this, this and this and I was able to work with such an amazing team. Last year my numbers were this, and this year it’s amazing. We’ve got so many things on the docket. We’re partnering with this group and this group, and we’re we’re expanding and together with all of us. I’m excited to be able to announce my numbers for this. Now, this speech was about 2 minutes long. She told some statistics what they did last year. She told the vision for next year. And at the end she said, Like you, I’m so excited to be a part of this team, to not only change the patients, but our community. Thank you. So she did this two minute prepared speech. She sat down. The CEO said, have you been in Toastmasters for a for a year? Her board director said, oh, my gosh, I need to borrow that speech that was so good. And her associate said, you jerk, you just threw us under the bus. You made us look bad. So, P.S. That changed her career. She got a promotion after that, very quickly after that. Then she was in a leadership role. And then she was asked to speak at a team, something locally and now she’s a politician running government stuff. It changed her career. I’ve had people that have done one speech, one, you know, one toast to somebody at a 40th birthday party and everybody sees them and they’re like, oh, my gosh, you’re like, really good. So being prepared, having the script practicing, can change your life and it can elevate your career in a way that a lot of other things cannot. [01:13:04][142.9]
Martin Henley: [01:13:06] You are so good at this. [01:13:07][0.9]
Martin Henley: [01:13:10] Okay, cool. Right? I do. The coaching as worked. Um. My keynote is going to be from ordinary to extraordinary in three and a half simple steps or something like that. It’s going to be the most ordinary presentation ever and then I need to get people to pay me $20,000 to present it. Okay. Question number three, are we okay? We’re going to run over by a few minutes, okay. [01:13:37][27.3]
Martin Henley: [01:13:38] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love talking this talk and shop. It’s fun. [01:13:41][2.8]
Martin Henley: [01:13:41] Okay. Super cool. Right. So question number three is and you have to keep this down to like a minute or 2 minutes because we want to put this on Tik Tok is where it wants to go and story in those places. [01:13:52][10.2]
[348.0]
What is your recommendation for people who want to get better at developing and presenting keynote speeches?
Martin Henley: [01:13:53] So the question is, what is your recommendation for people who want to get better? I mean, you’ve told us, but now I need you to tell us in 2 minutes for people who want to get better at developing and presenting keynotes. [01:14:06][13.3]
Mary Gardner: [01:14:08] Okay. In order to be good at keynotes, you have to have a lot of content, which means you have to read a lot, you have to know statistics, and you have to be able to rattle off a couple of stories in your head, whether they are your stories or someone else’s stories. Then you have to practice to precision so you’re not doing a lot of erms and aahs so that you can get across your content in a quick manner and to have the head and the heart as a part of that story. So it does take practice. So I would say write it down, rehearse it, perform it and go do it and see like you do in digital marketing. Does it work? Does it resonate? If everybody burst out laughing you got a good one. If everyone’s like, What does that mean? Then try over, you know, keep reading, keep writing and keep performing. [01:14:55][46.9]
Martin Henley: [01:14:56] Cool. I have a presentation about presenting called Present Like a Mother*******. Because I think that’s what you have to do. So maybe that should be my keynote. Okay, good. That was brilliant. That was in within 2 minutes. Easily. So now I’m going to check in with you. Oh, no. [01:15:15][19.1]
[79.3]
What should people read?
Martin Henley: [01:15:16] What should people read? [01:15:16][0.5]
Mary Gardner: [01:15:18] I was gonna say I didn’t hear that that question yet. What should people read? I like a favorite author of mine who has a lot of great stories is Pat Williams, and he was the founder of the Orlando Magic in Orlando. Pat has been a speaker for many, many years. And he handwrote his 80 books and he does it on a typewriter and sends it to his editor. The reason why I like Pat is that he’s been in the sports world, and for any other anybody, whether it’s a male or female, sports is a unifying activity, and it’s something that we all have been a part of. Not everybody is a fan, but it does. Genuinely, the lessons that you learn out of sports can be good business lessons, and so it’s a good, safe place to go. So I like Pat Williams as a speaker and as an author because he has so many books and so many stories in the context of his books. But secondly, don’t stop reading. [01:16:15][57.1]
Martin Henley: [01:16:16] Okay. Firstly, though, you have to name one or two so we can put some links for people. [01:16:21][5.3]
Mary Gardner: [01:16:22] Oh, okay. Well, I’m going to have to get the name of the book right now in front of what I’m rating. I’ve got several books that I’m reading right now. Okay. The Math Journal. And this is by John. It’s his main name, John Dumas. This book is so good. It’s John Dumas. It’s John Lee Dumas. I’m reading this book and this is about how to stay focused and how to make your business a success. And so I love that I’m reading this book right now called Raw. This was represented to me or told about from a big celebrity speaker bureau. This is Michael Clinton and this is about in the second part of your life, how do you make sense of it? Like you’ve already accomplished a lot. What do you do now? And then I would say, third, if people are doing TED talks, Talk like Ted, this is a great book. And Carmine Gallo is the author. So these are three that I’m reading right now that are great. [01:17:21][59.3]
Martin Henley: [01:17:22] You’re an absolute star. The thing is, this is all, you’ve realised this is all just counseling for me. What’s going on here, so that’s good and I don’t read enough. So that’s why I’m asking people what I should read. So I will pick up those recommendations 100%. Okay. [01:17:37][14.9]
Mary Gardner: [01:17:39] I scan it. I see which one of the titles are going to really resonate with me and I do it quick. Then I take a pen like this and this helps me focus and so I’ll do it in spurts. And so then I’ll outline a book and I’ll say, here is the part that is important to me. So I always be able and I take notes in all of the columns. So that helps me stay focused. [01:18:02][22.9]
Martin Henley: [01:18:02] Wow, I need to do that. I’m going to take you up on that recommendation. I have got hold of some reading glasses. This is what they look like. So they are definitely just for reading. So I am going to mention they go you much cooler than mine. Okay, good. So final question and I just have to check in with you first. [01:18:20][17.6]
[177.7]
How have you found this experience of appearing on the Talk Marketing show?
Martin Henley: [01:18:21] How have you found this experience? [01:18:22][1.2]
Mary Gardner: [01:18:25] Well, I think it’s fun. It’s fun to be able to talk about what you do in a more extended format. So I want to congratulate you for having such an interesting and introspective type of conversation. I find you to be a really genuine, authentically curious podcaster and host, and I think that’s really fun for the guests. I hope that the the audience finds and gets good information from all of your guests, because I think you’re doing a great job and I am looking forward to promoting you on my all my social media app. And then when you come to the United States, I’ll help you do your presentations and hopefully get you booked on stage. Because, let’s face it, the world needs to hear more of Martin. [01:19:10][44.9]
Martin Henley: [01:19:11] You are so good at this. Thank you so much. I’m so happy. Okay, good. I just needed to know that you quite enjoyed it so that you wouldn’t find it too painful throwing a couple of people under the bus for me to interview. [01:19:21][9.7]
Mary Gardner: [01:19:22] I don’t think it’s. It’s putting anyone under the bus. I can imagine that all of them, if they get copies of it, could utilize the content and zero it down and use it for a lot of their social media. So, no, I think it’s brilliant and I think you’re a genuine star, so. Okay. I hope that you get some good names. [01:19:41][18.1]
Martin Henley: [01:19:41] Fantastic. Good. So now you have to tell me who those people are. And it has to be people that you can introduce me to. [01:19:49][7.3]
Mary Gardner: [01:19:49] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ll just ask them because they’re going to be people that I have coachedthat are brilliant. Do you want me to do it right now or do you want me? You can do. [01:20:02][12.7]
Martin Henley: [01:20:02] Because when we get really ordered. Well, like today, Tim introduced me to two people and he had a lot to say about the first person and he didn’t have so much to say about you, but I would have included that in the introduction. When we get really on this, then we’ll be including the clips. So when I do the introduction at the beginning, I’ll say and Mary introduced us and this is what she had to say. So this is your opportunity to kind of pitch them a little bit, like, why would I speak to them? Or Why would you want to hear from them? [01:20:29][26.8]
Mary Gardner: [01:20:30] Okay. So I’ll give you a couple right now. [01:20:32][2.2]
Martin Henley: [01:20:33] Yeah. [01:20:33][0.0]
[122.9]
Who can you introduce us to that might endure or maybe even enjoy to have a conversation like this with me?
Mary Gardner: [01:20:33] Okay. So I’d like to introduce you to Tyson Russell. Tyson russell is a lot of brands secret sauce. He has the ability and can build a website for you very quickly. He has a genius mind at marketing. He actually has the ability to do operations and a boatload of things. So he’s one of those geniuses that will help you figure out things, he can talk forever. He’s been a professor and a teacher for a long time, but he was the brains and executer behind brands that have made millions of dollars and have gone and spoken around the world. So I like Tyson Russell. He does our website. He would be a phenomenal person. [01:21:15][42.1]
Mary Gardner: [01:21:17] I would like I well, Angela Robbins, she’s probably not going to have time. There’s another gal that might be interesting, Wendy Stephens. Wendy Stephens is called the guerrilla marketer and she has in one weekend created a Tik Tok campaign that hit well over a million views. She now is the owner of a product called Dogevit, and she has partnered with Kevin Harrington, who is on Shark Tank. And Wendy has made millions of dollars. She’s made many podcasts go to the news and know noteworthy. So she has helped many authors become New York Times best sellers and she would be somebody that I’d be happy to introduce you to as well. [01:22:01][44.7]
Mary Gardner: [01:22:03] There is a client that I have well, Limu McGill is another person who I think would be a genius. Limui has a back story that’s amazing. At one point in her life, she was homeless and she decided to use the Law of Attraction to increase her revenue and to change her life. And so Limu ended up working in a pharmaceutical company and she started seeing that everybody in this this office, which was customer service, was getting sick and dying. She was like, I better get out of here so she decided to jump ship, use the Law of Attraction to create and manifest a new career where she has been a consultant and she recently left the consulting business in pharmaceutical, and is now teaching leadership and and teaching amazing skills to people using intuition for their careers. So she’s another one that I would love to introduce you to how is that? [01:23:00][56.9]
Martin Henley: [01:23:01] That is amazing. That is the best billing that anyone’s ever done for anyone they’ve introduced me to. You’re too good at this. You’re just too good. [01:23:08][7.2]
Martin Henley: [01:23:11] Well, thank you. I really, truly love it. And I hope that you make money out of this podcast. [01:23:16][5.3]
Martin Henley: [01:23:17] Yeah, but you know what? If I. If I can just motivate people to be thinking more mindfully about their marketing, about their sales, about their presentations, about, you know, all of those things. That’s actually good enough for me. Really good enough for me. Okay. We got to the end. How you feeling? [01:23:34][16.9]
Mary Gardner: [01:23:35] That’s awesome. I feel great. You’ve motivated me and you’ve inspired me to keep going. And there, as an entrepreneur, there are days where it’s hard for all of us and these are the bright spots. You know, I’m on the right path. I really love it and I do truly love what I’m doing. I feel like I found my passion, so I really appreciate getting to talk about it and hopefully I did motivate some people as well. [01:24:03][28.1]
Martin Henley: [01:24:04] Cool. I’m glad you said that at the end because it doesn’t really come through that this is kind of your passion, that you’ve got loads of energy for this. It doesn’t really, you don’t really wear it, you know, like some people wear it, but, you know, you absolutely do. So what we’ll do now is we will say goodbye for the benefit of anyone who’s made it all the way to the end. And then what we’ll do is we’ll start recording and we’ll say goodbye like normal human beings. Mary, I have had so much fun. This has been such a cool conversation. You’ve been so generous with your amazing experience. I have thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much. [01:24:40][35.7]
Mary Gardner: [01:24:41] Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. It’s been such a fun time. And as you can tell, I love sharing the good news about helping people find their purpose in their passion in life and talking about it and really being able to inspire the world. I don’t think there’s anything greater that any of us can do. [01:24:57][16.2]
Martin Henley: [01:24:58] I don’t think so. And I think you are doing it amazingly. Thank you so much. [01:25:02][3.5]
Mary Gardner: [01:25:03] Thank you. I appreciate that. [01:25:03][0.0]
[256.5]
Martin Henley
Martin’s original content is based on his very current experience of running effective marketing initiatives for his customers and the feedback from Effective Marketing’s successful and popular marketing workshops.
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