421-SYB-Speaking-Workshop.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
How can you become a better speaker? Here are top takeaways from some of the women who attended our recent in-person speaking workshop, on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
Carol Cox:
More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office, and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to backstage with Speaking Your Brand.
Carol Cox:
I’m your host, Carol Cox. Today we are live on LinkedIn, in YouTube with two women who recently attended our one day speaking workshop in Orlando, Florida. I wanted to have them on to share what they learned, how much they progressed just from the morning to the afternoon sessions, and the main takeaways for being a better speaker and storyteller on stage, so that you too can benefit from that if you’re listening to this on the podcast. So nice to have you. You can watch the video as well. The link is in the show notes, so you can watch us on video, or you can just continue to listen to us. Today we have with us Wendy McManus and Tara Lassiter. You may recognize Wendy’s name. She was also on the podcast not too long ago for another LinkedIn live that we did when she graduated from the Thought Leader Academy, where she shared a ten minute version of the signature talk that she worked on with us. Well, she got to take those storytelling skills to our stage with our workshop. Wendy. Tara, so nice to have you here.
Tara Lassiter:
So nice to be here. Thank you.
Wendy McManus:
Thanks for having us, Carol.
Carol Cox:
Oh, you are so welcome, Wendy, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I so often say that the best way to get better at speaking is to actually put the reps in. So the more speaking you do, the better that you’ll get if you only do something once in a while, whether it’s speaking or going on TV or, I don’t know, riding a horse, you’re not. It’s going to you’re going to feel nervous and it’s not going to feel good if you only do it once a year or so. But if you’re speaking every week or every month, you really get into the habit because you’re putting those reps in. But even better than just speaking is getting coaching and feedback in the moment. So you know what is working, what’s not, and what are things that you can tweak and adjust to make it even better? So that’s what I want to dive in with you today. Tara, I’ll start with you first. Tell us a little bit about what it is that you do in your business and why you decided to attend our workshop.
Tara Lassiter:
Okay, so my background, I’m a brand strategist and ghostwriter story behind it. I spent a decade on air at QVC as a model, and throughout that experience, I was fortunate enough to live through the time when we went from all of the models being a size two to having plus size models and petite models and different ages. And really, there was an explosion of diversity that helped everyone see and feel representation on screen. Well, I want to do the same thing for the business world. I want everyone to have their own version of a business Barbie that they can look up to. That is their version of hey, I can do that. And also that has a story that they can really relate to so that we can break those glass ceilings together.
Carol Cox:
And why did you decide to attend our speaking workshop?
Tara Lassiter:
So word of mouth. I had a previous client I was working with. She spoke really highly of you. I looked you up. I’m like, she’s here. And then I was fortunate enough to meet you at a networking event that was August, September like last month. So you really made me feel safe. And that’s something that’s like one of my values. It’s as a woman, you know, a woman in business, we’re not always safe. We don’t always feel safe. So I knew that I could trust you when I wanted to step back into the spotlight. I had been writing behind the scenes. I was very comfortable hiding, and I knew I had to step back into my media, my host, my acting background. I needed to, you know, use those skills again. And you provided a safe space for me to do that so that I could remember. Oh, yeah, you do this like you love this. This is where you want to be. But it was a safe environment. And also, like you said, that instant feedback because I wanted to make sure that if there was anything that I needed to fix, if there was something I forgot, that someone could point it out. Because you don’t know what you don’t know, but you gave that to me.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I love hearing that. Tara. I’m so glad you feel that. You felt like this was a safe and supportive environment. I can imagine it would feel a little intimidating and vulnerable to stand up in front of a group of women that you don’t know and in front of coaches, and have yourself, and you know that we are so kind with our feedback and we’ll get into that. But I’m so glad that you felt that right from the beginning, even before you showed up with us in person. Wendy, tell us a little bit about what you do with your work and why you decided to attend our in-person workshop.
Wendy McManus:
Yeah. Thanks, Carol. I’m Wendy McManus. I’m a leadership coach. I work one on one with senior leaders. I facilitate with teams and help build culture and communication. But my real passion is around working with newer people, leaders, folks that have made that shift from individual contributors into being people managers. Um, and as part of that, I’m getting out and doing more speaking. I love speaking, I love being on stage. And the reason that I wanted to attend the one day workshop is because, first of all, I participated in Thought Leader Academy, which was an eight week journey. That was amazing. I’ve done some of your online workshops on zoom. Everything I’ve done with you in Diane has been amazing, and I’ve always come out feeling like I took a big growth spurt. So just, you know, Carol and Diane are up to something like, yeah, let me go check it out for sure. But this one in particular was the opportunity to get on stage in person. Most of my work right now is still on zoom, and it’s nice and safe and comfortable, and I needed to get out of that safe zone and get out there in person, in front of people with no notes in hand, and just be in the moment and speak. So it was a great opportunity for that.
Carol Cox:
It is I again, I love zoom, it brings women to us from all over the country and all over the world, but there’s really nothing like being in person. I really feel it feels like it accelerates learning in a way that being on zoom can’t do that in in that same fashion, in that same timeline. All right, Tara, let’s go back to you thinking about back to that time that you spent with us that day. Was there anything in particular that surprised you about any of the activities that we did or your. I’m going to call it a performance on stage. Well, you did do a little bit of performance and we’ll come back to that in just a moment. But anything in particular that surprised you?
Tara Lassiter:
I was fidgety and I went from not being able to fidget like I had to be Vanna White for a decade. And so to notice that I was playing with my hair and rocking back and forth, I was like, who? Like, who are you? Like, where did you learn these things? So it was great that I had, like I said, that safe environment because I had no idea how I was going to show up on stage and on camera again. And so it gave me the opportunity to get back into my body and to like, stand up a little taller and to remember all of those skills that I hadn’t used since I’ve been on camera, because the last time I was on air was 20, 20. So four years was enough time for me to learn some bad habits. So I was really surprised because that was the part I thought I would be great at. I thought I was like, I know how to be a mannequin. I thought it was going to be the speaking, but the stories came out well. It was the standing in. It was the posture that I needed to practice again.
Carol Cox:
And we all have things that we do that we don’t realize that we do, that are subconscious. Some of them are verbal tics. So words that we say, some of them are physical tics, like playing with our hair or rocking side to side, or the way that we maybe hold our hands. And the only way to discover those is to have someone watch you who’s looking for them, or to record yourself on video and be willing to watch it, which I know is not always easy. Wendy, what about you? What surprised you about the day that we spent together?
Wendy McManus:
What was most surprising wasn’t when I was on stage. It happened when we were doing the exercises as a group. You all made us do improv. Improv exercises. So talk about getting out of my comfort zone. That is way out of my comfort zone. But it was fun. And you all, you and Diane made it okay for us to be silly and not feel like we needed to do it the right way. You just you made it really fun. And I feel like that got us all loosened up. We did some of that before anybody got up on stage or any of the participants got up on stage, and I felt really loose and comfortable with the other women in the room, in particular, having all sort of made fools of ourselves, doing the improv exercises, crawling around on the floor and just being silly and goofy and, and, uh, you know, feeling very unprofessional, like in, in our professional clothing, but just having fun. That was great.
Carol Cox:
I’m glad you brought that up, Wendy, because as listeners know, Diane and I have a love hate relationship with improv. We love to hate it, but we also know how incredibly helpful it has been to us. And so we do it with you and we show you we like we definitely don’t do it perfect at all, but we’re willing just to be silly and get down on the floor and to act things out, because we also know that it’s us opening ourselves up to that level of vulnerability hopefully opens up all of you, and then the entire room and the space that we’re creating. Tara, I mentioned that a little bit of the performance aspect you had because you actually led us in a cheer, because you did a cheer on stage for one part of your story. I was like, oh, wait, hold on a minute. We gotta all do this cheer again to loosen ourselves up. So what did how did you feel about some of the improv exercises that we did?
Tara Lassiter:
So I actually love improv, not because I’m good at it or anything, but I like that it it doesn’t allow me to be in my head that you have to go with whatever your first instinct is. You can’t judge it. You can’t overthink it. Like, I think that’s a great exercise for everybody because we’re so like, you want to be right and you want to be perfect and you want to look good and you want to sound good. But the best stuff comes from when, like the best, our best content, our best productions are off the cuff because we don’t know what’s inside of us until we we let it free. And sometimes we overthink the magic and it loses that special, special touch. So I was happy I got to do that cheer. I should not have kicked my leg that high because I did not stretch beforehand, so I paid for that the next day. It reminded me how old I am, but I was really happy that again I got inside my body, I had fun, I didn’t care how I looked, I didn’t, I wasn’t able to overthink it. I was able to be in the moment and really like connect with all of the other women there. Like, I, we, we were we had a shared experience that brought us all together. And you were able to do that in such a like that was within the first hour. So I was really, really impressed with how you were able just to transform that environment and make it productive.
Carol Cox:
Yeah. Well, thank you all for going with it too, and for being willing to to do all the things that we asked you to do, whether it’s dance parties or cheers or improv exercises. Wendy, let’s talk about what I call active storytelling in presentations, in talks, you know that we emphasize stories because stories are what connect us to the audience and what they usually are going to remember. The most of any talk is the story. And so there’s a way to tell a story where you just kind of go through, okay, here’s what happened. But then there’s active storytelling where you actually are using your body and you’re using the stage. So when can you tell us a little bit about what that process was like for you and what you learned?
Wendy McManus:
I think the biggest takeaway so so two things are standing out for me, Carol. One is about moving around on the stage that the movement needs to be intentional. It’s not just movement for movement’s sake, because as we saw, you know, myself and some other, uh, participants in the workshop, we would be sort of nervously rocking or kind of moving, you know, almost looking like we were wandering around the stage. And so that was one thing that I really took away is that being purposeful when I think about though, the, the, the, the embodiment of the speaking, it’s also for me about using my voice more intentionally And one of the the big pieces of feedback that you all gave me after the first time that I told my story was about like adding some variety and and I was a little bit, but I needed to build to more of a crescendo. I needed to have more variety in the energy and the volume and the pacing add more deliberate pauses. And what was interesting was when I started incorporating that, then I started moving more intentionally as well. Like, I started moving intentionally to this side and then pausing physically, pausing and pausing my delivery before I started moving again and started speaking again. So it was interesting to see how the two kind of wove together.
Carol Cox:
Yes, well, our minds and bodies are connected, and so it’s almost like what Tara was saying about improv is that we like to improv gets us to not think so much or overthink. And I feel like as speakers, oftentimes we want to overthink what we’re going to do, but if we sometimes just let our bodies do what it would naturally do in the moment when we’re telling a story like we know if we’re like, it’s a heavier part of the story. If we were telling that to a friend, we probably would take a beat, take a breath, maybe look at the friend, check in on them, and then continue. But we forget when we’re on stage speaking to an audience that the same, the same elements apply. That alignment still needs to be there. Tara, what about you? Tell us a little bit about your storytelling and what you learned from from doing that with us on the stage.
Tara Lassiter:
So I am like a lifelong storyteller. I love writing, I love words, I love telling stories. Um, the thing that stood out to me, to me most about telling my story, was that the stories that I should tell are the stories that I’m most reluctant to tell. And so that’s why I made it a point to tell stories. Well, the first story was one that I wasn’t necessarily proud of, but to show that, hey, we all make mistakes and not everybody had a perfect upbringing. Not everyone has a perfect upbringing, uh, background. So sometimes we do things that we’re not proud of, but how do we turn it around? That says something about our character, and it says something about our potential. And I think that’s something that our audience is really wanting because they’ve seen us be polished, they’ve seen us be perfect. And if we can tell those hard stories, whether they’re business stories or personal stories, but if we can share in a way that’s vulnerable but still relatable, right? Like we’re not sharing for the sake of sharing, but we’re sharing to show how we’ve overcome it creates space for them to overcome as well.
Carol Cox:
And Tara, I remember the opening of the story, the five minute story that you were practicing, which was can you share the opening with us? It was really a lot of fun.
Tara Lassiter:
So in middle school, I was a cheerleader. I think the prompt you gave us was tell us when you used your voice as a child. Right. That was what it was.
Carol Cox:
Well, I’m thinking of the one with the guy with the Ferrari.
Tara Lassiter:
Oh.
Tara Lassiter:
That story. See, we told lots of stories that day. Okay, so I asked, this is, you know, I like to ask because when I think of a show off, I think of a guy. He’s driving a Ferrari. He, like, revs his engine. Vroom vroom vroom. And I picture him, like, into valet. Right? He just cuts everybody off. He gets out the car, he leaves the door open. He doesn’t talk to the valet. He throws the keys at him and his shoulders are back. And he’s looking around and like he just owns the place, right? That’s a show off. Everybody look at me. Not giving any energy back to anyone else. And I use that because I want to contrast when I was called a show off and I wasn’t anything like that, but that’s a like I know a lot of people have been said, you’re doing too much. You’re showing off. You are. You are trying to steal all of the shine in this situation. And that’s not that wasn’t my intention. And typically when that’s set to other people, that wasn’t their intention either. They just were doing great. And instead of being commended, a lot of times we’re reprimanded. So I knew that was like a universal experience that a lot of us could relate to. So I wanted to really contrast, hey, when you’re when someone tells you that you’re showing off, are you really showing off because that’s showing off or are you just standing in your greatness?
Carol Cox:
Oh, I love that, Tara. And for those of you who are listening to the podcast, you should come watch the video at this part because you’ll see Tara as she was doing the Ferrari and the guy getting out of the car and throwing the keys. She acts, she pantomimes that. She acts it out in her facial expressions and the way she moves her shoulders. It really brings so much life to the story, and that’s what makes it memorable. It’s the combination of the words and the delivery at the same time. So I want to ask you now, Wendy, so of the think about all the women who were there and listening to their story. So you all practice your main story one time in the morning, got the feedback, and then you practice it again in the afternoon. And I bet both of you can remember every single woman’s story. At least you could kind of summarize to yourself, okay, Sandy, talk about this. Melanie talked about this and go down the list. Think about going to a conference and thinking about all the speakers that you see at a conference. And how much could you remember of what they presented versus what you heard when you hear stories?
Wendy McManus:
Yeah. And let me I wanted to throw this in. So, you know, when we tell a story, we usually have a particular, um, lesson or a message that we’re trying to convey through the story. And the stories are so amazing. They help the lesson or the lesson or the message stick, as you were saying, Carol, they make it so much more memorable. I had an experience yesterday. I was speaking with a vendor who was in the room with us and during the workshop, and we were talking a little bit, she was, you know, giving me some praise. It was lovely. Oh, I loved the way you did this. I loved the way you did that. And she said, and you know, when you told that story about. And then she talked about what message she got, it wasn’t the message I intended to deliver. It was the message she needed to internalize based on what was going on for her or based on her experience. It wasn’t the wrong message. It was still an accurate message, but it was a different message. And to me, it just brought home that power of story that we create space for. The listener almost becomes a character in the story as they’re listening. And I just wanted to share that because it really, in that moment, kind of expanded my understanding of the power of story.
Carol Cox:
That’s a beautiful example, Wendy, I’m so glad you shared that, because it goes to show that a presentation I call this the Expert Trap, where we just give the audience a bunch of information, a bunch of bullet points, do these five things and you’re going to be successful. There’s no room for them in that versus the story like you just described. They become the main character even in your story, even though that particular thing didn’t happen to them in the way that it happened to you. And then I think about reading novels, and I’ve read since I was a young child, and I’ll go back and read books again that I read before. And I’m not the only one I know, because I hear this from other readers, that the first time they read it, they got a certain thing from that novel, but then they read it again at a different stage in their life, and they get a totally different thing from that novel, because that is the power of storytelling. We get what we need in that moment.
Wendy McManus:
Yeah, yeah. All right.
Carol Cox:
Tara, so let’s go back to you. So thinking also to the speaking that you’re, you’re set to do you’re this was, I think kind of like your your launch back into the speaking world. It sounds like. So what do you have on the horizon. What are you most excited to be doing next?
Tara Lassiter:
So I’m starting with a podcast tour, and I’m really, really excited about who I’m in talks with now because so podcasts to me are like stages that are I’ll use that word safe again. They’re like safe stages because it’s a it’s a 2 to 1, even though we have a large audience that can hear in that moment, it’s just you and who you’re speaking with. And that’s similar to what my experience was on QVC, because there might have been millions of people watching, but it was just us and the host and, you know, the production staff. So it was it was a closed space that made it easier for us to experience, experiment and have fun. So I’m starting with podcasts, and I’m just excited to share those stories and also reach audiences of women that I wouldn’t be able to on my own. So because there’s only 365 days in a year. So if I try to one by one touch all of these women, I would run out of time before my mission was complete. So I love the way that podcasts are able to. It’s like exponential messaging. And it makes me think too, because like you said, our stories like we own the stories, but we don’t own the takeaways. So when we multiply our stories and multiply the stages that we speak on or the podcasts that we speak on, we’re multiplying those takeaways. So we have no idea how. We’re just affecting all these different people. And I love when I receive messages and they’re like, I listen to you on this podcast and this helped me with XYZ. I’m just like, this is what I do this for because I want that connection, but I don’t know who it will land with. We don’t know how it’ll land with the stories, mind, but the takeaway is for for the listener. So I’m excited to receive feedback and to tell those stories and to spread the word.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I love that, Tara. And for those of you listening, if you host a podcast and you think Tara would make a fantastic guest based on your audience and the type of content that you typically have on your podcast, reach out to Tara for sure. And I’m sure that she would love that connection. Wendy, what about you? What is next for you? I know I planted a seed for you on Friday about a potential other talk that you have besides the signature talk that you work with us on and the Thought Leader Academy.
Wendy McManus:
You did that one still in the ground. Um, so. So the thought leader Academy. I worked on a signature talk. It’s very much about the journey that newer people, managers go through when they step into this role, because, you know, you’re really good at the job and you get noticed and you get that tap on the shoulder. But too often you get into the role. And now part of your responsibility is to be a manager of other people, a leader of other people. And very few companies are doing a good job of preparing people, and it’s an entirely different skill set. So the signature talk that I developed in Thought Leader Academy was focused on that. So my next work is to, you know, be looking for opportunities to speak there. I do have in my thriving Leader Circle program, which is a coaching and leadership training program for those newer people managers. I’m starting to bring in more storytelling in the pre-recorded modules and in the integration sessions, the live calls that I have starting to give myself permission to bring in more of my stories and recognize how powerful that is.
Wendy McManus:
The seed that that Carol just referenced is that, you know, these things that I’m talking about are all, you know, very much in that professional space, the business space. We were encouraged in the workshop last Friday to tell a personal story. And so I stepped out of my comfort zone and told a very personal story, and was really surprised by how strongly people reacted to it. Before I even came off stage the first time, both Carol and Diane were saying, that’s a keynote. That’s the foundation for a keynote. So I’m just I’m letting it marinate for right now. Carol, I might be back for another VIP day to figure out how to structure this keynote, but I need to I need to figure out if it’s too much of a of a distraction from the main focus of my business, or if it’s something that I’m really feeling called to do, and it might be something that I’m called to do, just not right now. But it’s the seed is planted and we’re going to see if it sprouts into something that’s perfect.
Carol Cox:
I love that, and that is really also the power of literally saying things out loud to an audience. I have had light bulb moments in the middle of speaking to an audience where something all of a sudden gelled for me as the words were coming out of my mouth that was unplanned and I had never did not anticipate that. So it does happen and I’m glad that it happened for you. Wendy, make sure to connect with both Tara and Wendy on LinkedIn. The links to their profiles are in the show notes, and for those of you listening and watching, if you would like to join us, we have our next One Day speaking workshop happening in downtown Orlando, Florida at the Citrus Club on February 27th, 2025 February 27th, 2025. Coming up in just a few months, super early bird pricing is on now for a limited time. We would love to have you there so that you can practice your storytelling and your speaking and have a lot of fun. As I reminded the women there, we if we’re not having fun, if we’re not playing, if we don’t have these moments of being silly, like we’re so serious all the time and for good reason, we have to run our businesses and do our and do our work and do well at it. But it’s also fun just to come together and play, but really get get. It’s like productive play. It’s for it’s for a greater purpose for both personal and professional growth. So you can get all the details about our workshop and sign up as speaking your Brand.com slash workshop. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/workshop. Tara. Wendy, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
Tara Lassiter:
Thank you, thank you. This was great. And anybody who’s listening, please do that workshop. It’s if a zoom gets you ten x, a workshop will get you 100 x. Like you will not regret that in-person experience and you’re in the best hands. You will leave a better speaker than you arrived in the morning.
Carol Cox:
Well thank you.
Wendy McManus:
I have I have nothing more to add because Tara just literally took the words out of my mouth. I’m a very big proponent of speaking your brand and the work that they do. If this is something you’re interested in, just go ahead and do it. You will be surprised at what you get out of it, that it’s probably far exceeds even what you intended when you signed up. And thanks very much, Carol, for having me on.
Carol Cox:
Well, thank you again so much. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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