How to Use AI to Amplify Your Superpowers and Prepare You to Show Up Anywhere with Stacey Hines: Podcast Ep. 375

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Carol Cox:
You’re gonna love my conversation with Stacey Haynes on how to use AI to amplify your superpowers and prepare you to show up anywhere, 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.

Carol Cox:
Hi and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Get ready for an energetic and fun conversation. My guest is Stacy Hines, who’s an author, speaker, executive, and the CEO and founder of Epic Transformation. Like me, she has a background in it, which is why we are so excited about all the possibilities that AI can bring us. We talk about everything from how to use AI tools like ChatGPT to amplify your superpowers. So not only to use it for what you’re not that great at, but have it help you take what you’re already great at and make it even better. Plus, Stacy shares an incredible example of how to use AI to prepare you to show up in any room. And this is a case study that I hadn’t thought of before, and I think you’re going to really appreciate it and take it with you. Stacy is also amazing at storytelling. That definitely is one of her superpowers. And when she shares a story of showing up in this particular boardroom ten years ago and what happened, you’re going to be on the edge of your seat after we geek out about AI.

Carol Cox:
I then asked Stacy to share some of the things that she has found really helpful as a speaker, and especially as a panel moderator. I was recently on Stacy’s podcast, which is called the Balance Ladyboss show. Definitely go check that out. I included a link in the podcast show notes here, so that you can go check out her podcast and follow her there as well. If you would like to learn how you can get more speaking engagements, get to be on more panels, learn what you can charge to speak, how to negotiate your speaker fee, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and speaker page for inbound speaking invitations, and much more. Come to the live three hour workshop we’re doing on Zoom on Thursday, February 22nd. We’re going to provide mini trainings, lots of resources in the workbook that you’re going to get, plus time to work on different aspects that we’re going to be covering so that you do a lot of the work in the workshop. So then you are ready to go after we’re done during those three hours, of course, you also get our personalized coaching and feedback during that three hour workshop. You can get all the details about this business of speaking workshop and speaking your brand comm slash workshops. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/workshops and it is coming up very soon on Thursday, February 22nd. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the podcast, Stacy.

Stacey Hines:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me, Carol. I’m excited to be here and looking forward to our chat today.

Carol Cox:
I am too, because any time I can find someone to talk AI with me, I am very, very excited because as listeners of my podcast know, I’ve been getting into it really since ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, because with my tech background, I couldn’t help but get my hands into it and see everything that I could do and be amazed by it, but also making sure we’re having conversations about potential biases and downsides that AI has, you know, as a societal level, but then also not forgetting all of the wonderful things that can do for us and our businesses as well. I love what you say, which is that you really see AI as being able to amplify your superpower. So tell us more about that, and then we’ll talk about your superpower of storytelling and how you’re using AI with that.

Stacey Hines:
Okay. No that’s great. That’s a great question. And I am definitely having a love affair with AI. And I hope it doesn’t end any time soon, because I’m enjoying just being curious and being surprised. And I think the element of surprise is what I what keeps me going back, because it’s so exciting to see how it’s learning and leveraging all the different tools that it has globally to, you know, to support persons who are coming on stream with it. So for me, I believe that I can amplify the part of you that maybe your gift and sometimes you don’t even know that it’s the thing that you are gifted with. But if you find yourself being curious about stepping into a space that maybe you’re not as confident by looking to AI for suggestions or using it before you go on stage to actually do a speech. Or maybe it is that you’re writing a book or even poems. There are so many different ways that I think we can utilize the the what I consider the gift of AI as a way to leverage. Amplify our voices. And in many instances, I also find that for me, certainly it has helped me with my confidence around my gift of storytelling because there’s so much uncertainty. Sometimes when you’re going into a room and having a conversation, you may not know exactly how the audience is going to receive you, and you have this literal world of opportunities that you can go and be curious amongst and say, hey, what’s happening with this particular topic in this kind of audience? I’m going to be having a meeting or going to a board meeting, just different things that you couldn’t plug just generically into Google and get a very focused answer around. So that’s essentially what I think, you know, is really the power of the tool. If it’s if it’s used properly and viewed through the lens of opportunity versus, you know, worry and concern.

Carol Cox:
It’s almost like a ChatGPT is is a focus group for you? Yes. Right.

Stacey Hines:
Absolutely. It can be a focus group for that audience that you you think you might want to explore. It can also be that room. You don’t have a seat at the table yet, right? Board me. I could have used man my first board meeting. I would have been all over ChatGPT if it had been around 20 years ago. Um, for sure.

Carol Cox:
That is such an excellent point, Stacy. I’ve never thought about it that way. So can we, can we share with the listeners an example of how they could use how they could use this? Like what would you ask ChatGPT like what scenario would you give them? And then what what are kind of some possibilities of what it could come back with that would help you?

Stacey Hines:
That’s a really good one. That’s a really good one. And I’ll actually use an example of what I consider to be the worst board meeting I ever performed in. Right? It was one of my first board meetings in a C-suite position, and I was responsible for running the strategic planning office for a group of companies, and I was now an invited guest to the board meeting for one of the companies. And coming from North America, I’m accustomed to, I think maybe being in tech because my background is in tech, I think as accustomed to maybe a more casual boardroom setting. And I knew that this was going to be one of those with, you know, the walls were going to be wooden. That’s how traditional it was. Right? And I knew I had the board meeting. I was prepared with my content. But I wasn’t sure of how to show up. So guess what happens? I’m sitting there waiting to be called into the boardroom, and I usually use music to relax me or to get my mind utterly focused and get pumped up. You know, I have my songs that I’ll play. You know, you have your playlist that you play that gets you all yet, you know, feel good. And I put on Miley Cyrus and at the time it was the one where she was, um, wrecking ball and I’m like a wreck. Yes. Okay. It was that album and I was singing Wrecking Ball and I was in there. And then the CEO comes in to pops his head in my office, and he’s like, you know, oh, we’re ready for you now.

Stacey Hines:
So I gather up my stuff and I rush into the boardroom, and as I’m talking, I realize that, oh, I still have stuff plugged in. I unplug the headphones and there goes my. She may as well have been swinging from the wrecking ball in the boardroom, because there goes Miley Cyrus singing out Wrecking Ball in the middle of this boardroom. That was approximately, I think, 15 persons and maybe two other women. Okay, so here comes young Stacy C-suite, new C-suite exec with wrecking ball playing. Now fast forward, you know, ten years later with ChatGPT, I would have gone in with chat and I would have already configured on the back end the the profile of the person I am. So I would have put in my bio and my role in the knowledge center, and then I would have gone into chatty and I would have said, you know, hey chatty, I am going to be an invited guest at a board meeting. What should I do to prepare? First question. Great. Thank you. Chatty. How should I go about preparing to enter the boardroom? Are there any tips for how I should show up in the boardroom? Based on the bio that I’ve uploaded to your knowledge center, I am sure chatty would have told me. Make sure to set your computer something, something, something. I’m pretty sure about it. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
That is. First of all, you clearly have a gift for storytelling because that was such a great story. And then, like you said, like Miley might as well have been swinging from the wrecking ball in the board. I can totally picture that. Trust me. Yeah. So yeah. Thank you. But but to your point about using, you know, AI tools like ChatGPT to help you to prepare for situations where you didn’t have a prior experience in. And even if you had, like you said, if tech boardrooms and tech companies have a very different culture and expectation than more kind of buttoned up, wood paneled boardrooms and maybe more traditional industries have, yes, absolutely.

Stacey Hines:
I mean, they’re talking you’re talking about opening with prayer, right? So it’s very traditional and to the point that you raised about how we think about using tools like ChatGPT is very limited. And a large part of that is because if you are already uncomfortable with technology, especially as women, we’re going to find a myriad of other ways to work around it. We’re going to find ways to work around the tool. And I still experience that with my clients today, even just getting on to a video call if there are certain things that they’re not comfortable with. Or can we use this platform instead? Because I don’t know that one. So they would rather try, you know, make sure that they’re not doing anything new. Let’s just stay in the safe zone. And I believe that one of the things that these. Generative AI tools has done for us is it has allowed us to explore the uncertainty. And through that exploration, you can now lean into a little bit more self-assertion, boost your own self esteem, build that confidence before stepping into a situation. It’s very much akin to a a method that I use called segment. Intending. Intentional living is my whole context for life, and it’s a huge part of what I do in my coaching program. And when it comes to living day to day, we don’t necessarily set intentions for the moments that we’re stepping into. For example, this experience that we’re having with recording this podcast is a segment in my day. And so before stepping into this moment, I can actually do some segment intending, I can sit down and I can think what I want this experience to be like, what I want the outcome to be for our time together. And that segment intending, if I feel the need to now go feel a little bit more certain, I can jump into ChatGPT or Barred or Claude or whoever it is that I’m going to partner with to give me that added support that may not be available to me.

Carol Cox:
Okay, so Stacy, I we’re gonna come back to the coaching work that you do because I want you to share that with your listeners. I love this idea of segmented intentions and intentional living. And it reminds me that recently I was putting out a LinkedIn post, and it was in celebration of of someone else. Right? So I was, you know, sharing some photos and tagging them and kind of celebrating something that they had done because I wanted to show the support to that person and also let you know our the LinkedIn audiences know, like this amazing thing that she had done. So I posted it. And you know how they say the algorithm, like if you don’t get traction within the first ten minutes, right? They kind of, you know, then your post is not going to have as wide of a reach to your followers and all this. So I had been about 15 minutes because you can see the time stamp on the post, and it hadn’t gotten any traction. I think I had gotten like one like or one love. Right? And I was, you know, I was really disappointed and I was kind of like reflecting. I was like, okay, why am I disappointed? Like, I’m not disappointed that I didn’t get the reach right? Like, you know, that I just wanted other people to know about it. But I was like, well, wait, wait. But what was my intention behind the post? My intention behind the post is not for it to go viral like, that’s not it. My intention behind the post is not for 5000 people to see it. My intention was for the woman I was tagging to feel supported. Oh, that’s good in what she did.

Stacey Hines:
Oh that’s good, that’s good. I love that and it actually takes quite a bit of consciousness and self-awareness work to have that kind of reflection. What was my intention?

Carol Cox:
Right? Yes. And like, oh, so now I’m like I’m not disappointed now. Yeah. Right. Like it opposed serve the purpose that I wanted it to serve. So yes okay. So okay let’s let’s talk a little bit more about I before we come back to your coaching. So then you said that you so clearly your superpower storytelling. We’ve seen that in action. So then how are you using AI tools like ChatGPT to amplify the storytelling that you’re doing? Are you helping it? Are you feeding it stories and helping it to, you know, find things or or what are you having it do for you?

Stacey Hines:
Well, first of all, I think one of the most powerful things I stepped into in Q4 of last year as it relates to my relationship with AI, is really understanding how to train my agents, how to train my clones. That, for me, was a complete game changer than just stepping in blindly and, you know, typing in a prompt. And I think that a lot of our listeners will benefit from really understanding that this is not a wild, Wild West situation where you just kind of feel like you’re out there and you are at the whim of whatever is happening in ChatGPT world. That’s the first thing. Once you are able to really understand the intention that you have behind the tool and start from that point, then you can actively create clones of yourself with that intention. So with my regards to my storytelling, what I realized was I was really struggling with posting to social media consistently, and some of it comes from just not having a desire to always be in that space. And then another part of it comes from feeling great one minute, like having the ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys, like one minute I want to post and the next minute it’s like, oh, I don’t want to post, you know? So kind of going through that up and down. Right. And. When I started to tap into, well, when are you usually consistent? When does consistency actually show up for you? And consistency in the past has shown up for me with a marketing team or a marketing agency. When I was going into Q4, I recognized that I was not going to be investing like that in the company anymore.

Stacey Hines:
I wanted to be able to leverage AI, and as I started the exploration, I thought to myself, well, what do I need to train my AI around in terms of the intention? I want to serve well, okay, Stacey. Well, what’s the intention? Well, the intention is to share my voice and my stories with my audience in a way that makes me feel good. That’s really what it is. I want to feel good when I’m sharing, wherever I’m sharing. All right, so let’s look back now at the different types of content that you like to share. How do you like to share? Do you like taking a bunch of pictures? Do you like making videos? For reals. And so I started to do that thinking and sitting with myself and understanding the why behind what I was doing and what made me feel good. Because that’s the intention I was trying to serve. And I realized, you know what, Stacey? You spend a lot of time actually sharing your gift. So you have your podcast and you also have your Saturday show Tea time that you go live on Saturday mornings. So instead of us trying to create content, which is what kind of pulls you down, we’re going to start making sure that your your video is always on when you’re doing your podcast, whether you’re interviewing or not. And we’re going to now repurpose that using I okay to find highlights and pick out points from your stories that are going to be used across your different platforms.

Stacey Hines:
So this was the first step, and it totally blew my mind when I recognized that I had been denying myself joy because I was doing what everybody tells you to do, doing what the strategists in me knows I’m supposed to do, write out the marketing thing, and then be on all the platforms and take the pictures and do the carousels. And I was doing the things that I thought was right, but not necessarily the things that were right for me. And once I got back to that core intention, then it was easy to step towards my AI tools and start to now figure out, well, what do I what tools do I need? Because it goes beyond ChatGPT, right? So you have generative AI that’s used in different ways. Content is one of the most common ways that everybody is exposed to now. And so I explored utilizing tools that were going to automatically support me with repurposing my content. That was the first thing. And then I pull the transcripts from those tools and added that to ChatGPT or to Bard to get support with making a blog post out of the content, or writing captions out of the content, or even captions that I suggest for my guests to use in their promos. Because sometimes I know they struggle with that as well. So it was just a very. I won’t say easy. It was beyond easy. My mind was blown at how much I was able to utilize artificial intelligence tools. Once I tapped into the true intention I had behind it.

Carol Cox:
Um, yeah. And like you said, you already were creating this, you know, great content. You didn’t need to necessarily create more content on top of what you were already doing, but finding ways to leverage what you were already creating. And yes, and that as an individual, that’s very time consuming to do. And those of us who are content creators and podcasters over the years know how time consuming the take to find video clips and to create them for the different platforms and to write stuff and all that. But to leverage AI, that’s a perfect way to do it. Not only to save time, but like you said, to bring you more joy and to put your voice and stories out there. Yes as well.

Stacey Hines:
Absolutely. Um, one thing that I would want to add is that a key part of my work is around empowering women, which I think we all do, that work in different ways. You do it through speaking your brand. I do it through my different programs that are geared towards women. And what I really wanted to lean into was how do I use AI to empower myself? I’m not interested in all the things that it is not. I really want to focus my intention on what I know I need from these tools. Everything that we have in life has a dark side to it, even if something as simple as fruit. If you eat too much of a particular type of fruit, you can get diabetes. So, I mean, you know, there’s there’s too much of anything or the misuse of anything can create negative outcomes. So I’m very aware that there are biases. I see it all the time when especially when I use, for example, when I use daily to do images for my blogs because I’ve gone completely that route. Now, I’m not trying to find a perfect picture. I’m not trying to do it in Canva. No AI is there for that, and you can see the biases come out when you try to generate without giving very refined instructions. I know that exists, and what I also know is that whatever I need is available to me. And so since what I focus on expands, let me focus on the empowerment that I’m seeking from the tool for myself and for those that I’m seeking to impact.

Carol Cox:
Oh, I love that. I love how you connected the empowerment that you that you wanted, you know, women to have with how you’re using AI to empower yourself. And so that’s a good segue into talking about the work that you do and the coaching that you do. Your podcast is fantastic. It’s called the Balance Lady Boss Podcast, and I was just on at the end of January. We had such a good conversation about thought leadership and about some of my stories that you asked me about, so I’ll make sure to include a link in the show notes to that podcast episode. And so I guess, Stacy, tell me a little bit about, you know, what? What led you to balance Lady Boss? Like, you know, why that name and why the podcast. And and then we can also talk about the transformative coaching work that you do with your clients.

Stacey Hines:
Awesome. Thank you so much. That’s one of my favorite questions to answer. So in 2010, I had a life collapse. And what that life collapse looked like for me was getting separated from my then husband, now ex-husband, and three months later, getting diagnosed with breast cancer and a month after diagnosis, having to have a radical mastectomy, followed by being separated from my three children for several months while I went off and did all different kinds of therapy, including drinking my pee to going liquid vegan, and subsequently followed by, uh, stepping into clinical depression and having to see a psychiatrist in lieu of being committed to the psych ward. And then in between all those things, I was living in between multiple countries. So I was diagnosed in Jamaica because I was helping to get I was helping I had moved to Jamaica to get support for a local tech company. They were going through the process of trying to get acquired, supported them through that process, and then had to move to Canada when they got acquired by a Canadian company. And so all of that was happening in the middle of living between three countries and having three young children that I was I was raising. And so I write I wrote a book about it called Five Year Love Affair.

Stacey Hines:
And in the process of preparing for my book to become a reality, I started exploring sharing my voice. I was coaching a lot of entrepreneurs at the time in primarily how to bring their products online, use funnels, use tech to support their expansion. Social media was starting to blossom. This was around 2017 and I was working with a few entrepreneurs in the social media space. Influencers. And what occurred for me was they kept saying, you know, you have such a good way with this stuff. You should coach, you should have your own thing, you should do your show. Et cetera, et cetera. And I just never saw myself in that light. And eventually, through the support of one of these entrepreneurs, I decided to go ahead and do a webinar with them. And then it was like, wow, this could actually be a medium through which I reach persons who I’m seeking to impact in the midst of the writing of the book. One of the ladies that I interacted with suggested that I take photos for persons who may also have a similar struggle, and I initially thought what? And I was like, why would you say that? She said, well, you have such a good story.

Stacey Hines:
I didn’t realize that I had stood there telling her my story, and she was like, you need to share your story. Long and short. I ended up doing a photo shoots throughout the course of my journey pre-surgery post mastectomy, post reconstruction, and that became a part of the book. And then I combined that experience with the work I was doing with entrepreneurs, and I said, well, what would I want for myself if I could have given myself the gift of having? The knowledge of what I was going through. What would I do? I thought, well, maybe a show, maybe a podcast, maybe a blog, I don’t know, I wasn’t sure. And I went to Russell Brunson’s Clickfunnels conference one year, and the podcast really appealed to me because I love to talk. As you can see, we’re going to be here all day talking. And so I decided that I was going to do just that. Right. And what ended up happening is I went through one of his 30 day challenges and created the Balance Lady Boss show as a way to support other women who wanted to create success without creating the stress, sickness, or toxic relationships that I had created on my own journey towards success.

Carol Cox:
Right. So yeah, that’s really powerful, Stacy. Really. Well, first, you know, I’m sorry to hear about your diagnosis and everything that you went through, but I’m so glad that obviously, you know, you’re on the other side of that. And what a gift, not only for yourself, but to be able to share that with others.

Stacey Hines:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And so I created the podcast called The Balance Lady Boss Show. And for a while I was on a ride off the show, but I had a full time job at the time, I was doing that C-suite, that sweet, sweet role. And with when I was in that space, it was very difficult for me to see the possibilities that existed in living inside of my purpose and earning from my purpose. Uh, I think I’m still making that transition, if I’m being completely honest. Right. It’s a process. Um, what happened, however, was that I was able to find something that I loved so much that it didn’t matter, that I wasn’t getting paid for it. And I was recording. When I initially started, I was recording like two, three episodes per week until I actually learned about the podcasting industry and how it worked. And I started to get a little bit more structured. I wrote down all these different dreams that I had to have, uh, workbooks or course, and a retreat and just all these different ideas and ways that I wanted to interact with women who, like me, whether they were entrepreneurs or in corporate, wanted to have a life experience that did not equal overwhelm, burnout, and extreme exhaustion all the time. So that was the dawn of the show and my coaching programs evolved coming out of that. And to date, what what I’ve done is expand beyond the coaching programs to now have a digital academy online called FEM powered. And what it allows persons to do is to be able to access my courses or my content on demand without having to wait for a coaching cycle to come around.

Carol Cox:
Oh, that’s that’s wonderful, Stacy. And who who are the types of clients that you work with? You know, like what? Where are they at in their, you know, their career or their life and what are they hoping? What what are they hoping to get out of the experience with you?

Stacey Hines:
Okay, that’s a great question. Most of the persons that I tend to engage with are anywhere from 25 years old to 55 years old. That’s essentially my sweet spot. I find that quite a few young women who are in the career space entering the career space, they want what they call soft life. And so because they want that soft life, they’re like balance lady boss. Okay, come talk to me. Come tell me about all the things. They also want to avoid the wrecking ball moments in the boardroom. And so they want to talk to somebody who has not just been employed in corporate America, but has also climbed the ladder to the C-suite and been at that top table to understand some of the nuances, to navigating that space. I also find that women who are very much in the the cycle of life that I was in when I got ill, their mother’s full time, their wives or partners, and they work full time as well. And many of them may even have other things that they do, like, you know, church, or they may have a community that they serve, and they are already starting to feel the effect of their external circumstances on their wellness and their wellbeing. And they’ve kind of forgotten how to find joy, how to have great sex, how to enjoy their own bliss in whichever way.

Stacey Hines:
And they they leverage or look towards the podcast as a way to have real conversations. I definitely aim for that. And all my guests that, come on, you were one of them. You know, I’m going to talk to you about your whole life, not just your work life, but all aspects of your being, because that’s ultimately what other women want to know about. They want to know about every other woman that is out there that has their things to shoulder. How are you managing it? How are you doing that? So that was what I kind of find. Most persons that come to the show or actually sign up for coaching they want. There is another aspect to the work that is not as targeted from a gender perspective. And it usually you usually see it right around the beginning and the middle and the end of the year. So it’s very cyclical. And it is related to the foundational principles that this work is rooted in, which is intention. And I have a program that is all about living from a place of intention. And it’s where my intention cards come in. It’s more general. It’s personal and professional development, really for anyone. And I actually find that there are quite a few men that tend to really tap into that space heavily.

Stacey Hines:
And when I realized that persons were seeking. That type of content from me consistently, as opposed to during those special periods. That’s when I started doing the Saturday show called Tea Time. And on Saturday mornings when I go live, I talk about all things life transformation, whether you are male or female. And I’ve actually I literally had a friend from my daughter’s school come over this past week telling me that he was listening to my live week before last, and it was so great because he was having a bad day and he’s 16 and I, you know, so I’m still kind of discovering, I think, what’s available in that space. But I think generally speaking, people want to have that deep sense of contentment. I think persons are in a space now where there is just so much. Of a challenge happening in the world. We have two wars. We have cyber craziness. You know, there’s just a lot going on and people are seeking ease and just peace of mind. So I’m hoping through both the balance Ladyboss and its portfolio products, as well as my living with intention products, I can create some access to that for them.

Carol Cox:
Well that’s beautiful. Thank you Stacy, thank you for the work that you’re doing because I agree, yes, there is definitely a need out there and there’s lots of people who are looking for it because, you know, they feel unsettled, right? They feel that sense that, and they know things could be better for them. They know that and they just need to find that support to get there. So let’s talk about the speaking engagements and that you do. I know that you love to speak and your your speaking page on your website is fantastic. You have such great action shots of you speaking. You also moderate panels. And on this podcast, just a few weeks ago, we had an episode all about how to handle tech glitches, but also how to be a great panel moderator and and panelists because I have found in the sitting in the audience that most panels are kind of boring because the panelists don’t get asked like great questions, or they all agree with each other, or they kind of give generic answers instead of stories from their own experiences and insights. So, Stacy, tell me about like, what topics do you love to speak on? What types of, you know, types of events that you like to speak at, and then tips that you have for our listeners about speaking and moderating panels?

Stacey Hines:
Okay. Great question. You just have really great questions. I just got to say, well, firstly, I would say that in terms of when I what I enjoy, where do I enjoy speaking? I really love speaking at corporations. I love tech companies or companies that are going through digital transformation and joy speaking in those environments because they are typically immersed in change. And change is all about transformation. And of course, my company’s name is epic Transformation. So that is where I do my business. I do my best work. And being in those spaces, especially having been seen so many sides of corporate from different countries. So through different lenses, I tend to be able to offer a lot of value to persons in organizations. I would also add that sitting at different levels of an organization over the period of my career has given me a very unique opportunity to speak to, uh, I’m a woman, I’m a black woman, I’m a woman in tech. So I understand marginalization, I understand representation, I understand innovation, I understand current, I understand past. So there’s a lot of that space that I get to play in. So I do enjoy speaking at corporate events. I will, however, say that I have spoken at my fair share of conferences, women’s empowerment conferences, or even tech conferences that are about innovative things that are happening, and I love speaking in those atmospheres. It does not have to be a keynote conversation either. It can sometimes be a panel, and what I like about panels is exactly what you say. I’m very accustomed to sitting on a panel where everybody else is answering according to schedule, but not really knowing how to lean into the conversation and present an air of something different. And I love to sit on a panel so I can be the disrupter of those things.

Carol Cox:
Oh, I love it. Yes, be the disrupter on the panel. Go for it.

Stacey Hines:
Absolutely. And what I like about it is that it actually brings life to the other persons as well. So it’s not really just about you, it’s about the other persons that are sitting there. So I do enjoy speaking on panels from that perspective, because I like to see how can we shake things up a little, how can we make it interesting and intriguing? And one of the things that I had to get over, actually, which is something that persons who are entering the speaking space should be aware of, you have to get clear on the reaction that the audience has to your message to your voice. Because even though I can be quite animated and engaging and a bit of a storyteller, what I’ve had to get accustomed to is that most times people are very quiet when I’m speaking or after I have spoken, and it took me a while. At first I was like, oh my God, I am bombing. They can’t stand this. It doesn’t work. They’re not getting it. In particular, when you’re on a panel and you have other speakers who may evoke laughter or applause. But what would happen is when the Q&A time comes up, I was getting all the questions. And persons were commenting. Oh my gosh, Stacey, you just slapped me back into sense or oh my gosh Stacey, you really just skirted me by the waist. Uh, in Jamaica they have a phrase, they drape me up, you know, like when somebody colors you. And so what I recognized is that my stories and my transformative messages, so to speak, put people in a state of thinking, self-reflection, introspection. And so that is where the quiet came from. And it wasn’t an indication of me not actually hitting the note. What I did have to now start doing, though, was I started to ask for response just to make sure that I was on the right track, especially if I’m leading a keynote. I began to learn how to ask for a response, or even more powerful, how to give an instruction and see them actually taking action with that instruction.

Carol Cox:
Oh, Stacey, excellent point. I love that about just because an audience is not visibly reacting to something that you said doesn’t mean that they haven’t felt it, and they’re not thinking about it in a deeper way. Okay. So then so as a panelist, yes. Like, you know, share your stories, say things that maybe other people may not necessarily agree with, always do it in a polite way. Like obviously you’re not. You know, for those listening, you’re not there to to to do anything that you’re not there to to be disrespectful to anyone at all. So they just way to do it in a way that serves you, serves the panel and serves the audience all at the same time. Now, let me ask you for your tips. As the panel moderator, what do you do to make sure that the the people on your panel right give the goods right, and don’t make the panel boring with their own responses.

Stacey Hines:
That’s a great one. And you know, one of the things that I believe is the strongest, probably most effective tool that you can use is research ahead of the engagement itself. We underestimate, in particular when it’s a panel, the power of doing the work ahead of the actual event. Sometimes you don’t get all the information, but once you know the person’s name and have some general sense and you can find them on Google, I go and I do my digging. And while you may get guidance from your event coordinator around the questions that you’re asking, you want to find the little tidbits in that person on the panel story that you can connect to a question, and if it is that you find that you get on the stage and they may be a little bit reserved, you can dig deeper on the stage, right? So if you’re comfortable, why don’t you tell us a time when invite them into a story similar to how you would do in an interview? Because I feel that when you invite them to tell me about a time when it’s not a yes or no answer and it’s not, you know, they have to give you some context and that’s where the storytelling comes from. So those are the two primary things. Do that research, find out who they are behind the glossy bio. And you know, write down a couple of questions that you’d want to add to the conversation, to the vibrancy of the event, especially if you can find connections between more than one of the moderators, like with each other. Oh my gosh. It’s over.

Carol Cox:
Yes yes oh yes I right. Because as a panel moderator, sometimes we think, oh this is easy. Like I got my list of questions, I’ll just show up. I don’t have. Right. But to your point, it’s such it’s it comes off so much better if you do the research, find the connections between the panelists and like you said, like find those stories or tidbits about them because then you can prompt them like, oh, you know, I was reading this article that you were featured in that mentioned, you know, this childhood story that you know, the experience that you really had. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And then because sometimes we even as speakers or panelists, we get like that deer in the headlights, like, oh my God, I gotta think of a story on the spot. I don’t know what story to think of, but at least you’re kind of giving them the idea.

Stacey Hines:
Exactly. And I find that I haven’t been on a panel where they don’t appreciate you creating an opportunity for engagement, because nothing really sucks more than being on a panel that’s not fun. You know? You just can’t wait to get off the stage, especially if there’s one person answering all the questions you barely getting a question tossed your way. So when you’re when you’re able to actually lean in and share a little bit more about yourself and shine a bit on your personality, it makes such a huge difference in the experience for the entire panel.

Carol Cox:
I completely agree Stacy. Thank you so much for these tips, I loved it! Besides your fantastic podcast Balance Lady Boss, which everyone should go check out. Where else can listeners connect with you?

Stacey Hines:
Oh, I would absolutely love it if listeners would connect with me on tea time. I go live every Saturday morning at 9:00 on YouTube and on IG. I am Stacey Haynes. You can find me on most platforms at. I am Stacey Haynes. For TikTok. I just got a TikTok account. Ah, yeah. I decided to lean into TikTok. Uh, and I’m on TikTok at just Stacey Hines, so there’s no. I am there. But tea time is my little special place right now where I literally come. I bring my tea. So I encourage persons to bring their own warm cup of joy because it is a Saturday morning, so sometimes they’ll have their coffee or their hot chocolate with whipped cream, whatever it is, and we just sit down and spend 30 to 45 minutes just talking about all things life. It’s just real talk, conversation. And I find that I really love that space because it’s more open. And it allows for us to explore transformation through all different kinds of lenses in your life. Then, outside of Tea Time and the podcast, I can be found on my website, Stacey haynes.com and on pretty much all social media channels right now except for X. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Carol Cox:
Okay. I will make sure to include links in the show notes. Go connect with Stacey. Please go follow her. Check out her tea time. I could listen to you all day long. Stacey, I love your voice. And I know to me you have an accent. I know you don’t do yourself, but I love it because it’s so. Life is like this little lilt with your with your voice, I love it. I could listen to it all day long.

Stacey Hines:
So so much.

Carol Cox:
All right, Stacey, thank you so much for coming on the Speaking Your Brand podcast.

Stacey Hines:
It was great. Thank you very much for having me. I’ll come back anytime you want.

Carol Cox:
Fantastic. That was such a fun conversation. I love Stacey’s energy. Make sure to follow her on LinkedIn and also check out her podcast on next week’s episode. Dianne Diaz and I are going to talk about the recent five minute comedy set that she delivered live on stage here in Orlando, Florida, where we live. I was there in the audience cheering her on and recording it as well, and she did a fantastic job. So we’re going to break down why she decided to sign up to do this five minute comedy set in the first place, what she learned by doing it, and what you can take away as a speaker. You don’t have to be a stand up comedian to learn some of the things that she’s going to share from having gone through this process. So that’s on the next episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. Until then, thanks for listening.

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