Reframing Public Speaking: From Elite Skill to Everyday Power with Dr. Karen Corbin: Podcast Ep. 411

Reframing Public Speaking: From Elite Skill to Everyday Power with Dr. Karen Corbin: Podcast Ep. 411

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Is public speaking an elusive talent reserved for a select few, or is it a powerful tool we can all master?

In this thought-provoking episode, we challenge the long-held belief that public speaking is only for the “naturally gifted.” 

I’m thrilled to have Dr. Karen Corbin back on the podcast, as we dive deep into the art of communication and explore how anyone, from scientists to young professionals, can harness their voice to make a meaningful impact.

Karen and I talk about:

  • Why storytelling isn’t just for the “gifted” but a skill anyone can cultivate to connect, influence, and inspire
  • The practical steps she took to shift from self-doubt to speaking with confidence and clarity
  • The surprising moments that changed her perspective on who should have a voice and how to make it heard
  • Real-life examples of how communicating effectively can open doors, reshape careers, and empower you to step into your own spotlight
  • How Karen navigates the corporate world and her personal brand

If you’ve ever felt self-conscious or critical about your speaking abilities, this episode is for you. 

Karen and I explore how we can all make public speaking less intimidating and more approachable, turning it from an elite skill into an everyday power that elevates your personal and professional life.

About My Guest: Karen D. Corbin, PhD, RD is the Owner and Chief Geek of Geeks That Speak® and an Associate Investigator at the AdventHealth Orlando Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes. She is an expert in human nutrition and metabolism. Her scientific career is devoted to finding new approaches to prevent and treat diseases like diabetes and fatty liver disease. She is also an expert in scientific storytelling. After spending years traversing the worlds of healthcare and science, she realized that a fundamental gap exists for translating ideas into solutions: the common inability of scientists and other “geeks” to deliver information in a way that is impactful, relevant and inspires action. This led Dr. Corbin to an important conviction: by helping scientists translate complex scientific information in a way that is accessible to a broad range of audiences, she could help advance the innovation that will solve many of society’s most pressing problems So, she created the movement “Geeks That Speak®” to inspire and empower scientists to become powerful storytellers. 

 

 

About Us: The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals clarify their brand message and story, create their signature talks, and develop their thought leadership platforms. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power because it’s through women’s stories, voices, and visibility that we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. Check out our coaching programs at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/411/ 

Karen’s website: https://www.geeksthatspeak.com/ 

Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/

Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/ 

Connect on LinkedIn:

Related Podcast Episodes:

411-SYB-Karen-Corbin.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

411-SYB-Karen-Corbin.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
My guest, Doctor Karen Corbin of Geeks That Speak, wants to reframe public speaking from an elite skill to an everyday power, which you’ll hear about on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. 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 and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Today we’re going to talk about why public speaking is not just an elite skill or not something that you have to be born with or naturally talented for. But really, public speaking and especially sharing your story is a skill and a power that everybody has. And my guest, Doctor Karen Corbin, is the epitome of this. She’s going to share a little bit of her story of her, her transition from middle school to what she does now. And yes, I always love to ask people about their childhood.

Carol Cox:
And so but we’re really going to talk about the importance of storytelling, especially for scientists, people in the Stem fields, because that’s where Karen is in. But really, for all of us, no matter what our industry, no matter what our topic, no matter where we work or what our business is, because we so many people believe again, that public speaking is only for a few, or that you have to be really gifted, or that you have to have tons of experience in order to share your message and your story. But that is not the case at all, which is where we’re going to talk about Karen Corbin has not only a PhD, but also an Rd, and she’s an associate investigator at the AdventHealth Translational Research Institute here in Orlando, Florida, where we both live. She’s also the owner and chief geek of Geeks That speak, which I love, geeks that speak. And she really works to inspire and empower scientists to become powerful storytellers, not only adults, but also she works a lot with younger girls, which we’re going to talk about towards the end of the conversation. Karen, welcome back to the podcast.

Karen Corbin:
Hi, Carol. Great to see you again five years later.

Carol Cox:
I know we were looking before we clicked record. You were on pretty much exactly five years ago, September of 2019. Episode 138. Amazingly, talking about scientists need to tell their stories to. And so as we chatted before we hit record, it’s I love this because it shows how much our missions are who we are. This is clearly our thread throughout our careers. We’re still doing it five years later. We’ll be doing this five years and more from now. So I’m so glad to have you back on the podcast.

Karen Corbin:
Thank you.

Carol Cox:
Well, let’s let’s start off with what prompted this conversation you shared with me in an email not too long ago that you had a recent moment where you were listening to your colleagues share their stories and it made you stop in your tracks. You told me, and it made you realize something. Can you tell me what happened? Like set us. Set the scene. Tell us what was going on. And what was it about that experience that struck you so deeply?

Karen Corbin:
Yeah. So we had a group of educators from one of our local counties here to hear from a spectrum of our team members about how they chose their career, what they do every single day. So I did my spiel, interestingly, with my slides not working because that happens sometimes. So I had to just ad lib it, and I finished mine, and I and I left the stage and I just stayed and listened. And one by one, my friends, my colleagues told what I thought were really important stories about who they are, how they landed their job, what they do every day. And I’d say 95% of them essentially ran out of the room and put their hands in their face and said, I need to go somewhere dark and cold and just close the door. I never want to do that again. And I thought to myself, that’s a tragedy. They had important insight that nobody else can have. Your story is your own, and the fact that people feel like they’re not good at sharing their story and therefore they should stay silent, really concerned me.

Carol Cox:
And what do you feel like prompted that immediate reaction that basically they wanted to go hide? Did they feel like their stories were too vulnerable, that people heard too much about them? Was it the the fact of just standing in front of a group of people, what was going on for them?

Karen Corbin:
I think it’s the the typical and normal fear of public speaking. You don’t want to be judged. You you worry you didn’t do it right, or you may say the wrong thing. And that’s such a normal feeling. And I think it hinders people from wanting to to ever do that unless they absolutely have to.

Carol Cox:
And would you say that most of them would call themselves introverts? Do you think that had something to do with it as well?

Karen Corbin:
Yeah, I think the extroverts in the group were a little bit more comfortable. So I think that’s true. But I think you can still be extroverted to have a really talented neuroscientist friend who is just she’s actually great when she speaks in front of people. And I consider her very extroverted, but I don’t think she loves it. I think she does it because she has to, but I don’t think she loves it even though she’s phenomenal.

Carol Cox:
And so Karen, so thinking about these scientists, like you said, they have really powerful, important, inspiring stories to share. And even though it’s you. Well, let me let me ask it this way. I sometimes feel that people get nervous about public speaking because they feel like they don’t know what to say. So they want to have a whole script written out word for word that they can basically read from, or they want to have slides that are chock full of a lot of text and bullet points. So they can basically read the slides to the audience, which we know is a big no no. Not a fun experience for your audience. So I feel like it’s, you know, there’s so much fear and hesitancy around public speaking because people want to make sure that they know what they’re talking about, that they have all the expert information, the details. They don’t say the wrong fact, but it sounds like that wasn’t quite what was going on in this particular situation. They were sharing personal stories, which of course I always say, you know your story, you lived it. So what? Why do you think they felt that they were so bad about sharing it?

Karen Corbin:
I think we’re just very self-critical and hate the idea of being in front of people so much that we just work ourselves up. And I agree, we we want to have these perfect scripts and not say the wrong word and not stutter a little bit. But in reality, when you have a conversation, you do that all the time. It’s normal and actually makes you more endearing to the audience because they don’t want to be up there. They’re proud of you for being up there and having those little human moments. Actually, I think is a better way than having this, like perfectly choreographed speech that you give word for word.

Carol Cox:
Well, we’re going to go into some things that we think will will help the colleagues like yours. But anyone listening to this podcast. But first I want to go back to middle school. Karen, when you were at a in person workshop that we facilitated a few weeks ago for the Athena Next Gen alumni, which I’m a class of 2016. I know, Karen, you went through that program as well, and you shared a story with that group of when you were growing up and decidedly not wanting to be a public speaker at all. So can you tell us about young Karen and then what caused this shift to who you are now, where you are at the forefront of science communication and even started a company called Geekspeak.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah. So I moved here from San Juan, Puerto Rico when I was nine years old, and I had an accent, believe it or not. I don’t have one now. People don’t peg me immediately as being from a Latin background, and I remember a specific day and listen. I forget a lot of stuff. I forget almost everything. But I remember this day in the library, reading something out loud to the class, and I remember exactly which word made me stay silent forever. And that was the word pyramid, because I said a pyramid. And the kids laughed at me and it was so awful. And I said, you know what? I think I’m better off backstage. I’ll just stay silent. Silence is safe. And so I spent most of my years in school and even into my first professional job, avoiding public speaking as much as possible. Now that became something that I just couldn’t do anymore because I chose a career in healthcare and science. And when I started in healthcare, I think on day two of being a registered dietitian, I was asked to audition my public speaking skills. And I was thinking, I didn’t see that in the job description anywhere. Well, it turned out they ran this educational program out of this cardiology office that had just been hired to work in, where they trained other cardiology offices on how to establish prevention programs for heart disease.

Karen Corbin:
And it included a team of dietitians and nurses and physicians. And it was an expectation that I would join that traveling road show. And I thought, oh, boy, I’m either going to sink or swim. And so I wasn’t going to sink and I auditioned. I was probably pretty bad, but they trained me. They worked with me. I learned through observation. And then when it was my turn to do it, clearly I was terrified. This was back in the day when the projectors were, like, the size of a suitcase, and you checked them in the airplane as luggage. And if you hit the button sequence the wrong way, the light bulb would blow and that would be the end of the show. So it was kind of interesting times historically in how we deliver talks. And so the more I did it, the more I said, oh, I kind of like this, and I think I’m getting better at it. And I made the connection that being on stage speaking gave me the same kind of feeling as when I was on stage dancing, because a little known fact is that I wanted to be either a scientist or a dancer.

Karen Corbin:
Those are my two career paths. Dancing is a passion of mine. I still love it. And if I could, I would be dancing every single day. So, um. So then I said, okay, this is actually something that I’m liking. I need to get better at it. I practiced. And when I got into science, to make a long story short, I noticed that there was a lot of gaps in scientific communication and that it was something that we have to do as science, as scientists. It’s part of our job description to go to conferences to talk about our data. And I and I saw a need to say, hey, guys, this doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t have to be a data dump. There are ways to do this. So A you enjoy it more, but importantly your audience gets more out of it. So. So that’s how I went from never doing it to looking for every chance to speak in front of people. And when I say this, people that don’t believe me, they’re like, but, but you’re so good at it. You’re a natural. You’re so engaging. I said, practice it. Just it just taking the time to decide this is important to you and working at this craft.

Carol Cox:
Yes, I was going to say it sounded like the repetition of just doing it. You have to do it more than one time. If anything in life, if you only do something in life 1 or 2 times, and you do it only once every few years, yes, it’s going to be very nerve wracking. You’re probably not going to be as good at it as you want to be, and so you’re not going to want to continue doing it. And so you have to just you have to put the reps in, just like with strength training or training for a half marathon. You can’t just go out there and expect to be at your best the very first time you do it.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah, I mean, there may be a few people like you said that are born with it that since childhood could just do that. But for the 99% of the rest of us, it’s something that takes time and practice and dedication.

Carol Cox:
And so and I think that what you mentioned about this early experience when you were young in school and getting laughed at by other kids, I feel like there’s so many adults out there who have had those types of experiences in school, either teachers calling on them or teachers saying something that they probably shouldn’t have said in a negative way or the kids laughing. And I feel like that holds back so many adults because they don’t want to try it ever again. They they feel that, you know, in your in their bodies, they can feel that sense of embarrassment or humiliation or just those bad feelings. And so but to your point, Karen, for so many people in their careers, and especially if you own your own business, public speaking is an essential skill and storytelling is an essential skill to have. So for those of you listening, if public speaking is something that you feel trepidation about, feel so much nervousness that it really prevents you from doing it. Find those small kind of safe spaces to start with. Warm audiences, places where you feel comfortable. Maybe it is delivering a presentation at work. Do it more and more often and I will say, I promise you, I promise you it will get easier. Karen, what else have you seen works well for people that you work with.

Karen Corbin:
So I try to help them really step back and think about who’s your audience, what do they know? What do they need to know, and how would they maximally benefit from everything? You know? Because as scientists, we know a lot of things about a lot of things. And when we get up there, we want to tell you everything. But in fact, you only have so much time and you can’t tell people everything. So it’s about tailoring the content to meet the needs of the audience. And once you do that, you will sense that engagement from your audience. When you get up there, you see that they’re following you, they’re smiling, they’re laughing, they’re listening, and that gives you confidence. So I really as as a technical person, as a scientist, we immediately think of the data first. And in fact, I tell people, start with the audience and then figure out what are the most critical pieces of data to maximally inform, engage and inspire your audience.

Carol Cox:
Mm. That’s really helpful. And, you know, and to your point, thinking about you were one of the speakers for the brave Bold Beyond Live virtual Summit, the first one we hosted in October 2020. Of course, this was in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic. This was the fall of 2020. So it was. We brought in ten women speakers, including you, to deliver a ten minute Ted style talks, and you did it on the importance of public health communication and the importance of science and reasoning and facts, because here we were in the midst of the pandemic, where that was definitely going awry. So, Karen, can you tell us about your realization of how important communication is for public communication is for science, but also how storytelling can fit in versus just giving people the facts? Because, as we’ve seen, just giving people the facts is not persuade them.

Karen Corbin:
Absolutely. And, you know, I started my career in nutrition in 1998, when most people didn’t have a computer in their hand. So there was a a logical flow of information from the professional who had most of the access to the person on the other side who needed the information. Now we’re in a totally different world where we’re not under-informed in every way. We’re over informed, but most of the time we’re misinformed, and it’s really challenging to tease apart what’s the reliable information. And I feel very strongly that one thing we need to do as a scientific community is get more of us out there speaking about important health topics or other scientific topics, but in a way that’s interesting and understandable. I think there’s a statistic somewhere that people do trust scientists. The problem is they don’t understand us, so they’re going to go elsewhere to look for the information. So if we elevate an army of scientists out there that are flipping the narrative and and really taking charge of the narrative. I mean, there’s nothing worse than being an expert in a discipline and and having people who’ve got no training or understanding put something out there that could literally cost someone their life.

Karen Corbin:
I mean, it makes me want to scream silently almost every day to see that. And so I think it’s just critical to think about not just giving people the facts, because those can be blurred, but explaining things in a way that makes sense, and making sure we back that up with the sources of where this comes from so people can check us. Right. I tell people all the time, you don’t believe me, read this. Here’s where, here’s where this science came from. So that’s just so important for public health and for really for solving problems, because that’s what science is. Science is seeking truth to solve problems. And if we could focus on that and help people understand the process of science, the discipline of science and and what it is that we’re trying to accomplish together, then I think people would be much more likely to say, wait a minute, this person said this. Let me think about that and let me look for for some other sources to see if this makes sense, rather than just ingesting it, believing it, and moving on.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And and what a great point about the change in our media environment from 1998 to today. And you’re right, like back then it was people watched the TV news for 30 minutes, read the newspaper and got their information. And then and that was it. And, you know, obviously there’s pros and cons to that compared to where we are today. But you think about the influencers on Instagram or TikTok, the ones who are really popular, you know, it’s because, well, they’re good at communicating. You know, they’re good at headlines like clickbait type of stuff, absolutes, which we know with a lot of science. It’s not about absolutes, but people like absolutes and certainties because it makes them feel better. So are there are there people you would recommend that we follow? And if you can’t think of names off the top of your head, that’s fine. We can put them in the show notes, some links, but maybe some good scientist or, you know, people in in similar fields who would be good types of people that we can follow instead of just finding the random influencer.

Karen Corbin:
So awesome question. I definitely need to think about that and I’ll get back to you.

Carol Cox:
Okay, great. Because I know that they are out there. I don’t think they are as plentiful as the regular influencers, but I do feel like there are some out there, probably some that I have come across. But I think there’s also a little bit of a tension because think about you, Karen, like you have a full time job. You also have geeks that speak like you’re busy. We’re going to talk about some of the visibility that you’ve been doing. You’re out there speaking. And do you have time to be an influencer on social media or the desire to do it? Probably not. And I feel like a lot of scientists are in similar shoes as you.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah. The time is is definitely hard to find. Science is pretty much 24 over seven, right? You’re learning something new every day and failing every day and recharting your course. But I definitely have a desire to be a go to person and maybe connecting people like exactly what you just asked me. Who’s the person you would want to talk to about this topic and and bringing those people forward in some sort of podcast or forum so that people had a place to go to get these answers. And also, I think it’s important for people to understand some of our frustrations. You know, I can only imagine the immunologist during Covid and what they must have been going through. I mean, we saw a lot of it publicly, but there are dozens, thousands more that are just going, oh.

Karen Corbin:
This is crazy. Yeah.

Karen Corbin:
So if I could find a way to bring that all out into the public, it would allow me to to increase not just me as an influencer, but maybe science as an influencer via a whole bunch of people that could come and share their knowledge.

Carol Cox:
And I feel like the younger generation, the Gen Z generation, is probably going to be better at this naturally because they have grown up with this. So even they go into science or they go into medicine or a field like that, and I think they’re going to be maybe more than will be more inclined to be more quote unquote, social online than they are. Generation X has been. Oh for.

Karen Corbin:
Sure, for.

Carol Cox:
Sure. Okay, so there’s hope for the future. The children are our future.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah, that’s why I love working.

Karen Corbin:
With young people.

Carol Cox:
Yes.

Carol Cox:
All right. So let’s talk about some of the visibility that you have been doing. You were featured in the Washington Post not too long ago for the work that you’ve been doing. So can you tell us about that. And then, you know, adjacent to this, the speaking and visibility media that you’ve been doing, how do you navigate your personal brand while having a full time job? You know, in the corporate world.

Karen Corbin:
So as far as the visibility is concerned, we first of all, science is a team sport. So we had a large team of people working on a project about the gut microbiome, which are the bacteria that live in in our GI system that have all kinds of impacts on health. And we worked on that project for 7 or 8 years and finally published it. And the day that it came out online, I said, I’m going to do a tutorial. I don’t know, what do we call them now? Editorial, I don’t know, I still am going to say tutorial. And and I just broke it down. I put some of the main points with the figures and the data so people could see it, and I just explained it in a way that I thought would gain some interest. And I can tell you I’ve tweeted about papers lots of times and gotten zero attention, but this one hit a nerve because in a good way. Not a bad way. Because it’s a timely topic. And I think that’s such an important concept of getting attention from the media. It has to be something that’s important today. Right now, even if the work you do is extremely valuable, if it’s not something that is just at the forefront of public interest, it might not get the coverage. So I put this tweet together and literally two days later, a reporter from The Washington Post DM’d me on Twitter and wanted to to talk about the work. So that just started steamrolling a whole bunch of other opportunities to speak on the radio and on podcasts about this work and what I think was sort of a culmination of me as a healthcare professional, me as a scientist, and me wanting to do work that people could take directly to their life and to their homes.

Karen Corbin:
Is that the work that we did could literally go from the lab bench to somebody’s dinner table. And so having that relevance in my message really helped it to gain a ton of attention. The work was labeled one of the top 25 clinical pieces of work in the journal that we published in for that year, and we’re also in the top 1% of attention from media and of all publications that have ever been tracked and in the top 2% of publications as far as media attention in this high ranking journal. I couldn’t have predicted any of it. It just became a whirlwind. And I thought to myself, wow, everything I’ve done combining the science and the communication, every skill, every coach I worked with, including you and Diane, everything I’ve done has prepared me for this moment, and that just comes to show how important it is to hone the skill, to continue to work on it, because you don’t know when that opportunity is going to be there and you want to be ready. And I was ready and also had the support of people higher up in my organization who allowed me to be the front person for a lot of this media attention, which I appreciate very much because I love every minute of it.

Carol Cox:
And I’m so glad to hear that. So they’re very supportive of the visibility that you’ve been giving, getting so far. So it sounds like you have your personal brand, you have your LinkedIn profile, you have you, Karen, you have geeks that speak, but obviously you’re very much a representative for the organization you work with. Adventhealth. So how how does that feel for you?

Karen Corbin:
It’s fantastic. I mean, I’m so fortunate that the whole name geeks that speak was born here at AdventHealth through a conversation with a friend and colleague of mine, and that my company recognizes the value of strong scientific communication, particularly in the health field. And they’ve been so supportive and, you know, allowing me to to drive both cars and, and do both of it because it is it is such an important skill. And I also have the opportunity to train people here. So the company has seen benefit from our scientists upping their communication game because I’m here. So I might as well help them.

Carol Cox:
All right. Let’s talk about Geekspeak. So some more. So tell us primarily, you know, when do people come to you. What exactly do you do with them? And then I also want to talk about the work that you’re doing with young girls, because I love seeing the photos of them that you share on LinkedIn.

Karen Corbin:
Thank you. So people come to me by word of mouth. The people who work here with me at AdventHealth, they’re going to they know me. So they just say, hey, I just got invited to give a talk at a big national meeting, and I’m terrified. Will you help me? So, people who come to me one on one, I’ll do one on one coaching for them. We’ll figure out what’s their main story. How do they really elevate this from a data dump to something that’s engaging? We’ll work on, you know, how to create the best slides. But a lot of times people come to me, either from universities or different biotech companies that have a workforce that needs the help. And then I’ll do a group workshop where I walk them through basically the ABCs of how do you go from boring and uninspiring to engaging, even a little entertaining, because why can’t we laugh at scientific meetings? There’s nothing wrong with that. But also, you know, I think it’s so important and you’ve taught this to me, and I know you teach it to the people you work with. There needs to be an action on the other side. So what do you want people to do after they heard you speak? Do you want them to collaborate with you? Do you want them just to think about the topic a little bit differently because we’ve been driving the train this way, but the data are suggesting that there’s a different way to think about it. So you want to give them those nuggets throughout so they know what they should be walking away with. And hopefully it’ll lead to advancing of the field.

Carol Cox:
Mhm. Okay. So tell us about the young girls.

Karen Corbin:
So as I mentioned I’m from Puerto Rico and I didn’t know any scientists when I was young. I dreamed about being a scientist since I was a kid. And and I don’t know how or why. The only direct connection I can make is a visual of a scientist. Was some of the episodes of Wonder Woman from the original Lynda Carter series, where sometimes she was wearing a lab coat?

Carol Cox:
Yes, I loved that show.

Karen Corbin:
I know she did math. She did some science. I mean, she was amazing, right? She is amazing. So, um, I realized how important it is to have somebody rooting for you. Somebody that shows you the way. And a lot of times, especially for girls, there’s still, sadly, this misconception that science isn’t for girls. And that’s just not true. So if you catch them early enough so that they don’t let those narratives beat them down and change their trajectory to one that says, this isn’t for me. I think it’s so important. So whether it’s I go to schools and talk to kids or they come here or I do some one on one mentoring, or I just grab some kids from a school that a friend owns, and I put them in lab coats, and we I meet them and I give them little microscopes. You just don’t know what that little nudge can really do to spark that curiosity. But clearly I’m only one person, so I’m hoping to also get the message out there to other scientists. Hey, you have a community too. You don’t have to travel the world to impact a child’s life a couple times a year. You could engage with lots of different groups of kids in your community to help them, uh, advance that curiosity, not lose that dream that can often be lost with that kind of negative talk about who can and should be a scientist.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And also just for them, having not only women to look up to you, but also that support community because, you know, as with it being a male dominated degree and industry, you know, there’s lots of great men out there who are allies to women. I know I’ve had that throughout my schooling and my career, but we also know that just numbers wise, it can feel very isolating and very lonely to be the only woman or the only 1 or 2 who are studying in something or in a in a job.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah, absolutely. And and women lead differently. We’ve learned this from being graduates of the Athena NextGen program. And some of those ways of leading are sometimes not the expected way in a typical academic tower. So we have to break those barriers too, and show them that there are different ways to achieve a common goal. So yeah, I mean, it’s just so critical to make sure that for the kids that aren’t as fortunate as I was, that had parents that said, you can do anything that you dream of, they they never put barriers or I never really knew that girls weren’t supposed to be scientists. I never really knew that there was anything I couldn’t do because my parents did that for me. I had teachers that were very supportive as well, but not everybody has that opportunity. So if you can be that for just even one person, that could be the person that cures cancer, that could be the person that solves global warming and climate change. So know that a small amount of effort.

Karen Corbin:
Could.

Karen Corbin:
Really change the world and you may not see it. You may not know about it, but I promise it’s worth your time and investing in young kids and encouraging them to to help us through science.

Carol Cox:
Well, Karen, I think that brings us full circle to the beginning of our conversation, which is this is why scientists, when all of us, no matter what our industry, is, but scientists, need to share their stories, their career journeys, and maybe they can start in schools. Maybe that would feel less pressure, like lower stakes for them.

Karen Corbin:
Yeah, that’s true.

Karen Corbin:
Although I’m a little scared by teenagers.

Carol Cox:
Okay. Maybe like like elementary school, I think they still feel pretty, like, excited, right?

Karen Corbin:
Yeah. For sure.

Karen Corbin:
And, you know, that’s what I was thinking to your stage. Doesn’t have to be television or a big national meeting. It can be in a conference room. It can be a couple people sitting around a the table, but knowing that your story matters, the good things and the challenges you’ve had in your life could be exactly what somebody needs to hear. And if you don’t speak, nobody’s going to hear it. So it’s just important for all of us to not just rely on some text message or some quick little response on social media. But those personal connections, I think, are so valuable, and I think all of us could make a difference in someone’s life, even if we never realize it.

Carol Cox:
Yes.

Carol Cox:
Because as I like to say, you are the messenger your audience is waiting for.

Karen Corbin:
That’s right. Exactly.

Carol Cox:
Well, Karen, thank you so much for this inspiring conversation. For those of you listening, make sure to connect with Karen on LinkedIn. I’ve included the link to her profile in the show notes. Also, check out Geekspeak comm if you want to learn more about Karen and Geekspeak. And it’s been such a pleasure. Karen, we have known each other for. I don’t know if it was like 2017 or 2018 when we did a VIP day together initially. And like I said on the podcast part of our summit at the workshop we did a couple of weeks ago and we see each other around town, which is always fun.

Karen Corbin:
It’s awesome. I love that we both live in Orlando and can connect in a lot of different ways.

Carol Cox:
Great. Well, thank you again.

Karen Corbin:
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Carol Cox:
If you want to learn how to become a better storyteller, discover your speaker archetype, because then you’ll get recommendations for how to lean into your natural communication style and what to do to amplify it. You can take our free ten question multiple choice quiz at Speaking Your brand.com/quiz. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/quiz. It just takes a few minutes. It’s completely free and you’ll get your results right away. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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