305-SYB-Shannon-Bumgarner.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
We’re wrapping up our speaker archetype series with the spellbinding storyteller with my guest, Shannon Bumgarner, 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 there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. This is the fourth and final episode in the series we’ve been doing exploring the four speaker archetypes. If you haven’t taken our free quiz to discover your speaker archetype, you can do so as speaking your brand slash quiz. So make sure to do that. We’ve already talked in the series about the stellar scholar, fabulous facilitator and provocative performer archetypes. Today we’re going to dive into the spellbinding storyteller archetype, and knowing your archetype will help you to create more impactful and memorable presentations to market and position yourself as a speaker using your strengths, and then take our recommendations so that you can add to your talks and add to your delivery to take them to the next level.
Carol Cox:
Let me tell you a little bit about the spellbinding storyteller archetype before I bring on our guest for today. If you’re a spellbinding storyteller, your audience is captivated by your stories and they feel a real connection to you. You truly understand the power of sharing personal stories and being vulnerable. It’s really how you’ve learned to better understand yourself. You see what’s happened to you as a way to share life lessons and to help your audience realize that they’re not alone. Now, as a storyteller, your big challenge could be that you love sharing stories so much that you may miss out on the opportunity to provide your audience with your overall thought leadership message and a strong call to action. That’s what we’re going to talk about today with my guest, Shannon Bumgarner. You may recognize her. She was just on the podcast in episode 298 where we had a panel discussion about women in STEM and using your voice as a woman in STEM. And Shannon is definitely a trailblazer in this field. Not only does she mentor other women in STEM, but she’s also the host of the Empowering Women in Industry podcast. Shannon, welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
Shannon Bumgarner:
I am so excited to be here, Carol. I love spending time with you and this breaking your brain community.
Carol Cox:
I likewise. And you first came into the speaking your brand community back in 2019. You went through a group program at the time which was called a Master. You’re speaking and you’re now going through the Thought Leader Academy program, which is the current iteration of that as an alumna. And I have been so grateful to have you as part of the community to share your insights and not only your insights, but generally just your cheerleading and your encouragement to the other women.
Shannon Bumgarner:
It’s been fantastic and I would encourage anyone, whether you want to be a professional speaker or if you just want to get better at speaking in your corporate role to really try the Thought Leadership Academy. And we can talk about that more later if you like.
Carol Cox:
Yes, I would be happy to chat and to have you share a little bit about your experience there. So let’s dive into the spellbinding storyteller, a speaker archetype. I know that you had taken the quiz back when it came out and you got the storyteller a result. Were you surprised?
Shannon Bumgarner:
No, I actually just told you a few minutes ago when I took the quiz. Sometimes the shorter quizzes, you’re like, Yeah, is this really going to work? And I actually sat back in my chair and I was like, Wow, Carol got that one dead right on that one.
Carol Cox:
So do you feel like you have this kind of natural or innate or even cultivated ability to tell stories? And then how has that shown up for you in your life and in your professional work?
Shannon Bumgarner:
One of my my two superpowers, I think, are authenticity and vulnerability. So I think I have cultivated my ability to tell stories, but I think it’s that might need that want for authenticity and honestly, the willingness to be vulnerable. That makes me a better storyteller. So I’m I want to say I’m not afraid to put my stories out there. I’m definitely terrified sometimes. But I believe that in those stories lies, true connection. And I think when I’m speaking either 101 in a podcast, in a small group setting or in 100 people, my goal is to always make that connection. And I do that through storytelling.
Carol Cox:
Hmm. Okay. So, Shannon, when did you discover that storytelling and really having this more authentic, vulnerable connection with the people who you were conversing with again, whether it’s one person or 100, when did you first recognize that, Well.
Shannon Bumgarner:
I’m going to make your audience laugh. So I am a chemical engineer by degree, and so I believe in the power of data. They teach you that sort of beat that into your head in college. And then I just noticed that when I would do presentations, that people wouldn’t remember it. And I don’t remember the science behind it, but there’s science that actually supports the people. Remember what you say, they connect with you, and that story carries long past whatever graph or chart that you share with them. So that was my aha moment. If I want my ideas to be valued in the corporate setting or on a thought leadership stage, that I must be able to incorporate stories to make that message resonate and to be memorable. That was my, I guess, my light bulb moment.
Carol Cox:
And I’m sure that it helped you to stand out as a speaker and a presenter, because not that many speakers do it, and certainly probably not that many speakers in kind of STEM or academic fields.
Shannon Bumgarner:
You’re going to laugh. So I mentor women, as you mentioned on the outset, and I’ve mentored someone who’s very technical. She does project management as well, and she’s like, You want me to tell stories? Really? I’m an engineer like this, this whole story telling now, we’re not going to do that. And I’m like, Trust me, just try it.
Carol Cox:
And what were some of the first stories, you know, when you when you realize that not only would this help you connect with your audience, but then there is science around the benefits of storytelling. What kinds of stories did you first start to share?
Shannon Bumgarner:
I usually tell a story about when I’ve messed up somewhere along the way because I feel like if you can say, Look, I’m standing here, I’ve probably been relatively successful in whatever I’m doing. It’s that story of I tried that and here’s what happened. And I think it does two things. It automatically makes the audience connect with you because you’re not standing up there as I’m 100% perfect. And then it also says, well, you know, she lived through that, so I probably can. So let’s try whatever she’s pitching or talking about in this particular presentation.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, I appreciate that you share that kind of like these hard won life lessons that we all have. Whatever has happened in our life, whether it’s on the personal side or on the professional side when we were younger or more present day, is those things sharing with our audiences. Even if they didn’t have anything like that experience, they could be a completely different industry or just to not have that experience at all. But they can put themselves into a version of the situation of the story that you’re sharing, and then they feel like it validates their own experience and they feel like they’re not alone.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Absolutely, 100% agree.
Carol Cox:
So you have your own podcast that you’ve been doing as well. So tell me a little bit about kind of the genesis of the podcast, why you decided to do it and then what what types of episodes that you do and how does storytelling fit into that?
Shannon Bumgarner:
It’s so funny. I’m a podcaster by Absolute Accident. The Empowering Women Podcast is sponsored by empowering Women in industry, like we talked about on the outset, and the podcast had been running for about two seasons with a different host, and that host communicated to the leader of the organization that they needed to take a step back. And I had spoken for them actually at their first annual conference in Chicago. And so I knew that leader through that venue. And she sent an email to me and she said, Hey Shannon, what do you think about being the host of the podcast? And I open the email, Carol, and I was like, That lady has lost her mind in Alabama. I have never done a podcast. I don’t know how to do it. She’s crazy. Like, she needs to go, like, do something different and wake up. But I challenge women all the time to step out of their comfort zone. And I sat back and I did this too, actually, with my first speaking engagement, and I said, Well, you can’t tell everybody else to do this and not do it yourself. And you know what I thought Carol was? I’ll figure it out. Like, I’ll I’ll figure it out. I’ll ask people, I’ll read online, I’ll watch videos if I have to. I’ll figure it out. So that was how the how I started the podcast. And I did.
Shannon Bumgarner:
I had no clue what I was doing. I don’t have I don’t have a problem admitting to that. But I think for me, I get to tell the stories of others. I think that is what is so powerful about what we do. We really focus on women in manufacturing and technical industries. Typically, we cover a really wide range of topics. We’ve talked about imposter syndrome, we’ve talked about systemic racism in the workplace. We’ve talked about change fatigue and how that shows up in the workplace. We’ve talked about how to own your voice and step up into your confidence. We cover a whole range of topics and I love that because I think women in industry and women in STEM, we face all those different things. And for Caucasian females like myself, we need to learn how to show up and be allies for women of color. So I love even attacking the tough conversations like that. On the storytelling question, I’ve been refining my techniques over time. I think if I went back and listened to my first episode, I’d be like, Oh, that was a little clunky. But I you get finessed about how to pull that story through line. With your guest like you asked him questions in a very deliberate order and you kind of follow up questions. And and I’m getting better at pulling that story through through the podcast.
Carol Cox:
That’s great to hear, Shannon. And definitely it’s just the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more you see those connections and those different threads and. Let me ask you, what’s a story that comes to mind that you often when you’re mentoring other women in STEM, or maybe you’re doing a speaking engagement about one of those hard one life lessons. I always think about it as this journey of discovery. We didn’t realize something and then something happened to us and we realized, Oh, well, maybe things are a different way, or maybe I need to to look at things or change things for myself.
Shannon Bumgarner:
It is. There’s one story that I tell quite frequently, but it literally changed my life. It was one question that was asked in a forum that literally changed my life. So let me let me set the stage for you a little bit. So I was about, I don’t know, ten, 15 years into my career, I’d say I’ve been relatively, relatively successful. But I was just feeling stuck like I didn’t know how to move forward. So I was so lucky to be nominated for a women’s leadership program at my company. It was a very small cohort of 30 women from the global organization, so it was an incredible honor to be in that room. And I walked into that room. And it’s your normal corporate room, right? There’s the normal white tables and the gray chair, and everybody’s just sort of milling around. Nobody really knows each other quite yet. So everybody’s sort of trying to find their place. There’s a lot of paper shuffling going on. And I looked up and there is a huge yellow one of those huge yellow Post-it notes stuck on an easel at the front of the room. And the question written on that easel was, How do you show up today? And I literally sat back in my chair and thought, Crap. I’ve worked so hard for so long, I’ve put my head down. I’ve been pretty successful, but I’ve never thought about how I show up. How do I show up? When do I show up with my personal brand? When I show up? And at that point, I was like, Shoot, like bears. There’s the answer. And from that point forward, my I would say my career was on a small linear line. And it just like took an exponential change because at that point I understood that how I showed up and every place that I went mattered and how I showed up for myself and how I showed up for my fellow leaders mattered.
Carol Cox:
Well, Shannon, first, excellent job sharing the story for her. For the listeners here, you notice how she brought us into that room, that conference room, and described what what it looked like. So we could I could see it I could see it in my mind as you were describing it, and the big yellow Post-it note on the easel and the question that was on it. And it was a little bit of suspense, like, what is this question the way you set out the story. So great job on the storytelling and thank you.
Shannon Bumgarner:
I’ve been well coached, by the way, so that is a Carolyn Diane special. So there’s another plug for that Thought Leadership Academy.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, we do emphasize storytelling and how to tell great stories on it because it does help to keep your audience engaged. And the other thing that I noticed is that the leadership program that you were starting is that they weren’t there to just offload a whole bunch of advice to you. Instead, they asked a question, really a question that required a lot of digging, introspection and digging deep and self reflection, and that’s thought leaders. That is really our role as speakers and our thought leadership space is to ask those questions of our audience, not to be not to that, to have all the answers and be like, Oh, go do these ten things, and then you’re set. Because for Shannon, the ten things you needed to do for your career probably look different than the ten things that another woman who was coming into that room, what it looked like for them and how they needed to show up, correct?
Shannon Bumgarner:
Yep.
Carol Cox:
One of the things that as far as taking the speaker archetype quiz and as I mentioned in the introduction, the challenge can be sometimes for storytellers is that they storytellers know you’re great at telling stories, is making sure that you’re connecting your thought leadership message and all of your your pieces of content together in between the stories and also making sure that you’re leaving your audience with a strong call to action at the end so they know what to do next. Now, Shannon, you’re nodding your head and you’re laughing. So tell me when you read that after you got the quiz result, how did that feel or what did you think of?
Shannon Bumgarner:
I laughed because I’m terrible at the call to action. I’m so excited about the story, sharing my experience, connecting with the audience, giving them some thoughts on on that subject. But I’m terrible. I’m a good at leaving an inspirational ending, but I’m just not good at buttoning up the call to action. So when it was on there, I was like, Yeah, Carol knew that to check that Mark.
Carol Cox:
Well, and this is why I know you did your VIP day with, with Diane. Well, just yesterday, as at the time that we recording this. So I’m going to ask you about that. But this is why when our signature talk canvas framework that we have laid out in three acts, when we get to act three, which is kind of like you’re are buttoning things up for the audience before you get to that kind of inspirational, motivational rah rah ending, which I definitely like. Like the one piece above that is what does that ask of the audience and what does that call to action for the audience that you want them to go do based on what they just heard and learn? And so, Shannon, when you did your VIP day, did you come up with what what would be a good call to action for your audience?
Shannon Bumgarner:
We did. But what really freaked me out and I’m pleased this is a wonderful experience. She actually starts there and it makes sense. She Flail is one of my favorite life’s philosophies, which is start with the end in mind. And she started there and I was like, Shoot, this is going to stink for the next 3 hours. She’s going to start with the end. The part I’m not very good at, but I actually ended up changing it as we went forward, which is, which is fine. And what I like about what you and Diane Coach has to do is there was what I call like the easy I can go do it tomorrow, call to action. And then there’s the harder one, the one that really kind of challenges the audience to go. I’m not really sure how I’m going to do that.
Carol Cox:
Okay, so you you came up with one?
Shannon Bumgarner:
I did good. Yeah.
Carol Cox:
Okay. All right. Fantastic. So the VIP day for those of you listening is a three hour zoom session. And so you work through the framework. And I know you had your poster board with the four colored Post-it notes. So you were working all of that. Was there anything that anything that came out of the VIP day either that surprised you or anything particular that helped you as far as thinking about your the flow and structure of your content?
Shannon Bumgarner:
Structuring your talk is one. So I think for me, I get all these fantastic ideas in my head and I’m like, How do you put those in some sort of order that the audience is like, I’m. Completely lost. So it’s really like having that framework. So that for me is like having that structure was number one. Number two, we all have a tendency to include too much information. So I think in your act too, you really make things people think about what are those points I really want to cover and then how do I use them up a little bit with stories and engagement with the audience. And what I love about it is let’s say I have 15 minutes to give a talk or I have 30 minutes to give a talk. I can use that same framework and I can just pull things out for the 15 minutes or I can put things in for the longer 30 minutes and give a little bit more clarity or detail.
Carol Cox:
Yes, exactly. Yeah, I like that you can expand it or contract it as needed. And I’m so glad and I can’t wait to see what it looks like next week. On our Thought Leader Academy Call when you share that with us. And so let me let me ask you about this, Shannon. So I know recently you were emcee for an event, an in-person event that you did. So you tell me a little bit about how did this emcee role come about? How was this another one of, Oh, I’ve never done this before, but I’m going to say yes anyways. And then how did you prepare and then what was it like?
Shannon Bumgarner:
So the same person that signed me up for the podcast just said, Hey, we’re doing our conference this year and we want somebody to emcee the awards ceremony. And I had the same thought as she lost her mind. Like did she not learn the first time? But again, I think the biggest opportunities and growth in life come from when you step out of your comfort zone. And I said, okay, I have to do it. I’ve never done this before and I have to do it. So that’s sort of how it came about, how I prepared and Diane was fabulous. So she sent me from a prior conference that, that you had led the run of shows. So it gave me a good idea of, okay, what questions should I be asking to the conference leadership and how should I be preparing? My biggest takeaway was when you’re an emcee, it’s what I call educational entertainment most of the time. So especially for this, this is a conference for women in industry. So we’re talking about different different awards for different, very specific technical. So I wanted people to realize the role we were trying to change. So I wanted to pull in facts, but then I also did some self deprecating humor. So it was a mix of educating and entertaining your audience. And and I tell you, it looks easy. It is not. And you need to prep hard. That would be my biggest takeaway for anybody who’s considering it. It’s not impossible by any shape, but you need to prepare.
Carol Cox:
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Shannon. I agree. Like I would say, being on a panel, like if you think of like level of, of how hard things are, like being on a panel would be easier compared to being a moderator on a panel compared to being with a speaker. But definitely be an emcee, I think is at the top because there are so many not only moving parts, but you also have to keep things on time. Your point, you have to be kind of you have to be entertaining, you have to keep things kind of humorous, keep people engaged, keep the energy up. And then you also have to know who’s coming on next, right? Like, or you have to be willing to improv if things if someone is not ready, you have an extra 5 minutes that you need to talk for until they are ready.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Absolutely. And I’m going to enjoy you with a laugh. And COVID, let’s just say I’ve not won a lot of hills at home. So I had on a very beautiful sparkly heels and I was standing straight for an hour and a half and I sat down. I was like, Shoot, where am I? Flat shoes? My feet are killing me.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, I totally hear you. I did my first in-person speaking engagement September of 2021 since the start of the pandemic has started, and I put heels on like I normally had always done. I literally walk.
Shannon Bumgarner:
From the.
Carol Cox:
Car down the hallway to the venue where the luncheon was at, kind of we had to then kind of greeting people. So I was like half an hour. And so because I hadn’t started yet, then they wanted us to walk into the room as they called our names, because there was a bunch of other women who were being awarded for things. But the time they called my name as the speaker and I walked through my feet hurt so bad that I actually had brought flat shoes with me. I changed into them for my keynote because there was no way I was going to be able to stand in them for the 30 minutes. I had to deliver that talk and that was it.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Like, it’s funny, there was like a celebration afterwards and I totally had flat shoes and people were laughing. I was like, My feet are killing me.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, yeah. I feel like you have to, like, build up your muscles to wearing high heels. And then once they atrophy, that’s it.
Shannon Bumgarner:
They have whatever those muscles are in your calves, mine or mine are not there anymore. They need a little bit of help. Totally.
Carol Cox:
So fun. All right, Shannon, So I am so inspired by all of the work that you do and how much you support women and also young girls in STEM. Can you tell us a little bit about I know there are some organizations that are pretty active in that or some what are some that you would recommend that we check out?
Shannon Bumgarner:
Oh for the four women in STEM. So obviously there’s a Society of Women Engineers, which has been around a long time. There’s also women in manufacturing. It’s a pretty broad organization. I’ll put a plug in for empowering women in industry, of course, because I run the podcast. So those are three that I’m actively involved in. I just joined women in HVAC, so in my day job I work for an HVAC manufacturer. So I just joined that and learning a little bit about what they do. So there’s quite a few organizations out there that support women in technical fields.
Carol Cox:
And also there are some for younger girls or high school students, correct?
Shannon Bumgarner:
The one that comes to mind is one that’s run out of the Charlotte, North Carolina area called Raising Smart Girls. If you go to raising smart girls dot com, they actually even have little kits that you can buy for girls to build certain things. So I really love I love what they’re doing.
Carol Cox:
Oh, that is so cool. I love that name too. I was so when I was in high school, I took six years of science classes in the four years that I was in high school because I, I really I wanted to go into biology. I thought premed. But then I realized that blood and I do not go hand in hand. So that was what medicine.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Was for me to write.
Carol Cox:
And so I really wanted to be like microbiologist and do research. I love research. And so I took chemistry, physics, biology and all of it, and I loved it. And when I got my IB and AP exams back after my at the senior year of high school, I realized I scored really, really high on history. And I did fine on the science ones, but not nearly as high as I did on history. So I was like, okay, well, I guess that’s then let me go into history instead. But I always have had kind of like, I don’t know if it’s a soft spot for STEM, but I was I was a self taught software developer for ten years. Yeah. So like, I feel like I have this story driven history side of me, but I do also have this very analytical like give me some computer code or some, some things to research.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Yeah, it’s like creativity. They’re both there.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, exactly. All right, Shannon, So let me ask you for some of your favorites. I always love to hear what women share because I always there are new things that come up that I have not either read or watched. What is the favorite book that you’d like to share?
Shannon Bumgarner:
I have two, so I’m going to call it more of a serious book and then more of a fun book. So the first one is Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I love that book. I struggle reading sometimes and I’ve I read that book twice. If you’ve not read it, do it. You’ll love the cheetah story. And I’m going to leave it at that. The one that I’ve recently read, it’s fiction. I’m reading my way through Reese Witherspoon’s book Club. It’s fantastic. And I read the book called The Alice Network.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I have not heard of that one.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Yeah, it’s by Kate Quinn. It’s got two different parallel women. One was in World War One and one was in World War two. So it’s a little bit of historical fiction and it takes they’re both experiences and they dovetail throughout the story. So it’s a fantastic book.
Carol Cox:
Oh, that’s my favorite time period for historical fiction, so I will definitely check that out. And on the Glenn and Doyle talk about a master storyteller.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Oh, yeah.
Carol Cox:
Incredible. Yes. Okay. Favorite TED Talk.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Now, this is super hard for me because I’m a TED Talk nerd. I did narrow it down to two one. It’s very recent. I’m looking down, so I’ll get it right. What if women build the world they want to see by Emily Lamm? She actually builds a toolbox during the TED talk and she’s talking about women in construction. I think only about 4% of construction workers are women and the journey to change that. So it’s just a if you’re only interested in construction, it is fantastic to watch her speak and build a toolbox and not injure herself at the same time.
Carol Cox:
Yes, at the same time. Not like it’s pre built. It’s it’s incredible.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Yeah. She’s got a saw and everything. The whole nine yards. She builds it while she’s talking.
Carol Cox:
Talk about a great use of props.
Shannon Bumgarner:
There you go. There’s another plug. Props. Yeah. Yeah. The second one is called Forget the Pecking Order by Margaret Heffernan and she tells a story about super chickens and how we all are trying to be that super chicken in the workplace and how that’s not super effective. It’s a very good TED talk.
Carol Cox:
Good metaphor. Yeah, I’ll remember that. All right. And a favorite quote.
Shannon Bumgarner:
I am a huge Bernie Brown fan. So one of my favorite quotes comes from a poem that she wrote called The Manifesto of the Brave and Broken Hearted. The last stanza is showing up as our power story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and broken hearted. We are rising strong. It’s one of my favorite quotes.
Carol Cox:
That’s beautiful. Shannon, what is next for you? What do you have on on your horizon for 2023?
Shannon Bumgarner:
I’m working very hard to get my own personal business off the ground and I’m going to be focused on women in STEM in small and mid-sized companies and really trying to help those small and mid-sized companies build that retention. And a. Reaction mechanism that we have in the Fortune 500 companies, because my focus in STEM is really around retention of women and how we change that. So just a quick fact for your audience. When you look at women that graduate, we actually there’s a higher proportion of women engineering graduates in that first engineering role. But when you get about for 15 to 20 years out, it’s dropped to like 20%. So the women are not staying either in engineering role and even worse, they’re not staying in leadership positions. So that’s the problem that I want to try to help solve.
Carol Cox:
Oh, well, fantastic. Well, Shannon, thank you so much for being part of our speaking. Your brand community is always a joy to see you and to talk to you. And for those of you listening, if you’d like to get more information on our Thought Leader Academy, you can do so as speaking your brand academy. And remember, take our speaker archetype quiz to find out which of the four speaker archetypes you are. You can do that as speaking your brand dot com slash quiz. All of these links are in the show notes along with the LinkedIn profiles for Shannon and for myself. So be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn. I know that’s where we hang out the most. Shannon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Shannon Bumgarner:
Thank you so much. Carol was quite a pleasure.
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