The Power of Storytelling: Live Signature Talks from Our Thought Leader Academy Grads with Diane Diaz: Podcast Ep. 395

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Carol Cox:
We have more live signature talks from our Thought Leader Academy grads. Listen in to the power of storytelling 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.

Diane Diaz:
Hi everybody, and welcome to backstage at Speaking Your Brand. I am lead speaking coach as speaking your brand and I am so thrilled to bring to you today two of our recent graduates from our Thought Leader Academy. We have today, Cindy Ojczyk, who is a writer and speaker, and she shares stories and resources to help strengthen the fiber that binds people and pets, which is a really fun topic. And then we have Amy Lewis Bear, who is a licensed professional counselor and owner of Heart Wise Counseling. Amy is also an author, and she will be chatting with us about that in just a moment. When we get into those details she’s authoring. She’s already written one book called From Charm to Harm, but she has another book coming out soon, so we’ll talk about that in a moment. Now, um, last week here on backstage at Speaking Your Brand, you heard from two other graduates of our Thought Leader Academy, and you got to hear ten minutes of their talks that they worked on during the Thought Leader Academy. So today we’re going to hear a portion of Cindy’s talk. So I’m excited for you all to hear from her.

Diane Diaz:
Now, um, you’ve probably heard about the concept of storytelling that we talk about in all the content that we put out. And so we’re going to talk a little bit more about that when we get into the roundtable discussion about about what Cindy and Amy have worked on in their talks. So listen, as you hear Cindy’s talk and listen for those stories, and then Amy will be sharing with us how she incorporated story into her talks as well. Um, and you’ll see the how personal the stories get. And we often say go very personal, because the more personal you get, the more universal the message is. And I think that you’ll see that when Cindy delivers the portion of her talk today. So I’m really excited for everybody to hear from Cindy and to hear Amy’s story as well. Now, Cindy, are you ready? I am ready, Diane. Great. All right. Well, let me bring your slides up here and then take it away.

Cindy Ojczyk:
Thank you Diane, and welcome everyone. I’m going to kick us off with a little Q and A with a show of hands. How many people here have a pet or have had a pet? Now, in the chat, I’d like you to answer this much more controversial question who rules the world? Cats or dogs? Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why am I talking about pets when I’m here to talk about parenting? It was our family’s unconventional experience with animals that allowed us to take some lessons that helped our children to become much more resilient and to reconnect our family. Now. Our journey began about well. During a 4th of July weekend, a fateful 4th of July weekend. The fireworks had stopped, the kids had gone to bed, and my husband and I were able to coax the dog out from underneath the bed. We took her downstairs, got her outside and she collapsed and she passed away. And in that earthquake of a moment, we had a tsunami response. The kids began to argue and fight at a level we had never seen before. Yeah, they’d fought before and they argued with us, but they were fighting. They were pulling away from their friends, they were pulling away from us, and their performance at school was dropping. I was trying to figure out what had happened to this group. Oh, we have a funny sideways slide. What happened to our sideways family? How did we go sideways? We had this great connection from the time they were born, up until the teen years where we were doing things together, hiking and biking and camping and cooking, working with our neighbors next door to till their gardens, and then working at school and working hard.

Cindy Ojczyk:
And two years prior to the dog dying, my father in law had passed away and we had come together as a family to heal each other, to console each other. We didn’t have any of that happening now, and I couldn’t figure it out. The only thing I can think of because I’m a smart woman. I used to, before I became a writer, used to be an interior designer, and I could do a whole kitchen remodels, whole house remodels, solve problems, help guide people. What could I do with the kids? Well, the one thing I thought about was our dog. When we’d gone through the grief with my father in law, we had a dog. We didn’t have a dog now, so I thought maybe if we got another dog, we could solve this grief. The next day at dinner, I sat down with the family and said, what do you think about adopting another dog? And the next tsunami hit our family. The wave of mom. I’m oldest. I should get what I want and mom, I’m youngest, I should get what I want.

Cindy Ojczyk:
And ah, Joe and I were pulling our hair out. I was working the next day talking to a coworker, and she has kids my age. And I asked her, you know, what she was going through? And she looked at me and she said, Cindy, have you ever thought about fostering? We foster pregnant cats. We get to watch the miracle of birth play with all those little kittens. When they get adopted. We get to go back to our family activities, and then when we’re ready, we raise our hand and we foster again. And it was if the clouds had parted and the sunlight came down and that’s it. Aha! We’re going to foster dogs. We’ll have all that happy energy connecting us, taking away our grief. And it won’t look as if I was choosing between one girl’s desire over another. So along comes foster pet poet. Little pocket pet poet. He could fit inside a purse. Only problem with poet is he only had eyes for my one daughter. None of the rest of us. He was a difficult dog to foster. I couldn’t wait for him to move on. And the day we were ready. And I had his profile ready to go on the internet, and I told the girls they picked him up, stormed to the room, slammed the door and screamed at me.

Cindy Ojczyk:
You can’t take away our new best friend. And there I sat. In the quiet of the house, and my husband came home to the quiet house. I had been the leader of this foster team, and I had failed to help them understand that to win at fostering, you actually have to lose. You have to give up that relationship. Now, the logic is when you give up that relationship, you create space in your home for the next dog in need. But Joe and I realized our kids were nowhere near logic. They weren’t ready for another loss, and neither of us were ready for another tsunami. So that night we signed poet’s adoption papers, and he became our resident pet that nobody’s going to want us to foster again until a month later, when Linda from the agency called and said, Big Margo is an animal impound and she is set to be euthanized unless we pull her. Are you willing to foster her? Well, of course I’m going to say yes to that. And I want to win. I’m going to prove that we can do this as a team. But Margo, all retriever and happy dog, wiggled herself into our home and into our lives. And yes, you are right, we failed at fostering again. Now we have two resident pets. The kids aren’t any happier. They’re pulling away further from their friends.

Cindy Ojczyk:
They’re pulling away from us. And I was just confounded. And I sat and thought. And I really started thinking about the process here. I thought I wanted what other people wanted. And I think I did. I started doing research and looking that most people around the globe want to raise happy, successful, independent kids that remain connected to home. So something else had to be there. What was that? Something else? Now I’m going to invite you if you’re feeling comfortable and you don’t see what you’re going through, if you’re comfortable at it in the chat. But for us, some of these things that got in the way were our activities, the kids activities, cell phones and sex and drugs and peer pressure and mental health. We were going through all of that. But that wasn’t just it, because we kept going on this hamster wheel. Anybody else here feel like you’re on a hamster wheel? You just keep doing the same thing over and over, getting the same results. Our kids were improving at all. Our relationship wasn’t improving. Then I realized in that definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein, of doing the same thing over and over. Joe and I were parenting like our parents. We were parenting in an in a conventional manner where we were thinking about happiness over self-worth. We were thinking about grades and accomplishments and image and discipline.

Cindy Ojczyk:
So he and I started thinking about what if we were to reparent ourselves? What if we could go back and be the parents of ourselves as teens? What would we do different? What would we do then and do for our kids now to help them? What I’d like you to do right now is get yourself centered as you’re sitting or standing, and then with me, do a little activity. We’re going to lean to one side as far as you can and come back to center. Then lean in the other direction and come back to center. Now you didn’t fall over. I didn’t see anybody fall over. But what you did do is you used a strong foundation to shift, to do something different. So when it comes to parenting, I’m not saying to diss your parents and how you were raised, but to think about what are those key things that have been helpful and what could you be thinking to do different in order to get a different result? Thinking unconventionally now, to think unconventionally and to do unconventional things. Scary. I know it’s scary. It takes courage. It takes support. So before we leave here today, I want you to think about where support can come from, from you, what gives you confidence, and oddly enough, the dogs gave us confidence.

Cindy Ojczyk:
Yes, we failed at fostering twice, but we did figure out how to succeed. These are dogs that came to us that were abandoned, abused, neglected, had medical and physical needs. Our job was to heal them and to help them move forward into a new home. We were successful, and I was able to take those nuggets of success and the learning lessons that came from them to help our family shift. That’s what I’d like for you to think about today. How can you help your family shift? It begins with you. You are the coach. You are the leader. If you want change, it has to resonate and begin with you. That is the s, but you need help. You need to go out and seek help. With that help, you’re going to get information and input and then expect to fail. We failed twice at fostering, but all that information and failure fed back into what we were doing in order to help us thrive. But through the shift framework, it helped us in our fostering, and it helped us in raising resilient kids, and it helped to reconnect our family. So I challenge you to walk away today with what do you like? What do you think you can change, and where do you feel that you can get the support you need to do that one shift. Thank you.

Diane Diaz:
Fantastic job, Cindy. That was wonderful. Goodness. Now, of course I’ve seen you deliver some most of that, but you are getting so much more effective with the storytelling, which you were. It was already amazing, but you’re really embodying it and your movements and gestures and that activity. How did that feel for you?

Cindy Ojczyk:
I have practiced it a lot, and so it becoming very comfortable and realizing that that’s how you get the engagement is to actually go out and do it.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah, that was fantastic. And how let me ask you about the stories, because I know those are very personal stories. And as I said at the at the top of this, um, this broadcast, that the more personal the story is, the more universal or the more, um, specific appeal it will have to the audience. So the more you know, the more you dig deep into your personal story. It actually, we think sometimes will. How is the audience going to relate? It’s so personal, but they really do. And so how does it feel for you to deliver so such personal I mean, those are personal stories about your family. So how does how does that feel for you?

Cindy Ojczyk:
So I have worked on a manuscript and I’m actually in the process of getting a book published and. I do, I I’m able to present this because my family supports me on presenting it, because my kids know that they struggled, and if anything that they have done can help somebody in the future get through their struggles. So I it’s easier for me to deliver this because it is of my family, but I also have their support.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, yes, that’s a really good point. Because, you know, one of the things that can happen when we deliver personal stories is what we call a vulnerability hangover, where you share something and then think, oh, maybe I shouldn’t have shared that. And so but it’s good to hear that you do have your family’s support and sharing that. And then the impact of the message is that much stronger because the stories are personal. People in the audience are going to relate to those stories with their children or families, and then can use what you’re teaching them to help move them forward and do that shift, like you said. So thank you so much for sharing that. Now let’s get into our roundtable discussion. So Amy’s actually not going to share her talk with us. But there’s a reason for that. And the reason for that is that. And I’ll let you talk about this, Amy. But as I mentioned, Amy has authored a book, and now she’s in the process of writing or I think might have finished writing her next book, which will be coming out soon. The talk is connected to the book, so that is why you won’t hear it here today, because it’s kind of under wraps. But maybe, Amy, you can tell us a little bit about that book, and if you would also touch on how you wrapped portions of that, the content of your book in to your talk, and we’ll get into kind of some of the storytelling. But what is your upcoming book about and how does it connect to the talk and how are you using your talk?

Amy Bear:
Yes. Well, as a psychotherapist, um, years ago when I decided to return to school, I had my own experience that I didn’t understand. And I write about relationships. And so I had a ten year relationship that was very troubled, and I didn’t understand it at the time I was younger, I wasn’t a therapist at the time, and when I left the marriage, I really wanted to understand what had happened in my marriage, and I wanted to help other people because it was miserable and I had no one to talk to. I just didn’t know what was going on. It was about power, having a partner who’s got a need for power and control and and so I didn’t understand that at all. So when I, um, later when I left them, after I left the marriage, I went back to school and I became, um, a psychotherapist so I could understand my marriage and help others. And I’ve I’m I wrote one book. Um, it was a few years ago, and now I’m writing another book that came out of my practice in helping other people. And, um, I wrote this talk. It was wonderful to be with a thought leader Academy, but I really wanted to write a signature talk to promote my book. So it has a lot of proprietary information in it, and you have to wait till my book comes out to get the information. Um, because I wanted to, you know, it’s in the process of being published now. And so I didn’t want to reveal that information, but that’s why I came to the Thought Leader Academy.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah. Yes. Thank you for sharing that. And, you know, we do. We have had several authors come through the Thought Leader Academy and and, you know, regardless of whatever the topic is that you’re, that you’re creating your talk on, we always push everyone in the Thought Leader Academy to wrap these personal stories into their talks. Because as you know, Amy, when you’re working on your talk, those personal stories come in and then help to inform how it’s going to resonate with the audience. And, you know, even if there’s technical things that you’re sharing or in your case, things related to relationships and counseling and, you know, working through relationship troubles, your personal stories are going to help your audience really understand that you get them, you get where they’re coming from, and you’re in particular for you. You’ve experienced what they’re probably experiencing. So that personal story has that much more power.

Amy Bear:
Absolutely. I, I actually write my personal story in my book, and I had it hidden at the end of the book. But my book agent said, no, we’re putting that up front.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, I love to hear that. That’s good.

Amy Bear:
When I joined the Thought Leader Academy started developing my signature talk, Carol and Diane said, okay, you got to put your story in there. And it’s really the power behind my book, and it’s the power behind my talk is my own personal story. Um, in so many ways. I mean, it gives me credibility. It helps me really to understand from an inside view. And it helped me develop the ideas that are in my book now. So stories very, very important.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for sharing that, Amy. And so as I mentioned, both Cindy and Amy are recent graduates from the Thought Leader Academy. And so Cindy and Amy and I’ll start with you, Cindy. How? How did it feel in. Well, let me ask it this way. What were your expectations going into the VIP day, and then what was it actually like? Did you have certain expectations and then it was different or tell us about that.

Cindy Ojczyk:
I had a vision or a theory that I was hoping that theory was going to come true, but I had no idea how that was going to happen. And that was I had all these thoughts in my head, and how would I take these thoughts and make them into one cohesive pathway and. I hadn’t been able to do that up to that point, so that’s why I went into it as a hypothesis. And I was just I thought it was magic. The whole VIP day was just magic. And I know talking to Amy and then the other two women in the in the group that we all use that word because you have a formula. But that formula works across so many ways. And it created this wonderful thing. So it exceeded my expectations.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. I’m so glad to hear that. And yes, it’s it seems like, well, if I have all these ideas, why can’t I put them together in a talk? Like, why can’t I make something cohesive come out of my head? Right. But when and I’m, I don’t know who to attribute this expression to. So I didn’t come up with this. But I always say, wherever I hear this, from that you can’t see the label from inside the jar. So you’re inside the jar, but you can’t see the label. But we can see the label. Carol and I can see that label. Like we can see the thread. So we’re working in the VIP day together and you’re talking, talking, talking. We are seeing it. So we’re pulling out all the bits and pieces. But they’re all your ideas and they’re all your your message and your stories. And then it just takes shape. So I’m, I’m glad that that’s the experience that you had because that’s, that’s our goal. And Amy, how was it for you? Because I know, you know, you’ve got the book that you’re thinking about, but you also have these messages. And then of course, wrapping in stories. So did you have certain expectations going into the VIP day and what did it end up. Did those how did those pan out?

Amy Bear:
Yes. Well, like Cindy, I had all of these different thoughts and ideas swimming around in my head and I was really hoping and I did my VIP day with Carol. I was really hoping that Carol could help me narrow it down and really make it more concise and really pull out the information that was most important. And that’s exactly what she did. It was amazing. I mean, she asked me the right questions as she served as, uh, as you both, uh, said, as sort of a mirror to, um, to help me realize how the audience was going to respond and what they needed, also from a different perspective, which was enormously helpful. And, uh, it was just, uh, at the end of the day, I, I was it was late in the day for me. And, but I just wanted to go ahead and get it all down, you know, in an outline, because I was so excited about the flow and about the elements of the talk and about my interaction with Carol for three. Uh, yeah, with Carol for three hours. And it was, uh, it went beyond my expectations. Really.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. That’s wonderful. And I know, you know, I know you mentioned, like, you have all these ideas swirling around. One of the things that I’ve noticed about the VIP days is that often clients come with all the ideas and sometimes a lot of ideas, and it’s it’s hard to know how not not just how to structure those ideas, but which ones to use because you can’t put them all in the talk. Right. And so I think the tendency with a signature talk is to want to tell them everything, but you can’t. And so I think that’s one of the benefits of having another person like myself or Carol, work with you is to pull out the most relevant points and then connect it with stories so that you’re delivering not every point and every idea that you have, but the most relevant ones that will best resonate with the audience based on whatever your goals are. So like, for you promoting your book, you know, and then Cindy’s creating this, this talk to start delivering this, to start fleshing out those ideas. So that I think is the benefit of working with someone, is that you can you can set aside the ideas that you know, okay, those are ideas you can share in another talk, but you can’t put them all in the one talk. Right? So we help you to sort of sort of dig through all those ideas. Um, so let me ask you this question. I’m curious because we’re talking about storytelling and of course, you’ve both. I know, Cindy, you just told some very personal stories. And Amy, you of course, you mentioned that in your book and also in your talk is your personal story of of being in that relationship. Have either of you experienced what I mentioned earlier, the vulnerability hangover from sharing personal stories? Has that ever happened? Have you have you felt that? Did you share the stories and then think, oh, I don’t know.

Diane Diaz:
Cindy.

Cindy Ojczyk:
Well, when I first started writing about my experiences, because I, I had originally thought I was going to be writing a book on how to foster, and what I was told from my beta readers was they wanted an ark, while the ark was the thing that I was struggling to get out there because it was the vulnerability of our family going through the issues. So I wrote and wrote and wrote with the idea with my kids that they would have to approve what I wrote. So the vulnerability was probably the first time they read my stories.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, I can imagine because.

Cindy Ojczyk:
It was my reflection of the events of our family during the time we were raising the kids and and during times of turmoil for them, and to see how they would react. So that was probably the most vulnerable. And then once we got past that. And they’re they’re older now.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, yes.

Diane Diaz:
Different perspective. Right?

Diane Diaz:
Yes.

Cindy Ojczyk:
Different perspective. If it was they were still teens. We might not be having this conversation.

Diane Diaz:
Yes.

Diane Diaz:
No, that makes sense. But so thank you for sharing that. I think it’s an important point because oftentimes in sharing our story, there are other people involved in that story. And so, you know, we always say share your own story, but other people’s stories are theirs to share. But as you said, you’ve gotten permission from your children. And so that that makes it, you know, an excellent sort of training situation in your talk to share that story so that other families can benefit from that as well. Now, Amy, what about you? Have you had a vulnerability hangover ever in sharing your story?

Amy Bear:
I yeah, I’m not the type of person who likes to be the center of attention. And um, so I, I’ve had vulnerability hangovers and I know exactly what they are. But the thing about it being a psychotherapist, it’s what I do all day. We talk about everything that’s vulnerable and and and sometimes I disclose information about myself if it’s a good intervention for my client. And so I’m, I’m I’m pretty comfortable with that. Uh, but I was kind of in the same position as, as Cindy because there were other people involved in this story. And, and so I didn’t know at first when I wrote the story how my my wonderful second husband, who’s very supportive, we had a long, happy marriage. I don’t know, I didn’t know how he would react. I didn’t know how my son would react. Who still has a relationship, you know, with his his father from my first marriage. So I had to kind of I had to navigate all of that. But, you know, it was kind of like Cindy’s experience in a way. I mean, they were all so supportive because I handled that’s the way I handled it. You know, I wasn’t accusing anybody. I was just telling my story and how I felt and being really authentic about it and and not bringing in, you know, anger or frustration or resentment and all those things that really can, um, can not set well with people. And so it worked out really well. So as soon as I got straight on my loved ones and knowing that they were going to, that they were fine with the story. And they in fact, they encouraged me to tell it then then I was, I was, I was fine with it and and I was able to move forward with telling my story. Yeah.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, that’s that’s such a lovely way to put that. So, so I think, you know, for our, for our listeners and anybody watching this, you know, if, if you’re thinking about sharing your story in your talk or in, you know, any messaging and you’re hesitant if there are other people involved, of course, check it out with them. But be willing to take that leap because your story, as you can see from Cindy and from Amy, your story is going to impact your audience in a bigger way than if you just share tips or facts or you know information with them. The story really brings the ideas to life and makes those ideas resonate more deeply because we identify with other people’s stories. Storytelling has been around for even before there were written words, and there’s a reason for that. And we identify with stories. So I would encourage anyone who is working on a talk to incorporate storytelling into your talk and tell as personal a story as you can so that you can make that connection. So thank you, Cindy, and thank you, Amy, for not only coming on our broadcast for backstage at Speaking Your Brand today, but also for joining us in the Thought Leader Academy and for being willing to share personal stories and being open and just so, um, wonderfully supportive of one another. I truly appreciate both of you and all the women in the Thought Leader Academy, so thank you for that and.

Amy Bear:
Thank you also. This has been a wonderful experience for me and I highly recommend it. Uh, it’s it’s just brought brought a lot more than just a signature talk to my life. Really. Well thank you out some some new ideas and some new ways of thinking. Yeah.

Diane Diaz:
Oh well, I would.

Cindy Ojczyk:
Second what Amy has to say. Far exceeded my expectations. I had to keep up with all of you. A lot of work going on there. There was a lot of work.

Diane Diaz:
Cindy learned a bunch of new things, learned, learned how to do slides and and technology and microphones and all the things. So that’s awesome. Well, thank you both. And for anybody who is watching or listening, if you want to connect with us, you can find us on LinkedIn. And if you’re interested in joining the Thought Leader Academy, you can visit speaking your brand.com/academy again that is speaking your brand.com/academy. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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