Becoming A Master Of Public Speaking With Dr. Nick Morgan

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, I'm Adam Markel, and welcome back to another episode episode of the Change Proof Podcast. I have a dear friend joining the podcast today, and he is, he's just this remarkable man. Um, somebody you're gonna learn a lot from. I absolutely guarantee, uh, that you're gonna walk away with something very, very special from this conversation. So I wanna get right into it and not waste any time. I'm gonna read his bio and then jump right in with my first question for Dr. Nick Morgan. He is one of America's top communication speakers. Theorists, and coaches. A passionate teacher, he is committed to helping people find clarity in their thinking and ideas and then delivering them with panache. Panache. What a great word that is, right? He has been commissioned by Fortune 50 companies to write for many CEOs and presidents. He has coached people to give congressional testimony, to appear in the media, and to deliver unforgettable keynote speeches. And he has himself spoken led conferences, and moderated panels and venues around the world. His latest book is Can You Hear Me? On the Perils of Virtual Communication, published by Harvard in 2018. He is at work on a new book to be published in 2026 on the embodied voice, about claiming and perfecting your unique leadership voice. Everybody, please welcome Dr. Nick Morgan to the show. So Nick, that was a reminder in case you've forgotten who you were. Thanks. And my, my, uh, reading your bio and sharing a little bit about your life, hopefully as, uh, was a, uh, you know, like it tickles your, your memory about, about the things you've done in your life.

Um, yes, sir.

And all that's super impressive and interesting and all of that too. Um, but my question to you related to it, but different is what is one thing that is not part of that introduction and your your CV, so to speak, uh, one thing that you would love for people to know about you at the start of our conversation today? Hmm.

Well, let's jump into it. I, uh, I do what I do, which is help people tell their stories because as a boy, I thought I had failed in that, helping one person in particular tell her story. And that was my sister. She was born with birth defects and she struggled all her life with mental illness. And I was 10 months apart from her in age. And so I felt like I was her translator to the world. I thought she wasn't crazy, but rather she had a unique perspective. And if I could just explain that, people would understand and accept her. And of course, that's a terrible burden to put on a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 12-year-old. And it took me a long time to realize that there was no way I could have succeeded at that. But my passion for helping people tell their stories comes from that initial failure in my mind to do an adequate job to save, save my sister.

So you and I know each other a little bit. It, this is not our first, our first gathering, our meeting to talk and all of that. Sometimes that's the case with a podcast guest. May, you know, maybe the actual first time you're, you're sort of physically, you know, in a, in a conversation. And that, I did not know that. I didn't have any clue as to your why, you know, how important, like it's years and years and years ago now, probably too many years to want to, to actually say, but when Simon Sinek had his breakthrough moment and had his TED Talk go viral, the, the, the concept of sharing your why was so powerful in that. That I think a lot of people did start to think more about how important it is that other people understand their why. And so I'm just curious, Nick, have you shared narrowly, widely, your why?

I occasionally do when I'm moved to, when I'm talking to an old friend, for example. But I don't, I haven't written about it yet. I'm working on it right now as we speak. So we're, I'm hopeful to have that book. It's a, it's a long story, of course, and there are many nuances and I'm look, I'm hoping to have that story out in the world in a year or two.

Yeah. Is there anything in particular that's been a catalyst for that willingness to open up about that or, or just, you know, share something that, uh, that is quite personal and quite private with, with other people?

Part of the reason. Why, uh, uh, she was the way she was, was that, um, she was operated on as an infant. Um, and in those days, um, because anesthetics of course are risky, you have to get the proportions right. You could, uh, an anesthesiologist can cause, um, the death of a patient if he or she gets it wrong. Um, and so in those days, there was a belief that, um, because infants didn't have a fully structured memory yet, they wouldn't remember the pain. And so unbelievably, they operated on infants without anesthesia. This is, it's hard even to say out loud. It's such an appalling thing, but, um, we always believed in our family that a lot of the, a lot of her trauma, naturally enough, came from that because it turns out research has shown since infants do remember pain, they do remember things. They, they remember the instant they're out from the womb. And in fact, some infants have memories of time in the womb. So, that was just a horrific misunderstanding and and a medical travesty that was operated on far too many infants back in the day.

Yeah. It's sort of shocking in the, just to look back when you look back at 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago, the things that we didn't know. It really is sort of mind, like it's amazing, right? Yeah.

It's incredible.

The ignorance.

And one of those things that we don't know now that people will look back 50 years from now and be just as appalled, just as horrified, or just as incredulous that we didn't know.

Right. What are the things— what a great way to lead into a conversation about what don't we know. Yeah. Right. What are the things that people will literally be laughing about 50 years from now that we thought were true or that we somehow thought were the best, or best practices, let's say. All right. Now this is not— this is going to be quite an inelegant segue. I suppose.

Go for it. Yeah.

You and I both spend a lot of time focusing on, on the world of leadership and work, and we do it, we come at it from different angles. Although where, where you and I have, I think, a tremendous amount in common is that we both, I think we have a deep love and respect for the power of the spoken word. Mm-hmm. And so you've trained people and, and taught people in that arena. I have as well as a postscript to my career as a lawyer, which I had to often stand up in court, in open court and, and bear my soul and, and only to be sliced and diced, you know, like with a Ginsu knife, uh, by judge or, you know, not so often by my adversaries. I was okay. Yeah. You know, on my feet in that moment, uh, in those moments. But, but man, the judge just always got the last word. I mean, it just never, never. You know, it never failed. So, yeah. So then the move from that profession into the, in the world of, of speaking professionally and, and, uh, and in helping other leaders speak powerfully, that the story, which is where you have, I said, spent a lot of time focusing. In fact, you teach, you've just finished, finished a class, uh, teaching a class at Harvard. Um, you're on the other side of that. So I know that this is, this is even asking a lot for you to now, you've already emptied your cup, you know, as we, anybody who's facilitated those kind of things, you know, you put it all out there and you just leave, leave nothing behind. And then, and then you've gotta recover. So I'm finding myself in conversation with you right in, in the middle of your recovery process. So can you share a little bit about what this class was like for you? What's, what's a win? What's something that you're celebrating from the recent class that you just taught?

Yeah, sure. Thanks. Uh, thanks for asking. It's, uh, um, it, it's always funny because One of the questions I ask early on is how many of you believe you should be storytellers? And always 100% of the class raises their hand. And these are mid-career people from all over the world, from many of the states in the United States. English is a second or third or fourth language for some of them. Um, and so, uh, it's an incredible variety of people and backgrounds, and yet all of them now have learned or have got the idea that they should be storytellers. And so I start talking about stories and part of the class is I offer the chance for up to a half dozen out of 40 or 50, a half dozen volunteers to give a brief talk toward the end of the second day to get videotaped, to get feedback. Uh, and, and there are, there are always a few people who are brave enough to, uh, to do that. And they've had the benefit. Of my discussion of body language and intent and content and storytelling and persona and all these things that we talk about. And every single one of them, very rare exceptions, stands up and gives me their resume. When you, when you say, introduce yourself for a few minutes, 3 to 5 minutes, your job is to tell this audience and the world why you do what you do. And they, to a person, they'll say, well, I went to school as an electrical engineer. When I graduated, I got a job at Cisco and I worked there a couple of years and then I went to Intuit and then I worked there a couple of years and then I went to, and by the third, even the second company, your eyes are glazing over, right? Nobody, nobody can hold a list in their heads. And yet I've just spent a day telling them you got to tell stories and the few, but they'll typically be one out of the group that will actually tell a story. And it's amazing to watch the effect on the audience as the students eat it up and they love it and they respond and, and, uh, uh, it's amazing to me. So everybody knows they should be storytellers and yet storytelling is hard. Even, even if you've just sat in a class in which I've instructed you as to how to tell stories. It's still hard to do. And do you want to know the central reason for this, Adam?

The, uh, yes, I do.

The central reason is that the essence of a story is conflict and deep in the soul of business people, organizational, organizationally successful people everywhere is the desire to smooth over conflict, to solve conflict, to avoid conflict. To negate conflict, to fix conflict. And so when I say you gotta tell a story and it's gotta have conflict in it, that's hard. That's hard. That's why I have a job.

Yeah, it is. It's fascinating that, that, that aspect of, of it, the things that, that in the hero's journey would be that sort of the time when we fall down, the time when we're, we're cast out, the time when we're on, on the edge, et cetera. These are the things that, that somehow in the business, in a business world, which is the context we're, we're talking about right now, we believe, or we think we've taught, potentially even, even seen in other people that you, you avoid like the plague. You, you, you keep them at the greatest distance possible that no, no one should think somehow that you're not perfect.

Always on top. Perfect. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I talk with, uh, CEOs who want to give great speeches or they want to become thought leaders after they're CEO and get paid tons of money for giving keynote speeches. And they'll say, yeah, so what I've learned is there are 5 things I did that made me a CEO. And accident or luck is never one of those, never one of those 5 things. Never. And it's typically something I got up earlier than everybody else. I worked harder than everybody else. I was smarter than everybody else. That's sort of the theme of it. And I'm the one that has to tell them, I'm sorry, that's really boring. Nobody wants to hear that. What they want to hear is the mistakes you made and how you overcame those mistakes. Why? Because that's what makes us human. And we know we all overcome enormous mistakes and setbacks and problems in order to achieve something like as lofty as a CEO status. So that's the hard part for them is to say, yeah, these are the mistakes I made. Nobody wants to talk about these things. It's conflict and it's hard.

Yeah, it's so interesting. And I'll sometimes ask other people that either speak or think they might someday want to speak. I'll say, you know, what's the one thing that you have to avoid as a speaker, public speaker, or if you're giving presentations at work or whatever it is, it's just one thing, one specific thing that you have to make sure it never happens. And, and they kind of look at me, you know, quizzically, like, what could that one possible, one thing possibly be? And, and to me it's what you just said, but I would, I will sometimes use that word boredom. But the person who is sort of my mentor in training my style of speaking post-law used to be super cutting. I mean, it was like, you know, really very sharp with critique, with the, in the debriefs, et cetera. And this person used the word boring a lot. And again, I will use the word boring, but I come to call it something else or refer to it in a different way. And that is that you must not be predictable.

Yeah.

So I, yeah, predictability is the death of any, of any talk, whatever it is, whatever it's a TED Talk or it's a presentation of any kind. The second that people know where you're headed, the second that even that they can sense that nothing is going to change, meaning your tone, your pace, your variance in other ways, your physicality. Things are not going to change, that moment, for sure, their emails are more compelling, their text messages, LinkedIn, and seeing whether people have liked, commented, or what, you know, like any of those things are more interesting than you in that moment.

That's so true. Yeah.

And when you sit in the back of an audience, you probably had done this too, cuz you and I both do quite a bit of our own keynote speaking. So sometimes you're there at an event and there's other speakers. And I will sometimes sit in the back of the room for some other speaker to learn, to be a student, to also see, you know, what's the context? What's it feel like in the room? What's the energy? The woo-woo term, but yeah, everything's a great, it's a great technique.

It's a great way to, to ease into a speech. Yeah.

And, and, and how frequently sitting in the back of the room, you can sort of, you, you see that there's, uh, that some speakers, as soon as they become predictable, then people immediately, you see their heads go down. You see the little light, the little shining light coming up from the seat. You know, you, you're like, oh my, oh, they're, he, she's, she, he losing them.

Yes. I vividly remember a funny instance of that about a decade ago. I was speaking at a conference and somebody of course was following right after me. I think I had a 10 o'clock slot and they were at 11. Um, and one of the pieces of advice I often give to people, um, especially if they're executives, not professional speakers, I'll say, don't begin with a joke because often the advice is begin with a joke, set everybody at their ease. And I say, the problem is the risk is too high. If the joke falls flat, uh, then it's worse than if you just started by saying your name because now you're beginning with a failure and everybody feels uncomfortable and to get to pull yourself out of that is, is a tricky thing. So I said, don't risk it. You know, don't start with a joke. Let the humor evolve or come out later on in the talk. But this was before I took my own advice. So I, uh, I began with a joke and I thought it was a pretty good joke and it landed and the audience laughed. And so then after I was done, it was a fine speech. I went and sat down in the back like you're describing, and the next speaker got up and I'll be damned if he didn't begin with the same joke. What? And because he wasn't sitting in the audience, he, he hadn't bothered to do that. He didn't know that I had just told that joke. And so imagine the poor guy. I felt so bad for him, but there was no way I could know what he was going to do and no way I could tell him, no, don't tell that joke. Because he told it, it went completely flat because the audience had literally just heard it 40 minutes before.

Poor. I'm like, look, I don't care. This could be 20 years ago. I'm still cringing.

Just, yeah. Can you imagine? And the poor guy felt so bad for him. But, um, he was mystified, you know, because he had, I'm sure, told the joke. This was a joke that was making the rounds, but it was still pretty fresh at that point. And I'm sure he told it like the previous week and the week before that, and it had done really well and suddenly it bombed. Like he, he, he could, there was no way he could imagine what had happened to him. So, Yeah.

So back to the idea of what are we going to know 50 years from now that we, we should have known today? I don't know. Or could have known today. I mean, that's an interesting question in so many different arenas, but in, let's say in public speaking, what might be true there? And, and, you know, I think AI obviously has, has taken the landscape to some degree that's almost incalculable at this point. So everybody's aware of it and everybody's trying to adopt it and everybody's spending money on it, et cetera, et cetera. And nobody knows what the F it is really, or what it's really capable of and how they'll ultimately use it. So, so there's a bit of that, but I think Bill Maher, um, who is a comedian, has his own show on TV and has for, I don't know, better part of 30 years Politically Incorrect. And today, you know, the show that he currently has on HBO, but he says that AI can never replace a comedian. It could never do the job of a comedian. I'm wondering whether same thing with the spoken word, with the art of telling stories, whether they're for comedic relief or they're serious stories or whatever they are. You think that, that AI, well, again, what can you imagine that we, we don't know today that in 50 years it'll seem like it's passé, like that we should, should have known. Is there anything that comes that you think, or is it that this is gonna be, you know, the, the spoken word is still a human to human thing that's not gonna likely change.

Yeah. That's the beautiful thing about the spoken word, as you say, and, and comic comedians, uh, and their acts as well, is anybody who talks seriously now or writes a about AI will tell you that the thing, uh, that AI lacks, it will get very, very good and it's getting better all the time. At predicting the right word to say next. So it will possibly write the speeches for us, but what it lacks is the embodied, literally embodied meaning of what it's saying. It's not knowing what it's saying. It's merely making a statistical prediction based on the previous word, what the next word should be. So it has no idea how a story lands. Or how a, a human is affected by an emotional connection or a story from somebody else. So that human-to-human exchange of what the neuroscientists call mirror neurons, which is how we exchange emotion, that's something that AI, as far as the eye can see, maybe not 50 years out, Adam, I don't know. I, I, I can't answer that question, but at least as far as the eye can see, hasn't been hooked up to, uh, uh, to humanity that in that, uh, tightly yet. So I don't see that, uh, changing.

You wrote a blog, uh, or published a blog recently in the last couple of months talking about a bit of a sixth sense. Would you share a little bit about that? 'Cause I want to kind of, I want to connect the dots there and, uh, and maybe even take a risk with a, with a potential, with sort of a position I may take in a minute, but I want to just, could you share a little bit about that blog and that sixth sense with the audience, Nick?

Sure. Um, the, one of the things about virtual communication that's, um, that's so challenging is, um, you and I are talking to each other. Um, you look to me like you're about 3 feet away because I'm standing about 3 feet away from the computer. Uh, yeah, but you're the wrong size for somebody who's 3 feet away. You're not big enough. To be actually 3 feet away. Um, the, your sixth sense is called proprioception. And this is something for some reason I don't teach in school. Everybody learns about the 5 senses. Nobody learns about the sixth sense. It's arguably more important and more essential than any of the others, uh, which is your body. And indeed, every cell in your body sends information to your brain about your proprioception, which is where you are in space. And where the other people that you can see that are around you are in space. So that's a uniquely human thing. We keep track of other humans, where we are and where other humans are in relationship to us. And the reasons are not hard to imagine why we would have evolved that sense. We need to know where people are so we don't bump into them. We need to know when they're close so we can hug them. We need to be able to read their body language so we know whether they're threatening us or, or meaning us well. And so for all those reasons, we need to know where people are. That sixth sense then keeps us safe, literally, as well as gives us the opportunity to connect with other people. It's difficult to imagine AI developing proprioception and therefore having that kind of embodied relationship with other people. The thing about this is so powerful, and I work with this on this with speakers all the time. Um, there was a time when coaches like you and me, this is maybe a decade ago, uh, it was fashionable to say, uh, well, movement is interesting. This is in terms of what people do on stage. How do you keep an audience engaged? Movement is interesting. We tend to look once we see something moving in our field. Of vision. So therefore more movement must be better. And so they would tell speakers to pace up and down like the proverbial caged tiger, back and forth on the stage. The problem is movement, yes, is interesting, but only a specific kind of movement. And that is we care about movement toward us and away from us. That's the only kind of movement that's relevant to humans. At a deep level is, are you coming toward me? Do I need to pay more attention? Are you, do you like me? Are you connecting with me? Are you trying to come and say hello? All the questions that come up when somebody moves toward you and the opposite when they moved away, they saying bye, are they getting out of here? Are they bored with me? Whatever. And so you can imagine that the tiger pacing back and forth, the human tiger pacing back and forth on the stage. Imagine somebody sitting in the second row on the left there. His experience or her experience is he likes me. He likes me. He's interested. This is getting interesting. Oh, he doesn't like me. He doesn't like me. He doesn't like me. He likes me. He likes me. He likes me. He doesn't like me. It's a seesaw of irrelevant information. And pretty quickly the audience figures that out and then they tune out because they get annoyed. So that was the problem with that. And it's a direct result of proprioception, which is arguably, as I say, the sixth, but perhaps most important sense, at least for human communication and connection.

Yeah. And for the people that are listening to this, that, because a lot of our audience are people in business roles and leaders and managers and the like, and people are thinking probably even as they're listening to this too, I would love to do some speaking. I'd love to get over my fear of speaking, if that's a thing. I'd like to be a better speaker because as As Warren Buffett said, it's the number one skill in business. The most important thing in his career, his long, long, long career. And he wasn't good at it at the beginning. And a lot of people aren't great at it at the beginning. And, but it's a skill you can learn, you can practice. And when you do get better, I dare say if you're in sales, your sales will increase. If you're a leader, your leadership quality of your leadership will increase. And certainly when you get paid to do it, as part of your living or for your living, there's, there's lots of financial reward as well as the reward of, of actually seeing people kind of change in the moment because the spoken word is truly a transformational medium. Yeah. For anybody that's ever, ever, you know, felt it and seen it and experienced it, it's, it's quite a thing. So I'd just say for anybody that is in that space, you know, it's a good idea to leave the stage and not every person who puts on an event will want you to do that. Although I've never actually been told not to. And I've sometimes left stages that were, you know, 6 feet high off the ground and there's a long staircase down and that kind of thing. That's not normally the case. But even in those environments, leaving the stage is quite an effective way to sort of, as you say, create a movement that helps people to engage even at a deeper level.

You can't not connect as an audience member with a speaker. Who gets down off the stage, walks up to you and gets within 4 feet of you because suddenly that speaker now is in your personal space. Yeah. Um, and you have to respond. And I've shown this because one of my talks is about body language. I, I've shown this to audiences over and over again. And you, you'll, you'll see somebody who's looking down or looking away, looking somewhere else. And then I'll go into that 4-foot space and suddenly they, their head comes up, they're making eye contact with, and I say, look, and everybody laughs because you can't not respond that way. That's just the way we humans are wired. So it's a missed opportunity if you don't, if you don't work the room. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. And it's funny cuz when I'll say, you know, in the, in the pre-event, the tech check we do typically the day before or what have you, um, I'll say to the person who's running, you know, running the show there. Mm-hmm. Um, and also the AV people, I'll say, well, I'm gonna leave the stage, you know, at a minimum 2 times. And, and it may be more than that, but I've got 2 specific places in a typical talk where I'm asking a question that I want them to, to engage with each other to answer. And then I want to get out in the audience and get their responses and be able to engage, you know, debrief with them from there. Um, and all of that, by the way, from, from leaving the stage to that engagement to coming back to the stage can take 2, 3 minutes. It's not a whole heck of a lot of time, but to your point, it changes the dynamic in the room and, and the people who even are sitting in the outlying spaces with their arms crossed and stuff like that. Then all of a sudden realize, oh, this is actually about me, right?

He might be coming for me. I better pay attention. I better connect. I better reengage.

So, so some good advice. Anybody that does that kind of thing, I think what Nick is sharing is, you know, like, yes, sage advice.

Yeah. And it's funny, you will often find— you mentioned the AV people or the lighting folks— you'll often find you get some resistance on that though. So you can't leave the stage. uh, uh, because it's hard for our guys, you know? And I say, well, let's just warn 'em. And if it, if they really give me a hard time, I'll go and talk to the cameraman and he'll go, no, it's no problem. I'll just throw it on my shoulder and, and we'll turn the lights up. And, uh, if they really go outta their way, I'll slip the guy $20 and then it's all good, you know? So, uh, it's, uh, yeah, it's a missed opportunity if you don't. And the, the other, uh, belief that they have comes from because many of the people who do that work come from the theater world, and there audiences are not typically expected. It's very rare that to take part, right? They're supposed to be there in the audience watching sort of anonymously.

Yes.

Yeah. We have what we call the fourth wall in the theater that you don't break, and that's the wall between the actors and the, and the audience. And occasionally a play will do that just for the sake of breaking a rule, but Mostly they don't. Um, and so the, the best kind of lighting there traditionally has been to get the audience as dark as possible and as much light on the stage as possible because that makes for a good scene and that you can see it well. And, and, uh, the, the actor's first job is to be seen and heard. So they have a prejudice toward leaving the audience in darkness, keeping a lot of light on the stage. Even for speaking, and I'll say to them, let's turn the house lights up half. Because then if I walk into the audience, they can see me, I can see them. There's no reason for it to be totally dark. And it used to be that when we projected slides, you know, the lights had to be really low to be able to make the slides bright enough. But now with the digital wonders that we have, the slides can be easily bright, even almost in a fully lit room. So Yeah. So there's no, there's no technical reason why we can't do it.

There really isn't. Even when they're using an IMAG camera, like you say, there's so many things, but the, the, I guess the best practice here just to, you know, pull the thread through is to make sure that you speak to the folks ahead of time. So meaning in the day before, in the weeks before even leading up to a talk, if you're planning to leave the stage, which you, again, as we've said, you should too. Oh yeah. Then let them know and, and that way they can make adjustments and, and, and sort of be, be your partner in that experience to make it the best they can for the audience, as opposed to getting any resistance or being actually in the way. So just, I want to come back to business and the environment of business that we, we are both seeing and are part of. Um, our, our company WorkWell is in the consulting space. So we really, a lot of times leaning into what are the, what are the challenges that leaders are having right now? What are the challenges that? That everybody, no matter what your role, individual contributor, CEO, whoever it might be, what are we dealing with right now? And certainly uncertainty is the word that just gets, just comes up over and over. Are you, are you hearing that as well, Nick, that uncertainty is just, I mean, this is the use of, when I wrote the book Pivot in 2016, nobody was using the word pivot except to describe like to hide. Remember like that whole idea? This was my, this is my, uh, My moment of embarrassment. So I'm not gonna tell anybody about that. Uh, I wish I only had a, an, uh, even a, even the poor penny that's gone now, you know, even the poor penny. I wish I had a penny even for the number of times people have used the word pivot since the pandemic.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. So fine. All right. Then we wrote a book called Change Proof where it was all about leveraging uncertainty. And now I wish I have it, uh, trying to cash in on this, on this craze for uncertainty. Are you seeing the same thing? Are you hearing the same on your end of things?

Yeah, absolutely. The, the, the way I come at it is from storytelling. And of course, and when we grapple with change, nobody likes change, as my grandmother used to say, except wet babies. And, and so everybody resists change. And there's a particular story that we like to tell that tells people that they're gonna be okay. They're gonna learn how to cope with the change that's upon them. Um, and the, the, the term for that story is Stranger in a Strange Land. Meaning you, you land or you wake up or you find yourself in a, with a new set of conditions, strange land. The rules have changed. The competitive landscape has changed. The regulations have changed. Whatever the business conditions are that you face, they've suddenly changed. And what you have to do is face the uncertainty and bewilderment and dislocation that that causes you and learn how to master the new situation. And that's uncomfortable and it's, and it's, it's awkward and it takes time. But through telling the story of how people have coped with change, then we can, we can help them get through it. But whenever that change gets so extreme that it feels like chaos, then that simple change story won't work. And we need a different story to tell, a more complicated story about how we can bring order to apparently chaotic settings. And that's where I think we are now. Post-pandemic. You may recall before the pandemic, the issue that everybody was talking about was, who's gonna come along and digitize my business? So it was a change message, but it was some, my, my business, my industry is gonna be digitized. Is it gonna be me that does it or is somebody like Microsoft gonna come and do it to me? And is that gonna be a bad day for us? So we have to be ready for that. And then the pandemic happened and there was even a call, uh, and, and I think it's died down now, but there was even a call that there's no point in doing any strategic planning anymore because the world is so chaotic. We don't know what's gonna happen. Like, why plan? We're just gonna respond in the moment. And that was actually a serious meme for, for 6 months or so. But, um, I think sanity has returned and we are back to planning. But that's still that sense that the level of change is really, is really high and it makes it hard to plan. It does make it difficult. It's stressful for, for employees. Employees are burned out. There's this whole sense that the business conditions are tougher than they've ever been. And yet, you know, we're not, we're not in a war. You know, we're not. I mean, business conditions in World War II, I'm sorry, they were tougher than, than they are now. They just were, arguably. But our experience of it is that our world has reached a level of chaos that— and a level of uncertainty that we're just struggling with sort of day-to-day operations. And then that causes a great strain on our employees. So I would say, yes, absolutely. That's, that's an issue that we're all facing.

So I'm really putting you on the spot here. And, and, and so to, to say that just as a, um, a, a sort of an advance, um, you know, like something's coming at him as a level, a level set, a level set here because I, I'm gonna ask you based on what you said, what's an appropriate story? And, and it's not appropriate, it's the wrong word, but what would be an effective story to tell in, in a, in a, this sort of world of of change that is for most people that are of a generation that's, you know, like that's adult and, and in the world of work, which does not any longer include the greatest generation. Not, not really. I mean, there's still some people from the greatest generation as it was called who are still working, no doubt. And yet it's a very fraction of a percentage, I'm sure. So meaning if you didn't live through World War II, if you didn't work if you weren't involved or observing the world of work during World War II, you have nothing to, to kind of go on as a, as a memory, uh, for today. So for the people that are experiencing it and in our work, we're constantly talking to people about their levels of resilience and we assess and, and we see how much burnout there really is. And part of that burnout is really that people are on, on actual overload. I mean, they're just really overloaded, right? There's no, there's no space between their load and their limits. They have no margin for error. They're at like whatever, 99% all the time. So what if you're a leader and they come to your class or they come into, you know, like we end up, they're in a, you know, in a, in a workshop environment with us, for example. What's a, what's a way to help them? Find a story that will help lead people through this. Because the one thing that you and I both know, again, if we had the, the ability to wave that wand, that sort of Back to the Future wand or whatever, and go project ourselves 50 years into the future, I can say one thing I know with a, with absolute certainty that I would be saying to myself or someone like me or anybody, you know, anyone all is, don't worry so much. That would be what I'd say.

Yeah.

Don't worry so much. Everything, everything's gonna be a lot better than you could possibly imagine. And I know this because if you were alive and, and, and living through World War II and you, you know, ended up 50 years hence, you would go back and say, yeah, this is, this is dark. This is, this is tough.

And yet we're gonna be okay.

We're gonna be okay.

Yeah.

So, um, what's a story? So knowing that that's the truth, like I'm literally gonna say that's, that's, yeah, right. A capital T. Yeah. Um, for people and, and you have to help your teams to now seize the moment here. Where's the opportunity for growth? Where's the opportunity for learning? Where's the opportunity for your own personal development as well as development of how we serve a community of people we call our customers? Mm-hmm. What's it, how do we help them craft a story that doesn't sound like BS, that doesn't miss the mark. And, and I know, and that's why I apologize at the beginning because I know that's a really difficult thing, but I know what a genius you are too. And maybe just in this moment we can like capture a little lightning in a bottle for some people listening.

I actually do have a, a sense of the kinds of stories that you need to tell, and I don't know what, uh, a particular listener's version of this is going to be, but, um, I can, I can, uh, point them in a direction. So. you need to draw deep on a moment in your life. Um, and you can go to a moment in history, so, uh, you could go back to World War II, or you could go back to some other time when people thought the world was gonna end or change so much that it was gonna be unrecognizable. Uh, but the best kinds of stories come from your own personal, um, your own personal biography. Um, or autobiography, uh, if you will. Uh, and so you need to reach deep and find a moment when you thought the world was ending, when, when the chaos was all around you, and then figure out what got you through that moment. And most people who have been on this planet for more than 30 years, let's say, have had an experience like that, have had a moment like that when they thought all was lost or, um, that, uh, the proverbial, you know what, was hitting the fan in a way they'd never seen before. And yet they got through because here they are today listening to your podcast. So this experience is, is near universal. And it's a matter of relating that story in a way that's compelling. So you have the, the, um, the message that, yeah, we, we're gonna get through this one too. And entrepreneurs, of course, all have one of these stories. They've all had the catastrophic near failure of, of a business of one kind or another. and, um, um, that's, that's the story that perhaps they could tell, but it's best if it's real for you and it's a real experience. Cause so you, you need to, you need to bring the emotions in. You need to feel comfortable telling the human side of it, of how desperate you felt or how lost you felt or, or how, uh, um, out of control things seemed at the time. And yet you got through somehow. What did you do? How did, what did you reach down? Deep to grab that kept you going one way or another. And so that's the story that people need to hear. There's another piece to it, if I can add, which is that, uh, uh, one of the things I'm seeing with audiences all the time nowadays and hearing from meeting planners and bureaus and things like that, people like that, is that, and I think it's a phenomenon of the online world we live in now, we're more connected than ever, and yet we feel more alone. That's everybody. That's a, you know, almost universal experience. And how do we get ourselves to that place? Why would we do that to ourselves? But the effect is that audiences want to be seen. They want to be acknowledged. Employees want to be acknowledged. They want to know that their role in the company or their, their journey through life is not passing completely unacknowledged. And unseen. Um, and so a key part of telling that story is, is to say, I went through this thing and I survived, and this is how we're going to survive. But it's also connecting with the audience and saying, you're going to survive because I know you and I know you have what it takes. And so it's allowing yourself as a speaker or a storyteller to, to connect with the audience in a very real way to say, this is what you've been through. And I know you have what it takes to make it, I think is really important these days because people feel lost. You know, they feel unseen, they feel disconnected. And we can, we can say as much as we want. That's bizarre in a world where I can connect literally with anybody in the world in a, in a millisecond. But that's the reality. Yeah.

Especially in a world where remote work and, and hybrid and remote work is still such a thing. I know it goes back to your proprioception. Ideas as well, because so, so often it is that people are, are quote connecting, relating, speaking through this little, this little square box here. Um, whether it's this one or it's, you know, this one or whatever it is. So, right. Um, I, I think this is a great, a great place to land the, the conversation, land the plane, if you will. And again, I would venture to say it'll be not the last conversation that you and I have in this format because I already know people are gonna be clamoring for, for more of what you have to say to understand, learn more. So I don't typically do this 'cause it's in the show notes and it will be in the show notes. The way that, that you and I first connected was me being a guest on, on your show. So I would love for you to tell people just a little bit about, you know, your show and, and where they can also hear more, more conversations from you directly.

Oh, sure. Thanks for that. So I, I started because A really smart marketing genius guy named David Meerman Scott said back in 2007, Nick, you should write a blog. And I said, what's a blog? That sounds stupid.

And then he said, you should do a vlog. And you're like, what's a vlog?

Right. So I did the blog for a while and then yes, it happened exactly like that. Then I thought, oh, I should do this video thing. That's a, that's also a blog somehow. And it was just a heck of a lot of fun and a chance to connect with people. So it's on my website publicwords.com, easy to find, words with a D, not public works, which is the mistake that people sometimes make, but publicwords.com. And it's called Just One Question. I keep it simple and easy. Um, but, um, um, yeah, the idea of connecting through communications has been, uh, been a joy to me since 2007 and that first blog way back when. Yeah.

Well, I love where we ended up taking the conversation because if there's one thing that I, again, would hope and not just hope, but even expect and anticipate, it would be that 50 years from now that the spoken word, that a human being speaking something to another human being will not have lost its effect. That is not to say that we will not be speaking to robots as I imagine we will. And they will be speaking to us. I imagine they will be doing that as well. But I think if we are, have a bit of a heightened awareness around how important it is that this human to human contact. Um, and, and as you said, if you're a leader or if you want to be a leader someday, one of the things that you, you will need to be good at, great at, masterful at will be to tell a story, share information with someone else in a way that to meet the moment that we're describing right now would inspire them to want to continue forward, to feel like even despite the fact that it's uncertain and, and, and it was a lot of sort of darkness around us, um, that there's no question, there's absolutely no question that there is, that there is a light in the distance. So what that light will be and what it'll look like, you know, it's like that great that, you know, that play that is still playing, is still playing, you know, so many places around the world. Annie, the show Annie, right? The sun'll come up tomorrow. The sun'll come out tomorrow. Right. And why that, that's the story and the song and the whole thing just is so meaningful is that it, again, it brings us back to some essential truth, which is that we don't know if it's going to rain or it's going to be sunny or what the weather will be like tomorrow, anywhere in the world. We do know one thing though, that the sun is going to come up. Tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, when we're dealing with what we are, all of us, um, I think we have to have that, be able to speak to others in a way that, that is truthful, not trying to sell them some, you know, some false story, false narrative, simply because we're not, and I, I say we, you know, we're not always willing to be truly transparent about, about certain aspects of our own life journey. But the more we're willing to do that, I think the more people will, will be able to learn from and buy into those, those experiences so that we can all collectively go, yeah, no, I think, think things are going to be okay.

Yeah. Annie's a great example because she has nothing, you know, she's, she's lost everything that we would normally consider essential to life. She's lost mother and father. She's an orphan. She's growing up in a horrible place with a, uh, with a nasty person in charge. She's not fed much. Uh, She doesn't get a bath very often, you know, and yet, um, it's her resilience, it's her hope, it's her, uh, belief that the sun will come out tomorrow that keeps her going and ultimately leads to, uh, the, uh, happy ending. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Those of you who haven't seen it yet.

Nick, I could talk to you for days, so I apologize to my listeners for cutting this off. Um, but again, we'll look at doing another part of this as well. Nick, you're amazing. Thank you so much for being a part of the Change Proof Podcast today.

Adam, thank you. Back at you. Great to chat.

Well, I absolutely love speaking to Dr. Nick Morgan and Nick, as I call him. He's just, he's just such a grounded guy. I mean, so there's a peace that he emanates because he is, he is comfortable in his skin, grounded in his, in his thoughts and his approach to things. And I love, I love his perspective. I love the way he languages things. I'm a fan of language. Huge proponent of effective storytelling, both as a speaker and as a facilitator, but just in the way that I learned from other people. It's so often the case that how I have learned and how I have remembered the things I've learned. So more importantly than learning is to actually remember the things so that you can use them in life, business, what have you. So storytelling has been the most effective tool for me to remember information. As well as to now be able to convey to others certain things. So, uh, he is a master storyteller. He's a person who teaches a storytelling class at Harvard to business executives and others that just want to have even more impact and influence in the world and do positive things. So, uh, I highly recommend Nick's work and finding out more about what he does, which you can find out in the show notes. I would also love it if you enjoyed this conversation, that you would take a few moments to rate the podcast on the, the scale that they provided. I think it's like 5 stars and less, but however you felt about this podcast, if you could take a moment to rate it, it's very powerful in terms of the algorithm and how many people get to listen to what you just got to listen to. Also, if you've got friend, family, fam, colleague that would benefit from hearing this, please share this episode with, with those folks. Let us know your comments. You can go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment there or connect on LinkedIn or what have you. Just want to thank you again for being a part of this community, for tuning in, for listening in, for sharing and sending us your good vibes as well.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and Become Change Proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.