171: AmyK Hutchens - On Delivering a Leadership Message Your Audience (Actually) Wants

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle.

Wow.

Oh my gosh, waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey everybody, welcome back to This Moved Me. Gosh, I once again— guess what? You'll never guess. I I'm excited to bring to you another interview episode. I have really had some amazing people on the show recently, and I'm just keeping it going. I'm so thrilled that, uh, I get to share some of these people with you. So the first one today is from a woman named Amy Kay Hutchins, who was introduced to me by Jenny Evans. I don't know if you guys remember Jenny. She was on the show way back when, like when I was in double digits of episodes. And Jenny is this brilliant, totally like kick-butt woman who does work around confidence, and we talked about really pushing our audience's boundaries in a way that pushes ourselves. And she does that. And so I really admire Jenny's work. So when she came to me with a recommendation for somebody to have on the show, I thought, okay, well, I completely trust Jenny. And I'm so glad I did because Amy Kay has her own sort of kick-butt thing going on. She is an author and travels all over the world, speaks hundreds of times throughout the year. And she has been named the International Speaker of the Year. She works with executives all around the globe, and really sees herself as a teacher. And she used to be an elementary school teacher, which I think is this really wonderful combination, but she is power, like power woman, and also super grounded. And I just think that I love that combination. And she's brilliant. And we had a great conversation all about the connection between speaking and leadership. She's a leadership expert, and a speaker, and she sees this in action each and every day. And so if you are a leader, you're also a speaker. And if you're a speaker, guess what? You're a leader. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Amy Kay Hutchins. Here she is. But do you have any questions for me right now?

Yeah, I want to know what that really awesome mic is that you're talking into.

It is a Kodak. What's it called? What's the name of it? I can't remember. Oh, it's down here. It's hiding under here. Yeah, it's a Kodak. C-O-D-E-C, I think. Yeah, C-O-D-E-C. Kodak. I don't know. I got a sound guy and he recommended it, set me up. Nice. I paid him.

It looks very good.

I'm like, come over here and plug all the things in.

I know.

And set the settings so I can just go beep.

Yeah, no, I'm the same way. I'm like, I won't touch anything except for the on button.

Yeah, most of the time it works beautifully, but every once in a while I'm like, oh, I should probably know how this works and why that needs to be over here. And because if something goes awry, I'm kind of screwed.

I get it though, but tech is not my forte either. I know. Well, look at me. I can't even click the right link. I'm in Google Hangout hanging out by myself.

I'm so sorry.

No, no, it's not your fault.

It's confusing. Well, there's, you know, it doesn't say click this link. Don't click that link. Just send you some links. It was a test. It was a test. You figured it out.

Thanks for your patience.

Okay, so Amy Kay, I'm so excited to have you on the show, and I want to dive right in because I know with time, time is a precious resource, and there's so much I really am excited to talk to you about. So first of all, tell me and everybody a little bit about you, um, what you do and how speaking is a part of what you do.

I am a teacher at heart. I am a teacher by trade. I started off as an elementary school teacher and then I became a corporate trainer and now I spend my life pretty much just teaching from stage. So it's in my DNA.

I love it. And I like you thinking of yourself as a teacher. There are not a lot of speakers who necessarily think of themselves as a a teacher, and that's really powerful mindset. You know, how does that shift it for you?

Yeah, well, I'm, I'm a student too, so that's kind of the fun thing. Like, so I'm incredibly intellectually curious, and I think that we never stop learning. This is the way that I'm wired. But I also believe that there are ways that we can either distill something that is either complex and make it more simple, make it more approachable, make it easier for people to wrap their heads around To me, it's like we're all servants of this knowledge. For me, it's just like, "Okay, how do I serve it up on stage in a way that makes everybody go, 'Ah, I can do that. I can apply that.'" Cool.

Servants of knowledge.

Dang.

I'm writing that down. Cool. You use speaking a ton in your work. Yeah?

I do. I'm a professional speaker and I live on the road all but about 6 to 8 weeks out of the year.

Wow.

So I'm doing a little over 100 events a year and that is one part of our business. The other part is that I teach online. We do online programs, you know, live webinars and all that. But, um, I love, I love the energy from being in a room filled with, you know, a couple thousand people. It just, it's jazzy.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't typically speak to that large of audiences though. I have a handful of times and it is such a different experience. Experience than the smaller sort of workshop training formats. Um, so I'd love to talk with you. Let's start there. Let's talk about the different ways that you approach your audiences based on the context. So 1,000 people versus, you know, you're training online. How many people are you training online? Like, that method is so different and requires something a little bit different from us.

It is. And it was a really big learning curve for me. So one of the things that I'm very candid about is the fact that we make a lot of mistakes in this business and that's how we learn. And so when you're on stage, it's theater. There's a big component to the storytelling, the drama. I'm loud. I project. I've always been good at projecting. And you have to have this enormous sort of exaggerated presence on stage in order to reach somebody at the back of the room. When you're online, it doesn't work so well. So it's like some of my videos, it's like, oh, I'm over the top and oh, I'm so big. And everybody's like, okay, tone it down. You know, it's more conversational, it's a quieter voice and it's smaller gestures and you can still tell your story, but you need to do it with a little of reserved energy. And so that was a learning curve for me for really being able to take like this bigger, bolder presence and say, okay, I got to dial it down a little bit so that people don't tune me out. They actually get pulled in and they lean in. In because it's more of that softer tone and that whisper versus the wah.

Right. No, gosh, I think I'm still learning that lesson because I'm the same thing. I feel like my face can do crazy things. I'm very expressive. It's like it can be distracting almost when— and you know, you're not supposed to do this up by your face when you're on video, and here I am doing that.

But that's what makes it fun. I mean, so that's trying to— it's trying to balance all of that. So I've had— I've literally had girlfriends say, I I can't wait to see like all the expressions on your face. You know, when I was first doing some of our Amy K-isms, um, one girlfriend shared with me, she was like, I just turned the volume off and I watch your expressions. Cause it's hilarious. And I was like, oh, I'm not sure that's a compliment, but, but you, yeah, exactly. Like, thanks so much. You're buying the wine. So, um, I think that for, for figuring out where your audience is too, the message, I mean, one of the things that I talk about too is that, You cannot deliver a message that you think your audience needs. You have to deliver a message that they want. Now you can serve it up. You can be maybe a little bit wiser about how you want to, how you want to do it. But you know, you want to talk about foibles and like really major missteps was the time that I listened to somebody say, well, this is what they really need. You need to come talk about this, talk about epic failure. It's like the worst speaking event I've ever had in my life.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really important distinction is because we may think we know what they need, but if they don't want, if we can't make them want something about it, because you can wrap the need in the want. Yeah. But you've got to wrap it in the want.

Or it doesn't work. And I found that out the hard way.

Oh my gosh. Been there. So Amy Kay, one of my favorite, uh, mantras is speakers are leaders and leaders are speakers. And I'm curious for you, the connection that you maybe see, or maybe you don't, um, between leadership and speaking and speaking in leadership. Where do you see that connection, if you do?

I do, actually. I believe in that 100%. I think that We are all trying to connect different ideas, different people, different behaviors so that we can create momentum, so that we can take action and actually see change in the world. And so as, as strong as your ability to articulate and persuade and influence and be crystal clear in the vision that you have for change is the quality of the impact that you'll make. And so you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't communicate them, if you can't create that vision that's compelling that people want to follow, then you're not going to be as effective. Now, that doesn't mean you're not brilliant. It doesn't mean you can't have incredible ideas, but you have to be able to wow people. It isn't just having an idea that works. You also have to be able to express it in such a way that it's compelling and clear, that people are like, "Yeah, I'm on board for making that change," or, "I'm on board for following you." I think that leaders have a responsibility to learn how to communicate and speak clearly. In fact, that's one of our most popular programs. Popular courses that we teach are the communication techniques of being a kick-ass leader.

Right. Well, and what this brings up for me, because I've met many leaders who do not see themselves as speakers, right? They are like, "Ugh, I'm just— that's not how I lead or influence. I don't influence from the stage." And I think that there's some validity there. Because not everybody necessarily has that innate desire to get up there, and yet I'm— that's part of what I do is really push and encourage them because of the power of the platform. And I think it's an incredibly useful tool aside from the fact that it can elevate your leadership in a really powerful way. But I think that there's something there, like, can we make space for leaders who maybe are more introverted, which may or may not have anything to do with this? I don't know.

No, it does. So let's look at that for a second because you made a couple of provocative comments. So one would be, you don't have to be on stage to be a leader. It could be a boardroom. It could be a one-on-one performance review with somebody in an office or a conference room. You still have to be able to speak clearly. Clearly and get your messaging across. So the platform might just shift, but you still have one. And then I don't, you know, it's interesting and you, you may balk at this a little bit, but I speak for a living. I am out on stage. I'm an introvert.

Yeah.

Like I refuel, I come back and get grounded. I'm not a fan of the chit-chat run for mayor. You know, that is not my cup of tea. In fact, I prefer to network after I've spoken because it gives me something to talk about because people are so curious and they have questions. Before I've spoken, it's actually, it's a little— I shouldn't say it's a little, it's uncomfortable for me. That's not my skill set. So you can be an introverted leader, that's awesome. You still have to be able to speak clearly and convey your ideas in a way that creates change.

And yet as an introvert, you found your way to the stage, and I think that's really compelling, and it's really good for people to hear that because a lot of times speakers are written off as people who just like the spotlight, right? And who just like the attention and it's an extroverted sort of thing. I've been accused of that because I am an extrovert and it is part of the reason why I like speaking is because it's like the people energy is amazing.

Well, there's truth in what you say. I mean, there's a whole spectrum. There are speakers out there and I've met them that they only want the green M&Ms and they want the spotlight on them and it's me, myself, and I, and let's talk about me, myself, and I. That's probably one of the hardest things for me as a speaker to do is to bring that persona off stage because off stage I don't want to talk about me. I'm uncomfortable talking about me. I, one of the hardest things for me to do as a speaker is to have that light on me unless I'm on stage because on stage I'm performing or when I'm teaching a class, I'm the servant leader. You know, I'm the, no, this is about you. I'm trying to convey some knowledge so that you get an aha. But just like this today, like a, like an interview where I can see myself on camera, it's like, ugh, I don't want to do this.

I know. I just don't look at mine.

It's hard.

I know.

It's hard because I'm right below the camera, so I'm like, "Okay, am I going up here? Am I going down here?" Those are all the things that I find not joyful. What I want to do is I just want to engage in a real conversation with you.

Okay. Well, hopefully we're doing that. We're doing it.

Okay.

One of the things that I really love about your book The Secret Leaders Keep is that it's really based on a lot of storytelling. So you're highlighting the stories of all these different leaders and kind of pulling apart their experiences and drawing lessons from those. And so I'd love to hear from you as a leadership expert how storytelling has been a useful tool for you, not just obviously in your books and I'm sure in your curriculum and lessons, but also in the speaking world. How has, how have you used storytelling to help elevate your message?

We're hardwired for story. You know, long, long before we had written language, we had oral historians and that was how they passed down tradition was through storytelling. And so it's a, it's part of, so my background is studying the brain. My background is in education and cognitive science. So how do we learn? And then how does that influence our behavior? So I'm fascinated by the brain. We are, at a neurological, at a biological level, we are hardwired for story. We can relate to it. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We either identify with a character or we don't. There's conflict and there's resolution or there's not. All of our emotional intelligence comes up in a story for how people behaved or reacted, whether it's anger or sadness or jealousy or happiness and joy. We relate to that at a visceral level. There's all these inflection points in storytelling that allow people and invite people to come in and say, how do you relate to this? Do you or not? So a lot of times, and this is the power of storytelling, somebody will come up to me and they'll say, oh, you know, two of these stories resonated, but I totally don't get so-and-so. Well, the fact that you don't get it also means that you are having an interaction and a relationship with that character or that story. It either is validating or it's not. It's just not your world. But what's fun is like, so just yesterday, I get an email from a gentleman who's like, "I was sitting in Florida by the pool and I read your book last week." And he's like, "You know, good job, but more importantly, were you writing about me? Like, were these two characters based on me?" And it's like, "Dude, I met you a month ago." It's like, no. But that makes you feel good. It's like, okay, so this is resonating. Like, we invite ourselves in. And that's why we go to the movies. And that's why we buy books. That's why we listen to podcasts is we want to hear somebody else's experience because we're so desperate for connection and belonging.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, the idea of resonance I think is the powerful thing that I'm always trying to unlock with my speakers is how do we tap into resonance? How do you— resonance. How do you develop that taking your particular story or each one of these people's particular stories and then draw out the universal, you know, so that it does connect. Because I think that that relationship is really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about that, like the particular and the universal and how those two pieces work together for you?

Well, for me, we've got more in common than we have differences. I mean, obviously we live in an extraordinarily diverse world, which makes it colorful and gorgeous and fabulous. I mean, I love all of our diversity. I think that as human beings, we have very common experiences, whether you're sitting here listening to a podcast in North America, or you are traveling through Mumbai, or maybe Lima, Peru. We all have a lot in common about our human experience, the joys and the sadness and the maturational steps that we take. And the fact that this is hard. Like the human journey at the end of the day, it's not easy. I mean, even like, even when you talk to, and I mean this from a truly like concrete, tangible example, even when you meet to meet extraordinarily wealthy people and we were sold this myth that if we grow up, we can define success with money and money will make you happy. We prove it over and over again that money has very little to do with happiness. It has very little to do with success. But what we do have in common, whether we're wealthy or not, is we have failures and we have wins and we have the comparison condition and we find emotional highs and lows. And when you find the things that make us human and you talk about them and you put that into story, you get a sense of truth and you get a sense of connection that you never would have had otherwise.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I'm like, yep, holding that up. Truth connection, uh, that is so much deeper than if you were just talking about that idea. When it lives in the human experience, that's when you get a sense of meaning. That's where you draw the meaning from it and have, you know, when, uh, I spent some time studying persuasion theory. And it's all about really establishing harm, which is kind of a negative approach to it, but it really is about really pulling apart why and, and how, and, and how those— these elements live in people's lives.

Yeah.

And story is the pathway. Story is the way that we can break down the barriers that exist in our world and see ourselves in each other. And I, I just, I'm fascinated by it and know it's a really important tool, but I think not everybody does it well.

Well, no, it's a skill. I mean, that's— I mean, I— so as a speaker, yeah, I think that I've had the gift of gab since I was about 9 months old. So my mom jokes that when I was 2, she used to set the timer for just moments violence. Talking came naturally. Talking well, telling a really great story, that's a skillset and we have to get really good at it. One of my favorite books, you probably have this on your shelf, is Robert McKee's Story. I mean, kind of, it's sort of the Bible of Hollywood and scriptwriting and it's brilliant. And then you go on and you look at all the TED Talks. I think one of the best things that TED did was say, if you can't get your message across in 18 minutes or less, you haven't figured it out. And that's really what Mark Twain was saying in his famous quote, of, you know, I would have written less if I'd had more time.

Yeah.

And so it's a skill, and finding the right words, being succinct, that's something that really good, really good speakers hone their craft around, is how can I get this message across simply and articulately in a very short amount of time.

So one of the, I think, challenging parts about story, and especially story in speaking, is how we take somebody's life experience and we've got to zip it down, right, to an edible chunk, a meaningful chunk, where something that really underlines the point that we want to make without losing the truth of it, without losing this authentic spirit that lives in it. How have you navigated that process? Because you've done that over and over again, right? You take somebody's life, somebody's story, and you've got to boil it down for a moment on stage or in a book.

And it's something that, you know, you practice and you get better at it. And then you look at other models and you realize that when you— if you look at every scene in a movie, what keeps it engaging is that there's always some conflict. There's always something that's not quite peaceful or settled until, you know, like at the end and then it's all happily ever after, unless it's a series and then, you know, they keep you hanging. But the idea is that in every scene there is some type of resistance. There's some type of truth. So you don't, we don't cut, we don't start this podcast with, hi, how are you? How's the weather? Where are you? I mean, that's boring. We want to jump into that. Okay, so let's dive in, you know, and let's catch this. And that is usually what's happening in every scene. So in a story, You have to set context, like you have to have a big picture. People need to know what's going on, but you move very quickly from a big context to some visceral moment. Like you don't— so at the risk of now sounding boring, you don't want to take people from point A to point Z methodically. You want to give like A and then you want to jump into F and then you want to make sure that you quickly get to X. And that's what keeps people hooked in a story. You don't need to say everything, but you can make a very tight beginning, middle, and end about one piece versus trying to explain the whole thing, right?

Yeah, I've always said that I think one of the most underutilized skills that we don't talk about enough as speakers is the skill of editing, the skill of just like really honing down. And because it's so iterative, you know, like when you create a talk I'm guessing, right? You write it, it's not done.

No.

You're going to do it again and again and again. And every time you learn something, you adjust, you—

You get better. And then it does get better. I mean, so it's also really— I think this is important to share. I have now been doing this for 26 years and I am a lot more interesting than I was 20 years ago from my own life experience, but I'm also better at speaking. Again, it's a skill. You've got to be open. I think, again, reading books about writing good speeches, reading books about storytelling, reading good stories, getting outside of your own genre, being open to listening to other people's stories, and then coming back and reflecting and saying, "Wow, that really moved me. Why did it move me? What about it moved me? The tone, the style, the words, the actual story, my reaction to it, good or bad?" But to really sit back and say, "Okay. Moved me? How did it move me? Why did it move me? What specifically moved me? And if I were to turn that around and tell it as my story, what flavors could— what I take for my own personality? Because not every person can get away with the same story, the same words. It just doesn't work, right?

Well, that's a great little transition. And what I'd love to hear from you is, what is a talk in your experience that you have seen that has moved you? So this isn't our "this moved me" moment yet, but what I'd love to know is, you know, especially if you think about for my audience of speakers, what's a great one for them to watch that you could help analyze a little bit?

All right. So there are a ton because I think there are some really— there's just some phenom— truly phenomenal. I am going to go prosaic and go right to TED because I think there's some really great TED Talks. One is Jill Bolte Taylor's "A Stroke of Insight." Okay. Like everybody, typically everybody that you know talks about that one. I think it's gotten over 20 million views. I don't want to exaggerate, but I think it has. It's one of the most top rated. And I think for me, my truth was that one, I love the brain. I'm fascinated by the brain. So I had a connection there to begin with. She does a brilliant job of taking you through a series of events that most of us have not, thank goodness, experienced, but that we are fascinated by. She also inspired us with new information and a provocative perspective about what it means to have connectivity in the universe at a level that we don't even fathom most of the time. It's not concrete, far more spiritual, far more molecular, a trace of energy through it. So to me, it was like fascinating on all these different levels. But if we distill it down, simple, articulate, visceral, inspiring, educational. I mean, like, she hit it out of the park.

Yeah, visceral. That I totally agree with you. I remember watching that talk the first time and being like, this is not a TED Talk. And that's what I love about it. Like, it breaks so many of the rules. Of TED Talks, it's— she— I felt like she was reliving it with us. And that was incredibly powerful and moving. So I completely agree with you. That's a brilliant example of it. I should— so I've got a Facebook group called the This Moved Me Talk Club, and we take a talk and pull it apart and look at and kind of analyze.

How cool is that?

Yeah. So I forgot about Jill Bolte Taylor's. We'll have to do that.

That would be a good one for sure. And I think, you know, to me, part of it is I like breaking the rules. I mean, I know that a lot of times in speaker schools you'll hear the, okay, tell them what you're going to tell them, you know, tell them the content, then remind them what you told them. And I'm like, um, so to me, you, you can do all of that without doing all of that. And, and you, and you do it through story. So if you can come full circle and connect all these different points that you're making in different stories, you'll have a much more powerful experience. But she does a brilliant job of breaking the rules. Like, she just dives in and tells you a story and inspires you and educates you along the way. And she's just, just fabulous at it.

Yeah, yeah, she's amazing. And that's an old talk. It's been around a long time.

It's been around quite a few years, maybe.

But I remember the first time I saw it, which is a sign right there that we have to stand out. You've got to push the boundaries enough that you do not blend in with the just drones of droning. The drones of droning.

No. You have to stand out. And that's part of the reason that I love storytelling to connect ideas. I'm a big tool girl, so I'm a big— I'm not there just to entertain you. I am there to teach you. I teach, so I'm always bringing concrete, tangible tools because I'm often talking to leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, people who really want to grow their leadership skills or their innovation skills. My talk is very different in the sense that I can't just stand up and tell jokes. I am there to teach. I also know that in the course of teaching, if I don't make it sticky, if I don't make it memorable, if I don't use very specific techniques, but you still have to make it yours. Like you can't be a cookie cutter. Like all— I watched a great speaker the other day. He's a magician. He's his own world. I mean, he's doing magic tricks on stage. He's doing brain science. He's there to create an inspirational message, but he's not going to give you a tool. Like he's not teaching you magic tricks, but it works beautifully because that's his gift. So I think it's also trying not to be anybody else, but trying to find your own voice. And that can be very hard to do in all this noise. Noise and all the input that we get on how to speak, I think you need to be really careful and say, "Okay, which pieces of this still let my own voice shine?" Absolutely.

Absolutely. And we've got to really learn how to hone our gut on that stuff. Like what feels right? Like, "Nope, this just doesn't feel like me." And working with somebody who can really respect that and push you Right? Because there's so much more we can do than we think, but also really respecting people's sense of authenticity on that. It's an important balance. So who is this magician?

I knew you were going to ask me that. And I want to say his first name is Jason, but I may not be right. I might have to come back and let you put it in your notes because I was like, I knew you were going to ask. I'm like, okay, this is terrible because I just saw his video a couple of weeks ago.

Okay. A few magicians on the show because I've seen them speak and they were as much of a speaker as they were a magician.

Yes. And he is as well.

I was wowed. Yeah. I wonder if it's who I think it is, but I can't remember his name either.

I know. I'm having what I call a 46-year-old moment. So it will come back to me.

Okay. Well, if you think about it, let me know. And we'll put it in the show notes. You can discover it. Okay, so it is now time for a This Moved Me moment, right? Something that has moved us recently. It doesn't have to be a talk, it could be a song or, uh, you know, a news show you saw— news show you saw— you know what I mean, the news show that you saw. Uh, so what has something that has moved you recently, Amy Kay?

There's been There's a lot. There's a lot in the news right now. I think that I could go classic with you. I could go with some of the speeches that I've heard in some of these award shows, but I want to go to just a comment, a response that a young gentleman gave just last week with all of the tragedy in Florida.

Yeah.

And he said, "You're the adults. We're the children. Protect us." And to me, it was a goosebump, moved me moment. He took all the crazy politics out of it. And I really want to say right now, it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you sit on. I think that we can all come together and agree that we want to protect our children. And the fact that he just so innocently said, "You're the adults, we're the kids, protect us." And it was just this plea for, can we approach this and solve this And I thought, this generation, good for them.

Yeah, absolutely. And that was my— this moved me moment too. Not that exact comment, but being absolutely moved by the young people who are like, we are done. This is it. We are not— you're not doing anything. We're going to do something. Like, you can't get beyond your "Divides and your bunkers. We're coming out of the bunker." They're taking so much flak for speaking up and—

Well, leaders do. I mean, they're young leaders. I mean, they're young change agents and they are finding their voice. They are finding ways to articulate their message. I think that anytime you look at the course of history, It takes a new generation and a new movement to actually make change. And it doesn't mean that we get 100% fantasticness out of it, but it takes an entire generation, a group of people to say, this is no longer acceptable. And again, it doesn't matter what you're looking at. I mean, there's things that happen in this country that have been atrocious in our history that have allowed people to say, okay, then we've got to make change. But for that young gentleman to just stand up and say, look, this is, This is crazy that it's become political. This is about our lives. It was just an absolutely moved me moment. And there's been several interviews and conversations and town halls since then that continue to not only move me, but hopefully a generation of thought leaders who will actually then just be more than thought, but they'll actually start to take action.

Yeah. Anytime I see people who, you know, they're taking a risk. You know they are stepping into a new space for themselves, it gets me. Like whether it's watching my niece dance on stage, I'm like, oh my gosh, look at her go, that's amazing. Or my own kids when they— I know that they are pushing themselves. That to me, it just like gets me right in all the feels. And I think If we think about this as speakers, like sharing the stories of, uh, and you use the word resistance before, right, where something is pushing against people and they are moving through that, like that's life. Every story has that in there. And, and so watching these young people move through the resistance that the rest of us haven't either been able to or been willing to. Like, it's amazing.

Yeah, they have my total respect.

Total respect. Yes, that's exactly it. I'm like, thank God for you guys. Thank you for risking yourselves and being loud and coming together. I think they're organizing.

No, this is— this is group. And you mentioned it before, they're getting a lot of pushback and a lot of flak And that tells you that that's good because they're agitating people's thinking and that's a really good thing.

Yeah. That's a great reframe because I feel protective of them. I just make—

Oh, me too.

When I see that, I'm just like, "Argh." Like, "Oh my gosh, they're being so incredibly brave." And even if you disagree with them, to start, you know, whatever, criticizing them in the ways that they've been criticized. I'm like, "Ugh." It makes me really mad. But you're right, it's a good thing. It means it's working.

Yes.

Ah.

And there goes full circle back to your why leaders need to be articulate.

Right. And they are incredibly articulate.

They are. That's what I mean. The fact that they have come together and they are able to keep the dialogue at a professional, sophisticated, persuasive, compelling level. Yeah, I'm just gonna say amen. So amen, sister, preach it!

Oh my gosh, well, Amy Kay, it was so good to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me, and I'm so grateful to Jenny Evans.

I know, I owe her a huge thank you too, but thank you for reaching out. This has been an absolute delight.

Yeah, well, tell people where they can find your stuff and find more out more about you and what you do.

We keep it simple, so it's amyk.com, but I will spell it for you. It's A-M-Y-K, that's it, 4 letters, looks like a meek, but it is Amy K, amyk.com. And then we have, we're really not pitching, so if you want to join our community, you can join, it's at the bottom of the homepage, and we do tons of free stuff, free tools, free videos, free content all the time, we do free webinars, so come join our community and feel like you— there's no sales pitch.

Awesome, good, I appreciate that. That's really nice. And yet, I, you know, I do. Hey Movers, thanks so much for listening to another episode of This Move Me. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with the awesome Amy Kay Hutchins. And, uh, looking ahead next week, I'm pretty jazzed. I gotta tell you, I'm pretty jazzed because I've got another interview episode for you next week with Matt Abrahams. And Matt, uh, I'm super excited because we had a great conversation and we are both Speaking at the Presentation Summit in September. So if you are in the presentation industry and you are looking for a conference to go to, that is an amazing conference to go to. It's gonna be so much fun. I'm gonna be speaking there. Matt Abrahams is gonna be speaking there along with just a dozen other really incredible people, some of whom you have heard on the show and will be hearing on the show. So tons of exciting stuff there. And I also am giving you guys a heads up. I'm really excited about this, uh, because I am finally doing it, you guys. I'm finally going to make some of the changes that I keep talking about but haven't really been able to pull off. But I'm doing it. I grew up a little bit and I hired somebody to help me with my website.. And so we are like T-minus 6 weeks from this new website. So I'm putting it out there. I don't have an exact date yet, but pretty soon I will. And once that happens, oh my gosh, I'm so excited, you guys. It's gonna be really cool. So I know I've said this before, but somebody else is doing it, so So that makes it much more likely that it's actually gonna happen. Ah, so fun. All right, so, uh, be on the lookout for that. If you want to head over to my old website right now, there's still some cool stuff over there, some freebies for you, a presentation prep checklist, which I think is pretty cool. You can get that, but there's even better stuff coming down the pipeline. All right, so I'd love to see you over there, thismovedme.com. And I hope you enjoyed the show today with Amy Kay, and be on the lookout next week for Matt Abrahams. Thanks, guys. This moved me. What's moving you?