The Skill That Helps You Connect With Any Audience with Michelle Mills-Porter

Have you ever finished writing a talk and thought to yourself, I'm not 100% sure how this is actually going to land with the audience? Or you've walked into a client meeting thinking, I don't really know what they need from me. You see, as speakers, we tend to spend a lot of time preparing for communicating our message to people. But how much time do we spend preparing to understand the people we're going to be communicating to. My guest today believes that's where the magic really happens. I'm Sarah Archer, and this is The Speaking Club Podcast, designed to help you become the highlight of any stage you speak on and win you more gigs and clients. So, this morning, I walked out the door, And it was raining. And I've got to say that for the most part of my life, rain has been unwelcome. As a British person, we get a lot of it. But I have to say, this morning, when I put my umbrella up and felt that rain, my heart filled with joy because you could almost hear the sigh of relief from the plants and the trees and the grass and the soil. that have been slowly dying during wave after wave of heat. And so, these heatwaves have made me see rain through a different lens. And seeing things through a new lens is what this episode is all about. My guest today has built an entire career around understanding human behaviour. She's known as the The People Reader. She's a former president of the Professional Speaking Association in the UK. She's an award-winning speaker herself, and she helps people in organisations lead better, connect better, collaborate better, and perform better. In this conversation, we're exploring how speakers can develop a better understanding of the key stakeholders in their world, audiences, clients and bookers so that they can build trust, create genuine connection, and get booked more. Let's get into it. Welcome to The Speaking Club, Michelle Mills Porter.

Thank you very much. So glad to be here.

It's lovely to have you here. This has been a long time coming on my end, uh, being disorganized getting you on the show. Really been looking forward to it though. Got a lot of ground to cover because you've done a lot of things. And the first thing that I wanted to talk to you about though was sort of your career, but how something that happened to you in your life impacted it. So you've had a fascinating career spanning marketing, comedy, professional speaking, and now helping organizations to understand people better. But I know that You were involved in the Boxing Day tsunami, and that was a pivotal moment in your life. Looking back, how did that experience change not just your life but also the direction of your work?

That's such a huge question, Sarah, but I had a very eclectic career. I joined the Air Force at 17, didn't really fit in there. I left 5 years later. I didn't really fit in anywhere else, and I had a very eclectic career. My last employer position was as head of client development for a branding agency, and then I started my own company. So I became a CEO at 32 years old, um, and I've always been quite maverick. So I started this very maverick company, but I honestly thought that I was rocking it. You know, I had the sports cars, personal number plates, we were making loads of money, we were doing brilliant work for the companies we worked for, we were winning every single award going. And when I got caught in the Boxing Day tsunami, I was totally recalibrated. And it was like someone shook me and woke me up. And I realized that all the things that had value to me, all the things— the path that I was on was completely the wrong direction. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to, to have been recalibrated in that way. I didn't once think about my sales figures, didn't once think about my clients. I was thinking about helping people and, you know, and, and, and helping families find each other and raising money and awareness. And, and that's It was— I was kind of woken up to my real true core values, and that was a massive wake-up call.

That's amazing. Was there a particular moment that you remember thinking, I've been getting my priorities wrong in life? Was there some specific moment that you can remember thinking that in amidst the chaos or after the chaos?

No. You know, you always see clearly with hindsight. It's a very higgledy-piggledy path. Um, I— it didn't change me as a person. What it did is it reawakened what important to me. And, you know, I think one of the pivotal moments was I thought I knew about people. You know, I— one of my clients did behavior profiling, so of course we had to get inside their heads in order to be able to sell them and, and in order to generate business for them. So I'd learned about it, and I was using it in my own organization to hire my own workforce.

Mm-hmm.

So I thought I knew about human beings. But in the aftermath of the tsunami, when everything was turned upside down, People were doing things I didn't expect them to do. People were doing wonderful things, incredible things. And I think the breakthrough moment for me was understanding that in adversity, you get to see straight through to the core of humanity. And do you know what? We are incredible. We're amazing. There is this benevolence, this compassion that comes out of nowhere like it's always been there. And regardless of who you think that person is, everything's stripped away in that moment, and everyone is in for helping. each other, and that bowled me over.

Interesting. Do you think that that was because people themselves recognised what was really valuable versus what we are told is valuable in society? So, stripped away of all the material stuff and the social pressure, and it's about love and families and relationships and survival. Is that why you think that came to the surface in terms of people's behavior? Or do you think it was something different?

Not necessarily, because that would take time to think. And that would take, you know, maybe days of thinking what's important and all the rest of it. What I'm talking about here is what I call the magnificence of humanity. It is like— it's like muscle memory. And I believe that every single one of us has the ability to have this beautiful collaborative caring, benevolent compassion, and it's there underneath everything. So the second that the tsunami hits, that's it. Everyone is just like, they're helping each other. They're putting their life in the line of danger, of, you know, putting their life in danger for somebody they've never met before in their life. And to see that happen in real time is incredible. And it's not, it's not just the tsunami, you know. Loads of people will resonate with this. It doesn't matter whether you've been involved in, you know, an accident or, you know, you see see someone fall over in the street. We see it all the time, these little snippets of human magnificence where people just forget everything. And it's that— it's like that reset mode of we are here to help each other. And it's almost like seeing through all, all the mud that society and our jobs and our positions pile upon us. Actually, we all have this beauty inside us. I really, really want to believe that.

I love that. I think it's You're absolutely right that there's so much more that brings us together than takes us apart from each other. But there, it feels like so much of the focus is on difference and, um, rather than what makes us, you know, close and connected. And it's really nice to hear that. And it's just a shame that we don't see, certainly in news and things like that, more of the— those magnificent moments than, than the other ones, because it feels often like it's weighted the other way, um, in terms of what's presented to us.

Some people are sent to this planet to try us, believe you me, Sarah. You know, you look at some people, you think, no, there's no magnificence there. But, um, but I just, I truly want to believe that the majority of us have got it there, you know. And if you look, I mean, even if you look at, you know, psychopaths and sociopaths and all sorts of things, there's so much evidence to say that that's not the way they were born, that actually it's things that happened in their formative years that altered that path. So, you know, there's hope. That's all I can say. all I'm saying. And it's the hope that I spend my entire life in. It's that hopefulness for humanity.

So that happened. You had the recalibration. You came back. You have this existing business. What happened next? How did you shift from what you were doing to what you do today?

So that's a really tough question as well, because I didn't initially. Um, I made a promise to myself when I walked into this house. Me and my husband, we wrote up on our whiteboard, we will never forget. So it's, you know, not about getting We will never forget. We will remember those lessons. But I also made a personal promise, and that was that I was going to learn how to decode what I had just witnessed and give it back to humanity and let other people have those lessons without having to go through the same adversity. It just so happened that when I had 14 staff who've got children and they need food in the fridge and they need shoes on their feet and they need uniforms put on their backs, and I couldn't just walk away.

Mm-hmm.

I had a responsibility ability as a CEO who was one of the youngest in the country to gain investors in people. I really was passionate about my people, so I had to carry on that organization to the detriment of me. So I ended up getting iller and iller and iller because I was not listening to what my true core drivers were, and I was continuing doing what I was doing with no heart in it, with no love in it, and it broke me. I had what can only be described as a medical breakdown. At my worst, I had, I had cancer, I had slipped discs, I had an internal infection which stopped me being able to have children. I had fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, diabetes. My kidney function was low, my liver function was wrong. I had the worst eczema on my hands and feet that you've ever seen, and I couldn't make it from the bed to the sofa on some days. I was destroyed.

That's really interesting. I've heard of a book, I haven't read it actually, a book by a chap called Gabor Maté that's called The Body Says No. And it feels like that's what your body was saying to you until you stopped to listen. How long did it take you to, to stop to listen, I guess?

You know what, I'm a tenacious little puppy, Sarah. I am. Tenacity is right up there for me. So, you know, you can knock me down and I'll bounce back up. I'm one of those people that bounces up and pretended nothing has happened. So it literally took everything to bang me down, uh, until I could not physically get up. It ended up when I had a disc taken out of my neck, um, and coming around from that operation, I ended up getting secondary fibromyalgia, which is connected to neck trauma on top of my already fibromyalgia, um, and everything else I had. And I literally couldn't get out of bed. So it was at the stage where I literally, I couldn't. And so I had to stop. So, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say here and say, yeah, I listened to my body and I understood that I just needed I didn't. It took someone to knock me out. Took something to knock me flat out before I realized, do you know what, sometimes it's okay to stay down for the count of 8 or even 9. As long as you get, get up before 10, it's okay.

Oh my goodness. And so how long were you unable to get up, and what happened when you started again?

So, uh, what happened was after that, um, I was told that if I, if I didn't walk away from the business, I wasn't going to be here in a year's time. That's what the doctors were telling me. And my husband, um, had joined the business after the tsunami because he was in protection mode over me. He became my FD, um, and he made some changes. And what we did is we rehomed all of my people in the clients that they were working for and their ideal Positions. You know, one person went to America to play football, someone else went to Australia for her dream job, and we rehomed all of our staff. And then it was free for us to be able to close the doors without hurting anyone. And that's what we did. We just closed the doors, and then I concentrated on my, my recovery. And, you know, I started off— some people that know my story will know of the time that I was doing, doing Cherished Jewels, which was just making jewellery. It was just therapeutic.

Yeah.

It was whilst I was recovering. So it took a long, long time. Um, and, you know, even now, I still have some, you know, underlying illnesses. I still have fibro, still have secondary fibro. I just try and keep on top of it, you know, but it's taken a long while.

Yeah, so it must be tricky to get that, that balance right. Well, after that, in terms of the things that you've done, you call yourself the People Reader. So what was the journey to becoming the People Reader? And then if you can share, when you say you can read people, what does that actually mean?

Can I answer it the other way around?

You can answer it any which way.

Thank you, Sarah. I think I wanna— and it's not that I wanna do this chronologically, but there's a realization, and which wasn't validated until about 4 years ago. Will you remind me at the end of this to tell you what happened 4 years ago when I had that validation? Um, but when I was a kid, I was, you know, I was always told, oh, Michelle, you're being so oversensitive. And I was like, oh, what's wrong with so-and-so? Nothing. Why are you being so sensitive? And I could feel the atmosphere in a room. I could read what people weren't saying. And I was always told it was nonsense, blah, blah, blah. Until I realized that actually, it was true. I could pick up on what was really going on. I could understand people and what they were saying, or what they weren't saying in between the words, and all that kind of stuff. Now, I So in my company, I used some of those skills because all of our work was over the telephone. And so what we were doing was non-visual communication. Now, I happen to be brilliant at non-visual communication because I can— I could imagine people, I could hear in their voice where the tension was, where they were unsure. Those kind of things I picked up on. So I turned that into a business. And in fact, my first book published over 10 years ago now, was called Phone Genius: The Art of Non-Visual Communication. Then I started looking at non-verbal communication. So I'm looking at advanced body language, microfacial expressions, eye movements, the microfacial expressions that you cannot help, you can't stop, they're just natural. And then I developed into behaviour profiling to create this perfect triangle of how to read people. The People Reader was named after the tool tools that I created. And these tools were created to start decoding that human behavior so that we could— I could make good on the promise that I made, that we are going to be able to share these gifts and, and show how magnificent people are. If you want to do that, you have to look through a different lens. And so that's what I was trying to do step by step. All these different analyses that I was building were, were towards this end goal. So without having to remind me, 4 years ago what happened was I was diagnosed as being massively ADHD. And it was that that made me think, yes, I do. I do pick up on micro things. I am hypersensitive.

Yeah.

And I do have this really strong empathy bone that, you know, for whatever reason alerts me in a way that other people may not be alerted. And there are many, many benefits of neurodivergence. And that's where I spend my time is showing people the benefits of our differences. not, you know, the complications of our differences, if you know what I mean.

So has your work shifted slightly following that diagnosis 4 years ago from what it was, or is it the people reading plus this extra part now around neurodiversity?

I think it's just the icing on the cake, to be honest. The fact that I've been doing this all of my life, you know, the fact that I I'm gonna tell you a couple of things now that you won't believe. When I was in the RAF, I used to read palms for pints. Don't tell me. Don't ask me how I got into that. It was just somebody once said, oh, you look a bit like a Romani gypsy. And I was like, funny you should say that. He's gone, no, don't tell me you read palms. And I was like, well, if you buy me a pint. And so I ended up, you know, and then I did these, these kind of psychology tricks in pubs and stuff like that. So I've always been doing this stuff, which is actually just holding a mirror up to people and saying, this is what you've just told me. without telling me. So it— I've always done it. And I actually had the People Reader trademarked way before I was ever diagnosed. That gave me the validation that actually what Michelle is saying about non-visual communication, non-verbal communication, actually there is a lot of scientific proof behind this. Um, so it gave me massive validation, I would say, rather than anything else.

And is there something you now notice about people, or have always noticed about people, that you wish you didn't?

Gosh, no. If this could be a superpower, I would accelerate it. Who doesn't wanna know what people really mean, what people really think? Of course I do. So no, there's nothing that I wouldn't wanna know. If somebody doesn't like me, even though I like to be liked, if someone doesn't like me, I'd rather know it. It's much more— it's a much less stressful place to be. What hurts me more than anything is people not telling me, when they have an issue, when they have a problem, you know, or when they don't like something I've done. If they don't tell me, what can I do with that? You tell me, I can change it. Because all I want is harmony. All I want is for everyone to understand each other. So when decisions get made behind closed doors, or when people don't give you the opportunity to put right a situation, that upsets me tremendously.

That's a really important point. I think we tend to hold things to ourselves and expect other people to be mind readers sometimes, and or, or we enjoy resenting them for something that they, they don't even know that they've done. Um, so that's, you know, it's really, it's really important. And that underpinning resentment can cause all sorts of things. I, I wrote a show called Crunch, which was about— it was based on a real story of 2 women who worked together and were friends and then fell out And ended up losing both of them lost their jobs and went to tribunal, and it came out in the tribunal that the reason they fell out is because one of them was eating raw vegetables and the other one had super sensitive had a condition and she couldn't bear it. Yeah, exactly. That's a really good example of how things can just deteriorate and get destroyed because we don't share how we really feel. So really, really important point. Goodness.

Yeah, it is. And you don't— um, misophonia, misophonia, however you pronounce it, I definitely suffer from it. I've just had to unfriend someone on Facebook because she was, um, videoing her eating 5 different types of Chinese and just stuffing it, and I was just like, what? And I had to just unfriend her. And she's not a friend, she was somebody that I was, you know, that I was connected, um, but I just, I couldn't watch it because I have misophonia, and it's actually one of the coexisting conditions of neurodivergence.

Interesting. It's more common than people think, but if we don't tell each other, how are we gonna know? What I wanted to talk about was your work in, in application, if you like. So what's the problem that clients think that they're hiring you to solve, and what's the problem you usually end up solving?

Well, I'm going to be a little bit awkward here, actually, Sarah, which is no surprise to people who know me, um, but I, I don't actually work with people that have got a problem to solve. I don't like working in that space. I don't like going into fixings because by the time I go into fixings, they're already broken. I actually take people from good to marvelous to absolutely exceptional. That's the space that I work in. So I only work with organ— with CEOs that were like me, that are truly people passionate, that really understand that it's a, a huge honor for somebody to come into your employment. It's an honor that they would spend their life, such a big part of their life, dedicating it to you, sharing their knowledge, sharing their skills to you and your organization. It's a massive honor. So, you know, it's only the, the CEOs and the leaders that have that type of mentality in terms of leadership that I want to work with, because they're the ones that I can really help. I know that they're already investing in their people. And what I do is I help them to make sure they don't lose their stars. So I'm working with several organizations at the moment. One in particular, had a conversation only yesterday, and, and this is somebody that I really respect as a leader. And as his business is growing, he's spending less and less time with the people that he really cares about that are massively engaged, and he hasn't got the time to be able to do it. So what I'm providing is a shortcut. I'm giving him and giving them the analyses that put the mirror up and say, this is how magnificent you are, this is where you shine. And with him being able to have that knowledge and that information, he can lean right into understanding everything that fills their buckets, everything that stresses them, everything that finds— helps them find fulfillment and purpose. And he can give it to them without doing all the hard work because it's there on paper. And that, that's That's what I tend to do. I increase engagement, performance, and the longevity of those beautiful relationships.

So basically giving people an in-depth insight into a sort of 360 view of their people and what they care about, what levers to pull, how they want to be communicated to, the whole thing. Is that, is that fair?

It is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something a little bit controversial now because I've Um, but what I've realized is that even the behavior profile that I've written, which I believe is probably the best behavior profile there is, because otherwise I would have used someone else's rather than write my own, I, I still want people to understand that that is just a behavior profile. The only thing that that shows us is the way that we express ourselves to each other. So whilst you can use it to understand someone, build rapport with someone or make the communication easier by matching their language, by matching their patterns, that's as far as it goes. You are never going to know what truly drives them, what made them who they are, unless you sit down and go all the way back to their childhood with them, unless you do an analysis that shows those core driving forces. It is a much, much deeper And more insightful look than just purely a behavior analysis.

And I mean, seeing people's behavior, things that you notice, what, what's the biggest mistake that you think people make when they're trying to understand other people? And what is the cost of getting it wrong?

Well, the cost is the relationship, working backwards as I usually see the world standing on my head. So that, yeah, The cost is the relationships. The most important thing to me, that my relationships are the most important thing on the planet. So the cost is the relationship. The mistake that people make is thinking they know more than they do. It's the people. A very, very well-known speaker said, ah, Michelle, you're scratching your nose. I don't think you're telling the truth. I'm like, that is such a basic body language cue, um, which everyone that is an expert knows. You have to back that up with lots of other examples and evidence and, and piece it together. You know, somebody telling me, oh, you, you, your micro expression just told me that you were accessing your creative mind rather than your memory. So I don't think, I don't think that's the truth, unless you realize I'm left-handed and it's swapped over. So, you know, it's, it's people that think they know and go, ah, I know, uh, they're the ones that get it wrong. It's that, that old adage of having enough information to be really dangerous. If you have enough information Don't stop. You keep going, keep going, and keep going, and keep going. And even now, even somebody who's written so many analyses and has done thousands and thousands of readings, I will still never say I know. Someone says, oh, you're reading me now, Michelle? What am I? What am I? I'm not gonna tell you. You tell me. Do it with an analysis, and then we'll be really accurate. You know, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna pretend I've got all the answers. I haven't. I still get it wrong sometimes.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think some of it must come from some of those TV programs where, you know, they've got the, the sort of expert, the mentalist or whatever it is, reading people. And, and they're sort of— that, like you say, they're missing all— there's, there's so many different things going on sometimes that picking one thing out without the full picture is going to lead you right up the wrong garden path, I guess, is what you're saying. So, yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to give you 2 examples of that, and I think it's really important. Firstly, we've got Tears of a Crime. It's on TV, and you've got experts. You've got a voice expert, you've got a body language expert, and what they do is they look at the interview and they tell you whether that, that, um, criminal was actually guilty or not. Do you know that's so easy to do when you already know the answer, Sarah? It's so easy when you know the answer. It's like, yeah, there's the clue. But you, as soon as that TV show hears about me, they're going to fire everyone else and put me in instead. And what I'll do is I'll tell you the answers before they're convicted. See how that works? The other thing about that, Sarah, is that— thank God that Jeremy Kyle is not on telly anymore. But do you remember when he used to say, you're a liar? But you know, lie detectors are not lie detectors. They were created initially by William Alton Marsden and a whole team of people to measure people's emotions. It was never meant to tell you whether people were lying or not. It just so happens that when people are, um, are lying, if they have normal emotions, they normally flush and their heart goes a bit faster, and you can see those. The reason we don't use a, um, a polygraph in this country in a court of law is because we're slightly more intelligent than some other places in the country— in the world that do use it. It's not a be-all or end-all. You put it on, You put a sociopath through a, um, a polygraph and they'll pass with flying colors. So they don't have the emotional connection.

Ah, of course not. Yeah, because that's part of the problem, isn't it? They don't have, have that. Gosh.

And they're not going to show you the things that say, oh, this person's lying, because they have no emotional connection to what they're saying. So it's not going to spike the polygraph. It just, you know, it's, it's a ridiculous thing.

That's really interesting. Now, a lot of people might have some reservations about adapting their communication, their behaviour to another person because they're concerned that they will become inauthentic. Is that a valid concern, or what would your view be on, on that?

Yeah, it is a valid concern. I think what I teach people in terms of behaviour profiling and reading others is definitely to understand who it is that you're dealing with so that you can change the way you deliver something. But it has to be authentic. It has to be authentic with you. So, you know, rather than actually becoming somebody completely different, I might say to you, you know, Sarah, I know that sometimes I come across as a little bit overenthusiastic, and that can make me look a bit desperate. So I just want to say this in a certain way. So I'm actually telling you what I'm doing. I'm not changing who I am. I'm not putting on a different mask. I, you know, I'm showing you that I'm trying to talk in your language. And that's the beauty of trying. If you go to a different country, let's imagine that you go on holiday and you're in Spain and you don't speak Spanish, but you go to a restaurant and you try and speak Spanish, you will get made a fuss of. You know, people go, oh, you know, you talk like a tourist. Tried. It's the trying that matters. It doesn't matter that you haven't got the words right. It doesn't matter that you haven't got the accent right. The fact that you're trying to communicate is, is where those barriers come down and people go, okay, that's good enough for me.

Yeah, it's always about the intention, isn't it, behind the communication? One of the things that I work with speakers on is a concept of audience intimacy, which is around really Getting into the perspective, into the shoes of your audience ahead of being in front of them to start thinking about ways that you can connect with them about their concerns, their fears, and all of that stuff so that you can really have the opportunity to go— for them to go, oh, it's like she or he's in my head, you know, and building that connection. Is there anything Um, that you could give in terms of guidance from your experience and skills to help speakers do that part of their prep, or even when they're on stage, to help them read an audience?

Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that I've actually taken around the PSA regions completely free because it's so important for speakers to be able to read their audience before they even get there. It's too late by the time you're on stage if you haven't done some prep work. What that presentation contains is understanding in terms of behavior profiling, because that's the easiest— it's a roadmap, but it's the easiest way to understand. There are certain industries that will attract certain personality types, certain behavior types. So for instance, um, let's take, um, lawyers. Let's imagine that I've got a room full of lawyers. A lot of them will actually be, you know, quite theoretical. They will be, you know, they will want the evidence. They will make sure that they've done things correctly. There are elements of their behaviour that sway you in a way that says, along with that, means that I can't just get up there and say, you know, I'm going to read your minds. I've got to give them the evidence first, otherwise I'm going to lose them. I I can't go in there in my flowery kimonos over my dress like I normally wear. I have to wear something that isn't going to distract them from my message. I need to build rapport with them before I open my mouth. And so I'm going to wear something more conservative that goes with their way of thinking, and I'm going to start with the evidence, and then I'm going to back it up with this, that, and the other. And so you shape your talk according to who the majority of the When it comes to actually being in the room, you know, understanding— when people say, yeah, you've got to look here, there, look around the room, that's not to make it look like you're interested in them. That's because we're trying to remind people that you've got to be looking at everyone in the room and pick up on their body language, pick up on the cues that they're giving you. And it got to a stage— I'm not saying that I'm an expert in this. I'm not saying I'm an expert in anything. But I am rather good at picking up on cues. Good at it. Um, and I, I did a gig for Q Hotels, uh, about a year ago, and it, it was phenomenal. I mean, the, you know, the recommendations are on there for everyone to see. But afterwards, I wrote a piece on LinkedIn, which is still an article on LinkedIn, and it's called When the Room Breathes with You. And when you get it right and you can read the room, it feels like you are a conductor and that the audience is your orchestra and they breathe with you and they take a sharp intake of breath with you and they laugh with you in all the right places and it feels like you're conducting it and it— oh my gosh, that's magical. Doesn't happen all the time, you know. This was a particularly nice setup by someone who was just— had a beautiful aura about her and attracted all the people that were so open and so giving and it was just a, the perfect story That's so cool.

I love that metaphor. It's a metaphor that I often use too in terms of the speaker, because they are taking the audience on that journey and they're conducting the experience that that audience goes on. And as you say, you can't do that if you turn up. You have to put that time in to think about who's receiving your message, not just the message that you want to give. So, really important. Important point there.

I was just going to add to that and say, um, I know you mentioned comedy. I was known as an enter trainer many years ago when I did talks. You know, I was— I've been a professional speaker since 2003, and people used to say, you're an enter trainer because, you know, you're so funny. And, and I used to think, do you know what, all I'd have to do is fall on my way to the stage and people are going to laugh. That's not the art. And I was hiding behind humor. I used humor to protect me, to hide behind. And I realised, and when I joined the PSA only 11 years ago, when I joined the PSA, it was because I wanted to be able to safely elicit emotions that could make people cry, that could make people feel different things.

Mm-hmm.

And that is, you know, I thought, when I do that, when I can do that, then I know that I've cracked it. That's what I love doing. I love being able to take people on a journey safely, And, you know, people quite often will be in tears of part of my story, but they'll come to me afterwards and say, I'm in tears because it was so lovely. I'm in tears because it made me think of something else, or made me value my family, or whatever it might be. It's never because I've put them in a dangerous place. And I think that is art.

And in terms of the— because I feel like I was remiss in asking you, uh, earlier on, but now that this seems like an opportune moment to ask, uh, in terms of the moments moments in your story that cause people to have that reflection and emotion, is that because of some of the things that you saw other people do during that experience? Because I think you talked about the examples of human magnificence, and I wondered if you could share an example of one of those moments.

Not necessarily somebody doing something magnificent. Yeah, but I'll give you the example of Stuart and I. Stuart and I had been together for 12 years.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we had had, um, a horrendous miscarriage before and, and lots of trauma. And when I needed him, I didn't think he was there. And we never really talked about it because, you know, when I was told, oh, you, you know, you, you are definitely having a failed pregnancy and we're gonna have to keep you in, and I was like, what? And, and then, you know, all of a sudden they're saying there's nothing you can do, Stuart, you have to go home. So he went home. It's before the days of, you know, mobile phones being right next to us and all the rest of it. And I just felt so alone. And, and I, and I held on to that thinking, I don't think he's going to be there, you know, if, if I need him. And therefore, you know, we talked about marriage, but, you know, we'd never really committed anything to each other. But on the night of the tsunami, when we thought the tsunami was coming again, there was this horrendous thing that happened when everyone was, you know, in a panic thinking, how can we get away from this again? And I realized that Stuart was looking at me but kind of looking through me. And when I finally got to him and I said, what are you doing? He says, I'm working out how to get you up that pole. And I'm like, how are you gonna get me up that pole? And he said, Michelle, if I have to get you up that pole in my teeth, you're coming with me. You and me against the world. And, and I just fell in love with him a million times over. And that was the moment that we promised that if we got out of this alive, we would get married. Because I realized that we'd never spoken about it. We'd never talked about why I felt that he wasn't there for me. And yet he'd just proven to me that he is and that I am his first priority. And I'd forgotten that maybe he was going through his own trauma, you know, and, and all the rest of it. But it's that lack of talking that Had us stuck in that path of doing nothing, whereas in that moment of trauma, the truth was revealed.

It's really such a shame that we can't be like that without that intensity. Like, they always say necessity is the mother of invention, for example, or, you know, when humanity has a crisis, they're on their best form. But it's a shame that we can't recreate that. I suppose what you do today is to try and, with the behavioral profiling stuff, is try and give an assist to organizations to help them try and create the context within which their people can, you know, show their best side, if you like, um, and, and do great stuff together.

I think, yeah, what I do, especially with, with Essence and Oracle, this is the core Driving Force Analysis and the one that I've just done this whole third element to, which is a report that is making people feel so empowered and so in awe of what, you know, of what it says about them that they quite often can't, can't actually believe that it— that that's really the way that other people see them. But it is. So holding up that mirror is a very powerful thing to do. But what we're doing for organizations is rather than just looking at behavior types or communication types, which is the expression. We are looking at the source. Where does that come from? What makes Sarah Sarah? And it's understanding that that makes you fall in like with that person, that connects you on a level that other stuff just can't do. It's that understanding. I see you, you know. It's that. It's beautiful.

That sounds fabulous. During our, uh, questions, answers we've had so far, you've mentioned the PSA. And for those of you PSA stands for Professional Speaking Association here in the UK, although there are branches of it all over the world. And you are an ex-president, just, of a past president of the PSA. You're also an award-winning speaker. How has understanding human behaviour changed the way that you tell stories and connect with an audience?

I couldn't do it without understanding human behavior. We need to understand— let's see, let's just be frank— what we're doing as speakers or trainers or whatever it is that we're doing with our voice, it's, it's trying to elicit a change in people. It's trying to motivate them to do something differently or to feel something differently. Therefore, we're in service to them. We're not there to, you know, show off. We're there to do a service, whatever it is. Whoever's booked us to speak, this is what they want as an outcome, and it's our job to make that happen. So if you don't understand, you know, the, the human behavior of the people in the audience, then how are you going to get that message across? You have to get that message across to every single person in the audience, and it's not going to work every time. You're not going get every single person in the audience. There are going to be some people that just don't like you, some people that just don't get it, some people that just don't want to be there, some people that are, you know, wondering about their date tonight or whatever it might be, and, and you won't ever reach them. But you have to try and reach as many people in that room, and they are made up of so many different nuances, different behavior types, different emotions, different hormones, different preferences. So you have to make sure that all of your words are either flicking in and out those different things, flashing in and out almost like a Caribbean reef squid with loads of colors going over you. You try, you try to give a little bit to everyone, or you have to make it generic enough for everyone to be able to buy in. One or the other.

Mm-hmm.

I tend to like doing the, the other, the opposite, which is reaching every single thing. So I will, sometimes I will reach into the smell of things or the emotion of things, and sometimes I will reach into the facts and the evidence, and sometimes I'll reach into the impact on the people around us. And so I'm leaning into different things to make sure that I'm capturing all of those elements that there can possibly be in a mixed audience.

That's really interesting, and I love that in terms of the way that you're, you know, thinking about those— the way different people receive information there, all of that stuff. And I think You're right as well with— I call it the universal themes. And it's interesting because when you were in that experience and stripped back, there are these universal things that we all care about that bring us all together. And as a speaker, if you can, you know, we want to be making things specific and relatable and concrete for people, but there are these universal themes that we can can pull on to bring our audience together, things that we all care about as human beings. But as Michelle's really cleverly said there, delivering those things in different ways to connect with the different ways that our audience receives information in the way that's best for them. So I love that. That's really, really good point.

We will get some people that say, you know, oh my gosh, when you were talking about, you the, the facts of, you know, how big it was and how it was equivalent to 23,000 Hiroshima bombs going off at once. That really got me. I didn't quite know what you're talking about with that, you know, flagpole thing, but oh, that was— And then you get someone else that's like, oh, when you were talking about the smell and the feeling and how you were sick, and I really— I was there with you. I'm not really bothered about how it was— the earthquake was as long as it is from here to Germany. I just forgot that, you know. So people lean into different parts of it. And that's when you get people saying, this is what made it for me, this is what made it for me, and they're completely different things. If you'd only done one of those, you would only have half the audience, you know.

Absolutely. That's really, really good, um, advice for people. Now, after everything that you've learned about human behaviour to date, because I get the impression that you're a person that loves to learn and is always curious as well and always developing things So that they can be the best that they can. Given everything that you've learned to date, what are the 3 things that you think people generally, and speakers maybe specifically, um, need to understand about human behaviour that will put them on the best course for connection?

First of all, if somebody does something that upsets you or you don't agree with or whatever, you can't make an assumption. You know, I know it's hard. I know it's hard. And you, you can't label that person. What we want to do is go, they're horrible, you know, they're this, they're that, the other. What we need to do is we, we need to understand the source. We need to understand why. You have no idea what that person's been through. You have no idea whether you've just triggered something accidentally. You have no idea. unless you ask the question. So to make assumptions is, is a really damaging thing. So I would always say that if in every given opportunity, if you can, do not pigeonhole, do not label, try and understand the entire picture. Um, so that is probably 1, 2, and 3. I think of something else. I have to say something about one of my best friends, Richard McCann. Do you know what? Richard and I I'm a huge fan of Richard, um, and I think he's a fan of me. He is. He gave me a standing ovation once. Now I call him my little brother. There's only months in it, you know, but he calls me sis, and we talk to each other all the time. That could have been so different because actually when we first came across each other, we clashed. Oh, you know, he put something up on LinkedIn and I said, actually, I'm not sure about that. I thought that being provocative, you know, would be It's good because it gets, you know, gets people to engage in the conversation. But he took great umbrage to it. He's like, you know, how dare you shame me in front of— and I'm like, whoa. And, and so we didn't get off on the right foot, and we were just emailing each other, and I ended up saying, look, Richard, there's 2 choices here. Either we can agree that we don't like each other and never speak to each other again and harrumph every time one of us walks in the room, or we can try and get over this. And that's what we did. And he is one of the whose friendships I value really deeply, and, and that's because we made it work. So maybe another point is, even if you clash, you know, if you work through it, if you find a way through, those relationships can be even deeper, even better, and have more longevity than you ever would have imagined.

That's great. Um, what was it that enabled you guys to get back on the right foot?

Explaining why I'd said what I said and why he took it the way he did, and then apologizing to each other and saying, I hear you, I see you, I understand you, I understand the way you tick. I'm not going to do that again. If ever anything does happen like that, when, you know, tell me. Um, and we both did that. We both leaned into that. And like I said, I really respect that relationship. And he's not the only person, you know. There's, there's several other people in my life who I really respect that relationship. that I've clashed with, you know? And it's only the ones where we've made up, where we've made the effort to make up and understand each other and put it right, when suddenly that relationship is far more valuable than it ever would've been. There are some relationships, unfortunately, where people have made up their minds, they won't allow it to be fixed, and, you know, it's never gonna change. They're always gonna have their opinion. There's nothing I'm gonna be able to do about it. That hurts me, but I'm, you know, I can only do so much. I'm human too. Just because I'm called the People Reader, which is the trademark for my analyses, it doesn't mean that I'm the flipping, you know, doesn't mean I'm psychic, and it doesn't mean I get it right all the time.

I love that. I love that. And that's what makes us interesting. We are— we're not perfect. We're flawed. Like, we don't get it right all the time. But it's having that intention to, to really sort of connect. I think this is the 2 things that came to my mind on top of what you said was something that I learned. There's a book called The Four Agreements, and The Four Agreements are, um, there's sort of 4 principles to live your life by. And the first one is be impeccable with your word, is the first one. And the second one is don't make assumptions, which is exactly what you said. Yeah.

Yeah.

The third one is don't take things personally, which I think really works well with the don't— you know, which is what you're kind of talking about here. And I think this is something that we do. We make an assumption and then we make it about us rather than, than the other person. And then always do your best. But I think it's about trying to put the other person first if we genuinely want to connect with them, and, and not making it all about us, I think, is what you're saying as well.

I think, yeah, it is. I don't— I've not heard of that book, sorry. I'm not very well read. But I think there's something else about relationships. The longevity of a relationship are the little things you do along the way.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the little card that I've got from Andy Le Parte, the little card that I got from Steve Judge, the fact that I painted a butterfly for Richard with his very special spiritual numbers hidden in the wings. And it's those little things little things that touch people's heart, that are completely personal, that actually weave you together in a way that you are never going to be able to unravel. That's key to the longevity of a relationship, I think.

Just to show the other person, as you say, I see you and I thought of you, is— yeah, it's lovely. Yeah, I love that. Brilliant. Listen, thank you for sharing all of this stuff so far. I want you direct people to where they can find out more about your work, book you to speak, and so on. Before that, I have some standard questions to ask you, Michelle, the first of which, because this is the Speaking Club, is what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

I can't deny it, the best thing that speaking has done for me, um, is create relationships, um, with the organization to a certain extent. And this is Angela Tsai that, that did this for me. Uh, she came to my workshop and she wanted to do something for me, and, and she showed me by very cleverly going through all of my best clients that all of my best clients over all the significant clients over the past 20 years have come to me through speaking, through either seeing me speak directly or indirectly hearing about me speak. So actually speaking for me is not just something I thoroughly enjoy doing and providing, but actually it's my best business generation tool. So that, that would be my answer.

I think people underestimate how important it is to keep your pipeline going beyond all of the other things that you get from, from it too, in terms of connecting with people, touching people. It's, it's amazing. Okay, cool. Next question is, has there been a gig or a time that you've spoken in the past where things went really wrong or didn't go to plan and you were just like, oh, I want to forget that, never think about it again? Has that happened to you, Michelle?

I think if anyone said no, I think they'd probably be lying, or maybe they're just not self-aware enough. Um, there was one time when actually I— it was a really good reminder to me. Uh, I was invited to speak, to be the keynote speaker at a Christmas party for foster carers, um, and the foster carer organization Um, and they asked me to do The Magnificence of Humanity. And I was delivering it, and I suddenly realized that as I was looking at the audience, everyone was like leaning on their hand. They looked, they looked so disengaged and bored. And I was sat there panicking behind, thinking, I've lost them, I've lost them. And that voice in my head was saying, who on earth, why would they have booked this for a Christmas party? This is, you know, it might be uplifting in some ways, but it's also quite traumatic. Others, you know, this isn't a Christmas party kind of vibe. And I was so tied up in my own head thinking, I've lost them, I'm going to be fired, I'm never going to work in this industry again, and I'm going to get the person that hired me— I'm going to get her fired as well. And I had that inner talk that was so powerful that I ended up finishing my talk early for the first time ever. I actually was 10 minutes short, and I came off stage stage feeling completely deflated. Now thankfully I got back to the desk and I was just about to say to Sarah, Sarah, I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. And before I could get a word out, she went, oh, Michelle, that was amazing. And I went, what? And I turned around and there was a queue of people waiting to talk to me. And I went, duh, it's their behaviour type. They're inexpressive because they are carers, nurturers, all the rest of it. That goes But it's par for the course. You forgot what you teach other people in that second, you know. So, so that could have been really, really bad.

Oh gosh, that's the worst thing, isn't it? I've seen speakers make assumptions about the body language of someone and then really get affected to the point where it does ruin the rest of their talk, when that person may have had an emergency at home that day, just Like, like you said at some point in the interview, you don't know what's going on in people's lives, so you can't make assumptions, you know, about one person in the front row who looks a certain way. It might even be the way that they behave when they're really intensely listening as well.

I've got resting B-face, um, and it's like, it's when I'm concentrating. I remember going, I'm concentrating like that, and someone said, you don't like what I'm saying? What am I saying wrong? Long. And you're saying that in front of the whole audience. No, I'm really loving it. But also, you can, as a speaker, you can check, you know. If you think that most of the audience are sitting there with their arms folded and they're all disengaged and everything, you can ask, is everyone all right with the temperature in here? And people might suddenly start saying, actually, I'm really cold. And they're all doing this because they're cold. So you can ask questions, you can check. And if you, if you want the evidence, you know, just Is, is this resonating with you? And you can tell by the nods and then, and the shakes of the head and everything, you know, what people, uh, really mean. So ask, don't be afraid to ask. That's called engagement.

Yeah, don't make up stories in your head that then derail the rest of your talk.

10 years ago. Cool.

Um, next question, Michelle: what's the book that's had most influence on your I'm not a brilliant reader because I know now, because of ADHD, Yeah.

when I'm reading, I tend to go off track, um, with all sorts of different things. But I, I have to say, um, The 5 Languages of Love by Gary Chapman, I found that so simplistic and yet so powerful. And actually, unknowingly, I had already, um, devised the basis of Essence before I'd ever read that book. But actually, they're almost parallel. What Gary Chapman talks about is When he's talking about love language, about understanding the doing what the other person wants in order to make them fulfilled. That's exactly what my core driving forces is doing as well. It's just coming from a completely different angle, you know. But but actually, for that reason, it's the one book that I think is so simplistic, so short, so easy to understand, and has saved so many relationships that the power of. He's something that I massively admire. I love that.

And we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.

I think— shall I send him my book, see if he likes mine?

Yeah, I would definitely. Got nothing to lose.

Absolutely.

I do also think you might enjoy The Four Agreements. It's, it's, it's along those lines. Very simple, very short, but very powerful. Even if it's already stuff that you're talking about and you're doing this, it's, it's nice to be validated sometimes as well in terms of the things that we're talking about. That's brilliant.

But listen, collaboration is everything that I'm about, so when I see things and we're, you know, we've got synergy, I love that.

Yeah, I love that too. That's, that's really cool. And then that was the big theme of your presidency, was doing that, and it It's made the event really special to see, you know, so much of that in action. So, uh, yeah, walking the talk, Michelle.

I think collaboration is what we needed to bring our association back together because it was quite fractured. I think it was needed, so I, I hope that it did its job.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Okay, what's the best bit of business advice that you've had and why?

Again, upside-down thinking. It's the worst piece of business advice I ever had but it's the best because I actually disregarded it. So when I first started my very first business, someone said to me, Michelle, you gotta bite them before they bite you. And I'm like, what? And he said, oh, they're, they're out there to get you, you know, you gotta kill them first, and, and this, that, and the other. And I thought, what a load of tosh. Um, and I absolutely flatly refused to ever work like that. I paid my bills early, I treated my suppliers like they were best friends. You know, I, I promised the 3 Rs to all of my staff— rewards, respect, and recognition. And, you know, and, and I did things my way, and I'm proud that I did. You know, whether that, that business is no longer alive, that's not through any failure or any other reason apart from our lives going a different route. But whether it survived or not, I don't care. I did it the way that I believed in. And so yeah, that's, that's the best worst piece of advice I was ever given.

There are people that want to encourage us to believe that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, and, and your whole theme and, and what you talk about is completely the opposite of that, which is, which is so nice. Excellent. Okay, the last question. If you could have a mentor, and they can be alive or Fictional or non-fictional, who would you choose and why?

William Ultemarston. William Ultemarston was the creator of DiSC. Um, he was an incredible person. He was a philanthropist. He was a polymath, basically. You know, he was a lawyer, he was a, a lecturer at Harvard University, and he's the guy that came up with DiSC. Um, but he came up behavior profiling profiling from an understanding emotions point of view, which is why he was connected to the team that also designed the polygraph. But he was also a big feminist, and him and his wife, who, by the way, was way ahead of her time— um, she was a lecturer at Harvard University back in the 1920s as well, uh, Elizabeth— and together they, they created Wonder Woman when he was working at DC Comics. So the first ever female superhero was created by him. I would love to show him what I've done with DISC in terms of taking it forward, and I hope that he would love what I'm doing and what I'm doing to actually look beyond the behavior and look for the source instead. I, I would really hope that he'd be able to mentor me with the knowledge and the passion that he had for human beings.

That's lovely. We've never had him before, and I didn't know that he created Wonder Woman. That's so cool.

I know, isn't it? But a lot of people think that, um, you know, that she had a, a whip, and it's not, it's a lasso. It was William Moulton Marston said, you know, I've got to create this superhero, and, and it was Elizabeth, I believe, that said, well, what's the superpower they have to have? And he said, well, they've got to be able to get the truth out the criminals. And I believe it was her that said, well, it better be a woman then. That's the story I like to believe.

Yeah, it's the golden lasso of truth, wasn't it?

It is, in fact.

Yeah, interesting. I loved Wonder Woman when I was younger.

Can I just show you something? I do this. This is in respect of William Moulton Marsden and everything that they stand for. I always wear silver cuff bracelets. Love that. I love that, Michelle.

That's brilliant. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing your journey and giving us some tips and principles for creating better relationships And stronger connections with other people, other human beings. If people want to book you to speak, to share the, you know, different talks that you do, or to work with you, where is the best place for them to go?

Well, I'm the only Michelle Mills Porter on the planet, so I'm really easy to find, you know. Um, LinkedIn is always great, just reach out to me with a message, or you can email me. My email address is so easy, it's mmp@mmp.uk.com. Yeah, there you go, nice and easy.

Excellent, cool. We'll put those, uh, links in the show notes too. Now, is there anything else that you think that you need to say, Michelle, in order to call this interview complete?

Uh, I just want to thank you for giving this opportunity, this platform, um, you know, for for everyone to be able to communicate and to, and to share our thoughts. And, you know, hopefully some people will reach out. The one thing I don't understand about podcasts is that quite often people say they've, they've really liked a podcast, but they don't reach out to the, the speakers afterwards. And, you know, I like to be wanted, I like to be needed. So, you know, please do, do it.

Absolutely. Well, good to know that on this podcast, previous guests have had people reach out And the audience is very good at doing that, and I'm sure that something that you said today will have resonated with people and hopefully maybe recalibrated them in some way. So, uh, look forward to hearing more, uh, about that.

Just, just one little sweetener. Um, I, I love giving. I just love giving. It fills my bucket. So if anyone does want to reach out to me, I will very happily send you a cheat sheet of the core driving forces, and maybe you can look at that and decide what truly drives you. And that might give you some, you know, some insight into the kind of things that will fill your bucket.

Love that. There you go. Reach out to Michelle, get your cheat sheet, get a deeper understanding of you so that you can have a better understanding of other people too, no doubt. But thank you so much, really appreciate your time, and best of luck with everything that Thank you so much.

Take care.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation that I had with Michelle as much as I did. There were some eye-opening moments there, thinking about how we just tend to look at the surface level of things and don't consider the sort of 360 view of a person. We find it so difficult to step into another person's shoes. And part of that is because it's actually difficult even fully understanding ourselves and the motivations for the things that we do. So much of our own lives are run by our subconscious. And I think the work that Michelle does can not only help us to understand other people better, but to help us understand ourselves better, and in doing so, opening up the door to a whole new world of possibilities in terms of richer communication, seeing more opportunities, collaborating, connecting, just the whole thing. So, I hope that you took something from that that you can apply into your world, And you'll start maybe observing more, listening more, adjusting more, when you see something come up that indicates another person needs something different from you. So, what I'd suggest you do, if you did get something from this episode, is go and find Michelle on LinkedIn or elsewhere. Go and check out the website. If you want to book her to work with her as an organisation. And yeah, all the links will be in the show notes for those places. And obviously, if you enjoyed today's episode, it goes without saying how much I'd value you leaving a comment, subscribing, and leaving a rating if you're listening to the show on one of the podcast apps and so on. And you can do that at Rate This podcast.com/tsc. In the meantime, until next time, you know what I'm gonna say. Don't forget to go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking. Bye-bye. It's a nightmare. You're an expert with so much to say, but now that you've been booked to speak, you're struggling to know exactly what to talk about. You want a talk that engages the audience and wins you new clients without you losing your personality or anyone feeling pitched to. But what happens when you sit down to create that talk is that you end up staring at a blank page for ages, or worse, surrounded by hundreds of sticky notes with content that you could include. With so much material, you just don't know where to start or finish. Don't worry, because many experts like you face exactly the same challenge, and that's why I created the Blank Page to Stage Guide. In just 50 minutes, this breakthrough resource is going to help you identify the big idea of your message, make it relatable for the audience that you're speaking to, and convey it all in a way that gets the audience inspired and on board with your idea. And it works even if you have tons of material or your subject feels less than exciting. If you want to cut through swathes of content and get a talk that you're excited to share, your audience loves, and wins you new clients, then grab your Blank Page to Stage Guide from saraharcher.co.uk/newguide-to-stage. Oh, I forgot to say, it's completely free. Enjoy!