Ep. 158 Speaking to Youth

Hey, Darren Lacroix, how goes it, man?

Hey there, Mark Brown. What? What are we talking about?

Well, I gotta tell you now people are wondering, why is Darren doing. No, no. But several years ago I got a panicked phone call from this man who happens to live literally a stone's throw from a local middle school. And he called me and he was like, mark, Mark, Mark, like what?

And he said, they asked me to speak to middle school.

No.

What do I do? I wanted to say no, but giving service and being asked, I knew I had to do it. But I was panic stricken because all my material and content is geared towards an older audience. So I have to rethink everything. And by the way, even if you don't speak to youth or you don't ever see yourself speaking to youth, listen up. Two reasons. Number one, you don't know when you're going to get the call for your kids or your grandkids school or because they found out you're a speaker. Or number two, you might just get some insights from this, from mark's experience because 200 times a year Mark used to speak to youth over 200 times a year. You might just get some insight for your diverse audience.

Anyone can give a presentation, few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix.

And Darren Lacroix, stage time, Stage time, Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas, let's dive right in.

So Mark Brown, what is the Mark Brown process?

Well, you know, just for background, for those who may not know my background, I spent a lot of years giving presentations in middle junior high school here in North America. And high school, that is young people ages 11 through 18. And I even had an even larger age group when I went to South Africa some years ago. They had individuals in those schools, they call them learners as old as 20 or 21 years old because where they were living in the rural parts of South Africa, there was not many chances they could got to learn as early as they should have. But I have had the blessing. I did the math recently, Darren. I think it's over 1 million youth I've had the blessing of speaking to since I first began doing that after I won the ToastMasters title in 1995. This first school was my son's elementary school down the road in Mount Vernon, New York, Traphagen Elementary School. If anybody knows that, I'd be happily surprised. But I realized early on a couple of ideas, principles were helpful to me as an adult talking to young people. And I realized also early on if I got below fifth grade, I was going to be in trouble. This is not my age group. Funny story. Real quickly, one day one of my. I was traveling North America with a company I worked for and they had individuals in these school districts who'd be my host and my buddy Joe arranged for me to go to the school and I said yeah, it's going to be junior senior high, right? Five through eight. I'm sorry, grades five through eight, right? Yep. Great. And we were in the auditorium and they started coming in. The eighth graders are coming in first and seventh and sixth. Then the fifth came in, then the fourth came in and the third and the second and the first and the kindergarten. They brought the whole Catholic school into the auditorium. I don't know what the misunderstanding was, but these kids are all geared up for a presenter to come and speak and you send back four grades. It's not a good look. I. To this day I'm not sure how I got through it. But the 8th grade mind and the 5 year old mind are slightly different. Sometimes they're the same. But it was an experience I will not soon forget. I did learn one thing though. Double and triple check to make sure the audience demographic is the one you expect, especially when working through a third party. That being said, this may sound like a unique principle that. But for me to be effective with youth audiences, I have to be genuinely interested in that demographic. Just having expertise as a speaker alone may sound good, but trust me, if you don't have genuine interest in the audience, and maybe the assignment was one you took reluctantly, but you have time. Once you say yes, you have time to find out who are these individuals, who are the young people, what's important to them, what connects with them? You know we have running jokes, Darren, listen man, if your laptop can't work, call an 11 year old. If you can't program your phone, call a 9 year old. We laugh about that. But if you know that they're into tech and they like video games, or if you kind of get a feel for what will make them laugh. Over the course of 20 years, when I began giving my talk to young people in 1995, I began using what I knew was familiar to them at the time. I had. Over the course of one presentation, I have changed my presentation, which was my World champion speech. And I made it a one hour talk for kids. But I've changed my references. The core is the same. Beauty and the Beast is always going to be there. But I've made references to what my kids like. When my kids were small, it was I love you, you love me, Barney. And kids laughed at that. That evolved. It became Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, Lala Po. I mean, I would adjust the references I made to the demographic based upon the culture of the day. To be able to do that, I had to be genuinely interested in what's important, what kind of TV shows. It went to Even Stevens, which hi, I LaBeouf, who's now an adult, talking about him and his father, a very serious act actor. But I had to know what was current at the time. Spongebob was the most long lasting reference I used, but I would get Teletubbies and Barney the Dinosaur. I mean, I had to find out what was interesting to them so I could better serve them. At one point I was talking about movies like I know what you did last summer. And I would say, I know what you did last winter. I mean summer. They would laugh because teens got that. And then it became Saw, Saw one, Saw two. I said, you saw Saw. I saw Saul too. I saw Saul too. And they'd laugh, but I would have to find you saw. I did see Saw my head though. And this all sounds kind of corny, but here's a principle. Over time, over a 20 year span, I had to, my, my presentation had to evolve because I had to be aware of what my youth audience understood and what was important to them. Now, of course, it's a principle for all our speaking what's current or demographic, but we use. You make the wrong reference, you lose them instantly. And it's, it is tremendously difficult to get them back. What music are they into? You could have. I could have said High School Musical at one point in time. That may not be what I'll say now. Okay, what are they watching? And you may not know. So what do you do? You ask. Here's the funny part, Darren. I don't know who else you asked besides me that day, but I found out very often your own. If you got teenage kids, you'll know. You get the eye roll on average 17 times a day, right? You try to be all cool and dance. Dad, no. Don't ever do that again. So maybe I don't ask my kids. Maybe I ask my nephew or my niece. Maybe I ask my neighbor's kids because like it or not, to your kids, their friends parents are more cool than you are. Conversely, you are more cool to your kids friends than their parents are. So my neighbor's kids, I can ask them. I go to my church, I can talk to kids at my church or a house of worship. Right. If I have any affiliation with a boys and girls club or the ymca, ywca, I may know people there. Hey, just get to know people who are in the different who are in that circle and have that conversation. And Darren, when you were competing back in 2001, you talked about your nephew Michael and how important he was to you. I'm sure he would have been a good source of content for you if you had that audience demographic at that time. Because he loves him some Uncle Darren. But. But these are all ways to make sure that the interest you show is genuine. And whatever you find out are tools to help you to connect with that particular demographic. Just like doing reading corporate reports will help you connect with your corporate client. It's the same principle, but with young people. If you get that wrong, it's a long hard climb uphill to get them back. And Darren, after you and I spoke that day and we had a conversation, how did that go, by the way, at a neighboring middle school?

Well, I mean, I had to really connect with them. Another source is the teachers, teachers of that year. That's why, like you're saying, the fifth graders are different from the 12th graders.

Right.

Different things are important to them and we have to connect to their world. And Mark, as you're pointing out here, I hope everyone notices Mark had to change so much every year because unlike adults, the hot topic is changing more rapidly. And so we don't have that time. So we've got to connect. What are they talking about now in the hallways? What are they talking about now? What are the words they use? And Mark, I'm gonna brag on you for a minute because you also had an Emmy nominated program that you did for youth.

Yeah, that was actually the speech I had modified significantly after winning the Toastmasters World Championship. And I really wanted to tailor it for youth. And here's the blessing about this, Darren.

Well, you had to add 50 minutes.

Duh, you think, right? How to find more stories and connect. And I realized that this may surprise you, but talking about my own experience as a child, their age made a huge difference because they said, oh, he's not some old guy. He's actually been there. He was teased by, by his tormentors when he was in secret. And they Were all girls. Ha ha ha. And I give kids permission to laugh at me to show my vulnerability, which means I'm not just talking at you. I've been you. Okay. And the Emmy nomination was a complete surprise to me because what had happened was. And they say here in Georgia, what happened were. What. What happened was. I. I had been asked. It was, I'll be recorded by some school somewhere. And it was submitted. And somebody. Main pbs, the public broadcasting system, heard about it. They contacted the company. We'd love to do a recording of him doing this with a live audience. Free camera shoot. Want to get. We want to provide a VHS videotape. Yeah, VHS videotape. It was the previous millennium. Give me a break. Okay. And also some support materials that was written to accompany a curriculum to accompany the program. It was broadcast on a pledge day. Was by Main public Broadcasting on a pledge day. Phones are ringing, and I'm doing this thing and I'm doing it live with three segments. So I had to cut off a certain point. Cut off a certain point was beautifully done, and it was successful. Great. I forgot about it. Phone call came one day. Mark, do you own a tux? Like, no. Why you need to get one? Why you gotta fly from New York to Boston? Because the program you did was submitted for judging to the national academy of television arts and sciences has got an Emmy nomination for outstanding youth and educational program. It's going to be at this particular place. The emcee is going to be. I forget what the guy's name is. He does America's funniest home Videos. Dick Bergeron, his name was. And you gotta be there for this event in case you win. I did not win the Emmy because that went to a production of the Diary of Anne Frank. And I'm not worried about that because, one, you're not gonna beat Diary of Anne Frank. And two, that was never my intent to begin with. But I got a lovely certificate. It's in a gold frame in my living room downstairs. My wife put it there that says I got an Emmy nomination. But that was never the intent. The intent was to serve the young people and to help them change the culture of the school. And to do that, I had to really make sure I had content that was suitable for that particular audience.

Yeah. Mark, I'm going to brag on you one more time.

Uh oh, here we go.

But there's a specific reason for our listeners. You often got great reactions from the kids where they connected with you after and followed up after because of the bullying and the Advice that you gave them, the inspiration you gave them, the help that you gave them. If you could just let us know a couple of those examples, obviously changing the name. And then here's my deeper question. Why do you think you affected them that much?

Okay. Wow. Didn't see that coming. You're welcome. Well, I'll tell two quick stories. One is of a young lady who sent me an email, and I talked about this when I gave a keynote at ToastMasters back in 2014, who sent me an email in which she wrote, you may not know me, but you came to my middle school seven years ago. Like, what? Yes. And she began to tell me the impact my message had on her and her classmates. She said, you may not know anything about us, but I want to tell you, to a bunch of ragtag kids who are trying to find their way, you made one hell of a difference. I'm like, wow, seven years later, boom. And then, just a young lady I'll call Janine. I met Janine when she was in the eighth grade at her middle school. I spoke there. I spoke to the students, I spoke to the teachers. I spoke to the parents at night. And she just connected with me. I went back and spoke at her eighth grade graduation. Four years later, Jeanine and I are still in contact with each other. She goes to high school, and she asks me, would you be willing to be our graduation commencement speaker? I said, sure, I'd love to do it. There's only one problem. She says, we've never had an outside commencement speaker before, but I'm going to work on faculty and admin to make this happen. And sure enough, Andrea and I drove north to outside Long Meadow, Massachusetts, spent the night, and I was able to deliver the commencement address at that particular high school. And one of the students there, when he was in a different middle school, they told him he was going to one day rule the world. He's now a state senator in Massachusetts. He's going to be president one day. But that young lady, Janine and I had built a relationship. I got to meet her parents, and she is now. I'm gonna say she's now either 38 or 39 years old. And we still have maintained a relationship. That's. That's a. You know, she is. She's 13. You know, that's 13. Plus 13 is 26, plus 23 is. It's like 25 years. What? What? I didn't see that. But I think the reason is one. I said before I was genuinely interested to. I listened to youth to Understand what would appeal to them. I understood what. What were the issues they were dealing with and what did I have in my experience with my skill of communication that I could then give to them that they would deem valuable? In that same school district, the school guidance counselor, I can't find the video anywhere. He called me the wise man of adolescence. But I would interact with faculty, with administration, with guidance, with school resource officers. I would talk with them and find out what's going on in schools today. I had, I was genuinely interested, primarily because my kids were also going through that same age group. But also I realized I had an opportunity to reach that demographic in a meaningful way. And I did it for years and years and years. One, because I was interested. Two, I believe I had value. Three, I listened to young people. I listened to them we meet in the hallway and they tell me their stories. I always carried a packet of tissues to every school assembly because somebody always wanted them. And here's another truth. I worked really hard on my presentation. I worked really hard on delivering something valuable that was entertaining, that was fun. But when it had to hit those kids between the eyes and made them face themselves. And there's nothing more powerful than when I get towards the end of my presentation and I use a beauty and the beast metaphor and I said, if you know one student, one student, male or female in your school, maybe in this room who you know feels like a beast because you know they've been mocked, teased, ridiculed, picked on, put down, pushed around, beat up, beat down, laughed at, called a name, pushed away. If you know one person who may have felt like, I give you a call back to a reference I made, or one person who may have felt like this skinny, knock knee, buck tooth kid from 1972. If you know one person like that, don't look around, don't make a sound, simply stand where you are. And I see 850 kids stand in a gymnasium quietly. Some of them are sniffling. I'm saying I am thankful I have an opportunity to use my expertise to touch the lives of young people. But it started with being genuinely interested in who they are dealing with. It started with understanding their world. It started with having those conversations with the faculty members and the counselors and the admins and the resource officers. It started with learning how to speak their language. It started in not just being interested in them, but also finding out what was interesting to them. And that's why to this day I tell people I think it's really cool, it's awesome, that Here I am in my 60s and kids who are 13 think I am cool. It's because they really genuinely know I have expressed an interest in them and I'm trying to find ways to serve them. These principles apply to our adult audiences on the corporates.

Amen.

But for youth, it can be transformative if we reach them where they are, and that was key. Now, if you're a speaker who's accustomed to adults like Darren was, and you go, man, I was asked to go talk at my kids sports banquet. What do I say to kids? In what ways are their experiences like yours? Did you play sports in school? What was your sports experience like? Tell your sports stories. And here's why we talk about a story folder, Darren. Here's why it's so cool. If they heard our episode last week about the story folder. I said, look at the seasons of your life. You probably have stories from your school years you've never dusted off. And they become applicable in principle and experience to what these kids go through. If they can see a bit of themselves in you, that's what connects. It's not that difficult just to have, to not think, oh my gosh, they're kids, I got nothing. Yes, you've been a kid, you've got so much to offer them. I've talked a lot, Darren, I didn't even shut you down. But you asked the question.

I just kept going, this is your jam. But I do have a question for you. And I just seriously, as we're sitting here thinking, for a youth audience, is your structure different from adults? Is your speech structure different or tighter?

That's a good question. I literally, now, I mean, now I need to go, I need to write out my, my speech again and do a walkthrough to really, really capture that. I had a school call me this week about coming to see them in the fall. So I'm going to have to go back to that speech because they want, they want that same speech. What? They want that speech, but structure, like everything else. Well, thank you. Like everything else, it has to be structured in a way. I know how I'm going to open and why. I open in a way where I get a reaction from the kids in the first 10 seconds, I get them laughing in the first 10 seconds in my open. So that's clearly there and everything I do leads somewhere else. If I didn't have structure, it'll never work because particularly with a youth audience, I'm being told now, well, let me back up for a second. My wife and I Had this conversation over the weekend. I was watching a commercial, something on television. I said, honey, look at this. Turn the sound off and see how fast the images change. We have heard talk about attention span. I haven't studied it. I'm no psychologist, but I realized if I am not cohesive, I don't have a direction where I'm going to lead. If I don't lead the story to point, to sidebar, to anecdote, to image, if everything doesn't flow with the proper structure, I will lose that audience. And again, it is very difficult to get a youth audience back if you're haphazard. If nothing else, you got to know where you're going. You have to have it down, structured. You've got to know your material. Some people are funny, they can wing it, and they can make kids laugh, and that's cool. But for me, call me old school, but it has worked. It earned me an Emmy nomination. It's earning me callbacks. I got a school calling me now. The woman who called, who sent me the email, I realized I'd been to her district years ago, but she asked for that speech. So to answer the question briefly, yes, structure is critical because you want to take your audience on a journey with a specific destination. The callbacks are intentional. The slides, and I use images. No video, just images of slides and drawings and photographs on my slides. Everything is structured strategically and for a purpose. I have found if I deviate from that, it's real tough to get that particular audience back. Wow.

Any other ways that a youth audience differs from an adult audience? Do you do anything differently?

Well, you know, I think I'm funnier looking for the youth audience.

And I hope you're not looking for an argument.

I'm used to being in gymnasiums and auditorium. I mean, the gymnast cafetorium. They want their purpose room. And I realize I do need a certain level of entertainment. I'm not an entertainer. I'm not, you know, Jeff Civilico. I'm not these guys who just work and do juggler. Dan Thurman. I'm not like that in my keyNote. It's me, PowerPoint microphone, but with the youth, a little something something. I do more visuals. I do a little bit more acting. I do more vocal characterizations. I take on characters because I realize I'm competing with the Disney Channel, with Netflix, with your video games. I have to be that much more engaging and entertaining for young people because they want that. They want to hear the lyrical beauty. I'll sing a line or two, and for those who are interested in a taste of what looks like. You can go on YouTube and you can look up the gold cast video that says father Gets Profound Advice from a Disney movie. It's about 14 minutes long. But what Goldcast Co. Canada did was they took the video of my presentation. They took excerpts out, they interspersed their own video, and they give you the essence of my presentation to youth. It's a great lead in that will cause schools to hear what I have to say. Say, but go look at that video. You get an idea. It's called Father Gets Profound Advice from a Disney Cartoon by Goldcast. And you'll see what I mean. We'd love to know what your thoughts are when you see that. You know, contact us and let us know what your thoughts are. And we want to hear what you think. But that is an example of how I engage you. I use humor, I use the props. I'm more animated. And I do all of that because I really want them to have an experience, not some guy come and talk at them saying, don't be a bully, be nice, and don't use harsh words. Anybody, nobody can say that over there. To laugh, to cry, to feel and to connect. I have to really work at being entertaining, but also showing my loving heart to them as well. So There it is. There It Is gets performed by from Disney Cartoon and It's got, oh, 168,000 views already. I didn't even know that. I don't check that. I really don't. And I suspect if you really maintain a good story folder, you have more to offer than, you know to a youth audience. Don't let them scare you. They need what you have. So be willing to avail yourselves through your local schools. Matter of fact, this morning, Darren, I went to a local academy and just sat with dean of students for an hour. And they're going to do a chapel service. They're going to start next month. I'm on the calendar for the end of September. All right, real quick. We got together, my family and I. We sat down to watch Beauty and the Beast. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I got hit. No, no, not by my wife. By what I call a daddy moment. I had to teach my kids a lesson. So I did the unthinkable right there in the middle the of. Of the movie. In the middle of the scene, I reached over and I picked up my VCR remote control device and I pressed rewind. You know, I replayed the scene and I forced my kids to listen to those words once more. And I must tell you that what we heard that night took us by surprise. We don't like what we don't understand. In fact, it scares us. This monster, he's mysterious, at least. So bring your guns, bring your knives, save your children, save your wives. We'll save our village and our lives. We'll kill the Beast. And suddenly, my daddy moment got dead serious. And here's why. As I sat with my kids watching a child's cartoon, it suddenly hit me that young people your age, all across North America bring their guns, knives, clubs, to school every day. Now, clearly, I do not mean physical weapons. No, don't get me wrong. Hear me carefully. Hear me carefully. When I say guns in brackets, I really mean words. When I say knives, I mean attitudes. When I say clubs, I'm talking about the ways that many of us have deliberately chosen to treat people in our own classrooms whom we don't like, whom we don't get, whom we don't understand. Because in some way, they're not quite like us. See, in some way, they are different, just like the Beast. But see, in school, different isn't always seen. In school, different is often felt a lot more deeply. Yeah. Yeah, it's out there. Thank you, Darren. I didn't know you found it so quickly drawn into it. I know.

I noticed how connected you were, how connected they were with you, how you were on even more, because you can tell, you care, your intention comes through and you're going a little bit faster. You're like at 1.25 speed.

That has to change. And I mean, that changes over time. Right?

But I think for that audience, you were connected. You were going at their speed, whatever that would be. And just. I think it's a powerful lesson. Now, obviously, there were visuals from Disney with permission, as well as music and things like that. But, Mark, I don't know if you've ever considered embedding that on a page in your website, but that's actually.

It's there. It's, it's, it's. It's going in. I think it's there. Now, I got. I gotta. I gotta look, because I did ask my webmaster to add that some time ago. I'm going to, actually, thanks to somebody's advice, take a second look at the youth page on my website, because I've now been going to look at more youth programs, but that video is on my site. I'm pretty sure it's under Youth that's speaking to youth. I have not done this while doing a podcast. Check my Own website, Excellence for Youth. On the youth page, it's the first video they see. Dad gets profound advice from a Disney cartoon. And below that is a description of the program. So anybody goes to my site and goes to Excellence for use, they'll see that video and they'll see that program description right there, as well as two others. And one is a sports metaphor called your championship season. So I do have a youth program page on my website if you're interested. Check it out. Contact me if you think your school could use it. That wasn't the intent of the podcast to market this, but since Darren asked, it is out there, and I'd love to find out how I could serve you if at all possible.

Yeah, Mark. Brownspeaks.com Markbrownspeaks.com Please, if you know of or have a youth audience, I want to plug this for Mark. Not just for Mark, but for the kids. For the kids that need to hear his message, because he can speak away. A lot of teachers, a lot of principals wish they could, and he just reaches them at a different level. Mark, I know the profound impact you've had on kids, so I am plugging you because you deserve it, because the audience deserves it.

I gotta tell you, it's kind of weird. I don't know why I feel so emotional right now, because I have really. I really cared about these kids. I was that kid. I can remember being in elementary school, huddled in a corner, just crying while kids laughed at me. And I don't want anybody to go through that. And I'm happy. I'm honored that I've been given the ability to communicate well, a message that has been timeless, that people need to hear. So, yeah, that's been my heart for the longest while.

As Rory said in our podcast with Rory Vaden, he said, you're uniquely qualified to help the person you used to be. It is because you were the kid huddled in the corner, embarrassed and hurt and shy. That is why I believe your heart is so connected to helping kids.

I appreciate that, my friend. You got me crying here, man. Come on. Stop doing this. The podcast. You're welcome.

Finally, your turn.

Hey, I have my tissue box right here in case I need it, so. But I will confess, I'm a little emotional. I think about it right now. It's just been. It's. It's been a blessing to serve a million kids with this message over the last 25 years.

Wow. Well, I hope there's a million more in even less time.

You're kind.

My brother, Mark Brown Final thoughts for people who have to speak to youth or even diverse audiences like just that connection.

My final thought is actually a dare I dare you to consider if this is something you should do. I'm not saying on a full time basis. I'm not even saying get paid to do it. I'm going to an academy to do a chapel service to inspire young people. As a Christian, that's easy for me to do. I'm not saying you must be a Christian. I'm saying is there a school in your neighborhood? Is it your child's school, your grandkids school who could use a message from your life experience? You haven't told what they need, especially now in a world that's so full of turmoil. That could inspire them, encourage them and lift them. Think about it. Better yet, take the leap and serve our young people.

Make sure you subscribe to our show.

Remember to subscribe because if you miss a week, you miss a lot.

If you like this episode, please leave us a review. If you want to get more from Mark and Darren, check out stagetime University where they provide experienced presenters a proven path and world class feedback. To become the speaker everyone is talking about, go to stagetimeuniversity.com join us next week if you're going to take the time to prepare a presentation. Make it unforgettable.