Ep. 174 Unforgettable Questions with Coach Jennifer Leone

Hey, Mark. When I think of the stories in our lives, the gold, the transformational stories, that we can sincerely be on stage, be in front of a camera and change lives, it comes from a deeper place. Well, if we want to go those deeper places, we think of unforgettable questions. Like Mark, the one you asked me, if you had a child in your life and you were going to die tomorrow, what one lesson you'd pass on to that child, which was powerful. Another person that I think of is Jennifer Leone, the only person who I sat with for five minutes and like a skilled surgeon, like a ninja, she just asked a few gentle, heartwarming questions and I was bawling at her kitchen table. So, Mark, I love you. You are my coach. And Jennifer is this amazing person that we've seen go from beginner coach to emerging coach to rock. So I can't wait to sit down with Jennifer.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcast 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.

Oh, Mark, sitting down with two people who've brought me to tears. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this, but I got Kleenex handy. Which you should always have when you're working with Sydney, Australia's own Jennifer Leone, one of our stage time coaches and one of our dearest friends in the world. And man, Mark, she is now working with Rockstars. We'll get into that. Welcome, Jennifer.

Thank you, Darren. I'm looking forward to all of this. And hi, Mark, how are you?

Hi, Jennifer. It's always great to get with you from the future.

Yeah, I'm closer to Christmas now.

Exactly. Always will be. Good to see you.

Nice.

Thank you.

Jennifer. Before we even get into the unforgettable questions that you ask because you have this way of just gently and calmly going into somebody's head, into their heart, into their soul and just pull out the essence of what we're really trying to say. Now, before we get into that, which is critical, you have a few of your clients who have done amazing things. Tell us, like you and I were talking before the show of somebody who called me and she was in Australia and I passed her over to you. And that was years ago. Tell us about Libby.

Yeah, this was about, I think, 14 years ago when she made that inquiry. She walked into the room. I never forget that day. She walked into the room and she had a great big fat folder and it was the script for her story. She sat down and began to tell the story of how she was once a nanny to the second richest billionaire in Australia, Richard Pratt. At that time on tv, it was. It was a big story because he'd passed away and he'd had an extramarital affair with a love child and had a love child. So this was really big. I remember coming back to my husband Paul and, oh, my God, you're not going to believe the client that I got today. I said, you know that news that's on tv? Well, now she's telling the story. And so we work. We worked on the story because she was going to present as a property developer with 10 other property developers in Australia and do a tour. So I worked more on her story. She said that the other presenters were going to concentrate more on how to make your money in property development. And I said, no, no, no, you've got an amazing story. Let's use the story to create the interest for your people. So she totally trusted me. We worked on her story and when she did her presentation and her, she was the one that had the longest line after the presentation. And the reason was people were saying to her, your story was so inspiring. We want to work with you. And that's exactly what the story does. The story shares who you are, what you believe in, and what you're prepared to do to help others. That's what the story was. It was her intro and that's when she realized the power of her story. And it went on and we worked over the years. She now has a child that's 8 years old with cerebral Paul Pausey. And it's been her mission since her child was very young to find some way or a cure to help her improve her mobility. She got 60 minutes on board here in Australia and it was the decision she made to carry over to America and get all the stem cell surgery that she needed for her child. So she's been being followed by 60 minutes and the progress has been amazing. Now 60 minutes in America are going to follow her story to the next stage and they're wanting to take her on tour and do speaking gigs. They said they like her style and the way she tells her story. And that's when she said, well, I've been Coached. And that's. And I only want to work with this coach, and that's me. But she also did a documentary, a film documentary on the journey of her child Isabella, and that won the best documentary in the New York Film Festival last year.

Wow.

Wow.

We know you have a lot of clients, and I think people listening, that they really want to hear, what are the questions? What do you ask? How do you know where to go? Because so many people have such gold inside of them. But I think a lot of people doubt and they think, well, my life's not that interesting. You just have this charming way about you and the clients that you work with. I know there's some clients you don't like to work with, which nobody does. But we talked about this again beforehand. People with egos, people who aren't quite coachable, but they come to you anyway. But you attract a whole different level of entrepreneur who want to tell their story, who want to help the world with their experience. So, Jennifer, what are some of the questions that you ask? Or what's your process? Walk us through.

So when the client sits down and tells their version of their story, I already know in my mind, they're only presenting to me half the story. So it's as if they've got the book of their life that they've teared out half of it, put that aside, and only presented half. So when I know that they're only presenting half, it's my job to find the other half of that story. So that when they present this story, it absolutely is going to be complete, and it's going to. It's going to have the wisdom that will attract the audience to be amazed of how they talk, told that story, and how they learned their lessons because of their story. And it's that wisdom that people find, the listeners that find that they're attracted to that, that, wow, they're actually quite open and equal and balanced and fair in the telling of their story. So when I ask questions, most people will stop. They don't know how to answer it straight away. So I need to help them. And one of the questions, because often they may feel, I'll give you an example of one lady and her story was that her mother had left her or abandoned her at a very young age. And I get this often in people's stories, that they'd been abandoned by a parent. And they will go on and say, oh, this happened, and that happened because I had no parents. And da da da, da, da, da da is the story. Then I asked the Question, what was the benefit of that parent leaving you or abandoning you? And they pause. They always saw the disadvantages because that's all they want to tell is the story of the disadvantages, of how hard done by they were. What was the benefit? And once they allow themselves to go back, all of a sudden they're surprised how much information they now have. Now I'll give you an example when where one, one woman said, oh, my goodness, if my mother had stayed, I would never have got the education that I did. I would have never have got the upbringing that. And she started to stack all the benefits of her mom leaving. And once she saw. Because at first she saw all the disadvantages. I never had this and I never had that. Everybody else in the street had their fun and with their parents, I never, never, never, never, never. Now all of a sudden, she sees all the amazing things that had come from the fact that her mom walked away. And then I never leave them there at that point because they're like, they've never, they've never looked at that story in that way. And all of a sudden they go, oh, my God, what? Actually, a lot of good came from this. And now they're presented with, I can now be actually grateful and not maybe hurt, hate that person as much as I thought I did. And then I'll say to them, can you see everything that you didn't get from one person? You actually got it through many others in your life. You got the father you wanted, you got the, you got the mother in a different form. Can you see that nothing was missing? And that makes them look and thought, oh, my God, I would now, you know, one, one woman went after her mother died. She was given the keys by her mother before she died. And she'd resented her for most of her life because she walked out of her life. She was given the keys to go back and clean her trailer. And when she walked in there, she had no idea her mother was a hoarder in a bad way. She had to cover her mouth. She was going to be sick with what she saw when she went into that trailer. And I said, what would your life have been living in this environment? Her mother was mentally unstable. She knew she would never have had the life that she now had where here she was working with 40 judges and doing a lot of help in the community. She would have never have experienced that. And that's when she said, I can't believe it. She said, you're right. I said, what did your mother say before she died? Because all she wanted from her mother was, give me a damn good reason why you walked out. And when her mother gave her, in her last, you know, moments of her life, gave her the truth, the honesty, she said, you would have been better off and would have had a better life without me. Now, she did not get that. She thought, that's it. That's it. That's the lousy. The lousy excuse you give me until we worked through the story. And I said, look, stand back in this infested trailer that you're talking about. Was she right when she said, you would have been better off without. Because she knew I got goosebumps. Oh, there's more to that story that blows you away.

You know, I need to comment real quickly here, friends, because I said earlier there's brilliance there. And I hope all the listeners and the viewers catch this. When you said, in that first story, Jennifer, the woman realized she got a father, a mother, and everything she thought she missed, she received somewhere else. Here's a brilliance. For me as someone who is interested in stories, it means that it's quite likely this individual and maybe our viewers and listeners may be in a situation where they received gifts, received benefits, received relationships from a different place. And we don't realize that each of those is a story in itself. So the story of a different father, different mother, different mentorship from different sources means each one of those sources is a story in itself. So my challenge for everyone listening to this is, are there relationships you have built out of a difficult situation that you may have resented? But if you change the question, what was the benefit? And reassess your experience, is it possible you will find not only the benefit you didn't know was there, but the stories behind those benefits to enhance what you offer to your audiences as you go forward? Please do not miss this. It's a gold mine waiting for you to tap into it. And we have to thank Mums Jennifer Leone for opening that idea to me and to all of us. Just brilliant.

Wow.

Because also she saw her mother in her story from a different light. It was, you know, poor me, poor me, the victim. It wasn't fair that I grew up without a mother. So without that gratefulness, she doesn't have the balance of her story. But, you know, by the time we work through her story, her mother becomes the hero.

Wow.

She couldn't. I saw that. Now I'll tell you. I'll tell you when. Here she is. She spent the whole day literally taking rubbish out of this trailer. She was disgusted by what she saw. And as she's telling the story, there is nothing good that she could even see in her mother. And she even said, as a matter of fact, she just said, after I finished cleaning the trailer, I sat down on her bed, I was exhausted and thought, God, I can't wait to get back to my family and wash my hands from all of this. And she bumped something in the, on her heel that was under the bed. And there amongst all the chaos I showed her, amongst all the chaos that she'd cleaned up, she found three identical suitcases sitting under the bed. And when she opened each of those cases, each case had the name of each daughter.

Oh, wow.

Now she's just telling me this as, you know, as a. As a matter of fact. And I go, so I'm already thinking in my head the other half of what she's not telling me. So she. Now this is how she says it. She said, here, I opened three bags, there were our names in it. And I noticed there was cash, equal cash in all of them. And then I noticed a bank book. And each bank book had $100,000 in each. Okay, so that's how she tells the story. And I go back, I go, let's go back again. Remember what your mother said, that you would, that you would be better off. And you can see now how you were better off. I want you to look at those three cases again. Sit back down on that bed. I'm going to take you back there. Sit down. Back on that bed. They would think about it. You were surrounded by pure filth and mess. And yet so orderly were three suitcases. Equally looking suitcase, equal amounts of money in each of these cases. Also, in every case, her mother, anytime she had a conversation in her head with her child, she would write it on a piece of paper or napkin and tear it and put in each of the suitcases. She also had cuttings and clips from anything she saw that they did well, you know, in a newspaper, in. In those bags. And I said, think about it, you know, we've seen it always in movies. If you're ever going to hide your money or something precious, the old people used to hide it under their bed because you could sleep on it and protect it. And I said, isn't that what your mother was doing? The one thing that she did do as a mother was protecting. These were her daughters. They just came in the form of three suitcases. And I said, isn't it ironic that no one got less or more? You equally got loved in her way. Now her mother abandoned her on the day that her father died. And this was the insurance money. And out of all the chaos that her mother lived in, she never spent one cent of that money. She equally. She put it in three of these cases, and you could see all the deposits of money, little bits of money in the bank books. I said, what did you do with that money? She said, well, it helped pay my house off. How did that help you? Immensely. I said, you were loved in her way, not in your way, because that's where it was aching, because she wanted it in her way. Her mother loved her in the way she knew how. And I said, you were never forgotten. Equally, three daughters were loved, were protected in her way. Three. And that, you know, blows my mind that she put the name on each of those kids. Nothing, nothing was. That was orderly. That was the only thing in her life that was orderly. And it was the only thing she could do in the way she could do it. You know, that woman cried and cried with pure gratitude because she thought she was never loved, because she was so stuck that she was abandoned. And she. I said to think about how much this has now helped you. She did help you in her way. And you were never, ever forgotten. Every conversation she ever had with you in her head was on a piece of paper in every. In every one of those bags.

Yeah.

Can you see? It's a totally different story now.

Not only that, from whatever it leads to another question that you did not dive or delve too deeply into, but you asked her, how did it help you? And she mentioned that it helped her pay off her house. My brain goes, what would it have looked like if you didn't have that blessing from your mother? How your life would be different? And when you say pay off your house, what is that? You go deeper. What does that really mean to you? Your husband, your kids? And if we ask some of these questions, what does that really mean? So it part is. Part of it is getting that second half of the story out. But you always talk about going deeper and deeper and deeper. And we could spend the next hour dissecting this one exchange. And I hope everyone catches something that Jennifer said earlier in the conversation. The idea of the three valises, the three suitcases with the money and all. That was an aside. It was a. Oh, by the way.

It was a fact.

Yeah. And it's very often what happens is we don't. We don't think it's important enough. It is important for us to dig deeper into a small fact of our lives. And we often may want to throw something away. It's not significant. I asked Darren about it, you know, a life tragedy or difficulties. And he mentioned in his contest run back in, oh, one. Well, I have this, you know, subway story. I joke, I tell him, I said it once in a while, so tell me. And when I asked about that, it became a linchpin and a significant hinge in the story, because at the time, it was just a joke you told in your routine at a comedy club. And I love the fact, Jennifer, you ask these kind of questions. You are seeking to go deeper to get not only the other half of the story, but they may very well be additional details, facts, revelations, value wisdom and aha's that the individual needs to be awakened to. But think of what you can do for your audience when you allow yourself to ask and answer these unforgettable questions.

And also, too, it shows your audience that how you were willing to debrief the lessons you've learned. And it also painted a different picture of her mother as well, that, you know, that takes courage for you to look at that. And that. That totally, she said, that has made such a difference to her own experience. Now when other people listen to this, they. They start to realize, well, there is another half to my story. I never considered it. When I was training a group of priests, 45 priests, there was a bishop in the middle of the group. At the end of the presentation, he came up and he said, thank you for the pep talk that we needed. But he said, I never considered it from the parishioner's point of view. Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

Whether it's parishioners or whether it's an audience, we need to consider them. This is what. This is why we do what we do for them. But we. We need to do the work on our. So we need to do the homework on our side of our story.

Your story is about you, but it's for them, right, Darren?

Yeah.

So consider the audience's perspective. I'm going to make a note of that. It is gold right here.

You know what I. And there was a lesson I learned in listening to, because it was just before I was about to walk on to do the. To work for the priests, that this little elderly man came up and shook my hand. He said, I'm really looking forward to this. He said, I'm the archbishop of Wollongong. In my head, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, I got the head poncho. Oh, my goodness. But he took. He took the most notes. He took the most notes. He asked the questions. And I thought that. That what. That is what makes a leader. He's willing to learn, or she's what you are willing to learn. And we. We need to be that. Even as a coach, we're constantly learning, constantly listening to. I watch what people do also in their body language. I listen. I listen to the. To the voice. Once I did a. I did a webinar where the man that interviewed me really didn't do a very good job of it. And I was a bit upset at the end of it, and I thought he could have got more. But anyway, he didn't. But I got a call half an hour after that, and the man said, I want to book you in for coaching. I think you're the right person. So I asked what made you consider me, since it was a pretty bad interview. And he said, yeah, I have to agree, it was. But he said, I have left the police force. I was chief in charge of hostage and terrorist negotiations here in Sydney. Wow. And he said, in my job, often we were in situations where we couldn't see the perpetrator. I would be either in a car communicating with them or around the corner in a building. I could only hear their voice, so I would have to determine what type of personality am I working with just by their voice. And he said, and that's exactly what I did when I listened to you on the webinar. I knew you would be honest enough to tell me the truth about how to work with my book and my story. So we. We also go to, you know, where is our intent? Because people hear it. People will understand. Where is our mindset when we do what we do, when we speak? Again, a lesson I learned from what he just said. That's all he wanted. All he wanted was to work with someone that would be honest enough. Well, when you're honest enough, you also care enough. And when you care enough, you. You need to tell them everything you need to tell them. And it may not all be rosy, but in the end, it's. It's about a win win for them and for the people they speak to.

And for everyone listening. We're not psychologists. We're not therapists. We're coaches. Yet in that one example of the woman with the mom, I would be willing to say that it sounds like some healing occurred by just having the perspective of seeing the good that came out of it. Our biggest tragedies are often our biggest opportunities for gifts. If we see them that way.

You know, I'm curious, Jennifer. There may be listeners right now wondering, well, yeah, that's a really good question to ask. But some of you wondering, are there any standard and lack, for lack of a better term, generic questions that you always ask? You know, are they one or two? You always ask that they kind of get the ball rolling that get people to open up and to dig deeper into their own story. Because very often we, we've all heard those speakers who tell very surface stories, almost like a reporting. Are there any particular questions you asked that can open that door a little bit or to widen the crack?

Usually it's those two. What, what is the. The benefit of that happening? Or what was the drawback? Now, when I ask that and they give me an answer, I hook onto that answer and go, okay, what was the drawback of that? They give me another answer, then what was the drawback? And all of a sudden we will get closer and closer to the real essence. Like one woman I worked who hadn't spoken to her mother in eight years. She was from the Asian culture, and her mother didn't want to have an interview with her because she was, she. She was, she was married to a woman. And she, she couldn't accept that. And she did have a child. So when I worked with her and her story, she already knew what she was upset about and angry about and down about. But all I wanted, all I wanted to work with, okay, her mother. Why would her mother think that way? And she. Then she started to what was the, what was the drawback? What was the drawback of that and that? And then she realized, well, it was her mother's culture in the 50s. And she, all she wanted to do was push me and push me excel at academic subjects and da, da, da. So she saw all the things from the point of view of her mother. Now that made her think, oh, my goodness, she may have had her reasons, even though in my day, my modern day, that doesn't fit, but I can understand it. She appreciated that and she appreciated that there was two sides that she did. Her mother had her side, her story. I get an email from her a few weeks later. She had the courage to go interstate to meet her mother after eight years. And in this email she said, I wanted to thank you. I met my mother, she welcomed me with open arms, and my daughter. And I have to say I want to thank you because it meant so much to sit down and have my mother cook a meal for me and we shared a meal at the table. Now, her mother was from a different light and a different angle when she walked in to tell this story. How dare she judge me? How dare she judge me? She now got to see her mother, had her story, and she had a right to her story. And all she said that was worth to sit down and have her cook for me. Now she got to witness her mom did love her, but in her own way. That's another. Another statement or a question. How did they love you in their way, not your way.

I know when you say that, I think of my sister's an amazing cook and an amazing host, and that's like her love language. Just be able to cook for people. Like, that's not my love language. I don't even like to cook for me. But we all have our own way of saying I love you to someone. And I think that's also what I take from this, too.

Most of my life, I have never, ever. I'm now 66, but I have never, ever been hugged by my mother. Never. And I resented that. I looked at others. And now she does love me, I know that. And she will cook. When you're sick, she's the first one to make you a pot of soup. I now learned when I looked at my story with my own mother, every time she did that, I felt the hug her way. There is two halves to the story, and I've seen her go out of her way. If you say, oh, mom, you haven't made this in a long time, boom, it's there. That's her hug. So now nothing is missing.

What's your hug? What's your mom's hug? What's your dad's hug? That's a. That's a great question. Because a lot of us think we want to receive it the way we want to receive it, but that might not be their way.

So, you know, I had a man who was a veteran who was so angry and upset that, again, his father had abandoned him. He never got the fatherly love. And, you know, when I asked again the question, what if he had stayed? That's another question that I asked. What if they had stayed? And that's an amazing thing I found with every person that I asked that question. What if they stayed? What have they given you what you wanted? What would it be like then? And he said straight away he knew it, but he'd never even had asked that question or even given it a thought. Had he stayed, he would have been an alcoholic, he would have beaten on my mum, we would have been out on the streets and da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Where would you be? Would you Be where you are today. And he goes, no.

Wow.

It's interesting. The last time I told a story was maybe a month ago on a clubhouse call one evening. I don't do clubhouse a whole lot, but I was asked to be a speaker, a storyteller in a storytelling club on clubhouse. And I chose the title was Wounded. I based the story on a statement made by a very well educated, erudite speaker and writer who said that men carry wounds with them and the most painful wound comes from your father. It led me to question what was the wound my father left on me? But using a Jennifer Leone technique, I flipped the question. I began to look and search deeply. In what ways did he not wound me? In what ways did he bless me? In what ways did he serve me? And my seven minute story became 23 minutes because other speakers were very, very short. And I was given time to finish it. But I realized in my story, I began to unearth the times. My father built a ping pong table by hand because he couldn't afford to buy one for me to play ping pong. All my football games, soccer games, he came to in the National Stadium when I was 16 years old. And I began to recount all of these by simply flipping the question, not how did he wound you? How did he. Not how did he bless you? How did he. How was he a good dad? And it led me to look at my own life. And the truth is this. I called, I have two sons. One is 28, one is 36. I called both my sons to ask, have I wounded you? And we had some wonderful, deep conversations as a result of, of asking a better question.

Life changing, unforgettable questions, you know, because.

What hurts you also helps you. You've got to. If you take the time, you will find it. Because, you know, a lot of these stories are also about, you know, being told, you're never going to make it. You're never going to make it. Thank God some people got that because when they got that, that was the power that they needed to make something of their life.

You're stunned, Darren, in the silence, Jennifer, you're starting with the silence.

There's a story all my life that I finally had the courage to work on and I found because I could never ever find what the damn benefit would have that have been until now. And it finally hit me. I had a very strict father. Every now and then he'd be great. So I wouldn't say he was always strict, to be fair, but when he told you something, you did It. When there was a command. And for some reason, he. When he'd have visitors over, he thought it would be cool to show his strength as a. As a. As a leader, a commander. And if I said something or silly, he would send me to the corner in the kitchen cupboard. Kitchen cupboards. Now, he didn't make me stand in the corner and look at everybody. It was worse. He made me turn around with my head in the corner. That's even more humiliating. I remember that. And I thought to myself, because this is a question I ask, why is it that I always get so upset when I hear or see someone being unfairly treated? It just. It brings out the lion in me. I want to protect him. I thought, why do I do this? And I worked through the story, and I remembered, oh, my God, my dad, when he had visitors, he would say, get back. Get in the corner now and turn your head in there. And the poor physicist would go, oh, don't do that. Poor little thing. But, you know, don't do that. And he goes, no, no. He wanted to show his strength. I would be so long in that corner that I would fall. I would fall asleep. But this is what I ask my clients in those moments, what did you tell yourself? And when I went back to that corner, I remember, oh, my goodness. I used to. I know I said to myself, I would never make anyone feel like that.

Wow.

And. And I thought, what was the benefit of being in that corner now? Tell me. Most of my life, there was no benefit until now. And I thought, oh, my goodness. I remember what I used to do in that corner because I couldn't had my head buried in the corner of the kitchen cupboards. I could listen to the voices of everybody talking, the guests. And I would try and work out whether happy or sad, what were they? I was trying to work out where they were coming from by the tones of their voice. Here's this child. Wow. And this. This is something that I do all the time. Now. You can put me on a punk bench for hours, and I try and work out people's personalities. This is where I got my practice. And then I asked myself, how does that serve you now? Oh, my goodness. As a coach, this is a huge benefit for me. Now I get to read people. Where is their mindset? I read their body language. I read their tone. Where are they coming from? I thank him for that. He had no intention, unbeknownst to him, that this is what he was giving me. And in most cases, they didn't know what they did. You Know that they're giving you that benefit. But that was very painful to bring back up in the opening. Wow. Instead of, you know, hate and resentment, he had no idea what he also gave me. That's a huge benefit of me. For me today. A, I do care about other people and I will stand up and fight for you if you're unfairly treated. I thank him for that. I thank the opportunity that I now have to really listen to people's hearts speak, even when I, when I'm buried in a corner. And now, now you tell a different story. And what is amazing about that is when you work with people to tell their whole story, they come from a different place when they tell it. Because they say to me, I can't wait now, I can't wait now to tell. Because it's now a full story, a full book. It's not half a book torn out. It's both sides of the page of that story now.

Wow. So I think one of the skills that you have is the initial questions. Yes. And it's then your natural trigger that was trained from standing in the corner to feel, sense, know, detect that there's more there. We're going in, we're going in. We're going in for more. I think that's one of your huge ninja skills, is that you have that ability not just ask the question and then ask the the question, but it's also to hear what's behind the answer to that question. Are there any more questions that we haven't covered that might just help people to self discover, if you will. This has been super powerful.

As I mentioned before. When I hook onto one of their answers, it will help me uncover naturally, okay, what, when that happened, what did that give you? What did that make you do? What did that. So it's just a natural progression from asking one question, waiting on whatever answer they give you, and you hook onto whatever that answer is and go, oh, that's interesting. Where did that take you? Where did that lead you? What did that do? What was the benefit? And they, they may. Then it will trigger a memory of something they'll say to me, oh, my goodness, I never thought about that in years. That's all. I just want to trigger memories that are sitting there that have been left in the cupboard and not opened and seen the light of day. I know it's simple, but it's part of. Sometimes I do it on a whiteboard if they're there with me and they will look at their whole life plan where they asked a question that left them to it said it did this for them. Okay, well, what did that do? Well, that made me feel this. And where did that go? And all of a sudden they go, oh, my goodness, now I know why I do what I do. They get to unravel it.

They get to their own why.

Never, never stop at the one answer they give you. That answer is leading you to the next question.

Always ask the next question.

Always. And I usually now do exactly what I used to do in that corner. I do get a buzz or sometimes I have, like, an internal tear where. Oh, my God, that was it. And that was that woman. When I said to myself, when she said there was equal amounts of money, there was a hundred thousand in every bank book and all those notes. And I thought, oh, my God, she was loved. She was not forgotten. She was loved. I knew that was it. You could. That's it. That's the essence. That's that. That's the. The diamond. That is what it's all about.

And you know, Jennifer, my brain connected that story to your story of the baking and the hugs. In this woman's case, the love was made manifest in the preparation and protection for their future, which was not obvious to them. And in your case, you said it was. She cooked for you. And the cook became the hug. And we have to understand. What it made me realize is. And we talk about different love languages, but it really reinforced to me the idea that we are loved, but not always in the way we expect to see it manifested, because each person's love language is different. But if we take the time to think about the experiences, perhaps we will then ask different questions, change our perspective, and find that there is actually more to the story. Or we can go deeper. And my biggest takeaway right now is don't stop at one question, because we've only got the first half of the story. And for those who are coaches or who are advising others having these conversations, have we stopped at the first question? And is there more for us to unearth and uncover as we dig deeper? That's food for thought.

And I always ask, what did you think or say to yourself at that moment? Whatever that moment that they give me, what did you say now? I allow them to stop and pause, but once they remember, it just flows out. It's not forgotten. And I remember saying, just like the. The story I told you of Libby with the child who has cerebral palsy, there's a part in her story where she was a troublemaker at school. So when it came to her formal or what do you call your prom?

Prom? Yeah.

Yeah. They, they had a dinner and they had a presentation given by the students to other students. And the presentation was an award given to the one most likely that would end up in jail. And they call out Libby Lombardo. Now, when she said, when she tells this story, I remember she even told this in front of Darren. I then asked the question, what were you thinking when you were walking up to get your reward? Because that's where the gold is, not what you did. What were you thinking? Because that's the internal story. And she said, I remember walking slowly. I remember hearing the laughs because they thought it was so funny. I remember that I smiled with them because I didn't want to show them the pain. I said, once you got that award in your hand, what did you say to yourself? One day I will prove you wrong. You wait. I will. That was the power, the energy that woman needed. And to this day, here she is winning the award for the best documentary, who's now going to be speaking with Anthony Robbins. They're organizing that for her and she's going to be on the circuit in America. I will prove you wrong was all she need. Now her story. Wow.

Amazing. Amazing.

Jennifer, as we kind of wrap up, want to honor your time here. Where can people find Jennifer leone? I know one is jenniferleone.com au and you can also find her on getaspeakingcoach.com she's one of our faculty at Stagetime. We do coaching calls every first Wednesday with Mark and Jennifer working with our stagetime members. So one way is contact her directly. You could also check out stagetime, be a part of our coaching calls. And watching Mark and Jennifer work together, it's just like watching Masters that the questions that you ask Jennifer and it's your heart and man, where else would people find you?

Well, I mean, the website would be that and, and you can send an email and I do zoom calls. And I just briefly, briefly want to say I am where I am because of you, Darren. And I remember the moment, I remember the moment after being with Toastmasters for quite a few years that I wanted to take this further. I realized I had something. I didn't know how it was going to happen. I knew I had something that I could offer that I wanted to help. And it was when I found your ad in the Toastmasters magazine. And I remember looking at it thinking, I'm going to do it. I'm going to actually buy an air ticket, go to America and I'm going to do your course. And I love my husband dearly, who said, yep, do it. And I remember walking in and I walk into the travel agent. I paid for it. I thought, oh, my God, I did it. I did it. Now here I am with a family of eight children. I'm going to leave them for 10 days into this course. Now, when I paid for that course, it was on a Friday. On the Tuesday after that, our son was killed tragically. And something that we didn't see coming. It was an accident. Now, it was six weeks after his funeral that I realized I had these tickets. Oh, my goodness. I can't do it. I can't do it now. And that's when my husband says, you got to do it for all of us. You got to do it for Samuel. You got to tell this story.

That's a story right there.

So when I. When I came to you, I was. And you'll see photos where I'm all in black. It took a lot of guts and a lot of courage. So I believe in what I do, and I made, you know, massive sacrifices for what I do, and I will continue to do that. And it's because of you. And remember, it was because of you also that I. I invited you to come to Australia and we host you and Craig. I'm all in. And I'm all in with you and stage time and the people that I've met because of stage time. This, your baby, your family. So you. You couldn't get more caring people at stage time. And I've been to many courses here in Australia. Nothing. Nothing even shines because they are about their egos here. It's about the heart and the pure intent that we. We cultivate at stage time. So, yeah, I'm forever grateful for that. Thank you, Marc.

I live in the desert, but, man, there's some moisture in the air here.

Yeah, I know. I think. I think it's a dust. It's causing your eyes to get misty there. And in the words of the late, great Paul Harvey. And now you know the rest of the story. And Jennifer, thank you for helping us to take a second look at finding out the rest of the story, the second half of the story. And you left us a few nuggets today, a few keepers. I'm going to run through a couple very quickly.

You.

You made a statement earlier. You said. You said your story. Use your story as your intro. And our stories are great tools to introduce us to our audiences. People often share half their story. Our job is to find the other half. Ask about the benefit. Not always a disadvantage in a difficult situations, consider the other person's point of view to give you a better perspective and then you'll dig deeper. True leaders must be willing to learn and as you ask questions, ask the same questions but at different levels. As you go deeper, if you are suffering a loss, a good question to ask is not why did they go? But what if they had stayed? And Key Question what do you tell yourself in your moments in the corner? I'll say that again, what do you tell yourself during your moments in the corner? Question I'm going to phrase it my own way. Is there a present in your pain? Is there a gift in your grief? And don't forget there's always another question. Always ask the next question.

So hey there. Join us next week when we're going to watch Jennifer or hear Jennifer in action doing what we call a story dig on one of us. Wow. Jennifer, we're thrilled to have you as part of our family. We love you, we adore you and you help so many people tell their story and be on Unforgettable. See you next week.

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 experience, 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.