Ep. 187 Are You Speaking in 3-D?

Hey there, Mark Brown speaking in 3D.

Yeah, do I need glasses for that? Do I need a red and a blue lens or.

Yep, gonna run to your local movie theater to see if you can figure out how to look at this. So, Mark, you and I just had a coaching client for three days, Bruno, over here from Germany to work with us one on one for three days. And this, we maybe mentioned some of the aspects before, but we really put this to use and I really found it powerful. And so I thought we would share with them about speaking in 3D.

Let's do this.

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.

Hey there, Mark Brown. This is just like. I got so excited about this. It's so simple, yet it's so powerful. And what's interesting is when we started working with Bruno. So just to give you some background in this, Bruno came over from Germany to work with Mark and me. So he was at my house, we used my living room and Mark was joining us virtually. By the way, if you're listening to this, I'm gonna do my best to describe it. If you're listening to the audio podcast, we're gonna do our best to describe it. We feel we'll get it. But we also have a YouTube version that you can see. Bruno and me and the setup and its. This involves post. Its Mark Brown speaking in 3D.

Strong visuals too. I do want to offer a caution here. This is a powerful idea and I know in some spots it may resemble what we discussed in episode 26 on Stageology. That's only a small part, so I want to make sure you don't think we're going to be the same material. We're not. But this 3D idea will give you a different look as a presenter of how you can prepare yourself to really connect with the audience in a three dimensional way on a flat stage. This is so cool.

All right, so if you're watching here, you'll see this is Bruno. So Bruno, super happy. He's an engineer. Engineer. And he tells great stories in emotion. And we just, we had so much fun with him. We've never done this One on one, three days, all day, same person, and it was just delightful. So he's a happy guy. Great guy. Super smart, too. Mark, your take on Bruno first.

Pardon me?

Your take on Bruno first.

Oh, beside being brilliant, I was honestly very impressed that someone with a strong engineering background confessed to us that unlike many of his counterparts, he was very big on emotion, his heart came through and he was delightful to work with. He was a spongebob. And man, if every giant could be as spongy as Bruno, it'd be truly be a wonderful experience for all of us when we work together.

Yeah. He defines coachable.

Yeah, yeah. Good guy. Really good guy.

I would not want to spend three days, all day with someone who was not coachable. I'd be like, you know what? Here you go, here's your money back.

Well, all our listeners and friends are highly coachable. Right, Darren? As far as I know. So it'd be good.

Yeah, well, most of them. Let's just say most of them. All right, so look, here's the idea. So, number one, one of the things we did is we walked through the process that we work with speakers and we walk through the Fripp speech model. He sent us his speech ahead of time, and it was good, it was long, it was a lot of great ideas. And then I said, you know what? If we're going to work with you, we think in the Fripp speech model. So I sent him the. The Fripp speech model, which he was aware of, but I said, this is how we're gonna do this. So he went through the whole program again. The audio, which is also the same as the book, deliver unforgettable presentations. He went through it all again. He came back and he had it new and he had the Fripp model version of his speech. And Mark, I know this happens. Any insights in this? But when somebody creates a speech and it's almost like you give it space, you give it air, and then you come back to it. But now he's got the structure that we wanted to follow. It's a little bit of work, but I could hear it in his voice that it began to crystallize. It began to get clearer and stronger. And so almost just giving him that homework gave him a big step before he even came to the house.

Yes. Because he mentioned in one email he got kind of mess in his mind because he wasn't accustomed to that particular structure. But when he got used to it, he said, ah, now it makes sense. I can change, I can move it really Gave him the freedom to develop his speech in a way where he felt he could really connect with the audience. And a blessing for us was hearing him say, I'm now that much more confident having this model to help me deliver the presentation. That was powerful.

And to piggyback on stageology, go check out that podcast if you want to go deeper on this. But just to lay the groundwork for, for me personally, I need to anchor the places on the stage when I'm working on new content. I need to say, okay, this story is here, this story is here. And so one of the things we had him do, again, same thing. He had that challenge where he's not a memorizer, which is not what we recommend, an internalizer. But partway through day two, I was like, you know what? We need to. And I pulled out the post its. So it's all about the post its. And I said, you know what? Cause I had explained to him what I did, but I said, you know what? We need to do this. So I pulled out the post its and wrote down point of wisdom 1, point of wisdom 2, point of wisdom 3. For him, it was essentials. So he teaches people and helps people going through mergers because he's been through mergers before. So he's brought in for this big speech. If you're listening to this and you know someone going through a merger, Bruno Hartman is your guy. We love him, we're fans of him. His heart is so big. It was beautiful.

But to have the, you got a good heart, man. No, I had to do one bad pun, Darren. Bruno Hartman has a good heart, man.

So the first step was laying out, he called them again, essentials. So we had essential one, essential two, and essential three. So what we do is just to at least at the beginning, literally lay out a post it on the floor on stage right, audience left. And that is where essential number one would be from. And we said, for now, just that's where you're going to deliver all the content related to point of wisdom one. And then we had point of wisdom two was in the center. And then point of wisdom three, or in his case, essential number three is on the right. And just I said, when you go home, when you're practicing in your bedroom, in your living room, literally take these post its or create some that has some keywords or key phrases and literally put it on the floor. And this, this is those of, you know, nlp, this is anchoring Neuro Linguistic programming. This is anchoring. And for me, it's okay. I stand Here I get it. I stand here I get it. And so I used it when I was working on my championship speech. But we take the actual FRIPP speech model and almost put it on the floor. And then we go stand in that place and deliver that insight, Mark your thoughts.

And that's really three dimensional in that you physically have a location where a scene takes place, something critical happens, or a moment in the speech, or simply put, as Darren says, your first essential, your second or third essential. When you have a location assigned to each of those, it becomes easier to remember what you say in that place and it can trigger the thoughts you share with the audience. And we'll talk a bit more about how you use that space to create a more of a 3D experience as well, from the speaker's perspective, not only from the audience perspective. Nice.

And here's where we go 3D. Here's where we go three dimensional. We're going to talk about two particular stories. One was him in his office. They were both in his office. One was him in his office and noticing again, talking about mergers, he had heard a crane and was startled. He looked out there, the window, and noticed that the crane was taking down the old company logo and putting up the new company logo. And so I had noticed that each time he delivered it, he kind of looked in a different direction. I said, ah, here's where we now the post its are going 3D. They're not just on the floor now. Now they're on a lamp or he calls a lantern over there. English, his second language, but his English is probably better than mine. And so we needed a for him to look where, that's where the crane is. So we need the angle of view and the direction of view. And so what Mark and I teach is, okay, let's find a spot that to the audience it looks like you're looking out an office window. And so what's the angle and what's the direction? We want to keep in mind that we may have people on the extreme right, so we want to angle it so they can still see our micro expressions on our face. And people on the extreme left and whatever direction we're angling that they can see it. So we need a place. But when you're telling your stories, the audience needs to go there. And what this also helped him do was to relive it as well.

Right, right. And when you relive it, you simply aren't retelling it. And please catch the beauty of this when you can create the 3D comes when the audience sees you look off in a distance and they can see distance in the way you look, they can see proximity, they can see height and depth and angles. It truly becomes 3D. And the post its were magnificent tools to create that from Bruno's point of view as a speaker to create a more realistic experience for the audience so they could see as he saw. That's where the 3D really kicked in. And it was so powerful.

So by this picture, if you're watching the YouTube version, off to the left, if you're listening to the audio, off to the left but up high, I have a lamp hanging from my second story ceiling over my kitchen table. So to him where he was looking, it was up and to the left. So I put the post it on, on the lamp, on the lamp and he looked at that. So now he had a spot to look at each time the same spot. Now when you move into the meeting room, we'll actually be doing it. We will have conditioned you to look in that area. So now you look on the wall for maybe an exit sign, maybe mirror that's on the wall, maybe a light that's in the room, but where is the approximate angle? So when you get to the room, now we say, okay, I've been working in my living room and this is the angle. Okay, what's close to that that I can use as my representation? Because what we want is consistency. We want consistency and you to relive it. So. And it has to look realistic so you don't can't look out the window and be looking down at your feet.

Some people do sometimes.

That would then cause confusion. So this is what it looked like from I stood where Bruno was standing and took a picture of what it looked like from his perspective. So he looked at these two different spots for these two different portions of the story. So if you're watching the YouTube version, this is him looking at the lamp hanging in the kitchen. And that represented him noticing the crane looking out the window.

And you'll see here, Darren, the angle of his head, he's turned to his left, his chin is up because he's looking at a huge crane outside the window. It's very realistic because now the anchor spot or the post, it creates a strong visual with as little detail as the angle of his chin as he looks up and out the window at a distance. It's very, very real. And please catch something else, friends, we're asking you to, when you use this technique to begin to identify locations in any room in which you speak where you can use this technique to create that realism. Some rooms, and Darren loves this, have columns erected with chairs behind it. We don't know why that is, but perhaps you can use a column in the room. That may seem inconvenient in the moment, but it could be a tool to help you create that. Three the effect.

So the first part of this merger story was seeing the crane. So he describes the crane. We want to focus on the angles in the 3D portion rather than the story portion.

Correct.

Mark, if you remember too, though, when we did this the first time and we gave him some of the internal dialogue, he felt it. I could see him there. He delivered differently. Once we gave him this idea, it.

Helped him to relive the moment. And thankfully, Bruno was not afraid of his emotion and he really delivered. At one point, I think you cheered when you say, yes, that's it. Because it connected. It was so real, he genuinely relived it. And having the post it anchoring the location of the crane and the window, he could remember the emotion of seeing it happen and how his co worker responded. That was very effective.

And in the story, he first noticed the crane. We talk about that. And then he notices his colleague looking out the same window. So if his colleague is looking out the same window, the colleague is not at the height of the window. The colleague is in a different position. So what we did was we then had him look down like he's looking more across the room, so down from the up, but at a different angle as well. So if you're watching the YouTube version, you can see we barely see his eyes. But in this shot now, where he's looking at his colleague, we can see his eyes because his face has turned a little. So this is a way to relive it. But now we're getting it. We understand we can see that he sees his colleague, so he has to mention the other character. But now the colleague was another post it on the half wall between my kitchen and my living room. So again, going back to what it looked like, here's what it looked like to him. Up high, farther to the left, lower a little bit to the right. But this helped him again establish the story. Mark, any more thoughts on that?

The beauty of that is you could be standing in one physical location in the speaking area, but it becomes very clear to your audience exactly what you are looking at. And if you're in conversation exactly with whom you are speaking. This is a powerful technique, when used well will transform the experience your audience has when you Present to them.

Yeah. And then we had another story, which is his closer. Great story about Zeno, one of his employees that he managed four year old son. And the powerful lesson that the son taught him. His daddy's boss. His daddy's boss. So when we first looked at this story, we had a different situation. Now he was still at his office, but it's a different day and different time. And here's a knock on the door and the colleague comes in. Now he's sitting at his desk. So if he's sitting at his desk and a colleague comes into, knocks on the door and comes into your office, what direction are you going to look up? Mark?

Generally where the door is.

Where the door is and up.

Exactly. And because they're taller, they're standing, you're sitting.

Correct.

An angle and up. Correct.

So when we first started doing this, we had it. My first thought was, okay, I put it on the lamp, I put the post it on the lamp. But then sitting there looking at Bruno, I was like, something's wrong because he sit at his desk, but he's actually looking down. Okay, that's not right. So then I changed it and I only get him to look up. Well, I went from the door up to a fern in my living room, put the post it on the fern to get him to look at the right angle, approximately the angle that he would look up. It's got to look realistic. And as he walked in, then his colleague has a dialogue with him.

Right.

So if the colleague is talking to Bruno sitting at his desk, which way is the colleague facing?

The colleague must look down at Bruno at an opposite angle. So because in this particular case, Bruno looks up to his right to see the colleague, the colleague must now look down to his left to see Bruno. Yeah.

So we put on a pillow on my couch, you at the desk, this is what you look at. I don't mean to use highfalutin words, but you had desk. Not even good grammar. I didn't have the in there. You at desk, you had desk, small.

Post it man, only so many words.

And so when he did this, this story went to a whole other level when he started telling it as well. So you at desk. So mark your other thoughts on this. This idea of creating the scene three.

Dimensionally, this to me is very powerful because Bruno has to play different characters in different scenes. But using the post it to create the 3D effect, it became very easy for him as it will become easy for you to become the characters in those moments. And here's One of the cool parts of using the post it 3D idea, when you relive the experience, you remember what it was like to be there. You can see the individual sitting at the desk, you can see a person coming through the door, you can see when they handling to you, you can see out the window. You could be in a park somewhere and hear a noise and you see over the distance what happened over there. Using the Post its in this way gives you, the presenter, the feeling of being in a three dimensional moment. And your depiction becomes that much more genuine and real. The result, your audience will not be seeing simply a flat two dimensional image. They'll be drawn into the experience. You can almost visualize everything that takes place. And I always say, don't give a speech, deliver an experience that'll help you to do just that.

And I will tell you, when I do this myself, when I'm working on my own stories, at first it's clunky, at first it's awkward because, oh, wait, where do I look? This time you have to do it a few times. But the more you walk through the story and start getting the idea, the more it will become second nature. So you don't have to think where to look. You're just looking, you're being, you're experiencing. So if you've heard me talk before, you probably heard me say, if you're in your head, your emotions are dead. Well, when you first start doing 3D speaking and putting Post its or whatever you want on the walls and what it is, at first it's going to be weird and awkward, but I'm telling you, it's going to get you there and most importantly, it's going to bring your audience there.

Funny. Darren, I know I've told you this story before and I may have mentioned it before on a podcast, but back in 1995, when I was competing in a Toastmasters speech contest, I got into Level five, it's now called semifinal. Back then it was called regional, it was in Maryland. I was based in New York at the time. And it was a scene in my speech one scene where I recall the New York Giants quarterback Phil Sims throwing an intercepted pass in a key game and his interaction with then coach Bill Parcells about this. You're still laughing. And I have an old, grainy VHS videotape. Yes, Darren is in color, okay, from 28 years ago. He's in color, trust me. But in the scene I remember, I said, Simms got the ball, he stepped back, cut to his left and he fired and When I was doing that scene, I was imagining Phil Sims trying to find a receiver. Wide lift. And he threw the ball. I had no ball in my hand. I simply simulated the move of Simms trying to find a wide receiver. And there was one beautiful young lady, God bless her, about four rows back. She turns her head and she follows the trajectory of an invisible football. Destined for the wide receiver, but it gets intercepted. Why? I got back, I saw the receiver. I knew where they were in the corner room. I threw the ball at them and she followed an invisible ball. It was amazing and I laughed about it. Here's the thing. In 1995, I had no idea of the impact of the 3D effect I had created by looking long left for a long ball to a wide receiver. I didn't understand this 28 years ago, but think of how you can, what you can accomplish if you visualize specific locations, perhaps using post its but creating the realism as you relive the event. You may have individuals who want to look at a football when you throw it or who want to feel an emotion because of the way, the angle, your emotional expression, everything involved in the experience that's fully three dimensional. You insert your whole being in delivering this message. It's no longer just the words you say. It's the impact you have with the message that you deliver in the way in which you deliver it.

Well said.

I know. I saw him.

I love it. Jazzed up here, Mark. I started laughing, Mark, because as soon as you started the story of the filth, I knew where you're going. And I remember you telling it. And I remember I don't. It was one of the early lady and the champs that I remember you telling it. And I followed too. I'm like, oh, wait, there's no ball. You know, I want to give credit to great speaker coach Lou Heckler who said, don't take us, tell us, take us, tell us. And that's when we were working with Bruno. He was telling us about a story and what this 3D speaking did for him is let him relive it. Take us to that moment where he was watching the crane, where he noticed his colleague tearing up and realized what that logo meant, what that 30 years, that that company, that he worked for, that company, what it meant to him. Like I could feel it the second time. That's why, as you said, I just like jumped up and like, yes, that's it. And just night and day. If you're listening to this, Mark and I have started a brand new getaspeakingcoach.com where now you can work with both of us one on one for a 90 minute session for one day, or as Bruno did for three days. Inspired by Bruno, he saw us at the Denver NSA convention National Speakers association doing our workshop where we coach people live. Three years ago he said, I want to work with these guys. And boom, he made it happen. So Bruno, if you're listening to this, thank you and thank you for permission to use this as an example to teach others. Because it was just so there was right on top of mind, it was fresh. And I said, mark, we're sitting there. I'm like, mark, this is a podcast.

Yes sir.

And here we are again. Getaspeakingcoach.com, you'll see our whole stage time faculty, not just Mark and me. You can work with either of us in the individually or this new option where you get both of us two on one coaching. Join us for an upcoming workshop stagetimeworkshops.com if you want to get a speaking Coach, get a speakingcoach.com. but please, please, please understand speaking in 3D and lay out your stories. Ask yourself and if it's helpful, by the way, it would be super helpful to do this with a friend or a colleague. Definitely a coach for sure. But this is one where you want at least one of the coaches. And that's what he loved. Mark is he was in my house, you were joining us virtually. But he said, I wouldn't have done it with both of you virtually. He wanted to be in person with one of us. And that really helped me to sit on the couch and watch him take the virtual, the physical stage and see. Nope, that angle's not right. We need to look higher. So where else could we put a postage? This post its for you. This post its for the story. So it was very helpful to have a person so you might have someone live sitting there, describe the story, tell your story to them and say, okay, here's where this character, here's what was happening and let the person help you out. No, no, no, there it is. Boom. Okay, then freeze and then run in front of them on the wall, put a post it so they can remember. And once you get that muscle memory working now you can take it to another stage, to a foreign meeting room and find something approximately in that area.

There is one other blessing that I find with this technique. You might not think it could be very effective virtually, but when you use this 3D technique and your facial expressions, your micro expression, your movement, your angles, the way you use the depth of the stage and the different size of the stage can be so real even to somebody who's a virtual audience member. And that for me was one benefit of me being here in Georgia virtually watching all this take place. I could also connect and relate to the authenticity that is created. So please, by all means, think about this. No, don't think about it. Begin to apply it. And begin to look at meeting rooms in different ways, no matter what the space may be. If you are in a particular room frequently, perhaps at a Toastmasters meeting, you can begin to think how I can use areas in the room with a virtual post it or a physical post it. And there have been times in the past we have even used flip chart paper on the back of the back wall to help us to create recreate scenes. But you begin to find out how you can use the space. You have to really enhance the experience and let the audience see you speaking in 3D. Nice.

Thank you Mark. And by the way, if you're getting some great content out of this podcast, please we ask you as a favor. And it's free. We're doing this because we love it. But as a favor, please tell your friends, tell your presenter colleagues about our podcast because we would love to help spread the word and you listening to this can help us do that. So please pass it on. Thank you for listening. We love what we get to do, but of all things, make sure you take your stories and start speaking in 3D. Mark Brown, take us home.

And that's how you become unforgettable. We'll see you next week.

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