Ep. 191 Which Feedback Should You Use?

Hey there, Mark Brown. I give a speech. One person says, go left, the other one says, go right. A third person says, no, no, no. Right down the middle. That. That will work. Who do you listen to?

Been there, done that. It's a very good question today. Let's explore that question and find the answer. When getting feedback, who do you listen to?

Anyone can give a presentation. 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. When I was competing in the contest, and by the way, this is for people who compete in the contest and people who are working on that keynote speech that will be unforgettable. One person says this, one person says that. And I had no idea until I get to the higher levels where all of a sudden I think I had pieces of paper and I literally did it scientifically. Who mentioned this? Who mentioned this? And what really worked and what didn't work? And so the questions that I asked myself, and if you're looking for feedback on your speech, especially if you're a toastmaster, you have to, let's say, facilitate the feedback. Ooh, facilitate feedback.

Facilitate the feedback. I wanna write that down right here.

Right now, because we need to know what we're working on. And our audience would love to help. They loved it. They didn't love it. They support you, they're friends with you. And I need to know a few things. But here's the questions I ask myself now, or ask my audience now. What made you think? Because if we're gonna change the way people think, we need to know what made them think, what made them go, hmm, the old category on million dollar pyramid or $100,000 pyramid, things that make you go, hmm. What made you think? What inspired you? What inspired you? If there was a story that inspired you, if there was a quote that inspired you, I wanna know that. I'm looking with those two questions. I'm looking for what worked, because I'm looking for commonalities. I might have thought something was great, and that's why I test it. But unless the audience answers that back, that doesn't work. And then number three is what wasn't clear. Well, I was kind of. I Wasn't sure when you were talking about the soda pop can, what was your point on that? Whatever the subject is. And then fourth, I leave it wide open. Anything else? So those are the questions I ask my audience after, or if they come up to me after and say, oh, that was awesome, I loved it, it was so inspiring. I stopped them and say, which part? What did I say? Because we've got to know that now when we get overwhelmed with feedback such in like a speech contest. This one says get up sooner in my fall. This one says get up sooner. This one says get up sooner. This one says get up sooner. Well, this one says get up sooner, but we've got to be careful who we listen to. Mark, your opening thoughts.

Well, my opening thoughts. Key to your fourth question, a very open ended question. Anything else. And very often the anything else comes lovingly and with the best of intention. From a perspective of if I were you, I would do such. I would say this. I would never turn that way. I would, I would, I would. In, in essence, although they mean well, there are several individuals who will tell you what they would do. The problem is they are not you and quite likely whatever style they have is not your style. If you know Darren and you know me, you will know our styles are very different. Darren needs to work on his enthusiasm. He's so low key. Right. I need to work on my vocabulary. I gotta fix that. Obviously I'm being facetious. My point is though, as one of our fellow world champions Jack Elliott said, your words won't fit into my mouth. And very often be, be, please be careful of this. Very often those who want to offer advice, feedback and instruction are simply giving you their words to put in your mouth. You must decide if those words fit or not.

So who do you listen to? Go left, go right, stay right in the middle. So we came up with a way to, let's just say discern. We've got to discern which feedback we listen to. So we have two kinds of feedback we teach. Number one, here's what I thought and felt. Write that down. Here's what I thought and felt. Number two is, here's how to make it better. Here's how to make it better. Here's what I, as Mark said, write that down. That's brilliant. When people talk to you, they're saying, here's what I would do. They don't actually say that, but everything is implied when they say you should. Okay, be careful. If there's a should in there, be careful. Don't just take that to heart. And here's the other key. Even if they're more experienced than you, even if they've been around longer than you, that doesn't mean they're a good coach or as we say, a qualified coach. They might be really good as a speaker, but here's why we need the help. As I say, the most important part of a presentation is the thought process in the listener's mind. The most important part of a presentation is the thought process in the listener's mind. So what are they thinking? Well, what a great coach or a qualified coach would do is will help you because of their experience and focus on that side of speaking. Being a great speaker and being a great coach are very different. It's rare you get both. However, it's possible. I mean, this is what Mark and I focus on. So what a great coach will understand and help you understand. When you say this in your way, in your style, in your Persona, in your delivery, they're probably gonna think this, right? And that's coaching. And that's why coaching matters. That's why when Mark looked at my first version of my speech in two minutes, he could see what I couldn't see after seven years. Cause I didn't know what to look for. But a coach understands what's said and how it's probably heard. Now, he's still gonna go test it. We still need to test it. So again, anything that's said, ask yourself, is that a thought and felt, or is that a how to improve? Now, they can throw a lot at you, and you have to take each statement separately. That's the key. It's not just every phrase. Every sentence needs to be individually inventoried. Individually inventoried. So the example we use a lot is when I did my fall and in my championship speech, and then I brought it to Mark, I said, mark, everyone's telling me I should get up sooner. I should get up sooner. Mark said, well, what are they saying? They said, I was uncomfortable. You were down too long. You should get up sooner. I was uncomfortable. You were down too long, you should get up sooner. Well, I was uncomfortable. Thought and felt.

Down too long.

You were down too long. Thought and felt. That's what they thought. Felt. You should get up sooner. Wah, wah, wah, wah. That's the coaching part. So we have to take each phrase and pull it apart and isolate it and say, what is this? Now, if you've seen my speech, it's on YouTube. If you haven't, if you've seen my speech, you know, I actually used that feedback that everyone was thinking, they were uncomfortable and they thought I was down too long. So in my speech, after I did that intentionally made them feel uncomfortable. I stood up and said, did you feel I stayed down too long? And people are like, how did you get into my head? How did you know what I was thinking? Because I went to 22 clubs and you told me, I listened. Now, when they said, get up sooner, that's coaching. That's when you got to be careful and as we suggest, go to a qualified coach.

Now, here's a bit of a twist for you to consider. We're not saying you should never be considerate of how someone feels, because as a presenter, you will elicit emotion in your presentations. If you do that well, the question becomes, they tell you how they feel, but is that the way you want them to feel? Did you elicit the emotion that you wanted to elicit? That can be very instructional and very informative. So don't misunderstand. We're not saying to disregard what someone feels. If your goal is to elicit a particular emotion and they tell you, we felt this, that could be a good thing or it could be up. That was not what I wanted. That being said to reiterate the famous word should, when someone says you should, they're giving you instructions as to what you should do next. My coaching clients will tell you, when I review a script or I have a con, or I talk with them in conversation, I'll say, consider this. I have an idea for you, a suggestion. The language I use, this is me, Mark Brown, speaking. But the language I use suggests to them, I believe this would work for you. So consider that and then let them do it. When you tell someone you should do this, and I speak particularly to those who may be involved in Toastmasters or any other kind of debate or speech competition, very often the speaker may be in awe of the person giving the advice and because of their respect for them. And Darren said, you may have more experience, more years. And because of your respect for their years and experience, you simply do what they say because they are an authority figure. But do not deny yourself. Do not deny your personality. Do not deny your heart. When someone says you should, think about it, process it. You may feel free to test it, but if it doesn't work, don't feel you're under any obligation to adopt it because they said so. A good coach does not try to clone themselves. Indeed, a good coach tries to bring out the best in you and help you to shine with your style, your personality. And ultimately with your message. So be very careful about the should and also be aware, if someone will express an emotion, you may want to elicit that emotion. It isn't simply just no him, yes, him. But trust me, if you have not yet had someone or several individuals offer you willing advice to change your speech, it's going to happen at some point in time. How you process it will make the difference in what ends up on the platform.

And when we give feedback, Mark and I do one on one coaching. We have a coaching camp where you can come to us and get coached, called Get Coached to Speak. And we offer E critiques, which is we'll look at your speech, we'll get back to you in about a week with our critique of your speech. So that's not one on one coaching, it's a one time look and review of your speech, whether it's a script or video. But anyway, one of the things that I always remind people when I send them that feedback and because it's Toastmaster contest season, that's why I thought of this. Mark, I see the same mistakes over and over again and it hurts me because some of these people are part of our stage time members and we have courses that help you see this anyway. All right, that's my issue. Shut up, Darren. But we always remind people that you are the CEO of your speech. You're the CEO. We're just consultants. As you said earlier. As Jock said, my words won't necessarily fit in your mouth. So always try. And I put in suggestion, consider saying this. And I always remind people, put it in your words. You could say the same thing a little differently, but it may speak to you better in your words. Sometimes people give us too much credit and I say do this and they do exactly that when without running it by their heart and their style. And that's again one of the challenges. That's why we're the consultants, we're the coach. But you are the CEO of your dream. I remember when Dave McElhenney, who was my other coach in the championship speech, I had a joke that I did about Subway. And after the joke where I said $60,000 debt, six short months, I doubled that debt, got a huge laugh. And then I said, I turned Subway into a nonprofit organization. Dave, my other coach, said, you need to cut that, you need to cut that. It's not that funny. And I said, you know what? I tested it several times. I got the response and I said, I appreciate it. And I respected his feedback. He got me to question it which if a coach gets you to question something, that's great, that's awesome, we've got to like win it back in. And I said, you know what? No, I need to do that. It's in me, it works. It's a great funny line. It accentuates the other joke that works really well. And after the speech, Mark, I don't know if you even know this, he came up to me and he said, good call keeping that line in.

That was nice. That was nice. It's interesting, you know, I'll be to be vulnerable, Darren, I'll tell you when I have clients I work with, I'll tell them, listen, I know in some cases people think, well, you know, Mark Brown is a world champion speaker, certified professional speaker. I have to do everything he says. One of my clients says, you are coach Mark, I'll do whatever you say. No, no, no. I'll offer suggestions. And if at some point I offer an idea for you or recommendation and in your heart you don't feel it fits, you've tried it out, doesn't fit. You can toss that because you believe it doesn't fit for you, I will not be offended. I'm simply an advisor for your presentation. But you must know what's in your heart, so please don't think well. Darren, Mark are telling you we're the world's best coaches. It's not our point. Our point is as coaches, we support you in bringing your best you to the platform, your best material, your best stories, your best ideas in the best way that we can guide you to provide. But please be aware, it's okay to push back when you don't believe an idea is going to work for you. The best part of what Darren said earlier, helping you to question you will prove to yourself why, you will justify why I want to do this. It's okay to ask those questions because you want to bring your best.

Yeah. And Mark, when you worked with David Brooks as your coach, do you remember any incidents like that that he suggested this and you push or you made an adjustment or the bad news is.

The good news and also the bad news is I have printed evidence of that where I would say these questions. At one point I wanted to to end my speech. Earlier I have a roar in my speech. It was a really big roar. I was going to go end on the roar and say, challenge the audience. Has somebody heard your beast roar? Maybe it's time for you to kill the beast and end it. And David was very, very patient and he said, ask me A question. We have all this good writing towards the end. It really is a nice fit. Why would you want to sacrifice all that based on the power of one part of the speech? I'm like, well, okay. And he made me question and why I made that decision. But he had an idea for me. I want to do it differently. He asked me a question and made me rethink it, and that happened. I mean, Dan and I had our own confrontation. We had animated discussions at times about his speech, but it was all for the better. But we could do that because we established a relationship where he knew I had his best interest at heart and my experience was going to be helpful to him as well. And that was a good combination. But bear in mind, friends, there will be people who will tell you what they think they'll mean. Well, I only want to caution you, do not let their position, their status, or their years of experience intimidate you out of doing what you know in your heart is right. My last thought on the notes that David Brooks sent back to me, my faxes to him back in 95, I changed my questions into statements and I was affirming why I. I made certain decisions. And he told me later how proud he was of me from going to someone's. And dad, they would tell me what to do, be my dad here. But to get me to think through my decisions and to justify why I made those decisions. And the results will tell you it was a good relationship. And to this day, I still call him the master mentor. He was someone I was happy to listen to.

Yeah, we gotta be careful who we listen to and not just give authority because maybe they've been around longer. There are some great, amazing speakers who aren't necessarily great coaches. Nothing wrong with that. But that's why we just have to be careful. But we've got to run it past our own heart, past our own beliefs. Now, here's the rub. We've got to be willing to be uncomfortable trying something that maybe we're not comfortable with. So we've got to like me staying down longer. The audience told me they didn't want that. Mark told me, stay down longer. And it was hard. If you go back and watch my championship speech, you'll see while I'm lying on the stage, my foot goes like. Because inside my body, I'm still uncomfortable laying down for that amount of time. So we've got to discern. We've got to be willing to test if there's a theory. Look, if it goes against who you are or your heart, that's one thing. Don't do that. But if you're just uncomfortable, we're suggesting test it, give it a try, try it on for size. Because I could feel the audience, even though I was uncomfortable, I could feel them getting sucked in to the moment I was about to set up. So as a recap, two kinds of feedback. Number one, here's what I thought and felt. Everyone is qualified to tell you that. Number two, here's how to make it better. And as Mark said, they're saying, here's what I would do if it was me. Okay, but it's not you. Now consider the idea and if you have a coach, bring it to your coach. We've got to have that person that we can bounce ideas off of who's qualified. Like if you. Look, if you want to work with Mark and or me or both of us, go to getaspeakingcoach.com we have one on one sessions. We both offer E critiques, whatever works for you. But you don't have to use us, but you do have to find a coach and you do have to discern the difference in feedback. Mark Brown, by the way, Mark Brown, next week you and I are going to talk about nine ways to prove it. Nine ways to prove your point. So you don't want to miss that episode. And Mark, I told you earlier, I just got off the phone with someone from caps. Great guy, great conversation. He's been listening to our podcast since episode 35 and he went back and he's literally listened to all of them, which is so cool to hear. So please, if you like this, this is helpful to you, please pass this on to a friend, a presenter who needs it or would love to hear it. Either way, we want to help people help their audience.

Mark Brown, real quick, you mentioned caps. Just for clarification, what's caps?

Canadian association of Professional Speakers. So in the US it's NSA National Speakers association in Asia and in Europe there's psa, but it's basically nsa, the National Speakers association. But they title it different things in different countries. So he's from the Canadian version. So Mark and I are going to do some storytelling coaching for his team.

There and we look forward to it. Here's the deal. People will offer you advice. Choose wisely, who you listen to and don't be afraid to keep testing. Why. We want you to be your best. We want you to be unforgettable. We'll see you next week.

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