Ep. 201 Are You Up for a Challenge? With Alexandre Matte

Hey there, Mark Brown. I think if anyone wants to be unforgettable, if they want to hit their full potential, they have to challenge themselves. And there are many different ways, there are many different options. Every year I create a new keynote speech for our event called Game Changers. And what's cool is I'm testing out new material and then some of it becomes my new material in my keynotes. But Mark, you just challenge yourself and in a way that I never ever will.

Talk to us. Well, that's true. My biggest challenge of my career was I was undertaking to deliver a brief keynote at a summit for French speaking speakers. What in French? And my methodology is going to be important. And when you meet our guest, Alexander Matt today, you'll understand why. The question is, are you up for a challenge?

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 first, Mark, I want to get to the your methodology, which I love and I think I know where we're going with this. But why, why would you agree to do a speech in French for everyone that is not your, that is not the native language of Jamaica.

Just not even close. Not even close. But here is the deep meaningful reason behind all of this. Alexander asked me the question is why did he ask? And to answer the question, let's welcome our guest today, runner up in the Toastmasters 2022 World Championship of Public speaking, our student, and now my coach, Alexandre Matt. So Alexandre, pourquoi? Why did you ask me to speak at the summit of French speakers?

That a great question. And bonjour Marc, c' est unplaisier de terroir. Hello Darren, good to see you again. Now, well, why did I ask you that question? It's mentioned many years ago that the year after you won the World Championship in 95, you presented a story in French in Montreal at the District 61 conference. So this was, this would have been in 1996. And I believe it's Leonce Boudreau who mentioned it to me when we met five to 10 years ago. First time I met him and, and I, I just remembered it and, and then knowing you Mark, we went through conversations Occasionally you would slip in the French word here and there and I would do the same with you. So I thought, let's see if, if he was able to do it in 1996, he might be able to do it again. Let's just ask and see what he says.

For those who are doing the math, 96 plus 10 is 0. 6 plus 10 more is 16 plus 7 more. 23, 27 years ago, and my methodology back then was to write the story out in English, bring it to a friend of mine who was from Paris. Her name was Stella Mariach Namash. And Stella was my coach for weeks. And we went through word for word for word how to read this short story and deliver it in French in Montreal, because I wanted to honor my audience and respect them by delivering a short story in their language. I guess the first lesson I would share with you is given the opportunity, well, I'll strike that because every time we speak we have this opportunity. But the question is, how can we honor our audience in the best way possible in service to them? Because it's easy for us as presenters to think, well, I have this expertise, I have the skill, I have an Alexander Mack kind of voice. I will wow my audience and really impress them. And that's fine. But I asked myself, how can I best serve this francophone audience that were bilingual? I said, you know what, I'll tell the story. And I had forgotten about it. That was 27 years ago. I had done my best and it was wonderful and I was cool. But then Alexandre asked, would you consider delivering a speech in French? A speech in French, even though you're on the francophone, would you consider, and it's difficult to say no to Alexander, he's so charming. But I did see what we call in French defeat. I saw a challenge of it. And here's the thing, one could say, Mark, Darren, you are world champions. You are certified speaking professional, you've traveled the world, you don't need to prove anything more. But the point is, when we stop challenging ourselves, we deprive our audiences of the benefit of an additional area of our experience and expertise that may be just what they need in the moment.

And Mark, I remember when I was going to do in front of the ToastMasters convention, the eight year old Darren conversation. I was challenging myself big time. I was nervous. I had done it in front of a live audience before at our event. However, this is like going from your paid audience, people who love you and will give you a Little Grace, to 2,000 toastmasters sitting there in A kid's chair with the remote control, having a conversation with the eight year old Darren. So that was a huge challenge and it turned out to be incredibly powerful. Now not all challenges do work out that way. But Mark, I think before we go into what was it like and your conversations with your coach, which I love that you got a coach. Brilliant, beautiful. And that's the thing, people who understand the value of being coached also become coaches. And also when you become a coach, you realize even more the value of getting a coach. Having that qualified person to get give you that feedback. But Mark, let's just play a little 60 seconds, 50 seconds so people can see what really happened and hear it for themselves.

Certified speaking professional Mark Brown.

The Toastmasters Francophone on leadership and communication or Canada. Oh Canada. Super play. I'll stop that there for the time being because they're just wondering what did he just say?

I picked up on oh Canada.

Oh yeah. I figure you get communication, leadership and O Canada. And in a nutshell, I began the way we often tell our clients to begin a speech. I told them that they were impressive because they have built this wonderful organization in three years at the height of the pandemic, in a very difficult season, perhaps the most difficult season of our entire lives. They've given each other a chance to grow and show their skills as leaders and communicators. They've given each other an opportunity to shine. I also thank them for their being willing to accept my poor efforts to speak their language. Because I'm not French and I have not taken a French lesson since 1977. And I was, and it all began because I gave a short speech in Montreal. Oh Canada. Oh Canada. And my last line was, please forgive me. I could not resist the pun, even in French. Darren, I have bad dad jokes. And before I go into respond to this, I need to go back to Alexandre very, very quickly because Alexandre, when you asked, you were pretty confident I would say yes. Why?

Oh, well, was I confident you were going to say yes? Yeah, because I knew that you like a challenge. But I also knew that if I did not ask you, you would. Well, it would be no. I remember Patricia Frib who says this. If you don't ask, the answer is automatically no. So I was with the organizing committee of the, of the summit. The summit. And I just, I just threw the, threw the idea, you know, maybe Mark Brown could do this. Do you want me to ask him? I said sure. If he says I don't, I don't know if he's gonna say yes. Come to our little, little French event. I don't know, but y. Sometimes you have to ask. And I think knowing you, Mark, Darren, and other champions who have made it to the top, I know from our exchanges that you don't look down on these sorts of invitations. You know, sometimes we can think, oh, why would he come to our event? He's the world champion. But, but, you know, if, if you're available, you'll. You'll do it. And, and what was great for me, Mario, throughout this process was how you, you mentioned many times that you were there to serve us, to serve the event.

Wow. I, you know, I, I do appreciate that, Alexandre, because I. Those who know me know my heart is to serve. And what was beautiful for me was the opportunity to see the shoe on the other foot. For years I have coached Alexandre, but French is his native tongue. It's not mine. And I saw the opportunity. Even though others offered to help, I saw the opportunity. The student became the coach, the coach became the student. And it just enhanced our relationship. And if I, if I were to stress anything to those who are watching or listening to this, I'll tell you this. There is nothing more important than, than acknowledging the need to get help from those who have greater expertise. Aaron and I coach others. We coach clients around the world, but we are very, very willing to submit to coaching as well. The ego had nothing to do with this. I knew I could learn from Alexandre because he's fluent in two languages. I knew he'd care about me. And I'm going to blow. I'm going to elevate Alexander for a moment and tell you this. We're online at the event, we're live, and Alexand sends me a private message. How are you feeling? I responded, actually quite calm. No one could see his face.

He was looking at me.

We were kind of looking in the little box. I could see his nodding his head and he was continually, silently, tacitly encouraging me. When the event was over, the minute it ended, he video called me. And please catch this. He video called with one goal, to encourage me, to lift me, to thank me, and to bless me. Not once did he say, oh, Mark, by the way, you mispronounced the word courthousem. No, we laugh at that. But we've already discussed on this podcast there are times you do not want to crush a speaker's eye. And in that moment, Alex Zahn displayed what a true world class coach does. They understand the client needs their elevation. They need their encouragement. They don't need to hear what they did poorly, and he did that so brilliantly, and I thank him for that. And if you're out here coaching somebody and they go on the platform and they make a mistake or two, it's not your place in that moment to deflate them. Especially when you realize the extent of a challenge. I was not kidding. I had not taken a French lesson since the spring of 1977 in high school in Jamaica. For those doing the Math, I'm almost 62 years old. Okay, so that's a chunk of your life to not have had a French lesson. But my coach was patient. My coach guided me and he knew what he had to do to encourage me before the event and to uplift me after. So I asked you to consider how you respond to your clients when you coach them after they face a challenge as well.

Alexander, what did you take from the experience?

Well, Mark, I think it also comes from just being, I guess being a friend, being human, recognizing what someone really needs. So, you know, you. I guess you could like you do you. You teach how to. How to be a coach, how to train. But there is a portion of coaching which is just being there for your client as a friend. And that's. That's all I was trying to do after, after your presentation. And you know, I received so many other. And I think you did as well. You received other accolades and congratulations. I received some from my own parents. My. My father, I didn't know even know he was listening on. On the. Whoa. And he doesn't speak French usually. That was great. I said, yeah, well, he was reading his speech. Well, it looked like he was reading, but I wasn't sure. He still looked confident and the emotions were coming out and he looked so natural. You couldn't tell that you would not be. You can't tell that Mark is not a French fluent speaker.

Well, I must tell you this after our last rehearsal, and I know Darren wants to get to the process. Part of the process was this. Darren. I wrote the speech in English and had to run it through a translator. We have Google Translate. But Alexandre recommended another translator, which was.

Alexandre Deep L, D, E, E, P L.

So I had two versions to go through and thankfully they'll take all the words I have. I would, I would do it in chunks. I translate one and I would work on it and work on it, work on it. And I realized. I realized the French language is interesting. It is the opposite of German. See German language, you'll have a 13 letter word and you pronounce every single letter in the Word, right? August, tumbein, fuhrer, the whole thing. French, you have a nine letter word, you pronounce three and the last is really I like a sound. For example, ent is not ent or int. It's. It's. So I wasn't clear on the pronunciation.

Or completely silent, depending on if it's a verb.

Exactly, exactly. And I did learn much of the syntax in school. I remembered much of it. However, what I had to do was I asked Alexandre, would you be kind enough to give me a rendition, record it so I can go through it myself and see where I need to make adjustments. And it was quite the process. Stopping the tape recording. Ah, there's an axon. I've got to go a when I say that, not ah, was I perfect? No, but it was work and I did it gladly because I wanted to serve my francophone audience in the best way possible. Darren, do you have a thought, a question, a comment?

Yeah, I just want to hold up something here. When you're getting help in an area or you're pushing yourself in an area that you're challenging, I want to just make sure I'm highlighting what the conversation you just had was you were going to translate. But Alexand had a better tool from his experience, so he's native French speaker. He suggested a app that would do maybe a better job. So we've got to listen to our coaches, not just in the techniques but also the tools, because they know better, better in that area than if we're left to our own unexperienced invalition to try and figure it out. Just like when I went to that comedian for the first time, Chris McGuire, and I said, I want to be funny. What do I need to do? And he suggested a certain book. Well, that book, that tool by someone who is where you want to be. You've got to give that cred, super street cred and not try and say, well, I like this one, or I'm comfortable with this one. You know, you challenge yourself and you challenge yourself along the way to use a tool that maybe is new to you. And I just want to hold that up and see its importance.

Mark, wait again, I'm glad you mentioned that, Darren, and I can't stress this enough. Knowing that your coach has expertise in a particular process is good, but also realizing that the tools they have will serve you better is important. Darren, you off. You have a website, we say tools that we use and you share those tools with your client. And a good coach will not only offer you a How to but offer you resources, additional resources to help you execute more effectively. And it's interesting when I mentioned resources, because right before I did the program, I realized I'm going to have to read this. And if my camera is here and my script is here and the audience is here, that's going to be a really jarring experience to have to do. I found a tool that I use for the event, and it's called the center cam. It kind of looks like this. This piece clips onto your laptop. The camera comes down. The whole camera is right here. It's the size of your fingernail. That's the camera right there. And when it's being used, it clips onto your laptop and it lowers down onto the screen, and it sits in a place where the audience's face is, where the camera is.

Nice.

Live. Now look at that. Center camera's there. If I turn my camera on, it might probably steer you.

It's awesome. So you can look at the camera and at your audience at the same time.

Exactly. Exactly. So I put my script. I put my script there. And yes, I was reading it, but the center cam was sitting right there. So as I read my script, my eyes were on the audience. It was just another tool I was using. But I realized when your coach offers you ideas, techniques and tools, you use the gamut. And the best tool he gave me was his rendition. When I first heard it, I sent him a message. Wow, Alexandre. It was so expressive. It was so eloquent. And I thought to myself, how in the round world am I going to do that? But he was kind enough to do not only one, but two. And here's a cool part. Alexander, please help us to understand your thinking when you did this. Darren, My script was clear, but in his recording, there were a couple of moments he spontaneously repeated a phrase to make a triad. And he would say, it felt right.

Yeah.

So tell us, were you concerned that, you know, Mark might think, I'm over, I'm going to rewrite it for him? What was going through your mind as you were doing that?

Hey, Mark, real quick before we jump to that, Alexander, I'll hand it back to you in a second, but I want to also hold up again what was just said. Modeling someone who is where you want to be. So especially if you're challenging yourself, you're pushing yourself, who can you model? Look, and we're not saying steel material or anything like that, but who can you model? Who's that ideal person that you resonate with? And, Mark, I love that you had him deliver it. And then you brought your Mark Brown to it. Mark, you always say you bring yourself to everything you do. So one of the things we need to be working on is our higher self. We got to be working on our potential and getting there, which is one of the reasons for the challenge. So just want to hold that up. Alexandre, to you.

Well, this is. It's curious because it's not something that I would usually do for clients, like interpreting their speech. Right. I wanted to be more natural coming from them, but it was. It was a question of pronunciation. So that's why I wanted to do that for you. I thought, well, why not go all in and put myself in the skin of Mark Brown, Pretend that I. I am the little boy from Jamaica with. What do you say? The short guy with buck teeth. And that's right.

Skinny skin, a skinny kid. That's me.

If I become Mark Brown, how would I deliver this? And that's how, as you say, sometimes it felt right to either say something much slowly or repeat it. Because I also know that that's your style. I've seen you present often enough that I know when you say something very important, you will say it twice. When you say something very important, you will say it twice.

Well done.

So I wanted to make sure to put a little more Mark brow when I was presenting it. And. And by doing that, I think it also helped me bring out the emotion because I. I even got a little emotional while reading and delivering your speech.

Wow. Wow. I did not know that. I did not know that. And maybe we don't realize how difficult that is when we understand I'm delivering someone else's material, but how would they deliver it? That's also a sign of a good coach. While you're bringing yourself to the reading, you realize I'm not going to be reading this. Mark's going to be reading this, and how would he deliver it? And that's an extension. That is actually a way the coach challenges themselves to better serve their client as well. So this value as a coach, how can you challenge yourself to better serve your client in a scenario where such as Alexandre and I had to face several weeks ago? Thanks, Alexander. I really appreciate that.

Any.

This is for either one of you. Any great moments or aha moments along the process that maybe didn't expect or an aha happened. Just curious.

I will share one. I was trying to find a text I sent to Alexand, but I guess I'm. I'm going too quickly through my notes. But I remember sending him A note. And I said, you know, I think I'm in over my head here, Alexandre, but the train has left the station and it's forward. We're not going to look back. That was a week before the event. Don't forget now we've done promotions on the Internet. There was excitement generated. This group of francophones represents several countries globally. So at this point, I was.

Darren.

All in. Okay? I was all in. And I was not going to turn back. And I'm so thankful that Alexandre remained calm, cool, collected, supportive. He never rushed. Where's the script? He never said, are you okay? It was. He trusted that I was mature enough to do what was necessary. He also knew I would do what he told me to do. He knew my ego was not going to get in the way. He knew. I hope he knew. And within that last week, we had an hour and a half session the day before. And I'd love to know what Alexander's opinion of that is after I get any aha or epiphany that occurred to him during the process. Alexandre.

Well, that was a great session. I was in a restaurant somewhere while I was on, on tour and I, I remember thinking, I wish we had more time.

We have some work to. Oh, Mark, we have some work to do.

Nice. How do you like it, Mark Brown?

Hey, listen, if you can give it, you should also be able to take it. So I took it.

But Mark, you did reassure me when, even close to the end of our 90 minute call, when you said, I'm still working on this later today, I will get back to you. So I knew that it wasn't over, that there was still some improvement to go. So when you presented the following day, it was astonishing the amount of improvement that you made in less than 24 hours just by practicing it. And I was thinking of this earlier today, that even if it's. So this is for anybody who wants to take the challenge of presenting it in a different language, especially if you're not very fluent in that language. It's still possible if you know just enough that the words that are coming out of your mouth, if you know what you're saying. It is still possible to, to, to feel natural or to, to have, to have the emotions come out, even if you're not usually fluent in that language. It's like learning a song in a different language, you know, fluent in the other language. But you might be able to, to. To sing an opera song in Italian and still have all that feeling. I mean, that's how they. A lot of opera singers do it right. They might not be fluent in Italian, but still can. Can sing a song beautifully because they know what they're singing.

There was one more thought, Darren. I wanted to make sure the audience got the Mark Brown experience. I do not say that arrogantly. What I mean is I did not want to simply read a script and talk at the audience and say, yes, I did it. I wanted to tell stories. I told personal stories of leaving Jamaica at 18 and going to live in the USA and not having any friends until I went to the football field. I talked about my daughter's wedding and how we can be creative in the ways that we build relationships. Because my goal from day one was to encourage this wonderful global francophone audience to expand what they do, to bring others in and to really expand their family. And I really worked hard on that message by being as genuine as I am, but in a foreign language. And having Alex Zorn to help guide me through that process was remarkable. That's in English, not French. How you say it? French.

Remarkable, Remarkable, remarkable, remarkable. And there's Mark. And the word, the name Mark is in remarkable.

It was remarkable. Merci. Vaucoul. Thank you. My brother Darren's going on board. I had to do at least two French words. Darren, Merci, vaucoup. Mofre is. Thank you so much. My brother. And I do consider Alexandre my brother. It was a wonderful experience. And you may not be challenged to give a speech in a foreign language. Maybe your challenge was one that Darren had several years ago when he called me in a panic he had to face high school students. That was not his audience. Perhaps you call upon one day to talk to a group of children because you can share an idea with them and you go, I don't talk to little kids. Maybe your challenge is to address a group of adults who are a hostile audience. I've always had wonderful, loving Toastmasters audiences. How do I do that? I don't know what the extent of your challenge may be. Maybe your challenge will be to deliver a toast at a wedding. I have no clue. Maybe your challenge is to get involved in a contest. Maybe your challenge is to take a role as a master of ceremonies for the first time at an event, and you're tapped to do it. What steps will you take? Who will you have as allies to help you to fulfill feel that challenge? Or will you say, no, it's not for me. I'm willing for my North American friends here to not only dare you or even double dare you, I triple dog dare you to give yourself a challenge before this year is up. We're recording this podcast, the last podcast, in the month of June 2023. There's six more months in the year. In what area, as a presenter will you be willing to challenge yourself? And who will you bring alongside you? As I brought along an Alexander Matt to help me to help you fulfill that challenge. Because trust me, on the other side, not only will you say I did it, but then hopefully you'll say, okay, now what's next?

My friend is a trainer and he works helping people work out who may or may not be familiar with it. And in the training world or the weightlifting world, exercise world, they always joke about skipping leg day, that, you know, the guys want to have the big biceps and the shoulders, but they skip leg day the day that they would work in their legs. So thinking about this and the metaphor, it's like, okay, where could you challenge yourself to work on leg day that is going to enhance your overall tool set to help you. You don't know when that challenging audience is going to come up. It's easy with the easy audiences, but we want to challenge you so that you up your skills, you can handle a tough audience and even those great audiences, you're going to go deeper than you ever did before. So whatever the challenge is, whatever the challenge, you choose, and you probably know what it is, or someone is going to ask you. Unexpectedly, Mark and I, we were both celebrants. You for your daughter, me for my sister. Like, that was challenging. That was my skills as a speaker helped me do a better job with that because I knew how to practice, I knew how to create it. I knew that I needed to go to a couple pastors and celebrants, just like you did with Alexandre. People who are skilled in that area in order to get some insights to tap into their experience. And Alexandre, what did you learn or discover being Mark Brown's coach as he challenged himself?

Well, I learned that it's never too late to learn something new. And also that the more you learn or the more that you expand your skills, the more you realize there's still so much more to do. I would say this also, and Mark, let me know if I'm correct here, but I think in our first conversation about this particular challenge, we spoke about culture, we spoke about the francophone world because Mark was curious to know, who are these? Who will be the audience? And I mentioned, well, there will be from Canada and France and Ivory coast, everywhere in. In the world, really. So then we realize well, it's so many different cultures.

It's.

It doesn't. It's not just like one French culture, so it's. There's so many subtilities. Is that the right word?

Subtleties.

Yes. The subtility. There's the third subtility.

Yeah, subtleties.

So I realized Mark needed to know more of the context of who he's speaking to. But I realized when I go to a different audience in a different country, I should do the same thing. Up to then, I had limited myself to learning a few words in the language of my audience to sprinkle it. To sprinkle my presentation with those words. But there's more. There's so much more that you. That you can learn about your audience, their reality, their culture, their country, what they do, what they like, so that you are more in touch with them. And as you would say, it's in order to better serve them. And by better knowing your audience, you have a better connection with them.

Alexander, what was your biggest challenge, though? Working with me?

It's okay. I can mute him.

At least in your mind.

Okay. All right. I can. You touched on it earlier. I. I was worried. I was worried that we were going to miss deadlines.

Yeah.

Because you did mention a couple of times, well, I'm. I'll send you something. This weekend comes. So I'm like, okay, well, is this coming or not? And we. I'm glad that we started many, many months in advance. So I. I still. I had. Still had confidence that you were going to pull through. But I will admit I had some worries along the way.

You hid that very, very well. And when I finally sent the full script to you, you thought, what progress.

Yeah, well, I read it. I read it quickly once, and I thought, this. This actually holds up. It's actually really good. It fits with what we were. What we were. We've been saying it's very personal. You know, sometimes, especially if we do something in a different culture or with a different audience, we might attempt to. Or we might have a tendency to be more generic. But this was very personal, and you brought in your personal stories to the audience and made that link with what they. They were going through. As you started your. Your speech. Right. Vous ette z'. Impression. You are impressive. So it's. I was. I was impressed by speech when I saw it.

Well, very quickly. That opening was deliberate, and Darren teaches this. What can you say about the audience to draw them in? One of his lines is, you have an awesome responsibility. The first word is you. It's audience focused. One last question. Our time is very short, but I must ask this question. We had a meeting with members of the committee by Zoom before the event. And Darren friends, they asked me to give a small piece of the presentation. And I'm curious, can you reveal, do you know what the expectations were and after I left the meeting, what the response was for that brief sort of one minute test of my. Of my presentation?

Alexandre, what the expectations were? I believe I thought that the expectations were high because I had bumped you up so much.

Thank you very much. You're gonna see Mokuma Fan.

But after you left and were still talking with the committee, they were so impressed that one particular member, I won't share her name, was in awe. She was starstruck seeing you. She already admired you. And then hearing you speak in French was like out of this world for her and I think for the president of the committee also. Daniel. He was so impressed. He was like, this is so great, so fun. Thank you so much for bringing Mark with us. He was great. So they were. The expectations were high and you seem to have met them.

And Mark is like the whole time, oh boy, can I pull this off? But you know, go ahead, Alison, please.

Go ahead on that. On that same call. So we. It was to meet them and to know the process of the. Of the event. But we also ended our call with by recording a short promotion video. So just Mark and I were talking on Zoom and we use that for promotional material one or two weeks before the event. We could share that with your viewers and listeners. Right guys?

I'll find it. Here's the truth, Darren. I was just giving a line in French and I could not get it right. So Alexandre changed the line. And I used that line because we had like three takes and it was done very quickly. And that to me was a little bit nerve wracking because I hadn't prepared the remarks that well. But knowing that we have with us someone who is going to guide us through the process, I offer this to you. Think of a challenge you can make. Maybe a challenge you let go for several months, weeks, or maybe even years. Revisit that challenge. Align yourself with someone who will help you to meet that challenge. And you may surprise yourself and those around you with your success. So my question to you is this, friends, are you up for a challenge? Darren.

Hey, Mark. So a couple quick questions that I think might be on some people's minds. You can weigh in on this, Alexand, if you have any slant on this. But Mark, how long Was your speech? I bet people are wondering.

It was 12 minutes or something like that.

12 minutes. And it sounds like you started working with Alexon two months prior.

More than that.

Okay, about how many times did you guys meet?

Four or five times.

Four or five times.

Because I want people to see. I want people to see the coaching process. It's not like one or two meetings and you're done. So I think this is great insight.

And excluding whatever and a litany of text messages. This is Alexander and me. It's a litany of text messages. Trust me.

If you're listening to the online version, YouTube version, he just showed his screen of his phone text back and forth. And Mark, how many, let's say, how many versions of the speech do you think you had with the tweaks?

I had one original version. There are always changes being done by the deep L application. And then Alexander said, no, that doesn't quite have the right feel. And we kind of got stuck at one point on trying to find the right phrase to use in the middle. And full disclosure, we didn't finalize the last line until the day before the presentation. Because Alexandre, in his diligence. Bless you, my brother. He wanted to make sure the right words, but the right emotion, the right sentiment, the feeling was there. And it took until the very last day. Friday afternoon, he says, ah, that'll work for us. Then he sent me on my way to rehearse until midnight Friday night to be on the air at 8:15 Saturday morning. But I was ready. And I can't thank you enough, Alexandre, for your assistance and the challenge. I was such a revelation to me that we have in all of us more that we can do, more that we can be if we are willing to stretch ourselves and accept a challenge.

Darren and Mark, one more question. How many times do you think you practice it out loud, out loud, if.

They ask Andrea, because you heard me doing it over and over and over and over again. She'd walk into my workspace. Honey, I'm so impressed with you. You're doing so well. Said, honey. It was terrible. Night before, I set my room up for standing. I recorded myself. I watched myself. Yes, friends, I recorded myself. I watched myself. And I deleted the first zoom file. It was that bad. I was committed to recording again and at least liking it. And happily, I was peaking at the right moment. So Friday with Alexander was okay. Friday night was not so great. It got better. And Saturday morning, I was the best I could be on the day. And I'm very. And also Alexander thank you for being my producer. He ran my slides for me. Because to run slides, look at the script, look at the audience, say that I would have been totally discombobulated, but his timing was, and we did it together on very short notice. So for that, also, I thank you.

Alexandre and Mark, last question for you. How do you think you grew because of this challenge?

I am thankful because as a world champion and a csp, it's easy to be complacent and deliver a speech you've been giving for years. But I grew with the understanding that I can still have more challenges. I grew. I grew with a deeper appreciation of what the coach goes through. Even though I go through it myself, I got to see that I don't again, from a student's point of view. And I realize how indebted I am to my coach for helping me. And I realize also that there are people who will respect you when you put the effort in to serve them well and inconvenience yourself. And I grew to appreciate all of that, in addition to knowing there is more I can do. And the biggest area of growth is. Is a question Mark. What next?

And, Alexandre, what did you learn by watching Mark or by coaching Mark? What's one lesson that you took away from this experience?

Well, seeing Mark challenge himself so much gives me a better appreciation for the fact that even if you reach a summit, you can still keep climbing. And we've got a friend on LinkedIn, Siegfried Hack, who wrote he made a whole video while walking on the beach in French titled He had nothing more to prove, and yet he still did that. So, you know, I'm invited to go to different events and present after receiving second place in the. In the world championship last year. And sometimes I don't prepare as much as I should, and I need to look at each presentation as another way to really, well, as Mark has said many times, serve the audience and not to be, as you say, complacent. So it's so easy to just roll with it. And I know what to do. This is what I've got. But sometimes you need to try something new. And I did that once or twice this year of trying something new with a new audience. And at the beginning, it's a little shaky, but you realize what can be improved and be useful for other audiences. And if you do something new and a challenge, you challenge yourself with the intent of serving the audience. Even if you are imperfect, it will be better than if you just try to wing it by. By doing something that you've Already done.

Yep. They notice and they feel it and they sense it. And if your intent is for them, they're going to give you some more grace. If your intent is for you, they're going to give you less grace. You get no grace. Nice.

Yeah. Well, my last comment on that is Darren Sigfried a. In his video he said, did Mark make mistakes? Yes. Does he have a French accent? No. Is he an American accent? Yes. But did it matter? No. Because of my enthusiasm, my heart and honesty. And I so appreciate Sigfund for your wonderful words. That really touched me. I knew I wasn't perfect, but they understood the heart of service behind it. And you're right, Darren. You're right, Alexandre. That'll make a difference to every audience.

Yes. So if you're listening to this, we'd love to have you go to our link, our brand new unforgettable presentations LinkedIn group podcast group and let us know what your thoughts are, what questions you have and thanks for being a of part part. Thanks for listening. If you're up for a challenge, we've got our own the stage. If you want to know what a coach looks for and see it in action, watch stories and presenters literally transform over three days. It's amazing. Join us. Own the stages. Go to stagetimeworkshops.com use a discount code podpod25. Would love to have you live in Vegas or virtually for that event coming up the end of July. So guys, thank you for sharing your journey. Continue to challenge yourself. And as you listen to this, are you up for a challenge next week?

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