Ep. 214 Five Minutes Before Liftoff!

Hey there, Mark Brown. Did you ever watch a kid watch a baseball game and then you see them in their own baseball game and you know by the way they approach the plate that they're modeling their hero, that they walk up to the plate and they do the sign of the cross and they hit one cleat, then the other cleat and then they stretch their arms or elbows. So here's the problem with that. The hero is doing what works for him. The mentee is modeling exactly what they do. But the intent may or may not be there because they're trying to mimic the mentor.

Yeah.

And what we're talking about today is what happens. What do you do five minutes before liftoff? If you want to be unforgettable, that is a critical time frame that no matter how much you've prepared, you don't handle your mindset in that moment. Ain't nobody gonna be unforgettable.

Or perhaps you might be for the wrong reasons.

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

Mark.

The kid is cute. And it's cute watching them do the little pull up the gloves, do the side of the cross, but they might not even know exactly what they're doing. They're just mimicking their mentor, their hero. Now, it's cute, but for you and I, unless it's resonating with us, it's good to know what our heroes do five minutes before. But we've got to choose what resonates with us with our heart, what grounds us, what brings us present. Mark, I had to do a pitch presentation yesterday morning at 6:30am and I just know this was big. This is for a huge three day event, three day gig, influencing influencers around the world in this organization. I won't say what organization. However, I had to perform. So the only thing more nerve wracking than speaking to thousands is speaking to five on Zoom. Who you need to impress to get the gig were thousands. So I don't know what it was, but something just said you need to go take a walk. Sun's out. I needed to take a walk around the block to just breathe in. The air, take in the sun, and just be ready. And you may or may not have that same routine, but we're asking you to step back and question. What do you do before you step to the plate? What do you do five minutes before? And I have to say that this podcast was inspired by backstage with Mark Brown at the Toastmasters Convention. And I'm on my little TikTok kick. And so I just, on the spur of the moment, without even preparation or asking. I know, Mark, you are my brother. You are a man of God. And I asked you, in the moment, you can find this on TikTok World Champion Mark Brown. What does a world champion speaker pray just before he goes on? All right, so Mark Brown, before or backstage, how does Mark Brown pray before he walks out there?

My prayer is simple, not full of too many words. I say, God, please help me to be my best today. Empty me of myself so I can serve the audience in the best way possible. And, God, I hope I can touch upon one life today. It's as simple as that. That's all it takes, asking God to help me serve them.

So. So, Mark, apparently, I didn't have. I had the music too loud.

Oops.

That's how we learn. TikTok time. TikTok time. TikTok time.

So, Mark, by the way, really quickly, just to put us some background, the question regarding prayer, specifically, you were actually asking us, how do we prepare? And there were a few of us backstage. It was literally almost showtime. Quick question. How do you get ready five minutes before? And I said, well, I pray. Now, some people will meditate. They'll recite a mantra, and there are various methods they choose. But then you asked a deeper question. You asked, how do you pray? And for those who may have missed because of the music in the background, I said, my prayer is very simple. I ask God to empty me of myself so I can best serve my audience on the day. Because I've revealed this to you, Darren, and to other audiences before. My greatest fear as a presenter is, is not providing value to my audience. So therefore, I would say prepare and be present. And for me, the prayer is empty of myself so I can be fully available to serve you. And if I serve you well, God, I'll serve my audience well also. That's Mark Brown's personal take. That's my process, what I believe in, what I live by, and what has served me for almost 30 years. Hmm.

And we're not saying that's what you need to do. We're saying what Mark does for Mark, what you need to do is what works for you.

Exactly.

If you're a believer, prayer, you know, consider prayer. If you're not already doing it, I bet you probably are if you're a believer. If you're not a believer, do you meditate? Do you ask yourself questions? I'm famous for the four questions I ask myself right before I go on stage. Which are, am I present? I have to check myself, Mark, Even when I ask that, am I present? Am I present? I look around, okay? Am I right here, right now, forgetting about my problems, forgetting about maybe someone in my family being sick like that? That problem will be there when you're done. Make no mistake. But right now, your privilege is to serve the people that you're in front of. So am I present? What is my intent Getting clear on that intent. The intent being audience focused, not self focused. Not I want a trophy. Not I want to get referrals. Not I want to be the best speaker at this convention. No, you want to be so good, they invite you back. You want to be so good that they help promote you. You want to be so good, they refer you to other people. You want to be so good, they come and run and buy your books. They sign up for your newsletter. They ask you questions. So I know we have to be present in order to deliver at that level. Third question. Will you have fun? If you want your audience to have fun, they're never gonna have fun unless you have fun.

That's right.

If you're up in your head, you're too worried about things, you're too concerned with your ego. Something like that. Which is why Mark says to empty himself. Yeah, that's why he says that. Then the fourth question from our friend and past guest, Willie Jolly. A friend, a mentor, an amazing speaker. He said, ask yourself, how would I deliver this presentation if I knew it was my last one ever? How would I deliver this presentation if I knew it was my last one ever? Remark. Still to this day, when I ask myself, I could almost feel my shoulders go, all right, if it's the last one and it gets me up, I can see that fastball. I can see that curveball coming. Bring it.

You know, interestingly enough, Darren, before I forget, I want to clarify one thing. Darren and I at times mention titles like Golden Gavel or Cabot Award. And for clarification, Willy Jolly won the Caveat Award from the National Speakers Association. That is the highest possible award for service and commitment in the organization. And Willy Jolly has earned it. A mentor to me since 1996, one of the legends. And Darren, you made a good point about if it was the last one. Because people asked me in the past and discussed it here briefly before. How can you deliver a presentation to an audience of kids over and over again, two, three times a day, four days a week, you know, 200 times a year, and not get sick and tired of it? Because I know I had one shot at that audience at that time. So technically, it is my only and my last time to reach that audience. And that's why I give every audience everything I have. And the truth is to dig a little deeper on the issue of the five minutes before liftoff, you said earlier, Darren, we can face distractions. Yes. We may get a phone call saying somebody's not well, or we had to pay a bill or something happens that we have no control over. I can remember one time I was in Minnesota to give a talk in schools and my wife called to let me know that she and my son, who was then, I think 17, were in a car accident near our home in Lizella, Georgia. I'm in Minnesota. I gotta go on stage. I understand. Are you okay? Yes. The cops are coming in the car, probably total, but we're fine. I realized I can do nothing there. And to be brutally honest, Darren, and to be very vulnerable with the audience. One of the most difficult of those times for me was in November of 2017. I was giving a presentation at a company in Canada on the day my father was being put to rest. For clarification, I did not forego my father's funeral, my father's interment in favor of a gig. Let me clarify. No, there was an issue, a complication with the funeral home and at his homegoing, he was not laid to rest. They had to retain his remains and inter him. At another time, I happened to be on the road when they made that decision. So what that meant was I had my phone on for a live stream of my father's interment. And at the moment they're going to interact with scene for the last time. I hear my introduction going on in the next room. Wow, this is the most vulnerable. I've been on this podcast about my life and this incident. I had to turn the live stream off. I saw my. My sister, her husband, my brother, his wife in Florida, I'm in Canada. Had to turn the live stream off and get ready, Pray God help me to do this. Well, to face an audience and deliver a presentation for that one breakout session, which I thank God went well because the following year I was invited back by the same company to keynote that same conference.

Nice.

I revealed that not to say how cool I am or how strong I am. It was difficult, hence my five minutes before praying, God help me. But I realized in the old showbiz statement, the show must go on. I had the privilege, but had the responsibility as well. I do not wish this on anyone else, Darren, but I had to be centered, I had to be present. And for me, my method was prayer. Again, we aren't advocating doing what Mark Brown does. For some, it's a moment of solitude. In your case, for the call yesterday, it was a walk you took down the street. We're asking you what can you do personally within yourself to be prepared but also present to serve your audience in the best way. Because speaking is a privilege and a responsibility. And I hope that helps someone who may have struggled or is struggling right now to understand. If you prepare yourself in the best way possible, you can and will serve your audiences well.

Yeah, it's so important. What we're asking you to do is to double back and check what is your routine five minutes before. And yes, I took the walk, but I also did my four questions. I do my four questions almost all the time. Once in a while I forget or something's happening. But most of the time you gotta think of what's that routine? And you can't just do someone else's routine.

Right.

You might try, see what other people do. Try two or three different ways. But does it ground you? Does it make you present? You'll serve from a deeper place. When it's not about you. It's not about a trophy, it's not about being the best speaker of the conference. When you're adamant about their outcome, things change. You deliver deeper, you make a deeper difference. That's my new idea phrase, Mark. A deeper deliverance. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Difference. Make a deeper difference.

Make a deeper difference. And it's interesting, Darren, because, you know, I have had conversations with individuals for whom that five minute window, they want complete solitude. They want to center themselves. And that's wonderful. Some people do vocal exercises to get their voice ready or they do face warm ups and they stretch the muscles. I'm serious.

Absolutely.

Go through a breathing exercise routine. And I don't have all the methods. I know when I was competing in Toastmasters almost 30 years ago, I would get ready, I was backstage doing push ups to get my adrenaline kind of pumping, to get the blood flowing so much. So before I went on stage, I was like a caged bull. Saying, let me add him. I can't wait to deliver this message to this audience that has come from all over the world. That may be the polar opposite of what works for you as a presenter, but what works for you to help you be on top of your game, to serve your audience in the best way possible. That's the key. How can I best prepare myself to serve now? Be aware, somebody may come to you one day and say, I want to be just like you. Darren and I have had people actually say that to us and I had someone almost proclaim it on stage. I want to be like Mark Brown. I thought, no, no, no, no, no, you don't want to be like me. You want to be yourself, but to be the fullest version of yourself. So I'm going to ask you, listening and viewing, to ask yourselves, what do you need to do to be fully present? How do you need to invest your time and energy five minutes before liftoff? It's like, Darren, you know, the pilots do a check. You know, we're in the plane, they said, well, about ready to go. You're doing the last minute checks of the plane. It tires all the instruments and they do all this check because you're going to fly a plane. And they had the responsibility of carrying 400 people across the Atlantic. Why should we be any different in our preparation? We have the responsibility of carrying 4, 40, 400, 4000 people on this journey that can transform their lives. It is no less important.

And Mark, as people listen to this, you may have heard me tell this before, but it still rings true. I still think this through. The night before the world championship, Mark, you saw my ego getting in the way and you said, pulled me aside in the hallway at the anaheim Marriott, Anaheim, California, 2001, you would see the carpeted walls and you would hear Mark's voice say, darren, tomorrow morning you have the privilege of 2,000 lives for seven minutes. What will you do with that? Whether you're speaking to 10,000 or 10 people in a boardroom, you are given, earned, given the privilege of their time for however much time you have. And I still use that question to bring me down, to put me in the present moment to serve. Because when you come in from that place, you do serve more deeply and you make a deeper difference. It's never going to be perfect, but when you come from a deeper place, you're going to make a deeper impact.

I've got one more thought. Darren, thank you for sharing that story again. I really appreciate that. I do. One of the other Thoughts we have is that you mentioned distractions. I told two of my own personal stories, but it may not be that heavy, so to speak. Sometimes before your bridge present there is a technical issue. Sometimes you're going to begin a program and the lights go out, as it did. Darren in Nassau, Bahamas at the opening ceremonies of Toastmasters. Right before the program began, everything shut down. They were going to have someone, Andre, who you know from Nassau, was going to sing the Bahamian national anthem as the host country in rehearsals. I get there three hours early as the voice of God. For rehearsals, they brought in the keyboard, they rehearsed a few times and when the system went down, came back up, they could not get that keyboard to restart. And Andre Kelly sang the national anthem acapella for the entire audience, livestreamed around the globe. And he was flawless because he was ready. And sometimes tech may fail. And what do you do when tech fails? Do you then say, no, I can't do it. And I've seen that happen before. A company I worked with had a company convention in a, in a large city in central USA and a presenter was there with his slides and for some reason the slides couldn't work and the presenter had to reschedule. They move the agenda around. They moved me up on the agenda and moved the presenter later in the day to make sure all his tech worked. I don't know if he, if he panicked or not, but sometimes the company, the organization may not have that level of flexibility. Do you panic or do you say, okay, it's a challenge? How do I overcome that challenge? And to be even minded and level headed enough to make that decision on the fly requires you being ready five minutes before. It could be a weather issue, it could be something in the room. I've had students faint in my assemblies before I begin. I've had so many things happen.

The downside to being so good looking.

Well, I look really good on an audio podcast. I look, I look amazing in an audio podcast. But my point is, and think about, in your experience, those of you who have had to give talks before, who may have had hiccups. How did you handle it? What will you do differently should it happen another time? Look back on your routine. Were you fully present? Were you prepared? Were you able to adjust and adapt to the unexpected, handling these quirks, these hiccups and these disasters, how we handle them may often depend on how prepared we are in the moment, how calm we are in the five minutes before liftoff. So I asked you to reflect on your experience. What happened? Did I handle it well? And how would I handle it differently now? And how could I prepare myself beforehand so no matter what comes my way, I'm in a position to adapt, adjust, and make it work. It isn't always easy, but we offer the thought of what you need to do five minutes before to help you, as we have been helped to prepare for the unexpected, which inevitably is going to happen. As Ed Date always says, it's not if, but when.

So five minutes before liftoff, what's your routine? Maybe it's time to reevaluate it and be very careful that one time where you think, oh what a great audience. I know my content. This is going to be easy. That's when ego creeps in. Don't let the perfect situation. And it still may be perfect, it still may be magical. But if you don't ground yourself, that's when the ego can creep in. Let your speaking do the talking, or let your talking do the talking. But what you and I do five minutes before liftoff is mission critical. Thanks for joining us. Please pass this podcast on to your friends. Let them know about it. We love what we do. We love the passion. Last week we had a clown. We started clowning around. Check out that episode. If you haven't heard it. Don. He was so much fun. He was great. He had spoken at the Toastmasters International Convention. Yeah, there was a magical moment in that thing that I will never forget though I wish I could burn it out of my head of him on stage in pink underwear.

Boo.

But no, it was fun and funny. Yeah, it was not inappropriate. But we talked about that moment a little. Check that out and join us next week because next week you know what we're going to talk about. I don't know, we haven't figured that out yet. But we'll make it fun. We'll make it insightful. All to help you be unforgettable.

Unforgettable.

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