Ep. 230 Your Holograms?

All right, Mark, so this weekend I was at NSA Colorado doing live coaching.

Sweet.

And you and I were at NSA Kansas City, virtually doing live coaching. And of course, some ideas bubble up for the podcast, and one of them was holograms. What?

Anyone can give a presentation, few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. AHAs. Let's dive right in.

All right, Mark, as he said, let's dive right in. Dive right in. If you don't know what a hologram is, you are in the right place. You need to get this. And once you understand it, it will be simple. It will be helpful. This is one of those. Until someone points it out, you just don't know. You just don't know. I love working with speakers live on stage and showing this. And Mark, what's your initial thoughts on holograms?

Yeah, I know. Well, first of all, I think for those who may be new to our podcast, a couple of definitions. One, you said nsa, that's National Speakers Association. We have chapters all over the country. And you and I have been teaching for many, many years at these chapters. And the holograms, you may think hologram, is that like some AI, high tech, you know, goo, goo stuff? No. And I did say stuff. Please forgive me, Patricia Frank. No, it isn't. The image that stands beside you. Beam me up, Scotty. And that can. No, the hologram really represents. It's a powerful tool for creating an experience for the audience to see characters and to see scenes much more clearly and much more vividly. Was that a clear definition? I'm not so sure, Darren.

I don't know. We need a hologram to figure it out. Well, what's fascinating is holograms happen in the mind of your audience whether you're aware of it or not. If you're not aware they're happening. And that's why we can confuse our audience unintentionally. Unintentionally. And you may have heard this story before. If you knew the podcast, you've never heard this story before. But we had one of the coaching clients, one of our VIPs at one of our events, he did this powerful scene where he knelt at the casket of his uncle and he told These powerful last words to his uncle. And it was good. It was really good. And then he stood up and he walked away from that scene. Now, picture from the audience viewpoint. He knelt down. In their mind, there was a coffin there. It was quiet. You could hear a pin drop. And they saw the scene. And that's what we're trying to say, that people see the scene. The better we paint it, the more likely they are to go with us in the story. But whether he painted it well or not, they saw the coffin. And then he walks over to the other side of the stage, and then he talks about they really wanted to celebrate their uncle's life rather than mourn his death. And so the way they chose to do that, one of his favorite things was going on a picnic. Picnic. So then he walks back to the same spot and lays out a picnic blanket right in the same spot.

Visualize that, friends. Visualize that.

Yeah. And when I did this at nsa, Colorado, a third of the audience was.

Like, ooh, instant reaction, right?

Yeah. And what's cool is they got it. They understood. If you're not familiar with holograms, think Princess Leia, R2D2. For our star wars fans, it's a visual that's not really there, but in the audience's mind, it's there. So they see the scene. It's vivid. The better we paint it, the more vivid it is. So this person knelt at the casket, left the scene, came to a new scene in his mind, but into the audience, because there was a hologram. And that section of the stage, he spread out the blanket on top of the coffin. They're going to have a picnic on top of a coffin. Oh, there's an issue there. Now, look, to this presenter's defense, he didn't know. That's our job as coaches. Before I figured this out, I didn't know. So for you and I, whenever we have a vivid scene, especially if it's emotional good or bad, we need to be aware and we need to plot it out, because the scenes should be in various logical, different places on the stage. So if there's a timeline, we need to think of past, present, future. We need to go to audience left, our right for the past, and then vice versa. So we have to actually think like an aerobics instructor. So look, this would tell the same exact story. Put those two holograms, those two scenes in different places. It's good. Especially if the casket is to the far speaker right. Audience left, past. Now that's the past. Now we move over to the picnic. The future. We're looking at the future. Now, here's the cool part. You can point back to that place on stage where the casket was. You don't even have to go over there. If you're referencing back to that now, you can just point to that area on the stage. If you've seen my championship speech at the beginning, I fall straight towards the audience. So if you're watching the YouTube version, I'm having a visual here. If you're listening online, I fall center stage towards the audience. So there is, in the audience's mind, a hologram. Hologram. Hologram. Not sure how you pronounce it. Every time I do it on stage, hologram is fine. Hologram is fine. I get corrected every time. I almost do it now just to have people correct me.

There you go.

It makes an audience interaction. But when I stood up. If you go back and watch the video, you can find it on YouTube. And I go back and I stand up, I step away from the hologram, and I point down to the hologram. So in the audience's mind, it is super clear what's going on. Now, later in my speech, I talked about my subway failure, and I financially fell on my face. Okay? I financially fell on my face. So even though I'm a different part of the stage, I point back to that metaphor, that illustration of that hologram of me lying down because I have fell on my face there in the audience's mind. For the rest of your presentation, if you develop a vivid scene, there's a hologram there. You and I need to work around that. We need to be aware of that. Mark.

Yes. In addition, I'm going to trust that our listeners and the viewers are skilled and adept of telling stories so powerfully, so vividly that the audience can visualize. Part of the work of preparing and presenting using holograms is for you to decide or to be very clear in your mind. What are the vivid stories, the vivid images, the vivid conversations, the emotional moments that take place in the presentation? Where are they best suited on the stage for. For this. For the audience to see it, to feel it, to experience it. This takes some work, takes some planning. What will they see? How will they feel when I stand at that location? Choose that carefully. And remember, when you plot your holograms out, you decide. I choose that location for a reason and for an emotional response. The concept of holograms is not purely visual. You have the opportunity here to emotionally impact your audience as well. That's one deeper meaning and value of holograms, which may be unfamiliar to some who are watching or listening to today. But having an understanding of the emotional impact of a scene and where that scene takes place, you could go on an emotional roller coaster. But once you point back to that location or revisit that location, if you have done all of these steps well, the audience's emotion is then connected. It goes deeper than just a visual. It is the emotional. It is the experiential value.

Yeah, experiential value. Take that to the bank. I love the idea. I remember hearing the story behind the story of Ed Tate in his championship speech that he literally plotted out. He took tiny little pink dots. He went up on stage the night before. Because when you're practicing, you're maybe in your living room or maybe you're in a small meeting room. Well, you get to the championship, and it's a gigantic gun to stage. So you've got to almost extrapolate. There's my word of the day mark, extra late, four syllables.

You're doing well.

You extrapolate and expand it. So this gave him a little area that for him, the food court. One scene for him getting the ticket from the officer, one scene for him, the ticket agent, and then the gate agent. So he had specific scenes. So we had to know where he was, he established them, but then he could go back to that area, and we knew exactly where he was. 99% of what we coach is clarity, clarity, clarity.

And, you know, I know for a while, for a couple of years, we would make reference to Toastmasters world champion speeches. And the talks we reference are from individuals who have gone on beyond Toastmasters, who have very successful professional careers as well. But perhaps you don't know much about Toastmasters. You're new and you want to be more involved in what professionals, quote, unquote, are doing. But if you look at a skilled, experienced, professional presenter, a master storyteller, people like Mark, Sharon Brock, when they tell a story, they take you to a location, you're. You almost are physically there. And they use the concept of stageology and the use of holograms to anchor what's happening in a scene. And the very, very skilled presenters also include the layer of character, where one character's voice is different, the rate of speech is different, the volume is different, the pace is different. They include all of these. So, again, it's not just where we see that scene take place visually. It is the experience of doing this well. And I would challenge you to look at some of the speakers you admire. Watch Their storytelling and see how they use the concept of the hologram to anchor scenes and to bring us into the moment. And Darren is funny. One of the most commonly. Commonly used techniques when it comes to holograms is the concept of breaking the fourth wall and stepping out of a scene. I maybe I'm ahead of you by going here, but you have a background in some acting and drama, having done some comedy and. And having done some TV yourself, and some may ask, well, Darren the actor, what in the world is the fourth wall? How would you respond to that question?

Well, that's when you talk directly to the audience as keynote speakers. We break the fourth wall all the time.

Correct.

The challenge is. And Mark, I was going to reference that because one of the people I was coaching in Denver this weekend did exactly that. That when. Picture this. When you're in the scene picture, you're standing in a hula hoop. There is no audience while you're in the scene. The only other people in the scene are the characters in the scene. So we're talking to them. Maybe we're looking a little up, and then the other character looks down, but the scene is contained. The challenge is if we look to the audience and said. He said, we need to step out of the hula hoop to be the narrator, the speaker. So we can't acknowledge the audience while we're in the hula hoop. It confuses people. We're trained as listeners because of theater, because of what we see on tv, that there's a difference between you in a scene standing in the hula hoop and you out of the scene, narrating, giving us some backstory, if it's essential. So the person I was coaching this weekend, she was looking out a window, and then she scanned the audience, and it was like a dramatic scene. She was choked up and crying and struggling. Well, you're not going to be looking out a window and looking at the audience. You would be looking out a window at a specific direction. And then we got to also remember, while we're in the hula hoop, dialogue, internal dialogue or dialogue to another character, we don't say. And so I looked out at the trees, and that's what I saw. We would say instead, whoa, look at those trees, those mountains. That looks like a picture. Wow. As opposed to narrator. I looked out and I saw the trees, and it looked just like a picture postcard. There's a huge difference, even though it seems subtle. Clarity, clarity, clarity. The cool part of this mark, the thing I like about stageology, do you remember what Episode that was. If they want to go check that.

One out, I will let you know in a jiffy.

Yeah. So the subtlety of the difference is the clarity to the audience that they know.

The subtlety of the difference is the clarity to the audience. I might write that down because you.

Got to capture my brilliance. It only happens by accident once in a while. So going back, if you're watching the YouTube version, if you're watching or listening to the audio version, you'll have to just trust me on this. The past is the audience left, stage right, speaker's right. So it's called stage right. That's from you on stage, your perspective. House left. That is the past. So when I tell my stitches story, going onto stage the first time, going to talk to Chris McGuire, the first comedian I ever met, and I asked him for advice, well, that is the past. So I go to that side of the stage to set that up now, forever, that corner, that spot. Or I shouldn't say forever for the rest of my presentation.

Right?

That's the hotspot of the past. So I could say later on and point to that direction. I'm so glad I made that decision. And I could be pointing to that. And the audience will know exactly what I mean. The future. Stage left, the presenter's left, house right. The audience is right. That is the future. And we've got a place choreograph, almost like Ed did with his tiny little dots, that here's the place. I go and stand here and tell that story. And you can step out of the hula hoop in that general area to be the speaker. But remember, when we're in a hula hoop, we don't make eye contact with the audience. And of course, Mark, there's always an exception. One exception is when I use an audience member as another character in the story. So now they're a character, I'm looking at them to say, or whatever the situation might be. So that's. I don't want to confuse people, though. But if I can help you understand that when you're saying lines of dialogue or internal dialogue, meaning you're thinking out loud so we can hear you, your eyes are locked on the other character or what you're looking at. So, Mark, one of my favorite moments ever in one of our workshops, I don't know if you remember this. This was man, six, seven years ago, where the. The gentleman that we were coaching won't use any names, but the gentleman we were coaching, he's looking around the stage and he was just all over the map with his stories, with his, let's say, plot line. You grabbed his hand and you started walking around the outside of the stage and he's like, what's going on? Where are we going? We said, exactly, stop. We don't know where you're going. All right. It wasn't really a hologram thing, but I just. That came up. I still remember that.

Oh, it's kind of funny. But, you know, you said, isn't really a hologram concept. You did make a very good point about holograms or Darren when you talked about the importance of a valid eye contact. Valid eye contact. Because when you are having a conversation with a character, you should not be looking at the audience. And having the character and the scene anchored in to a specific location on the platform. Platform can actually help you to relive the scene. There is one word of caution I want to offer. Some may say, wait, guys, you mentioned Darren being an actor and reliving all these scenes. Are you asking me to act out the scene? Not specifically. We ask that you relive the scene you were in. Recall the memory, recall the emotion. Recall what was said and how it was said. Recall the responses and the reactions. Relive the scene. And the more you relive the scene, the more vivid the hologram becomes. Because. Because now we, your audience, are witnessing up close and personal what happened on that day. We're witnessing what someone wishes would have happened on that day. We also. We also witness what happens when the thought process begins to churn in your mind. Am I really going to do this? I don't know. And we see the place where the conflict occurs. And here's the cool part. You can use holograms wisely to set locations on stage that signify key moments in your presentation. Key emotional shifts, when minds are changed, when a character undergoes a transformation, that is the place it happened. That's when it happened. That's how it happened. And the audience remembers it. Holograms are far more than simply anchoring a physical scene. There's more depth to it when you dive more deeply into the power and the value of holograms. Emotional side too.

Yeah. I also think of the depth of the stage sometimes when I tell my Gary story, one of my other buddies who is a comedian and he and I were co presenting. Well, I was in fear. I was scared to death. It was like our first professional presentation. Well, it was a toastmaster conference, but it was a breakout session. The first 45 minute presentation versus five minutes. And I was freaking Out. Well, I placed myself in the back of the stage, off to the side, showing fear. So I'm distancing myself from the audience. Now, I don't want to get too much into play and theater, but there's an element of it in what we do do. We also are talking about timeline. Well, consider this, too. You could just divide the stage in half. The right side of the stage, from your perspective, could just be the wrong way, the way you used to do things before you were enlightened. So you would tell those stories from that side of the stage, and then you would move over to the other side of the stage. Once you were enlightened, once you did have the insights from your guru, and then tell that story from the other side of the stage. Now, the audience has seen okay before and after. It's another way to do that. So you would pick a, let's say, another spot on that same side of the stage based on. If you're talking about once you're enlightened or once you learn the lesson that maybe you pass it on to someone else and they learn the lesson. Well, that would be from the left side of the stage, your perspective. So there are many ways to do this, but what the key to this podcast is to understand when you're in stories, when you create stories, vivid stories, you are creating a scene. You must be aware that you've got to be careful. Now, what does that scene signify? That we might not want to walk right through it. We don't want to walk through a coffin. We walk around it. We move in front of it, we get behind it. So just understand in your audience's mind, whether you intend it or not, it's happening. We as professional presenters have to be aware of this.

Yeah. And I really appreciate you mentioning Darren about where on stage, mentioning depth of stage. Well, I want to be behind, in front, alongside. I said this earlier and I say it again. Choosing where scenes take place, where particular props, where certain references occur, it's not a small matter. We're going to think this through, work on it, try test it, make mistakes, consult with those whom we trust and see. Does this make sense? Is it cohesive? Does it flow? Am I seeing past, present, future in the right way? Should I use more depth? Should I come all the way to the front of the stage? These are questions you have to ask and answer for yourself that will magnify the value and the impact of the holograms that you create to give your audience the experience of reliving the scenes. Reliving the moment, experiencing the emotions and being more, more clearly seeing the transformation that characters go through because of your holograms.

And I'll leave you with this. My final thought. When you're in character in your story, you're standing in the hula hoop. When you step out of the hula hoop now you can make eye contact with the audience. Now you're the speaker. It's okay to narrate, but when you're in dialogue, think of I'm inside the hula hoop. There is no audience. They're just watching me. Beyond the fourth wall Mark Brown Take us home friends.

There is so much power from using holograms. Re listen to his podcast and also go Back to episode 26 on Stageology. Listen to these two together. It will transform the way you use the stage and hopefully the way you tell your stories and transform your audiences. Darren, I want to ask our audience to join us next week because next week's gonna be fun. Next week we're gonna look at congruence between words and actions.

What? Join us inside the Hologram next week.

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