Ep. 231 Congruent Characters?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Congruent characters.

I know, it sounds kind of weird, right? What is that?

Why dost thou have that as thine title?

Wait, no, wait. Am I hearing Darren Lacroix waxing Shakespearean on me?

Shakespearean King James.

But, you know, the thing is this, you know, we have to be aware that as presenters, we're also storytellers, but the idea of having congruency with our characters is one we don't often talk about. And you might be wondering, what do I even mean by that? Well, stick around. You're going to find out what it means to have congruent characters because it's critical.

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.

All right, buddy. Hey, have you ever noticed at times, Darren, a presenter, a speaker, will be on stage telling a wonderful story and something doesn't feel right. You're not connecting and you're wondering what it is, and then suddenly, ah, I'm not feeling it because you're saying it, but I'm not seeing it. Let me rewind that. I'm not feeling it because they're saying it, but I'm not seeing it right. So, for example, I can remember, and we've coached so many people all over the world, and there's someone telling the story. It's a passionate story, and their delivery is pretty deadpan. Their face is just flat, and they're literally throwing words at us with no emotion, no conviction, no sense of bringing us into the story. And I realized very often there are a couple of reasons why our emotions and our characters in the moment aren't always congruent. We talk. And lastly, look, we say, boy, I was so excited to meet that guy. That day was incredible. You don't need to watch the video to understand the manner in which I just said that.

Yeah. And why. Why am I laughing? I'm laughing because it's incongruent.

Exactly.

The character is not congruent with the emotion of the words you're saying. You know, Mark, real quick, I gotta just get this in. We've taught about this, we've learned this from our friend Michael Haig. We Must elicit emotion.

Yes.

And when your characters aren't congruent with the emotions that you're speaking of, you elicit confusion.

Very good. Don't elicit confusion. I'm gonna write that down, buddy.

Don't elicit confusion. Or we elicit comedy because it's intentionally incongruent, just like you did there. You were giving us examples. The challenge is a lot of people don't even realize they're doing it. And that's why you have a coach. That's why you have someone who can help you. I just spoke at NSA Denver this past weekend, and same thing on stage. They're just not aware. And Mark, we see this over and over again. They tell us their emotions, but we don't see or feel their emotions.

The only person I can think of who I would not criticize for that is Steven Wright. Now, for the millennials out there, younger who have no clue, Steven Wright is. Steven Wright is a comedian who is hilarious and everything he does is deadpan and literally emotionless. But you watch him. He'll do an hour and a half, two hours, and you are rolling on the floor because that's his personal style for his comedy. And Darren, I don't know if you met him or not, but he is absolutely hilarious with that deadpan delivery that works for him and his routine. However, we often find when people telling stories, the emotions aren't congruent. And I have discovered, Darren, a couple of reasons why that is so. One I've learned over the past 25, almost 30 years is that at times, particularly with newer speakers, we are so intent on delivering the words we have written in our script. We are so intent on making sure the audience hears what's happening. So we focus on the words we are using. And we don't give ourselves permission to relive the story. Instead, we focus on retelling the story. And every presenter early on is guilty of that. And sometimes those of us who are experienced can also be guilty of that. For the second reason, which I'll touch on in a moment, but let me sit here for a second, Darren. We're so focused on saying the right things. I've seen speakers who have learned their script, particularly in Toastmasters Environment and Toastmasters Contests, they focus on the word count. I've got to get this down to 700 words. And they get 700 words. And they sing them and look for. They look for the green light. It should come in at the. Yes, it came at the right time. I'm going to get yellow Here? Yes. And if I see red, I'm in trouble. Why are they laughing? I got to stop. They're laughing. Okay. Got to stop. And they're so caught up in the mechanics of trying to deliver the perfect presentation, they remove all emotion. And we don't see the characters. We don't hear the characters, we don't feel the characters. It's a very easy and very common mistake, particularly in the Toastmasters world. And I'm sure you've seen other speakers who get so caught up in the mechanics, they miss the power of the emotion in the message. And their faces, their bodies don't show congruence with the characters.

Yeah, there's no congruence with the character's saying and the emotion behind it. That's what we're trying to say, and it also begs to be spoken about, is that if you have two characters in the same story, usually it's two characters. Sometimes it's just one, and that's okay. But if it's two characters, the dichotomy of the emotion between the two, that usually. Unless you're both scared or you're both excited, I mean, it depends on the story. The point is, we should see a difference. Unless they're both intentionally the same. But maybe in the reaction, one reacts. Maybe they're both excited, but one reacts scared and the other reacts confident. So maybe that's the reason. But what we're saying is you must have congruence with the emotion that that character is feeling so that we can feel it, too. And just like you said, Mark, with Steven Wright, who was one of my favorites, I got to open for him once. That was. I was like. I was scared and petrified and excited all at the same time.

Wait, Darren, were you. Were your emotions congruent when you were on stage?

Yeah, I was visibly shaking. He's amazing. And it's intentional with him. That's part of his style, that he doesn't show emotion. And that's different for most of us. We've got to. We take on the emotion of a character just for the moment, just for that small, short scene, whether it's us or we're playing someone else, a teacher, a mentor or something. Ask yourself, and I promise you, you would become a better story if you did one more, better storyteller, if you did one thing. That is if you're typing out the script, the character, and then in parentheses, what's their emotion? And you don't say it. Parentheses, parentheses, not quote, not bold parentheses, which means you don't Say it, but we should feel it. And every time we do the humor boot camp, we do a little mini exercise, and I give them words or phrases, and then I give them the emotions to put behind it. And, Mark, this is what we mean too, by the true congruent emotion with the character is that your eyes should change. See, a gesture is a rehearsed body movement that isn't connected. But if you watch a 2D or a 3D animated movie, note the eyes. The shape of the eyes change because when you feel an emotion, it's your whole body feeling the emotion. Maybe we don't express it with the whole body. However, there's a hint of it in the whole entire body, and it comes out through the eyes. That's how we as an audience member, we see the crow's feet, but we can see the change of emotion. If you're owning the congruency between the characters and the emotion, yeah, shock shows.

Fear shows, surprise shows, joy shows, sorrow shows. Being pensive and thoughtful, that shows as well. And we focus on the eyes because the old saying is, the eyes are the windows to the soul. There's truth in that. As a presenter now, we're not negating the value and the importance of the whole body also showing congruence. I walked in there and I was so confident I was going to get the job. If my shoulders sag when I say that, I'm being incongruent. If I say I was afraid and my shoulders come up, my chest is out, and I seem proud, strong or bold, then that motion is also incongruent. If I say I rushed to get to the door and I'm plodding along like Tim Conway in the Carol Burnett. Again, we're dating ourselves with Darren, who's really, really slow movement. Again. Even if our movement, in addition to our eyes, our movement has to be congruent. So, friends, please think about this. I know we focus on the face and the eyes, but let's not negate the value and significance of the rest of our body. Now, Darren hates the word gesture. Don't say gesture. He'll hit you in the head of his forehead. But think of body language and body language speaks. And if the body language also is incongruent with what you're saying, the audience will feel disconnected. They may doubt your veracity, your truthfulness, your authenticity, and you could lose the impact you would have had if your voice, your pitch, your rate, your tone, your volume, your face, your body are all congruent for the character's emotion. In the moment. And I say again, many of us focus so much on the mechanics of getting the script down and doing it right. And I know I pick on my Toastmasters friends here, but I am a card carrying, dues paying member of toastmasters for 31 years. So I'm a Toastmaster too. I'm not putting Toastmasters down. I'm simply reporting on a phenomenon I've seen and I'm addressing that's one. Another one is this for those of us who are more experienced and I can plead guilty. I was giving talks in schools, Darren. You notice from 1995 I talk to over a million kids. I would give the same speech 150 times a year to different audiences. And it's, it is not difficult when you deliver the same speech that often to just become mechanical. Now I don't want this to be misunderstood, but a good friend of ours, Kevin Burke, was a one man, had a one man show on, on Vegas Strip. I asked him, kevin, you've done, you got a world record for a number of performances. How much prep do you have to do before you go on stage and deliver? He said, mark, at this point in my career, with my experience, for me to get ready, I go, okay, let's go. I clear my throat and ready to go. Because he's that prepared, he's in the zone. But when you deliver the same talk three, three times a day, five days a week for 15, 20 years, it's very easy for you to say, okay, here we go again. It's a routine. And when you do the routine, it's almost by rote, it's almost Muslim memory. But someone said, Mark, you, you don't, you get tired of the same speech. And I say no. I say no because every time I give the speech, I'll never get that audience on that day in that room under that circumstance ever again. So every single time, three times a day, three schools in two states, sometimes every audience was new. And my heart goes out to these kids. I wanted to reach them. But I say again, it's not difficult when you give any particular talk with a corporate, with a workshop, whatever, regularly, with some degree of frequency. It's not difficult to find yourself doing it by rote and by routine. So I would caution our experienced speakers, you've got the 15 gigs in a month of February coming up. That's great. Never lose sight of your audience while you're there, the impact you can have. And we owe it to them to be fully committed to the moment, to be all in Darren, please remind our listeners and those who are new of the first item on your Connect card that you look at every time you deliver a presentation. What's the first question you ask?

Yeah, I asked myself four questions, and number one, Am I present?

Am I present?

Am I present? Am I right here, right now? And, Mark, I have a new term that we've never talked about. When you're the speaker, that is your baseline. So when you go into a character, there should be a subtle shift of your body. Not just your face, but a subtle shift of your body. You should carry your body a little differently because you're taking on that character's emotion. So the baseline, if you're always got your shoulders up or something like, that's your baseline. Okay, well, when the character happens and we see the character in the hologram, check out last week's episode if you hadn't. If you like this one, go back and check out last week, which is your holograms. So when you're in that hula hoop we talked about last time, when you're in the story, your body language, your stance, your space that you take up should change. Maybe it's a timid person, and so their feet are then closer together. You know, maybe it's an overconfident, overzealous person. Maybe their feet are wider apart, so there should be some shift. Now, Mark, you're gonna have to define this word for me because I'm not familiar with it. Subtle.

Subtle, subtly. Okay.

I don't know how. I don't understand how that word so subtle is not my gosh, that's not my strength.

But, hey.

But I'm very expressive, but yet I'm super emotional, and I take on characters, and it's very distinct with me, it doesn't have to be very distinct, but it needs to be at least a subtle shift.

Yes. If we put it to you this way, I'll pick on the voice, for example, as a means of being a character. You talked about having characters react differently. They sound different. One sounds scared, one sounds confident. If I could turn my back. If you're live, I'm seeing you live. If I could turn my back and close my eyes and only hear your presentation, I should be able to hear the difference between the characters when you are embodying them and reliving a story. And the key with subtlety is it doesn't have to be dramatic over the top, or the contrast need not be as broad, which is why we kind of circle when people come to us, when plants Come and say they want to make sure the characters are clear. You know, my mom would say, no.

Mark, don't do that.

And dad said, son, go ahead and do it. And it's and one voice here. We don't need that difference. The audience needs to understand if they can hear a different character. That's the only subtlety that we need. And I go back to what Darren said earlier. If you look at the eyes, eye movement and the way the eyes change, that's a very subtle change. But you can tell a smile from a look of fear or shock or look of pain just in the eyes. Now, Darren, you did say crow's feet, which kind of dates us. Okay, we're in the second half of our. Of our century here. But even if you don't have that concern regarding your eyes, look at record yourself telling a story with different emotions close up and watch it back and see if your eyes don't reflect the emotion that those characters bear. That's also very important. And the eyes will prove congruence. So here's congruence.

Here's a test for you. If you're confident in your stories, I'm going to suggest this. You, as Mark said, do a zoom recording or just into your phone or something, but tell the story. Then sit with a friend to watch it with the sound off. And don't say a word and ask if this friend can tell the emotions of the two characters. So deliver the story on a recording so you're not in there, you're not leading the witness. And then ask them, sound off. Play it. What is the emotion? Now, because the sound is off, it doesn't have to be perfect. But if we can get a sense of the emotion of the two characters, even if we can't hear you, but the way you move your mouth, the way you're speaking, we should be able to get a hint of the emotion. And one of the keys that we talk about in great storytelling is at some point there needs to be a shift of emotion transformation. So when the character receives the aha, a shift should happen, good or bad, positive or negative, up or down or sideways. But you can't have a shift unless you establish the character's baseline.

Exactly.

So there's you as a speaker. That's kind of your baseline. That's your speaker mode. But when you go into character, we should see a shift. But we need to see, let's say, the scared character at the beginning of the story. Where are they? At one of mine, I'm in the back of the room nervous, waiting my turn while my buddy Gary is up in front of the room. So I take that on, and I make myself smaller. Do you need to make yourself smaller or taller? Widen your base. Tighten your base for this character. Just a simple changing where your feet are, how wide they are apart, or how much space you take up. If you're watching the YouTube version, you can see me just moving an inch or two. It's. That's as subtle as I get. But it doesn't have to be great, but we have to see a difference. And then in the story, when I come towards the audience, when I realize this is all on me, I. Gary froze, so I had to step up. And that's when my shift happened. So I went from small in the back to tall and proud and intent for my audience. So there's a shift in the character, but we can't see the shift without the beginning baseline.

It's interesting because I've. For years, I've enjoyed playing a certain clip from one of the older Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve. The late Christopher Reeve as Superman, Clark Kent, and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. And there's one scene in the film where he wants to tell her that he is Superman. You're gonna go on a date. He's in her apartment. She goes to get her in her purse, and you could see Christopher Reeve thinking, I'm gonna tell her. He takes his glasses off, and I do not know why or how, but that man, he's only disguised as a pair of glasses, but Christopher Reeve, I think he was 6 foot 4. But in the scene, he takes his glasses off, Darren, and he physically rises, his shoulders go back, his face changes, and his voice is. Lois. Lois. And she begins to come back, and he second guesses, and he goes, I'm gonna tell you something. You see his body shrink, his glasses go back on, his shoulders narrow, and his voice becomes like this. We can get a burger somewhere if you like, Lois.

And.

And watching that transformation right there in a matter of maybe 15, 20 seconds was just good acting. I'm not saying we must all be good actors like Christopher Reeve, but we saw him become two characters. Vivid in his shoulders, his voice, his way, his head moved, his face, his chin was. I mean, so many different subtleties. And I would recommend if you can find that film in that scene somewhere where he's in Lewis's apartment and he. He wants to tell her he's who he is, and he. And he size against it in the last minute. But if you watch that scene and see what Christopher Reeve does there. I'm not saying be a master actor, but that's where his character was so congruent with how he felt at the moment. For a short time, I'm gonna Superman, I'm telling her. And then he just rank back. And it was literally seen two different people. And that told me, you know what? We have to embody our characters and use emotion and use movement and use body language that is congruent with what the character is feeling or saying or doing at any particular point in time.

Yeah. And we don't want to turn this into a stage play. We're not talking about a soliloquy. We're not talking about a large back and forth scene. We're talking about moments, one, two, three, maybe four lines of dialogue. We're not turning it into theater yet. We need moments of theater to be unforgettable. And as I said in your script, put what's the emotion of the care at the beginning, but also then put what's the emotion of character at the end. And that's going to help you when you're learning it. Remember at the beginning, when you're just going through the script, the first few times you're in your head, your emotions are dead. But the more you own it, the more we should see a difference. I love that Superman scene that you're talking about. That's pretty cool. I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was interesting. I was coaching a professional speaker recently. They sent me their video and I watched the video. And in the video, they're on stage, live in audience, and they deliver this line where someone insults them really, really badly, the line. And they say what the person said and the audience goes. And the speaker just kept speaking. Which brings me to the third reason why sometimes we miss this. Darren. Here's my third reason. My third reason is not that we just buy a rope, but we're so accustomed to sharing a story in a way that we expect a certain reaction, and when it doesn't come, or when a different reaction comes, we don't see it coming. You know, I've told the story before and people kind of feel bad, but this audience responded heavily and they didn't realize, really, if I were to share how I reacted to what the person said, then I'd really feel a connection to the audience. And I don't want to confuse what I just said with the idea of saying it by road. Saying it by road is I do it over and over and over and over. And over again. Other one was I'm so tied to my script. And the reason, the third, the third option I mentioned, the third reason I mentioned could also have to do with a couple of things. Not a couple of things, but one other factor. The other factor could be one. I say this, I tell the story frequently and people always react in a certain way. But when they, when they, they're telling me that what he said, that's you. How did you respond? I'm not hearing what the audience is telling me, which they're telling me, wait, you should be responding differently to that. You just kept going, I, I don't understand. And it's a weird thing was the testimony to the speaker was they have been so effective in sharing the impact of the other characters words, they just didn't follow through with their own reaction. So her, their reaction in the moment didn't seem congruent to the audience. Are you still talking? I would have been so hurt. I'd have been so mad. Let me see that. And sometimes we need to view our videos, watch ourselves and ask ourselves, am I fully committed to reliving the situation and the circumstance? Am I more concerned about, oh, I've only got eight minutes left in my clock. I gotta make sure to end on time. The audience deserves the best you have to offer. And if you believe by sharing the true, honest emotion of your presentation or your story, you might go 30 seconds over. I doubt an audience who is connected, an audience who is emotionally invested in you are going to be concerned about 30 seconds on the clock when you are touching them, moving them, changing their lives and helping them to live better lives. So I invite you to think about when you are presenting. Record yourself. We priest that all the time. Watch yourself. Listen to yourself. I loved Aaron's idea. Have a friend tell you what emotion they see you delivering and if necessary, go back to the drawing board. Why didn't that work? Oh, oh, maybe my reaction was I didn't pause long enough. Really happened. What really happened that day when they said that to me? No, I didn't keep talking. I was shocked. I was, I was stunned. I was silenced. And these little nuances, these, this, this again, Darren, is the grunt work we talk about. It's the, the hard work that people don't always do to make sure a story works. And I invite you all to remember a story I told many, many months ago in a previous episode. I forget which one. It was when I was watching the great Les Brown, Otis Williams Jr. Who was a Toastmasters world champion and hall of Fame speaker Willy Jolly talking about story. One day at a National Speakers association convention. I got to sit at literally the round table with these guys and watch these pros pass through a story. I'm thinking, but it's your life, it's your story, what's the big deal? You know it. And that's not a problem. It's my life, it's my story. I'm used to it, right? I tell it, not really not realizing for the audience, they want to, what? What happened? Oh my gosh, how did you react? But I've told it so often, I'm used to it, you know. But seeing them literally dissect the story, what was the emotion? What did that character say? When should they be silent? How did the voice change? Every aspect of the exercise was to create congruence between what was happening in the story, how the characters reacted, responded, spoke to each other. And for me, it was a quiet masterclass in story construction and story development. One of the best legends in the world, the Les Brown, if you are new to speaking and you don't know who that is, check him out. Ask Siri, ask Google. This man is a living legend.

Don't take this lightly. And we talked some about Toastmasters. I want to iterate that. We see a lot of professional speakers do this.

Exactly.

This is your reputation. How deeply you connect is how often you get recommended, you get rebooked, you get a referral, whatever that is. The more deeply you connect, the more likely you are to get asked back. And this is something subtle, simple, yet powerful. Mark Brown, take us home.

One final thought from me. When focus on the purpose of your presentation, to truly touch your audience, to truly move your audience, to truly be impactful for your audience. Your stories, as Michael Higgs says, must elicit emotion. And one of the key ways to do that is to make sure your characters are congruent with your emotion. We'll see you next time. I would love to hear from you. Please contact us at stagetime. Let us know what you think of our podcast, how you apply these lessons. Because you know what, we want you to go from good to great to unforgettable. We'll see you next week.

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