Ep. 256 MISQUOTED?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Our deepest fear is not we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Famous quote, and I've heard people quote Nelson Mandela. The problem was Nelson Mandela was actually quoting Miriam Williamson, who is the originator. Look, in the age of ChatGPT and all the other AIs, we can do some research, but we've got to take time to vet ourselves because our credibility is at stake.

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 Lecroy.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

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

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dan, for sharing that. It's a. It's a thought to be considered. Are we saying the right thing in the right way? I. I'm happy you mentioned one key phrase. So you said, it will affect our credibility. You know, what we deliver, what we say. So I really appreciate having a brief conversation today about words that we use, stats that we. We deliver in our presentations, and quotations that we offer with gusto, with confidence, but sometimes erroneously. What do you think?

Just because we heard someone else say it doesn't mean it's true. We've got to do our due diligence. If you are an expert or an emerging expert, we've got to take the time. It's so easy now to do some research, but we can't just take things at first sight. Mark, I remember back in the day, I heard somebody in a toastmaster contest tell this great story about climbing this mountain. At the end, there's a sign that says, and I don't remember what it was, and made of bronze. And somebody else said, no, no, that sign is made out of wood. So now there's a question. Okay, if that's not accurate, what else in the story isn't accurate? This is why it matters for you and me. We can't run the risk. People can disagree with us. But our credibility is at stake when we start mentioning things. And just a quick reminder, we see a lot of people who start using a lot of quotes early in their career because they're almost trying to back up their thought with a bunch of famous people. And as Patricia Fripp would say, stop quoting dead white men.

Ouch.

And I want to say stop quoting other people. It's one thing if, look, it's a mentor of yours and it was part of your journey. And remember, if you're living life this way, you hear the quote and then your life changed you, you have a new perspective that's different from just getting a bunch of quotes that back up your point. We don't need a quote book. There are plenty out there. We need your perspective from your life. What did your coach say? What did your client say? What did your parents say? Let's stop quoting other people too much. And Mark, I've, I've even been accused of this by like quoting Frip too much.

But her wisdom has certainly informed us. And those of us, those of you are listening or watching who know are familiar with Darren Lacroix presentations when he was early in his career when he was competing. You do know he does mention Brian Tracy's challenge to him via audio cassette. But in that particular case it was how that one question Brian Tracy asked impacted him, changed his life, changed the complete trajectory of his career over 20 years ago. And that particular context is good. But I would also tell you as a professional speech, speech coach, I have had clients who or delivering a 10 minute speech and they have eight or nine different quotations from different individuals because in their minds they believe having the quotations there will sure up, will bolster, will edify and strengthen their perspective. Let's be careful, friends. First of all, when we quote several other people in our presentation, we're giving them the credibility and we're simply running on their coattails. What has been your experience? Darren says, what did your teacher talk to you about? What did you, what did your kids say to you that changed your thinking? What did a mentor say to you? You can use those quotations because yes, we have those time tested and true great quotations which I use once in a while myself. But look at your own life experience now and as Darren says, we have tools available to us through AI Chat, GPT and others for verification. I remember years ago, Darren, I heard the quotation that was attributed to John Lennon. Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans. It was in a song he wrote called Beautiful Boy on a film that I watched and I love the film called Mr. Holland's Opus. But I used to work at Reader's Digest and they used to read the magazine every month, got it free. And somewhere in my reading of magazines I learned that the phrase about life happens to you when you make other plans was actually written back in 1957 by a man named Alan Saunders and published in a Reader's Digest. And for all these years I'm saying John Lennon, John Lennon, John Mark, you were wrong. And it is not that difficult now in 21st century to verify, to vet and check. So I would say, look, not only check a source, double check. There's so many online sites now in the brainy fold and all these other sites, you can do some verification. And the beauty is on some of these websites there are individuals who have invested the time to do the work for you. They'll tell you, I researched these five sources and I found out the most reliable source was 1873 when Darren Lacroix the first said this. Okay, for argument's sake, but my point is it's available to us if we simply put the work in. And I invite you, when you're thinking about using quotations, it may be a commonly heard quote, but it won't hurt for you to verify. Here's the best part. Darren said, by failing to do so, you hurt your credibility. But when you and I decide to invest the time, put the work in to research and verify, we are telling our audiences you are worth my time, effort and work to provide for you the truth and the best that I have to offer. So I would invite you all to think maybe you had a quote in your recent speech or you're going to use one next week or maybe tonight. Are you sure that that quotation is accurate? And are you sure that the source is also accurate? Because there are two dimensions here. One is the accuracy of the quote and two is the correct source of the quote. I will say again, there are two separate issues because, Darren, you and I review scripts once in a while for clients as well. And I've had clients in the script have a quotation and the first thing I do, I go online and research. And there have been times they have misquoted the quotation because the line wasn't accurate and they said it wrong for several years and haven't realized it. That can be just plain sloppy. And your clients, our clients deserve the best we have to offer. So there's two, two dimensions. One is the accuracy of the quote, word for word, and two is the source of the quote. We need to take the time to make sure we're correct.

Yeah, and I invite you too, to double check the context, especially if it's a statistic. If it's a statistic, well, what was the context? Because you can pull things out of context and make it Work for whatever you want. I remember hearing our guru, a mentor to me, Alan Weiss, talking about the, the famous quote or statistic about body language and how much words versus body language affects it. And then he brought up, and this was 15, 20 years ago I heard this. He brought up the fact that that was a certain context that people now misuse it, that the body language is so much more important. But it was a study done. But if you understand the actual context it was done in, it has a slightly different meaning. So if you pull it out of that, and I still remember that. So by taking the time to, even if it's a common quote, do some research, find out some more about it, that will up your game, rather than taking the risk of misquoting. Because now you may have one little nugget that becomes that additional, let's say, seed planter of that quote. Because it's not just the quote by itself, it's the quote plus some deeper context that may resonate. But more importantly, again, reason for this podcast, unforgettable, because you're the person who did the research and took the time, like you said, Mark, please understand the.

Motivation here is not to show the world, hey, I'm a great researcher. But it's just for accuracy, for, for, for credibility, for reliability. When the audience knows, you know what, Darren Lacroix, Mark Brown, John Smith, Mayor, whatever her name is, when the audience knows, you put the work in and the time in to provide information, to provide data, to provide research that's well researched, well thought out, and verifiable. It's actually a blessing. We did a podcast several months ago about the different kinds of members in your audience, the way they think. And there's always somebody in the audience who's going to want to verify everything that you say. They will fact check you to death. And in a world we live in now, fact checking is a thing and it's available and accessible. So we need to be very sure that what we offer up is accurate. And I've heard several of these stats. You know, in America, the divorce rate is 50%. And then there are those. Oh, that's a complete myth. It's not really true because the context was not right. It was based upon a projection. He was looking forward, not looking backwards. And if I'm going to use a quotation like that or a stat like that, I need to look at everything. Here's the not so fun part. This aspect of preparation for a presentation is not always easy. It's part of what we call the Grind, the grunt work, the putting the hard yards in, but the investment of time and effort for accuracy, the investment of time and effort for credibility is going to be well worth it next week, next month, and 10 years down the road, because you will be known as an individual who gets the facts right. Perhaps we need to be like journalists who want to check the source and double check the source. Maybe you want to go that deeply into it and view yourself in that way. My only point is we have a responsibility to every member of our audience. Because we stand on a platform, they are there to hear us. We have become the authority, the expert, and they are depending on us, leaning on us and relying on what we say and acting upon what we say. The privilege of the platform sounds nice, but as Darren Lacroix always says, you have an awesome responsibility. Do not take that lightly.

Yes. And if you do put a quote up, put the source on the slide. Because now, if you misquoted, now at least you're quoting the source that you got it from, which could be incorrect, by the way, but now at least you've done that time. And Mark, right when we started, I just looked up what are the most misattributed quotes? Like, I was shocked. And I'm just going from this article, which was written in 2017 on mashable.com quoting the source. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Sherlock Holmes, right?

No, it was actually according to Sherlockian, the foremost authority on everything. Sherlock Holmes. A phrase is from P.G. wodehouse's novel P. Smith. Oh, in 1915. Another one, I Cannot Tell a Lie by George Washington, apparently is a lie.

That's good.

Well, honestly, may as well be a lie because Washington did not say this. It was embellished. Writer Mason Locke Weems added this detail in a biography about Washington embellishing on his saintly nature. If you can't trust George Washington, who can you trust?

So that. That was in. It was in keeping with his character, but he didn't actually say it. Wow.

Exactly.

Okay.

Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing Vince Lombardi.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. So sorry to tell you Lombardi is not the man you should be thanking. Lombardi did say this. That's where we have to be careful and do more research. We can't just take the first article and say, oh, okay, that's true, he did say it. But Red Sanders, UCLA Bruins football, said it first. Another one. Well behaved women rarely make history. Marilyn Monroe. Yeah, Marilyn. Probably the most misquoted woman of history, working on her to her advantage. Many Quotes misattributed to her somewhat shaped the way society admires her. In 2007, a female historian wrote a book titled well behaved women rarely make history. While some believe she stole this phrase from Marilyn Monroe, the blonde beauty, she was in fact the originator. Ulwich first wrote this phrase in 1976 in an issue American Quarterly in reference to colonial women who are mistreated in our history books.

So now, now, Darren, real quickly, how long did it take you to find that?

As Mark Brown would say, 3.155557 seconds.

Now, I'm not trying to be glib here, friends, but Darren and I were talking about this before we went on to record this we're talking about topic. And Darren quickly went online and found like 10 most frequently miscoded lines. It took a Google search to find that. And you see the depth of the information he just gave regarding Marilyn Monroe. As I said earlier, as I said earlier, this information is out there and we really have no excuse for not doing the vetting ourselves and showing ourselves credible, showing ourselves diligent, and providing the best that we have to offer. So here's a challenge for everyone who's listening today. As you think about the quotations you have used or considering using, I will ask you to invest the time today, if possible, or in the very, very near future, to go and research that quote you like so much, find out from whence it has sprung, and then determine happily, yes, I'm right, I'm all good, or ooh, I didn't know that background behind it. If we chose to find the etymology of every quotation that we use, the least we're going to get is an education. And the most you're going to get is a better way to share what we have with our audiences. But here's the bonus. As we go through the exercise, I also invite you to think about what quotations you may want to share. What wisdom have you received in your life that you can pass on without relying upon a famous name, an actor, a singer, a celebrity, a scientist, a politician, or somebody who's in the public eye? Maybe you can begin to bring a fresh, new perspective. And maybe one of these days your quotation becomes more widely used because you are giving the wisdom that somebody else needs to hear. Think about that.

Yeah, Mark, I'm just blown away by these. I took these all as true. Be yourself. Everyone else has already taken Oscar Wilde. Nope.

Really?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Einstein. Nope. We should call this nope and on.

And on it goes. Wow. Yeah. I think it would be a fun exercise. Right now, on my other lap over here, I have a search going on the line from the film the man who Shot Liberty Valance, where the line is, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. I'm going to research that one and see where that comes from and get the. Get the etymology, the root of it. And see, I can probably use that because very often, you know, after a while, people say the wrong thing long enough, it becomes the right thing, you know, and sadly, when we misquote someone long enough, the misquotation becomes the quotation. See how I kind of put that together there, Darren? I kind of bridge that gap. Yeah. Anyway, so where does that leave us, friends? Back to my idea. We got. We got to research. We got to find out what's out there and also think about what wisdom you can share that you've learned over time yourself without the use of the words from, as Frip says, dead white men. Just for your consideration today.

Yeah. And Mark this. This actually helped me a lot. There's a quote to say, those who can't do, teach.

Yeah, Those who can't. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. So I was told.

And I just. I ended up using that quote when I do my keynote on 17 minutes to your dream or all in. But I did the research. I took the time. It actually comes from George Bernard Shaw's script from man to Superman, something close to that. Don't quote me on this, but it just by taking the time, you're going to learn more. You're going to go more deeply into maybe a quote or a subject. And it's our job, if we want to be unforgettable, to enlighten our audience from this education. So please take the time. If you're going to use a quote, remember, every time you're on stage and you present, you speak, it is multiplied by hundreds and thousands of people who hear it. So it can increase your credibility if you give us a little more context. It can decrease. It can hurt your credibility and credentials if you misquote something. So please take the time. Don't quote too bad.

And Darren, you know, hit me just now. I began presenting 30 years ago, you know, back in 94. We're now in. As I record this, it's now 2024. It was 30 years ago. And I realized then it took a while for what we say to reach the world. We are in the information age with AI and shorts and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and what we say goes out instantly. So the reach is rapid and it is vast. It is now global. And think of what that means for you, for your reputation, for your potential impact. Be the one your audiences can rely on, for credibility, for fact, for truth, for verification. To be seen as the individual who always researches, always vets, always double checks, who has the journalist's mindset. All for the purposes of serving your audience. Because never, never should we be accused of misquoting anyone else. That's my advice to you and my exhortation for you as well.

Yes, it's part of our brand. So I invite you, I encourage you, go more deeply into any quote, any statistic you use because it's your credibility at hand. See you next week.

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