Ep. 260 WHY COMPETE?

Why compete? Why compete? Ooh, so many reasons. Here with Mark Brown and coach Michael Davis, who helped coach the nsa. Last story standing winner, which we're gonna have on next week. But right now we're gonna talk about the value of competition. We got the Olympics going on, the NSA contest going on, the Toastmasters World Championship coming on. Why would you compete?

Good question.

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, Mark, welcome. Michael Davis, thanks for joining us here. Coach, coach extraordinaire.

Thank you, Darren.

Love it.

Great, great to be here. Hey, I want to win the world Championship so I can get a $29 trophy. Let's start with why not to compete?

Yeah, yeah, good, good point. Competition. All these things going on, the Olympics, the excitement, the NSA starting this new national, first year ever national competition for story. Mark Brown, Let's. Let's start with you. Why compete?

Perhaps I should answer that question by. By saying, why you? Why you should not compete? But I'm not going to go there just yet. Why compete? For one reason. I believe competition sharpens your skills. Competition brings the best out of you. Competition forces you to dig deep, to sharpen your skills, hone your expertise and to learn in the area of speaking. Tools, tips and techniques to make you a better presenter, a better story, a better storyteller and a better communicator. And when you do it, I believe competition forces you to get better more quickly. That's my answer. What do you think, Mike Davis?

I would sum up what you just said, Mark, by saying it forces you to get out of your comfort zone. And if you want to become a better speaker, a better athlete, and we're watching the Olympics the last two weeks. These kids, I call them that because of my age.

I concur.

They do all the work that most people want. They get out of their comfort zone to stretch for that extra split second, that extra half stroke in the pool, that will get them there. And it's about getting out of your comfort zone to become better.

Yeah. And I think breakthroughs come from experience. And what competition does is it forces you to get more experience. Partially. You know, this is a way that the ego actually works for us because our ego wants us to do better. So we're willing to work harder and go deeper because it's a competition. When I joined the World Championship competition, I joined because I had stories I was telling. And my mentor, Dave Fitzgerald, said, stop trying to find that new story. Instead, take the stories you already have and make them so good, someone be willing to pay for them. That was a big aha. I just thought a story was a story. Now, I joined the NSA competition this year, but here's what I did. I forced myself to use a new story, but it wasn't really hard to force myself because I knew the value of competing, that that story was. Would get better. So I didn't want to take one of my tried and true stories and kind of come in. I just, look, if other people did that, hey, that's cool. That's a choice. You could do whatever you want. But I know that growth comes from actually doing it, getting the experience, getting the coaching. So I came to you, Michael Davis. I got assigned, same as the winner, the Jim Cathcart coach. And here's what I'll say. It was really cool because I, Jennifer Leone, gave me feedback and what Cathcart saw. So my story was a new story. I was telling about my dad and my sister, and it was about being all in. And one of the things that he said that I can't wait till you come next. I hope you watch this next week when we sit down with Jeff Rogers, the winner, because Cathcart has this way of giving you, you know, making you feel like, oh, it's perfect. Oh, but there's just one other thing that maybe you would consider. And what he told me was consider this. Starting off by, you know, all in. Everyone knows the concept. And brilliantly, he said, why don't you start off by saying, I thought I knew what all in meant.

And let.

That sit and land. And that gets you to, well, what does it really mean? And now it also comes from a place of humility. But it was so powerful that that changed that story. That helped my keynote. By the way, that sound bite now made it onto my keynote demo reel because it sets up that curiosity. But it came because I got coached. Tweaks came because I was willing to get coached, work really hard with my whole goal. So even though I only made it to the regionals, I don't care. The story got better, which means my keynote is more valuable.

It's funny because that. And it goes back to what you Said originally when you entered a contest, you wanted to make a story better. And here you are, world champion. You were certified pro, you were speaker. You're the only person in the world with all three of those, those, those wonderful let us behind your name. But still you work on stories. You go, you get a coach and you want to make them better. And when we compete, it drives us to ask the question, how can I make this better? How can I make this better? And if we have, if we have a contestant's mindset that says I want to make it so good, that is one reason why competing can really help us, because it drives us to improve. What we have is about our growth and our personal improvement.

Mark, to add to what mark, you just said you used the word coach. I think the key word is coaches. Watching the Olympics, a lot of these athletes have a strength coach, a speed coach, a mental coach, a nutrition coach. And it's the same in presenting to get people that you know and trust who know you will each give you different perspective. And when we talk to Jeff next week, he had a couple of us were main coaches and he had a couple other of the hall of Fame speaker coaches. Everyone gave him useful feedback, but also he knows his own style, so he knew what to accept and what wouldn't work for him. And that's just part of why competition is so valuable, because you build the confidence to know your style.

Well, interesting to Michael, you mentioned coaches. I go back almost 30 years when I was competing in the 1995 World Championship. Everyone who knows my story knows my coach, mentor. I call him the master mentor. David Brooks 1990 world champion not too many people know. The week of the contest, I drove from Mount Vernon, New York into New York City to meet with two other coaches, a couple Robert and Randy Gadalia, who have since passed away. And I reached out to Robert because I had seen him as a keynote presenter at the ToastMasters convention in 1994. As a presenter. And he talked about what to do when you're on stage. I said, I need help in this area. I wonder, will he help? Somebody doesn't even know. He said, sure, I'll help you. And I went to their apartment. They had a video camera, the old VHS video camera, all set up to record. But I had coaching not only in the writing, but the stage management. And Darren Lacroix has become the master of stageology. And I had to have had. I needed to have different coaches in different areas to make my entire presentation worthwhile. So yes, Michael, I appreciate the Word coaches. Good point.

Yeah. If you think of an Olympian, here we have people who are competing, they're given six months, years of their life for one moment in time. And we hear a lot of the stories of the people who win. What about that person who didn't win? It was their whole purpose, their whole mission for years, maybe since they were a kid. If you're a speaker, if you're a storyteller, if you're a trainer or presenter, the cool part about competing in stories, whether it's a story story, Jam World Championship, last story standing, maybe even they have Many Other or TedX or Many Other people. I'm not even aware of that.

The moth is one of them too.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. That if you just compete, even if you don't win, the win is in the improvement in the story. So you can use it in the improved format in your keynote speech where you get paid. Our friend Craig Valentine says if you want a masterpiece, you have to master the pieces. This is an opportunity to pull that story out of your keynote or play around with a new story that might make it into your keynote. Highly recommend. Do not work on a story that you probably would not use in your keynote. The purpose is focusing on that one story, enhancing it greatly. And Mark, because I was competing and working with you, with my two coaches, David McElhaney and Mark Brown, those 77 days when I had to write a brand new speech, those 77 days, I changed, I transformed. Because the stakes were high, I didn't work as hard at the lower levels, I'd admit. Like, my goal was still to make it better for my keynote. But when I was, whoo, wow, okay. It just got real. Like, that changes everything. And it got me to work harder, got my story to improve. But more importantly, I learned things that permeate the rest of my speaking and stories that I would have never been enlightened on if I didn't work so hard on this competition. And you guys know, if you're listening to this, you know that you, you would not become a Olympic athlete and say, ooh, where can I find coaching for free? You know, there's a difference in coaches. Just like speakers find that person or people who literally can help you at the world class level, you don't just need feedback, you need feedback at that highest level because they're going to see things that newer coaches will not. But if you've ever heard me speak or been on a webinar with Mark and me, you know, I say there's two kinds of feedback. Number one, here's what I thought and felt. You do need to know thought and felt. And everyone is quiet qualified to tell you thought and felt. We're looking for commonalities, but how to make it better? That's where we have to discern. And be careful. Mike 1.

Quickly, one more thought before Mike speaks, because I can't let go of this. You got me thinking. Now, some may say, yes, we know you say compete so you can become better. But I also realized when I thought about it, when I compete against people who are really good at what they do, their excellence drives me to seek excellence. I'll say that again. Their excellence drives me to seek excellence. To some, it's, I've got to beat them to win the trophy. And there may be some of that involved. But the idea is, man, they're good. I want to be as good as them. What tools do I need? What help can I get? What is my strategy? What is my game plan? To be at my best, but at their level. To be at my best, but at their level. That's a good reason to compete, to elevate your level of excellence. When you see a benchmark, maintain your style, your personality, but you want to be your best at their level.

Well, one thought on that, Mark and Katie Ledecky, the most decorated female American swimmer ever, she was going head to head with Australian swimmer whose name escapes me. But at the end of their last race together, they hugged and they each told each other, I so appreciate you because you bring out the best of me. You make me better. That's powerful. It also occurs to me that one huge benefit of competition is a twofold time pressure. Number one, and Jeff will talk about this next week. And you guys, we've all had to go through it in competition. In Toastmasters, it's 7 minutes and 30 seconds. One person in history was able to actually violate that and still win. But that's another podcast.

We will not mention Darren Lacroix's name here. We won't.

But Jeff had that same issue when he competed. Now, that's within the competition, but also, there is a date that the competition is held. You've got to be ready for it. We talk about this all the time in storytelling. What makes a story emotionally gripping is if you put a clock somewhere, figurative clock, to say this person had to accomplish this goal by a certain date, that increases the tension. That tension is good for you. It forces you to become better on a clock.

Yeah. And if you could do better under pressure. How much better will you be when you're not under pressure and you have more confidence and just piggybacking on what you guys were just talking about? An unexpected bonus. Just like the Katie Ledecky example is you. You get to be close to, around and witness other people at that level of competition. You learn how they prepared, you get insights that you might not have had you not been competing. Like, I don't know what the conversations were backstage. We interviewed Jeff for next week. Like, I got to learn some insights I didn't know. So you will learn insights. And Mark, you know the story. Mike, you know the story. But if you don't know Jim Key, who came in second to me, he heard my preparation of recording myself. That was new to him. And the next year he recorded himself. And the year after, he came in second again. The year after that, he actually listened. And that's when he won. And I teased, Jim, he is awesome. He is my equal. But it's just a great example that you get to see and witness things you wouldn't have on how other people prepare, how other people have mindsets. What do they do? Ooh, could I add that to my preparation routine? Could I had that insight that I hadn't thought of. Cause you see, just like Katie. And what's really cool is you see so many people in the Olympics and I keep pointing cause my TV's behind there. You see so many people in the Olympics, especially in the swimming where they're competing. They're one and two and they were just in some of the national competition last month, and they were two and one instead of one and two and. And they. They give each other a high five, they give each other a hug, and they witness the work, the preparation. I mean, it gets you to work harder. And there's these little insights we never usually talk of. So I'm so thankful, psyched. We're talking about them right now.

You said that, Darren. What also occurred to me is the discipline of applying a process. Let me explain what I mean by that. You have X number of days to prepare a talk X number of minutes long to meet the need of X number of requirements of judges. To have those all three fall into place requires discipline. What's my process? What is my routine going to be? Look at any athlete now who trains for the Olympics. They have dietary restrictions, habits, procedures. They have medical. They have rest days, and we need our rest days as well. There are days you want to put the piece down, walk away from it, breathe, go outside, play With a dog, whatever. But this discipline of a process or a routine that helps you prepare and peak at the right time. And I say and peak at the right time. Because when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was a piano student. And we would sit exams that were administered by the Royal Schools of Music in Jamaica. They'd have examiners who would fly down from me from the uk, from London and England. They come to Jamaica, spend a month and travel around the country and go to every single piano studio in the country, my small island country. And I had prepared to prepare two particular pieces. One was what they call a scared. So it's fast, it's quick, nimble fingers. And I wanted to nail that thing so well. And I kept doing it, doing it, doing it over, over, over, over, over again. And I was ready a week early. I woke up one Saturday morning to go run through my. My skill, and I couldn't do it. I don't know what it was. I had peaked and I realized I got to stop and restart my process with greater discipline and a better schedule. And in a week, I went back to basics, learning it slowly, relearning it, retraining my brain, my body. I was 12 or 13 years old, but I realized in that. That experience taught me the discipline of preparation, using a system and a process. And when you compete, that becomes magnified in your mind. I have a deadline, I have a schedule. I've got to stick with it. And, Darren, I don't know what went through, but you had all these recordings. You had to go to work, you had to go to rehearsals, you had to do speaking. I can't begin to imagine what you went through 23 years ago when you were doing this, but you must have had a process and a plan.

Yeah, it was a bit scattered, but.

I learned. I learned that when I have a plan in place to prepare for something as significant as that, it helps me tremendously to stay focused. So my suggestion is the discipline and a process are techniques that you learn to live with as a result of the decision to compete, if you plan to compete well and achieve a higher level of excellence. That's my experience.

What you just said is so important, Mark, because we teach this all the time. At stage time, there's a process, a structure, a framework for stories and presentations, and you have to know those so well, and as we'll learn from Jeff next week, know it so well. You know when you can break those rules, but you've got to have those in place. Now, here's the Part, you got to trust the process. There will be days, especially in a competition, where you wake up and I know you each went through this, especially Darren. I hate this speech. Why did I do this? Competition, I. This is the worst speech I've ever created. Because you're hitting those resistance marks. You got to push through them and trust the process. The process does work. It's worked for a lot of people before you. But know, and this is where coaching can help prepare people for it. Here's what's going to happen. We did that with Jeff in the competition. He was getting a bit frustrated. It's like, Jeff, you're going to be okay. He just pushed through it because self doubts, frustration. You get tired of hearing your own voice after a while. That's a breakthrough moment about to happen. But you got to push through it.

Yeah.

As an aside, Michael, you say that Dan and I were coaching on the stage recently and it's interesting. We work with our VIPs on their stories. They give about seven to 10 minutes of their speeches and they're going to work on that piece and they put all this work in to bring it to us. The first day we offer guidance and they get tired. Then they got homework at night and you know, day two, it's like, I don't know. And day three, they walk in and it's as if some switch was flipped on day three because we give them a process. So you do overnight, do this, do this, do this. First night, okay, come back. Day two, not bad. But I don't know what it is. But day three, we always go, yes, we can see it happen. Almost like a switch was flipped because they began to understand even after two days there was a process. You can apply even in a two day period to help you get to a different level. And Darren, you can speak to this. We could say, wow, where was that two days ago? And our clients are going, oh my gosh, in two days. We did this because you had a process, a framework, and you simply had the discipline to follow the instructions, Darren.

Yeah. And look, we'd love to tell you, if you get a coach, it just solves everything. No, you have to work just as hard. You will be more frustrated than if you were working by yourself. And you'll have those moments that you want to quit or you get tired of your story. That's okay, go to sleep. Next day you wake up and you'll have new ideas to solve the problems that you had the day before. You just got to commit to the process. And we've worked with people, we've coached people. Mike's coached people who they just aren't willing to do the work. They want the magic without the work. And the magic comes from the work with a coach. If you haven't seen Jeff's speech, you might watch Jeff's speech. Jeff Rodgers, watch it ahead of time if you can, even if it's an earlier version before you listen to next week because it'll make even more sense. But so excited to have him on here. Mike, you were one of his coaches. How do you think him competing, how do you think it helped him as a speaker?

Well, he has a performance background and he is a world class host of events. He goes in for several days. I know Jeff Civilico, hall of Fame speaker, and Jeff does that kind of work too. His background's in improv. He's with Second City, so he had that. It was easy for him to transition into a communicator instead of a speaker or storyteller. Big difference. This is a challenge the three of us see frequently with speakers. I'm speakerman, I'm speaker woman. And Jeff, that was not an issue for him. What we had to do was take this raw idea of a story, which was really good to start with, and just tweak it so that it was conversational and the dialogue fit the characters. He had all those in place. So it was like he was. If I could use a football analogy in American football, he was on the 25 yard line pretty, pretty close to the end zone where some people start on the other end of the field.

I have one more thought. Darren and Mike, I'll just toss it out there. Why compete? I believe based on my experience and also my coaching, when we make a decision to compete and apply what we believe we need to do, we heed the voice of good coaches. Eventually we learn tools, we learn techniques we hadn't really been aware of before. I mean, Darren, your stage plan is brilliant and if you want to learn more about that point, stage time. But the stage plan idea is a brand new idea. And we have found that our clients, when they learn these new tools and techniques, you don't unlearn them. They've learned a new skill set they can begin to apply in other areas of their lives. And Dan and I, we've coached CEOs with zero experience and now they're getting involved in Impact 11 and they're getting involved with Vestige and wait, what happened? I learned these tools and techniques, I learned these ideas. Now and I can begin to apply them going forward. So it's great to compete, to try to win and accomplish a goal or what you learn along the way. Become more tools in your tool belt to build a bigger house when the time comes. That's it.

All right guys, we got to wrap it up here. So why compete? Michael Davis, your final thoughts?

You will get better.

Boom. Mark Brown, why compete? Bad question. Why not? Boom.

Think beyond the contest. It is way beyond the contest. Whether it's Toastmasters, nsa, last story standing, whatever competition you would be in, compete because you will grow and don't think the trophy is the win. Your growth, your breakthroughs that you wouldn't get have you had you not compete. And just a side note, I don't know Mike, if you picked up on this, but when Mark Brown's speaking, I can drink water. Just saying.

You grow, you learn. You also think about this. Darren, piggyback on your last thought. Think about the impact you have on the audience when your focus is less on a trophy and more on a message the world needs to hear.

Join us next week and we sit down with Jeff Rogers. The very first last story standing champion and Michael was his coach. Mark and I and Michael will sit down with him and check out our next episode. We'll see you next week.

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