Ep. 277 CAN THEY SEE YOUR STORY?

Hey there, Mark. Don't you listen to a story?

Of course.

Can they see your story? What?

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 podcasts with your host, 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.

So, Mark, you and I do what's called dynamic duo coaching. Duo coaching.

Nevermind. Sorry, that's bad.

Which means there's two coaches. You know, you've heard of one on one coaching, but this is two on one coaching. And why it's so. I think it's so much more quickly transformational because you've got both of our perspectives, you know, with each coach having a different ninja background. We've talked about this. Yours being digging into the heart of the person, the story and the life and asking those great questions. It's not my skill set. And your wordsmithing, which again, not my skill set. My skill set more on the stage. Use the characters, the delivery, and it doesn't mean you're not good at that too. You are. It's just like my focus and what I see. So we just got off a call with a coaching client and we're helping him. And really he's a CEO, owns his own small business, an attorney, and he, he's just really good and really likable. And when we were just showing him and talking about stories, one of the things that came up was just, can they see your story? And this is twofold. So can we see the setting and can we see the characters? Now if you've heard us before, it's a little bit review. If you haven't heard us talk about this, listen in. This is huge.

Lean in. Lean in. Yeah.

The goal is just to give them two or let's just talk about setting first and then we'll talk about characters. But the setting. What were one or two or three details that you can paint? But my mom's a painter and when she starts on a canvas, she paints with oil paintings. She starts by touching the canvas and then she proceeds to brush in different colors. Okay. That's where, that's where it's different for us as presenters. Our goal is to give one or two specific details so the audience does all of the painting. Our job as A presenter is just to touch the canvas in one or two spots. For example, one of my stories. And Mark, I love to hear one of your examples that you think of. One of mine is in the photocopy room with Dan Jones, my toastmaster club president. If you were standing, you would have seen reams and reams of paper on the wall in the photocopy room. So seeing the reams and reams of paper on the wall and Mark, you've seen me do this before. I stopped the audience and I asked them what color was the paint on the walls in the photocopy room. And a lot of similar answers. Eggshell off white, blue. But a lot of commonalities. Why? Because a lot of photocopy rooms look the same. I never say what color the walls are. I suggest the. And I almost. And I put my hand up. If you're listening to this, I put my hand up high, like I'm pointing to the reams of paper on the wall. So I'm putting my hand up there like I'm gesturing towards it. And then I look at it. I look at it. So that helps the audience see those reams of paper, and they fill in the rest of the blank. I don't say it was, you know, 32 square feet and the heater was not working that day. And, you know, so there's all these delays that we let the audience paint. It's too much time for us. If you're writing, that's different. But as a speaker, paint just the right details. And it doesn't matter what they see. As Patricia Fripp says, it matters that they see. Mark.

Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I do have one particular story. I tell quite a bit. Playing high school football, soccer to North Americans back in the 1970s. And I bring the audience to Jamaica, my home country. I bring to Jamaica's National Stadium, where the event took place. And I talk about this young man, Leo, who was on the bench for the whole season. And finally he gets a chance to play in a Cup semifinal with last 10 minutes to go. So I really create the atmosphere of tension. And I tell them, you know, in Jamaica high school football, when I was playing, you don't get 85 people or 100 people coming to a game. You get 10, 15,000 people coming to a game. And the bench was first up at the beginning of the grandstand against an angled cycling track. And I say, the angled cycling track. And I show them the angle of the cycling track, and everyone pictures a cycling track. We're in A stadium around the running track. And in the middle is a soccer pitch. Now, what color are the lanes on the running track? Are they blue? Are they red? Are they green? I'm guessing everyone pictures what they normally see. So I mentioned he had to go down the angle. Cycling track. Cycling track. Across eight lanes of running track. And when I say across eight lanes of running track, the audience now begins to look and begins to count the steps. He get to the field, and he took his place on the sidelines. So they're visualizing a Stadium with 10,000 people. They visualize a cycling track at an angle. They visualize a long jump it. I forgot to say long jump it. And eight lanes of running track. So they visualize the whole scene with just a few words. But what you did, Darren, you said you pointed to the walls. And by showing the angle and on video, you will see it on YouTube video, on the audio, I'm raising my hand to show the angle of the cycling track. I say across. On the cycling track, across the long jump pit, across eight lanes of running track. And he took his place on the sidelines to go into the game. And the audience, they picture a stadium, they picture a crowd, they picture the track, they picture the long jump. It they pick because they've seen the Olympics, right? And they picked up a track, and they pictured this young man, Leo, standing at the sidelines waiting to go on. Just enough details, I could have said it was the track. Track was, you know, 35 yards wide. The long jump, it was so wide, they used gray sand, not white sand. Not relevant. The track was blue, green. It was made of this. No, they want to see the stadium, the crowd, the track, the pit. And all they want is a distance from the bench to. To the soccer field and the audience, everyone pictures that themselves. Simply a couple of details. A track along the pit and a cycling track. In the same way, we can use just enough details for the audience to see it. And it brings me back to a thought I've been sharing for a long time. When you're telling a story, if you can give the audience an experience, then they will see your story. They'll see your characters. They'll see the setting. We always say, let them picture the setting. Anyone who has heard us teach, now, we always say, let them picture the setting. If the audience can picture the setting and the characters and feel the atmosphere, the tension, those are all ways for the audience to see the story. So, number one, make sure you paint two or three details. Touch the paint on the canvas so they can get it and let the audience see it, Darren?

Yes. And then the characters, we again want them to see the characters. You don't have to paint the whole picture of the character, but just as a guide, give us one visual and one emotional. One visual and one emotional so we can get a sense of the character at the beginning of the story. We're just focusing at the beginning of the story in today's podcast because if they see it, if they see the setting, if they see the characters, they will go with you. The whole point is to take them on that journey with you. So if they picture it, and it's our job to paint it with just enough details that they fill in the whole setting, we see the whole character. Now, you know when I say Mark Brown, if you don't know Mark Brown, now I'm standing on a stage, so people don't even know how tall I am really. And so I give the comparison. I'm five, seven ish.

Okay.

And.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Five, seven, okay, yeah.

And I say mark Brown is six foot two. He has a heart of gold. He's a native of Jamaica, and he has beautiful booming laugh like the guy from the old 7Up commercial. And so it's a fun way to picture Mark. But I'm also setting up the end where he says, oh, Darren, we have some work to do. So that voice at the beginning is important because it's setting something up at the end of the story. But right now we're just talking about the beginning, beginning. So, you know, when I hold my hand up, how Mark, how tall Mark is compared to me. So I'm physically and emotionally looking up to Mark, my mentor. Now, I don't say, well, Mark Brown has size 12 shoes. He sings in his chorus. He's, you know, he wears a 52 short. I don't know. I have no idea what.

Thank you very much, buddy. What about a 46 long? We'll be 48 for those who wear suits with American standards. But you did say something, Darren, that's very interesting about the visual because I've used this idea of having the audience see the characters non verbally as well. Now, if you're listening to the podcast, if you're listening only, you will not see this clearly on the video. You will see this. But there are times you can describe a character by your action and not by your words. For example, I could say, you know, I heard about this guy, you know, they call him, you know, Tiny Tim. I turned the corner and there he was. For the audio that silence was my. I was looking up, and my facial expression was one of shock, awe, and wonder. Because tiny Tim was 6 foot 6, 275, and he looked like a bull. Right. Tiny Tim was a. Was. Was a misnomer. I was fooled by that. But when I turned the corner, I saw Tiny Tim.

Hmm.

Look of wonder and looking up, you know, I'm seeing a giant in my own mind. And if I'm 6 foot inches tall and I see this guy who is clearly bigger than I am, visually, you are seeing. You are picturing Tiny Tim in your own mind. Because the way I look at the character myself. Here's the key. We can give the audience a visual without giving them a verbal. I'll say it again. We can give the audience a visual without giving them a verbal. I did this without knowing it. Almost 30 years ago, when I was competing in the Toastmasters World Championship, I used a line to describe a woman who was pretending to be a homeless person in New York City. And I talked about some looked right at her, and yet right past her. Others looked right through her. We call that 3D speaking. When I said, look at her, I'm looking at somebody in space looking past her. I look past them in space, look right through her. I look through her in space. But the way I portray the character in the moment, you could actually see me looking past someone. You could see me looking at someone. You could see me looking through someone because the way my eyes looked, the way my face looked. And we can really portray a character without words if we do that. Well, to some, it is an advanced technique, but there are simple ways to apply that principle even now as descriptors. Can the audience see your characters in the story? And visually representing Darren, use his hand to show height and depth, how tall or how short. You can do simple motions and body language to help the audience get a visual picture of a character, of a scene, of a setting of reaction. Now, we did restrict to what we see at the beginning, but even if you start to do that now and you can practice front of a mirror, can the audience see that? Record yourself on video and watch it back. Do I depict that character? Well, you can really help the audience to see your characters, see your scenes and eventually see your story.

It could be an article of clothing they always wear. It could be a smile that's always on their face. It could be a frown, her favorite red jacket. Again, just let the audience paint most of the picture. You just give us the one or two details to literally and figuratively Touch the canvas. This is so important at the beginning. We're just focusing on the beginning, the setting, the characters, and sometimes, Darren, very quickly.

If we can hear at the beginning of the. A voice, the quality of a voice can speak volumes. You, you know, you need not say, oh, when I met her, oh, I could tell she was ailing. She had this really raspy voice. And I could see she was kind of older and going through a lot. That says much. But if you said, I walked in and she said, hello, Mark, I haven't seen you in a long time. And just saying, hello, Mark, I haven't seen you in a long time. It paints a picture in the audience's mind of the character you're trying to portray. These are small little details and small little tweaks that you can use. But what you will accomplish is remarkable because at the very beginning, you just met that character. But at the very beginning, the audience is beginning to see the character, see the setting, and eventually they will see your story. And these small tools can be so instrumental, and once you master them, it becomes second nature to you. Again, we're looking at the beginning right now, and at a later date, we'll take you through a process so the audience will see not only the beginning character and the setting, but eventually see your whole story.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And here's the test. If you're part of nsa, the National Speakers association, or Toastmasters, or put together an audience and tell the story, just tell it the way you normally tell it. And then after, ask them the question, did you picture the setting? Did you picture the characters and ask them what they saw? Because that's going to give you some feedback as to, did you touch the canvas properly? Again, it doesn't matter that they're all seeing the same thing. It matters that they're seeing something. And like Mark just alluded and gave us an example of, you could also introduce the characters using interesting dialogue. You know, maybe they're overconfident, maybe they speak really loud. Maybe they speak softly. Or as Mark gave you that example, it allows us to say fewer words yet say volumes.

Amen to that.

By giving an emotion of the character. And by the way, you're, wow, you've grown about two feet since I've seen you last. There's ways to use the dialogue to help us picture the character and the setting. It's creative, it's powerful, but most importantly, it's compelling when your audience sees your story. Mark, I like that last line.

I can't even go any better. Than that it's creative, it's also compelling. We urge you, we ask you, we invite you to try this technique and as Darren says, find or create an audience. Let them see what you're showing them and ideally, if they can see it with their eyes closed, by how you deliver a line, by the lines you use and the dialogue you share, then you're certainly on your way to telling unforgettable stories. Yes.

Test it in a low risk atmosphere. Get the feedback, but don't lead the witness. Just ask them, what did you picture? Don't say, okay, so I'm working on this and I'm trying to see if you saw the story. No, just ask them questions and get feedback. Whether you do a written feedback or oral feedback, whatever, get the feedback, see if you're on the right track. We're looking for commonalities and we're looking that they saw it. Not exactly what they saw. Mark, bring us home.

Yeah. And when they can do that, they have the necessary emotional connection to absorb your story and then run with it. Here's a question. Can they see your story? Tell us about it. We'll see you next week. All right.

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