Ep. 296 THE POWER OF THE RE-WRITE

Hey there, Mark Brown. The power of the rewrite. If you listen to us before you know, we say again and again, great speeches aren't written, they're rewritten. Great presentations aren't written, they're rewritten. Great stories aren't told, they're retold. And I just, I think even the pros out there, if you're a pro out there, I encourage you to be a sponge and dive in and listen to this.

Let's do it.

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.

No one becomes world class. No stories become world class unless there's a rewrite.

And you never argue with that.

Never done. Never.

Work is never done. We're going to talk about that today, Darren, because you know what? We've had a blessing of seeing people acknowledge this power and use it really well. Let's talk about the power of the rewrite. I'm stressing because I'm thinking about what we did in the last couple of days. We've had presenters who have delivered presentations recently at major events. And it's interesting, within a matter of weeks, some of these presenters are back saying, hey, I know I need to make some modifications, adjustments and rewrites. Why is that important? I'm going to stretch again. Because very often we deliver a good talk. We hear how well it was done, we love it, believe it, and it sits there. And we said, yes, I did it, it was great. But here is a thought for you. Have you challenged yourself to review quickly? Not in six months or a year, but review a presentation within a week or two and say, you know what? I bet I could have done that better. I believe I could rewrite that. Who can I consult with? Who do I trust? Who is in my circle who can help me to do this effectively? And I realize many individuals don't see the need to do it because they're comfortable. It has gone very, very well. But Darren always says, great speeches aren't written, they are rewritten. So question. Have you considered a recent rewrite? I'll ask it again. Have you considered a recent rewrite? Why, Darren?

Oh, we want to use the examples of what Mark and I are doing every week, we're working with these CEOs. So we were brought in by YPO and if you're listening along, we use examples of what we do and the insights we gain by coaching. Well, they just spoke about a month and a half ago in Barcelona. Well, three of the four were chosen to speak in Washington D.C. coming up, which is coming up right away. Well, we've revisited those speeches, but here's the key is watching your own videos and finding and discovering those moments of ew. I don't know how you spell that Mark, but ew, probably eew. I'm guessing when you realize it was like an awkward moment. And look, I get it. I don't like watching myself either. Let it go. Do you want to watch yourself again or do you want to be world class, which want will win? If you want it to be world class, you gotta look at it again. Now, one of the insights, Mark, that I've gained is these people who we're working with, these CEOs, they're confident they've done this before. Now, most of them have been on stage and delivered presentations before, but they've never really just told an eight minute story. This is probably new to them. Even though they've done it in their presentations. It's very different when it's done just eight minutes. And what Mark? I had an aha where a lot of them, like you said in the last episode, they watched themselves and they realized they needed to make some changes. And they also got feedback from confidants from trusted friends that said, hey, you know, that was a little too dramatic or that moment was awesome, but that this could have been better. And then the people who are bringing us in, the leaders, gave us some feedback on a couple of them that they needed to kind of bring back the drama a little bit, a little too much. And by the way, they're very dramatic stories.

So powerful.

It's. The drama is important, but even more important is the outcome and the lesson learned. And we need to see the Harry Met Sally effect. I'll have what they're having. So we need to see that there's some joy at the end. Maybe not total resolution, maybe still work in progress like we had last year, a couple of them, and that's okay, but they're a different place, They're a new person, they have a renewed confidence. They're a different place in their life. So taking those videos, which they worked as hard as they could on them and they did great and now how do we make them greater? So having that video is critical if you're willing to watch it and make adjustments. Because sometimes it could be as simple as silence. Sometimes. One of the challenges that we had is there was a talk of, oh, an embarrassing moment happened at this doctor's appointment. Don't let them know the embarrassing moment happened. You're telegraphing. And it was just a word, right?

One word.

It diluted where the audience went on this. Imagine. And then it was embarrassing. Just let them imagine and then let them discover it was embarrassing by maybe your face, but don't say it. And this is being very picky. But guess what? If you want to be world class, you got to be picky in the process. Mark.

I like that. You got to be picky in the process. I love that phrase. And the thing is, as I think back to last year, Darren, with our YPO clients, we had two last year who repeated from the first from Istanbul to Miami to Istanbul, and they did the same thing. They review their presentation. And one of the speakers, Jodi, she was on our podcast last year as well. And her rewrite process was so effective in a matter of weeks, everyone could see the difference. What was helpful there is that because there was a time frame involved, it gave our clients the impetus to do the rewrite, to review and rewrite immediately. My word of caution to everyone here, including myself, is not to wait until, oh, I'm going to give it in eight months again. Or somebody said, oh, you know, I heard you speak last year and you gave that talk, can we get a talk again? And then I go revisit it. And I've been guilty of that. I really have been. But this process has prompted me. I watched a video of my own last night, all 60 minutes of a 60 minute segment. I'm like, oh, wow, that was good. That wasn't so great. But it prompted us to think about how much time do we let go by before we invest in a second look. Here is one suggestion. If you video record a presentation, be it professionally done at an event or maybe even in a local Toastmasters Club or something like that, if you record it, we recommend you don't take too long to watch it with the critical eye of begin with a win. Okay, that was great. That was wonderful. Oh, five stars, awesome. But then look at the opportunities to make it even better. So if you record, first of all, we say record everything. You can record it and then give yourself some time. Allocate some time. Allocate some time in your day, couple, three Days later to review it, to bask in the glories of what worked well. But ask yourself, how can I enhance that? What can I rewrite to make it tighter, more effective? Because sometimes, as we watch ourselves from the audience's chair, we see something we never saw when we were delivering it. And that happens frequently. It happens to me, too. Oh, I could have done this here. Oh, I missed a chance for humor. That was there. Now I see it. And the beauty of what we do at stagetime is now our members are learning about how to find and uncover humor. And they can review a video did a month ago, and with coaching from Chris McGuire and Darren's team and Stephanie. Oh, I could have put something humorous in there. And already the rewrite begins, and the entire presentation is now enhanced. It's lifted. It is better if, one, we record and two, review in a short space of time, because the longer we put it off, eventually we'll forget it was there.

Yeah. And, Mark, we just had at our NSA chapter in Vegas, your friend Mark Sharonbrock.

Oh, wow. Good guy.

He still talks about you, Mark. He goes, the presentation you passed on to him because he had a challenge, and he's like, well, yeah, he could.

I was in Canada. He couldn't get there. So I became Mark Brown and Mark Schenbach at the same event. Yeah.

Yes. He goes, that was 20 years ago. And he still keeps talking about, like, yeah, it was important. But Mark did something that I think also spurred this idea for this podcast is he showed us one of his stories that was really good. And he. If you don't know Mark, he's amazing.

Yeah.

On stage. He truly owns this stage. And so he's got the markify effect, you know, because he's been doing it for years, and he got trained like you in schools. It's like a regular audience is nothing compared to trying to get kids to go. But. But he showed a clip of a story that was really good, and then a clip of making it even better and more intriguing, more engaging and more powerful. It was great. Like, any speaker I know would have been happy with version 1.0 and just kept doing it. And maybe a tiny tweak, but no, he stepped back and made it even better. That's what we're saying here. By the way, I'd encourage you. Sometimes it seems like a fair amount of work and I'm busy. I got a lot of things going on. But guess what? Your number one marketing tool is you on stage.

That's it.

You on stage. Once you get There, that is your number one marketing tool. Because now all these people see you. So as Michael Rayburn says, if you're not getting paid what you want as often as you want, the problem is your speech. So I'm going to encourage you to put some time on your calendar, Mark. But let's frame the time that we put on the calendar. Let's call it world class time. This is world class time. This is where I go from good to great to world class. Good to great to unforgettable. So if you put it on your calendar and if you write down watch my speech again, you're going to be less motivated. If you put in your calendar, watch world class time, you're going to, you're going to, it's going to be more motivating than watch my speech again. Like there's a, there's a big difference. So highly recommend, make that a priority because there is a power of the rewrite. And guess what? This, if you, if you choose to do speaking or training as a career, this is critical because it's going to enhance your career. Because when you take that great story and make it unforgettable, guess what? Now it's going to be unforgettable. Every time you give it for the rest of your career, it is multiplied.

Darren, it's so true. I can recall there have been times people have told me, yeah, I heard you before, but man, it's so much better now. I believe any, any if not every pro speaker will tell you at some point in their career, someone has told them, I heard you before. You were good then, but you're even better now because it, it behooves us to make the effort, even as seasoned professionals to make the effort to review and ask, do I need a rewrite? Now, we're not saying you need to rewrite the whole presentation, but there, there's certain times there's stories within the presentation. Could I tell that differently? Could I tighten it up? Yeah, we all, you know, we often mentioned Jerry Seinfeld line about how much time you invest to take a nine word joke and make it seven words. And there is, you know, I can't give you the exact quote on that Jerry Seinfeld, if you hear this, please don't get mad at me. But the principle is if we put the effort in to enhance and rewrite to make it better, and it isn't always fewer words, it isn't always, it's simply. Do I rephrase this? Do I rearrange a presentation? Do I move A paragraph up or down. Because Darren talks about how he had written a speech and he had the fall at the beginning and the fall in the middle. Made a middle and then a great piece he closed. Didn't really work for him because structurally it wasn't the right thing. So the rewrite doesn't involve going. Going tighter and smaller. The rewrite also involves revisiting my structure, enhancing a particular character or story within the presentation. It's revisiting the examples I have. Oh, I just had an experience that makes an even better example to back up that point. If we keep doing what we've always done, it'll be good. But there's so many variations in the ways we can use a rewrite to punch up or improve our presentation. And it goes down to that. World class time. Invest the world class time. I'm going to look at this presentation one more time. What can I do differently? Oh yeah, you know what? Having watched the video now, I can't believe I did that. I was so comfortable, but I realized I can change that. So real quick, a little quick recap. What we look for. One, we want to look for on the video. We want to look for not just our presentation, but the way we deliver it. And then when it comes to the presentation, as in the physical presentation, I mean delivery and so on my movement, but in the actual words, can I change one word? Can I delete one word? Can I replace a word with action? Can I replace a narration with dialogue? Check out last week's episode. What else can I use to enhance a presentation? How does one particular character come across? Should I elevate one character and change the way characters interact? The permutations are endless, but the singular thought is this. How can I rewrite this presentation or make amendments and adjustments to it so I create a stronger presentation, give my audience a more meaningful experience, and have greater impact when it comes to my call to action and inspiring my audience to do. Do something with the information that I have shared. That's part of the power of a rewrite.

And just pick one story on your presentation to work on. And if you're not sure, just watch your video and look for the EW spots and make them ah spots. Go from EW to ah. Yeah.

Also choose an interaction dialogue as well. You know when two characters talk to each other.

Yeah, we don't. We. We want to make it better, we want to make it stronger, we want to make it world class. But if it's this huge undertaking of hours of work, you're not going to do it. We just want you to make a habit of. Let me find one place to improve and maybe it's something as simple as your slides. Maybe that's it. Maybe your slides are just confusing. Okay, just work on that one. So pick one idea, one insight, one section and. And just work on that. And if you're not sure, watch your video. You'll be reminded. And I'm famous for saying this and I believe it. If you're not willing to watch your video, why should anyone pay you?

Ooh, ouch.

Sorry. Tough love.

Yikes.

So there is a power in the rewrite. Like take the time. That's what most people won't take the time to do. And that's the difference between good, great, unforgettable and world class. Mark Brown, take us home.

Listen, friends, maybe you do have a video you recorded recently. Or maybe you're going to speak this week. Make it a point to record it, watch it and say, okay, after I do it, what could happen if I use the power of the rewrite? I invite you all to invest in some world class time and go from good to great to unforgettable. We'll see you next week.

All right. What are we going to talk about?

We don't know.

Show up.

No clue.

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If you like this episode, please leave us a review. If you want to get more from Mark and Darren, check out Stagetime University where they provide experienced presenters a proven path and world class feedback. To become the speaker everyone is talking about, go to stagetimeuniversity.com join us next week. If you're going to take the time to prepare a presentation, make it unforgettable.