Ep. 38 How to be Unforgettable After Losing or Bombing

All right, Mark Brown, what do you do after you bomb? We wanted to start. Take two. My bad. I asked you a question. I wouldn't let you answer. What up?

Excuse me.

All right.

I get that recorded, too. Cool. Blooper. Hey there, Mark Brown. What do you do after you bomb?

Well, I wouldn't know. I've never bombed. Darren. That's a lie.

Oh, man. And the game is on. Yes, I recall you didn't place the first year in the World Championship.

Touche, touche, touche. I got it.

That's what I heard. I know that's what I heard.

The truth is, you can bomb in a keynote or you may not win a contest like I did in my first year competing in Toastmasters. And very often people ask, so why didn't I win? And they have all these complaints and questions. Can we get somebody who can give us answers today?

Darren, I think we've got the right crew. It may get a little unruly, but we're used to that. And that's part of the charm. This is a special episode because this is a time of year where we hear from Toastmasters around the world. Everybody said that I should have won. And apparently they didn't talk to a judge. But also, if you bombed in a keynote, I remember I mentioned it in my keynote. I called my mentor. I bombed, I hided, they hated me. And he said so. So how do you recover from that? Whether it's a speech contest or a keynote, what do you do after that?

Anyone can give a present. 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.

Oh, Mark Brown, this is gonna be. I think we're gonna call this the sarcastic Episode. Cause we get our sarcastic friends here in the room. You know, the truth is, it's painful when you bomb, and it's painful when you don't get the results you want. Cause you put your heart and soul into it. So first, right up front, number one, we wanna say we get it. We understand the feeling. But how do you handle it? How do. And so we brought in Ed Tate, World Champion 2000, and Jim Key, World Champion 2003. Our friends, our brothers, the Sarcastic Four. I think this is gonna be. Welcome, guys.

That's our superpower.

The hall of Justice.

Man, it's great to have our buddies with us today. So, Jim Key from 2003, say hello to our listening audience, my friend.

Hi there, everyone. It's great to be here. Hope you can get something valuable out of this. And that's why we're here.

And no sarcasm. Two points to you.

Wow.

And I'm holding back.

It's coming, it's building, it's building.

And of course, one of our favorite guest co hosts, Ed Tate, 2000 world champion. What's going on? How you doing today, man?

How you doing? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me back. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised that you invited me back after my first episode.

It was about bombing, so we thought, hey.

Challenge accepted.

Game on. Boom.

Darren, you just set us up. Because the truth is, when it comes to speech contests, only one of us won the contest on their first try. Yeah, it was Ed.

But hey, we all got it right the first time.

He didn't do it alone. I remember I recall some guy standing in a freezing lobby for an hour and a half answering your questions to help you win. So take that, buddy. By the way, folks, I must clarify very quickly. We love each other like brothers. We could banter all day long, but we really want to get down to some brass tacks. Down to the meat. Darren, take us in.

By the way, I did bomb once. Despite the fact the only competing once at the World championship of public speaking. I was a keynote speaker at the 2016 Toastmasters conference. And I forgot my opening line. If you watch the Toastmasters magazine, the April edition, it's called 7 Seconds of Terror. And I write about that completely. So I'm not that one time in my entire life.

Whatever.

I am now qualified to be on this panel.

You know I can mute you, right, Ed? You know I can mute you, right? I will just jump in and then I want to turn it over to Jim because he's just got like the most amazing story. I remember in 1998 when seriously, I was competing in a humorous speech contest. I was a part time professional speaker, part time comedian, and in the division level, I gave my speech and it was all written word for word, all original. And the person who beat me, they took all one liners from famous comedians and put them together and called it original. And I remember I was so mad. I was so frustrated. But here's the key. I didn't have the self esteem to actually protest. I didn't Protest. So my bad, my bad. And I remember I was so upset, so mad at Toastmasters, and I was like, that's it, I boycott. And in 1999, Toastmasters went on without me. My little boycott didn't do anything. So I get it. And I had to, you know, I had to grow up a little for over a couple years to try and realize what's the real intent, what's the purpose, what's the reason. Jim Key, tell us your story.

Well, the very quick version of it is I was doing a little bit of professional speaking when I joined Toastmasters. But then I found out about the Speech Contest and I realized if I got into the arena, I would improve on a rapid scale. I'd be able to speak to audiences that were foreign to me in situations I wasn't used to. And so I got involved and I'm a very competitive person, so I wanted to do well. And I did pretty well. My first time in the Humorous Speech Championship, I won my district contest. The following year in the International Speech Contest, I won all the way up through the World Championship and they gave the trophy to some bum. I can't remember who it was, but in 2001, that was the year that Darren won and he soundly beat the field. Both opportunity. And I took that the following year, got back in the contest with the wrong attitude that since I placed second to Darren in a really tough field, I was owed something. This was, you know, I was entitled. And I won all the way up through the five levels leading to the World Championship and put in hours and hours and hours of time. And at the end of my speech, I thought I had won the contest. I had never been scared to listen to anybody else's speech during the contest. And I listened to every single contestant except the person who was immediately in front of me, and that was Dwayne Smith. And Dwayne won the contest. And I thought, until they called second place, I thought I had won. It was a devastating moment. I didn't have a moment to think, you know, I was robbed or this was wrong. I was just crushed because of the hundreds of hours of work and preparation I'd put into it. And I had to lick my wounds and I had to decide what lessons I learned from it, how I was going to grow stronger from it and become a better speaker all around and then decide whether or not I wanted to toss my hat back into the ring again. It wasn't an easy decision because when it hurts that bad, you don't necessarily want to do it again. You stick your finger in the light socket once, you don't want to do it again. And I ultimately decided to because I wanted to. I wanted to learn from my mistake, and I want to be an example for my children on what happens when I get knocked down and if I don't think things are fair. And I poured myself back into it. But I realized it couldn't just be about me getting a trophy and winning. It had to be about the growth that I would experience and the chance that I could do something valuable for the audience. Regardless of whether I win a trophy or not, I could do something valuable for people. When I focused on that, ultimately, I went through the ranks of the contest, got back to the World Championship, and was named the World Championship 2003. But all joking aside about doing it only once and getting it through, I needed the process. I needed the growth that I didn't realize I needed. But I learned, and I grew tremendously from that, and I'm glad. I never wanted to go through it three times, but I wouldn't change my journey because of how much I grew from it.

Love that transparency. That's awesome, dude.

That's powerful. And on a very personal, a fairly intimate note, I remember that second year, 2002, I was there, too, when Dwayne Smith won, and I'd spend time with Jim in his home. In rehearsing for this contest, Jim would go up to his room, and he would dress in the suit and tie he was gonna wear, come back downstairs and rehearse with me in his living room. That was so awesome.

There's nothing, nothing wrong with looking good in your home.

I hear that. Remember when we got the result and he was kind of clearing out?

So things have changed.

But Jim and I kind of went backstage. We didn't say anything to each other, just kind of sat there, and I felt. I literally felt his pain. We didn't talk for, like, 10 minutes. We just kind of sat together, and I was telling him how much I felt for him, and I cared, but I knew the kind of heart he has. I knew his resilience, and I was confident he would come back. And I was so proud to see him win that in 2003 when he did it.

Ed, I appreciate that we had established a relationship with Jim, and even though I was fortunate, Let me be clear about something. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I was a world champion, and I went to other contests afterwards, and I realized how difficult this is, how hard this is, and how fortunate I was. So let me be very, very clear about that. But in the meantime, I had established a really good friendship with Jim. I saw that contest and maybe I saw it from a biased pair of eyes. I thought Jim won the contest fair and square. But I got to tell you, when Jim lost, I felt like I lost. I felt I was just as devastated. And no disrespect to Dwayne, please hear me. I'm not disrespecting Dwayne at all. But because I had a personal relationship with Jim, that was the pain of losing in the championship that I felt it was Jim's loss. And I agree with Jim. I don't know if I could have got up off the mat and he did it twice. So I have all, you know, we make hit each other a lot. But frankly, my brother, I've got so much respect for you.

Well, I appreciate that it took a little while to get off the mat and I want to echo what you said. No one better let me hear them disrespecting Dwayne Smith for winning because I think he's a fantastic champion and I'm fortunate to have a great friendship with him now. In fact, I needed him to set me back on that learning path because I needed the additional growth. So I'm grateful that he was there.

Jim, I wanted to dig a little deeper for a second because we talk about what happened, we know the facts as they played out, but deep down we want to find out and share with our listeners. What kind of process? What do you go through? What's the emotional turmoil like and how you turn that around? Pick yourself up? Is it a one man job? Are there people helping to lift you up? What was your process like after you fell the first time in your mind and had to get back up and go back on the hog? What was that like for you?

There might be some people who can do it as a. As a one person operation. That's not my experience. Getting to the world championship. I had leaned on people in my Toastmasters districts and professional speaking in the North Texas chapter of NSA to help coach me with my writing and my performance. And I would go through a process of many iterations of writing and editing and changing a little phrase here or a word there or the inflection of how I said something to just make it more fine tuned. And I would go through and get as much feedback as I could. Some of it was spot on, all of it was well intentioned. But part of that process, quite frankly, is for me was learning that the things that don't resonate with me, I have the right to set those aside, as well intentioned as they may be. Because ultimately it is not the person giving the evaluation or feedback who has to get on the stage before the contest or on the stage before a client and give a presentation. And so I had to just go through that process. I don't know how many hundreds of hours I poured into it, but I literally worked on my speech, if not every day, at least five or six days a week. It was a process that I dedicated myself to because I knew it was not something you can just breeze through. I poured the time into it. And there was a period of needing to emotionally recover each time. It was a little bit more difficult the second time. But I needed to recover and step back and think, okay, what were the lessons? What can I learn from this? And one of the things that. And this is something my parents taught me. Life's not fair. And how are you going to get past that? Whether it is unfair or whether you perceive it to be unfair, which is two different things. You have to move past that. And thankfully I had people I could lean on. Some of you gentlemen assisted me in various ways, both with looking at videos and Mark coming to my home and putting up with me, practicing in person. But it was a process for me. I can't imagine trying to do that as a one person endeavor.

Appreciate that.

Ed, you reminded me of an aphorism that I had an aunt Pat. I come from an African American background and I had an aunt, her name was Pat. And Pat was like the best artist I'd ever seen in my life. I won two scholarships to the Art Institute. The first when I was nine years old. The second time when I was 13 years old. And when I wanted, at 13 years old, I was so excited about it. The first person I went to was the show with Pat. And Pat told me not to get too excited. You'll never make it as an artist. Now, I gotta tell you, that kind of crushed me because I could take that from all the friends who were making fun of me, but I couldn't take it from Pat. Years later, what I discovered is that she was trying to protect me in her own way. Because, like in the 1950s, the chance of an African American woman making it as an artist was practically zero. And she was trying to look out for me. But she told me one other thing. She said, don't focus on fairness. She says, if you get. If you focus on fairness or how fair something was or was not you will be stuck. And she says, you'll never get off the mat and you won't move forward. So again, I remember that and I'm thinking like, wow, okay, don't focus on the fairness of it. Again, what did you learn? Like Jim just said, and how can you focus? How can you move forward? So thank you for reminding me that, Jim.

Yeah, Darren.

Well, I think one of the keys is people are asking themselves, what do I do now? Whether it's bombing in a keynote or you didn't get the results, you weren't like, a, how can I process it? B, what do I do with this? A lot of times we hear, and Ed, you said there's even a new phenomenon now. They're taking screenshots of the, of the text in the text chat.

The chat. Yes.

As proof that they should have won.

From all their friends.

From all their friends. Yes. We're teasing, we're making light. But you gotta just realize, I mean, I know people say years past, almost every year, everyone said I should have won, but one of the bits of advice that I give people is I say, look, you're caught up in the emotion of it right now. Your friends, they're biased. That's normal. Did you record yourself? And then I give them a checklist. I said wait two weeks because you're too emotionally caught up. Wait two weeks and go through this checklist. And if you're listening to this, you might go back to Our episode number 21 where Mark and I gave you nine do's and don'ts as at least a starter checklist. And watch it with that checklist and see if you really did hit all of the keys that we, no offense, Jim, the keys that we say you should, the nine dos and don'ts. And I have only ever. I say that every year to anyone who I get that email from. I would only ever, ever had one person come back to me after, after the two week period and they watch the recorder. And here's what he said. You were right, you know, and I, I was so impressed by that because he had the confidence to come back to me and say, you know what? You were right.

So, Ed, I saw this workshop years ago. I cannot remember who put it on, but it was a Toastmasters judge and he called it judging math. Now, as you're aware, there's a three, two, one system. The way it works is if it's not a clear cut winner, some judges feels a person got a three and another person feels they got a two, etc. Some of the judges actually count each other out. And you get this. You know, you get this wonder that no one actually saw happening. And he gave some very specific examples as to how that's the case. I'm reminded of, I can't think of the world champion's name right now who said this be so good that the only question is who's in second place? And that was my mindset. My mindset was to take the decision out of the judge's hands. Again, there is a phenomenon called judging math. If it's very, very close, you may not even place because of this phenomenon on called judging Math.

Darren, There was Otis Williams Jr. Jim Key.

Yeah. I would actually give a word of advice to people not who lost the contest, but the people who tell others, oh, you were robbed. You should have won. This isn't fair. When someone is emotionally hurting, that's like a wound. And if they are trying to heal from that and you constantly tell them that you are ripping the scab off the wound and it will not let them heal and move past it, the best thing you can do is just tell them how meaningful their speech was to you, what you did well. But I know you're trying to help by telling them those things, but it actually causes more harm. It makes the person hurt longer and prevents them from healing and moving on.

That sounded like grandfather wisdom.

Such as it is.

That's brilliant. Seriously, that's awesome. I never even considered that the person is the first friend. That's actually making it worse.

Yeah.

Well, I am so thankful I didn't say the wrong thing. I just sat with him there. We just kind of sat for a while. So I guess without knowing it, I made a good decision on that day. And Darren, as you said, some say, well, I could. You should have won. Or I can't believe. Here's the truth. Okay, if we count the number of conventions that Ed and Jim and Darren and I have done together, we're talking a lot of years. I went to my first convention in 1994. That's 26 years ago. And I've only missed two in the last 26 years. Not counting. Ed was a speaker. He's also been a contestant. The number goes on and on and on. Add to that the international contests went to different countries and different regions, different divisions in different districts. We have seen, I'd say, a gazillion speech contests, and invariably someone, be it from India to Indianapolis, will tell you, I can't believe that person won. So not fair. Who are these judges? And Sometimes, to be fair, there are times at lower levels where clubs and areas struggle to find judges and they may recruit someone who isn't as qualified. But as Jim said, life is not always fair and you have to really be your best. And sometimes people almost disqualify themselves. They think they should have won, but they got stuck on speaking position and they throw themselves off and they say, I got a great speech. But on the day you were thrown off by you don't want to be number one, I don't want to be number nine, and all these other distractions get in your way. And the last thing is to reiterate Darren's checklist, the judges have a thing called a judge's guide and a ballot on the back. The guide tells you exactly what the judges are looking for and you have to measure your presentation. Watch the video and. And did I hit the marks on the judge's guide being very humorous, I'm very personable, I'm very funny. But if my content is lacking, I will lose points for that. I could be the funniest guy in the world, but if I say nothing, I'm not going to win. And that sometimes is the case now. I don't know. Jim, in your three years of competing, what kind of comments you heard that had made you feel good or made you feel awful and what impact did it have on your choice or your decision to keep going regardless?

Do you mean like after the contest or process of practicing?

Well, no, after the contest you didn't win'01 and I could see you trying your best to congratulate Darren and he was like blowing you off because his mom was strangling him there. In the video, you're trying to give Darren a handshake. He didn't even see you, but you were so close and didn't win. And I know you got comments from family and friends coming in and then or two, you thought you were going to win and others thought you were going to win. So we get more of these comments coming in. How difficult was it to fend those off and to maintain perspective in the midst of those kind of questions and comments?

It was hardest. The closest to the loss, once I got further away from it, I was able to heal a little bit. Actually, immediately after the contest, before they announced the results, when they were making some announcements, someone came over and asked if they could take my picture. And to me that communicated. They thought I won. So that confirms my own biased thought about it. Honestly, I don't recall if anyone immediately after at the convention said, I thought you won, I thought you were up. I focused on the journey beyond that so much I don't remember well enough if somebody said that at the time, anyone who knew me probably wouldn't have because I might not have reacted in the best, the most diplomatic way. But the further away I got from it, you know, the less, the more I healed and moved past it. I'm sure there were probably some people who made some comments like that, but I have released that when I ask.

One quick follow up and be quiet. So now people tell you, Jim, you've been there, you lost, you should have won. I lost, I should have won. I don't think it's fair. Is there any one bit of advice you give to people who tell you that now, drawing on your experience? So can I get your sympathy, if at all?

Well, okay, so this is going to sound really harsh, but there's a kindness behind it. I am the wrong person to come to if you're looking to plead your case and gain sympathy. And here's why not. Because I don't care. Because I understand what someone in that spot needs. They need to focus on the growth. They need to focus on their valuable message if they come to be looking for sympathy. I'm sorry, I won't help you if I cry in your beer with you. So I won't do it.

Wow, Mark, did you write that one down?

I think I should. I won't help you if I cry in your beer with you.

Ed, I got a couple.

You'll just feel bad and you'll have watered down beer, that's all.

So, a couple thoughts I want to share with you. Earlier I mentioned judging math. There's also something called Toastmasters math. On any given years, anywhere from 20 to 30,000 contestants. And at the end of the competition, there's only one person standing. So there's going to be 20 or 30,000 people who did not take home the Lucite trophy. And you have to ask yourself, what is your goal? Now, some people have told me, well, in order for me to become a professional speaker, I need to win this contest. That's not true at all. We know dozens upon dozens of people who have just gone through the contest and they have very, very successful careers. What is your real goal? What is your real objective? The other question I'm going to ask you is, what did you learn? And again, after the pain has subsided. Are you a better presenter? Are you a better writer? Was there somebody who's suffering in silence in the audience and you had the cure. Your message was the cure. Your message made them feel better. So what are the things that you gained and how. And who are the people have you helped as a result of competing? So these are questions I'm just going to ask rhetorically to the audience right now.

Darren, you mentioned that you said Toastmasters went on without you. Jim, this question, because you went to the World championship twice. I mean, it was. And didn't. Was there ever a time you thought, I want to walk away from this, it's just too painful.

Yeah, for the first month and a half or so after the convention, after I lost, I mean, I was wallowing in my own personal pity party, which does no good. It's one of those things where, you know, do I want to do this? What's the, you know, what's the good in it? And processing through those kind of thoughts were part of my healing process. But after. After I made the decision to jump back in again, I never had a second thought, never had another doubt.

Ed.

Jim, I noticed that you had a transformation, and I'm going to describe it this way. When I first met you, I'm going to say that you were in what I call the information accumulation mode, or looking outside the window. You were gathering information that you were seeing what everyone else was doing. But I remember that third year when you competed, you kind of stepped away from all of us, and you said, you know, I got this, and you took less advice from all of us. And in that case, I think the transformation went from looking in the window to looking in the mirror. Could you describe that transformation when you. When you decided that, hey, here's a message I want to share with the world, and I've got this part of.

That process, for me, in going through the decision, the healing from the loss the second time and the decision to compete again was, why am I doing this? For me, it's a very personal thing involving my children, because they were watching all of this from courtside seats and they saw dad hurting and struggling with it and all that. And so for them, they became the primary reason. So I extended that and then approached it from the standpoint of my speech can't be about me. It can't be me focused. It needs to turn the spotlights to the audience and be about them. I mean, it may be my story, but ultimately, why am I telling it? What will it help them to achieve or how will it help them to grow? And so with the focus on my children being the primary reason I was doing it again, helping me to turn my focus outwardly more with everything about my speech. That was the real turning point. I think I still was accumulating experience and knowledge on how to do things and write and all that, but the primary driver for it was outward focus. And that was the pivotal moment for me.

Quick follow up question.

Sure.

It's been a number of years, obviously, since you won the world championship and you said you were doing this for your children. Have you seen any behavior change or decisions that your children have made because they saw you persevere during those down times?

Yeah, there were some times. A couple of my children were made some decisions regarding their schooling to really take on challenging courses and do oral presentations, even though they didn't want to. And they were uncomfortable about it. Well, they knew. They knew I wasn't going to give them any leeway. All right, you got to get there and do it. But I did sense in them a realization that they don't just have to coast through. They can push themselves and even if things don't turn out the way they want, it'll be okay and they can go on. So I did see some things in them, especially my daughter and my youngest son, for sure.

And Jim, I have a question, if you're okay with sharing it. I remember you had listened to a recording of mine and found out I did 22 practice speeches. And I recorded it every time. And I love telling the story everywhere I go that you said the next year, in 2002, you recorded it, and then in 2003, you recorded it and listened well.

So in 2001, I recorded some. In 2002, I recorded almost all of them. And I watched and listened to some of them. And then in 2003, it was record everything, watch it, digest it, dissect it. And I even would practice in an empty conference room with a camera on a tripod recording the whole thing, sit down and watch it, make some notes, put it back on the tripod and do it again in the iterative process. So I definitely learned from that and took it seriously, more seriously the third time.

And what did you see or what did you look for, what were like some of those notes? Because I think self learning is that thing that most people aren't willing to do. And I think I learned it the hard way from standup. And even when I was a telemarketer, they forced us to listen to myself. And I hate it. I'm like, I wouldn't buy squat from that guy. I better up my game. And then for you to go ahead and do that. And Mark, you remember last episode we interviewed Manley Miller, Pastor Manley Miller, who does that with every one of his sermons. What just blew me away. So, Jim, what did you look for when you were kind of self studying.

Everything from the subconscious, distracting things to. Mark alluded to this earlier when I practiced when he was at my home. I put on my competition suit when I would want to focus on a certain part of my speech when I was sitting in some chairs. The camera I had didn't have dynamic zoom or anything. So I would zoom the camera in on the space where my face would be when I'm sitting down. But I would deliver the whole speech because I wanted to hit it in the flow of the whole thing, the context. But I would do that that entire seven minutes or so for the 20 seconds of when I'm sitting in the chair at the beginning and then a few times later. I wanted to pinpoint those things to make sure my facial expressions conveyed what I wanted. The details, I pored over the details in going through that. But for me, it was important to do, to do it in context. So for most of that video, I was torso, man. I was walking past the camera. All you saw was torso until I sat down. But it worked for me because I needed those little details.

That was so meticulous how you did that. Now, there may be those saying, this is great. We got four Toastmasters world champions discussing the contest and they've touched on Real World. Well, since Darren opened the door, I'm going to walk through it. You mentioned, Darren, that you're doing stand up, you're playing your sure fire bit, you're guaranteed it's going to work for you and it bombs how you get up from that. You said one thing. I went to my mentor, Rick, how critical was consulting your mentor to you getting back up again after you bombed?

Oh, for me, it was everything. I would have definitely quit. There was no question. And then when he said he bombed, I was like, you know, Scooby Doo? What? Because sometimes people who are emerging presenters in any field, like, they see those greats and they think they didn't bomb and they're trying to catch up to them, but don't realize they had a backstory and they had a journey that we don't see. I mean, every comedian who you see on national TV, you're not seeing them doing it 12 times that week in five different comedy clubs where they go, here, try the same exact five minutes.

It's.

We don't see the mistakes. So to me, it was critical. Mentors are the ones who pick you up. And let me continue that question for you guys because you guys coach so many speakers and presenters. What other advice have we not touched on that you might give one of your coaching clients in order to help them get up or move past this or grow from it?

Well, real quickly I want to tell you. In 1994, when I competed for the first time, I did not win. And the ballroom emptied out really quickly and I sat with my 7 year old son Joel in my lap and he was crying because daddy didn't win. Little Lip was shaking. And beyond the pain of not losing, I've got this seven year old kid who was flown from New York to Louisville, Kentucky to see daddy win a trophy because he's seven years old. Daddy's supposed to be his hero. So the burden of losing burden in brackets was not just mine, but my kids as well. I had to tell my son, it's okay. I did my best now, but there's always next year. So by comforting him, I reminded myself, there is a next year. My life is not over here. And I realized, I learned later on, even the best mom. After I won the world championship at a professional paying gig, and I felt so bad, I called Morgan MacArthur, who would beat me in 94, and I said, morgan, I stunk up the house. What am I doing here? And Morgan, God bless him, is a veterinarian who said, buddy, get back on the horse. He had to use a veterinary reference and get back on the horse. And you're right. Mentors helped you. Mentors helped me. But I've talked enough. I want to hear what Jim and Ed tell the people who go to them and say, what do I do now?

I think we've talked about the impact of our children. And you know, children do not listen to what you say. They watch what you do. And what we do is it tells all. I'm going to tell a different, different story as opposed to telling a toastmaster story. My son was playing little league football when he was like about 8 years old. And one of the things that you have to have a weigh in and if you weigh too much, you can't carry the ball anymore. And my son, he actually hopped on the scale with all of his football equipment, his helmet, everything like that. And he was ineligible to be the starting running back. And he wanted to quit right then and there. And I said, hey, Tates, we don't quit. I said, like, if you want to, if you don't want to play Next year. That's one thing, I says. But we finish what we start. Well, anyway, as it turns out, my son, since he knew the plays and he was one of the bigger kids, he actually became the center on the team. And because he was a center on the team, the offense ran so much better. And that year they won the state championship. And I remember he's got this trophy in his hand and he's crying in tears. And I says, aren't you glad you didn't quit? There's always something that we can learn moving past that disappointment. And one of the best things that we can do, and most of the competitors there are adults. One of the best things they can do is if they've got. They've probably got kids, too. They've got children or they got family members who are watching. Number one, pay attention, because people are watching. They're seeing how you behave and how you're going to move forward and how you're going to handle this. Everyone does not win. There's some facet of our lives where we've all taken some type of loss, how we're going to get off the mat, or the horse, whatever metaphor, analogy you want to use, and move forward. And the most important thing, I think, is what did you learn from this experience? You have learned something from this. You're a better speaker, you're a better writer, you're a better presenter. You are better than what you were before. I set the context early with anyone who comes to me from coaching that says, number one, I'm not going to teach you how to win a contest. I will teach you how to be a better speaker. I will teach you how to be delivered better. I will teach you how to write better. But I'm not going to teach you, I'm not going to coach you on winning a contest, Jim.

So if people do encounter someone who, you know, guarantees them they will win a contest, there's a word for those people. Liar. Because if any of us could guarantee that, do you have any idea the astronomical fees we would charge?

It can't be done.

One of the things that my journey has given me the opportunity to do, when people come to me and you know something has gone wrong, they've bombed, or they didn't win a contest. It's the fact that, and it's a little bit of a trite cliche, but I can tell them, I know how you feel. I felt that way. Here's what I found. I mean, I can. I can share with them my journey, the things that I had to process to be able to get back on the horse, so to speak. I may share with them some things about my contest journey. I've had some other things in my life where I've had to face disappointment and go through, but it depends on the person, what specific things thing. I don't want to give them just blanket advice. I want to say, you know, let me understand exactly what your point of pain is because I probably have something that can genuinely connect to it to help you walk through those next few steps. And usually when someone is in that, you know, that moment of anger or pain, whatever, those next few steps can be the most crucial. And so that's what I try to do to help them begin their, their journey of getting past that.

Well, I know we gotta wrap this up, guys, because you guys all have other things to do. Coaching clients. We really appreciate you guys taking the time to be with us. Before Mark goes through his keepers, think of any final thoughts. What could you do to say or inspire people? Because look, if we're motivational speakers and you lose a contest and you quit, you're missing the point of why you.

Do what you do.

It's okay to feel the pain. It's normal. Congratulations, you're human. But just like me, I had a lot of growing up to do. Thank God I didn't win because had I won, just like Jim mentioned, I appreciate that so much, I wouldn't have learned the lessons that I needed to go deeper in my life, not just my speaking. Mark, let's do the keepers first and then let's get some parting words of wisdom from Ed and Jim.

Well, I got three. One from Ed, two from Jim. From Ed. Go from looking in the window to looking in the mirror. I love that one. And Jim says, it won't help you if I cry in your beer with you.

It won't help you if I cry in your beer with you.

So from sympathy to sarcasm. Okay? And this keeper is about the perspective. It is not about the trophy, it's about the growth. It's not about the trophy, it's about the growth. And I'll just say amen to that.

Yeah, I actually have two others from Jim. He said the well meaning people that said you should have won, they're the problem. They're one of the biggest, Seriously, they're one of the biggest problems because they just feed your frustration, your hurt, your pain, and that's an issue. And then number two, like Jim Key, I love that you said, you know, you had to be the example for your children, how you dealt with that. You are such an inspirational person. I'm thrilled to have you as a friend. If you still consider me a friend after this podcast, I'll let you know. All right, we'll see if there's another episode. Jim Key, what's your final thoughts for listeners?

One of the things that one of the perspectives I try to take is when it comes to speaking, it's a lot like going to the gym and working out. You know, if you continue to do it, you're going to get stronger. You may have times when you're in the gym where you tweak your ankle or you strain a muscle. That doesn't mean you stop and give up. It means you let that heal. But then you get back into the routine of working out those muscles. So get out over that hurt as quickly as you can so that you can get back to working out those muscles, moving further towards your. Towards your goals. Thank you. Because if you stop like muscles, those things may atrophy.

Ed Tate, I'm pretty sure everyone's heard of Simon Sinek. So what is yous why? And there's also another book called the Five Whys. What I want you to do is what is your why? And I want you to ask that five different times. Well, I want to win the trophy. Okay, well, why? Well, you know, all the exposure it's going to give me, help me jump start my spot, a speaking career. Well, why? I could do this. You know why. I want you to dig five why's deep, and then you'll get to the core as to why you are doing this. That will be your real reason as to why you're doing it and when. In this case, for me, for Mark, and for Jim, our kids are watching. That's our real why. I mean, like, if I, if I had to say anything, that was my real why, you know, because my son David was watching me and he was a young man at that point in time, and it worked out for me. But even if it didn't work out for me, I wanted him to see me get off the mat and keep moving forward because that's the type of lesson I want to teach my kid, Mark.

And I also say you got to think beyond the contest. Den and Jaya took his TEDx speech and turned it into Toastmaster speech. Why would you work so hard and then stop? Why would you not take that to another stage, the work and effort that you put in? So just. And I want to remind people, please pass this on to somebody who's a contestant who might need to hear this from us and anyone who's bombed in the keynote world or even a pastor. It's part of the process. It's just one more story for you to tell. All right, so Mark Brown, take us home.

Brothers, it's been so wonderful spending time with you and I urge everyone, if you trip and fall, get back up. Ask yourself three questions. What can I learn? Where can I change? How can I grow? It's great seeing you all. We'll catch you next time on the next Unforgettable Presentations Podcast.

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