Ep. 5 (Part 2) Seven-and-a-half More Questions Behind Creating Darren's Winning Speech, "Ouch!"

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 back. Part two, Episode five, I guess that would be. We got seven and a half more questions to go through. And again, grab your pen, grab your text, be ready to take some notes here to jot down seven and a half more questions to help you create an unforgettable presentation.

That's right. Last week on episode four, we took a look at your world champion speech. We began to ask the key questions that helped you to uncover the gold in your unforgettable presentation. Now, we may have people here who are brand new. This is their first time listening and they missed last week. But it all began when you decided to enter the Toastmasters speech contest. And there were five questions that we asked that we didn't really help you along the journey. It was when you first came to me and asked, would you coach me? And I told you to choose a child in your life and to ask yourself, if I want to die tomorrow. Question number two, what message would I give? Question number three came after you're going through your process about failure. I said, well, are there any other examples of failure from your life you want to give to reinforce your message? And question number four came from your hero, Dr. Goddard, when I asked you, what else can you research and find out about him that will help you tell your story effectively? And number five was a big one because you had seen so many other contestants become champions and they were really, really great. But the question was, on a scale of 1 to 10, what is my 11? What makes me stand out? We answered those five questions last week. Darren, we've got seven and a half more to handle today. Are you ready for it?

All right, let's do this.

Let's dive right in. Let's go, buddy.

Now the next question mark. Question number six that helped me create this presentation through your guidance was also through my other coach, David McElhaney. And David asked this question, what are your Darrenisms? I was like, what? What are your Darrenisms? And he went back to your speech Mark in your semifinals, which you coined the so an ism becomes part of Your brand. It becomes why you're memorable and ironical. Ironically, Mark, your phrase that you termed your Markism was your frigettery, which is very memorable. Ironically.

Yes, I use the term I had said in my Region 7 contest, June of 94. I said, we work so hard on building our memory, but we need to activate our forgettery, which is the ability to forget the memories that weigh us down and sometimes stop us dead in our tracks. I used that back in 1995 and I still use it today. I use that term forgettery at the Toastmasters Convention, my wanna representation there a couple weeks ago. But it's memorable because you want to deliver an unforgettable presentation. So what word can you coin that becomes your word, your phrase? And of course, as members of the National Speakers association, we know several members who have words, phrases that are theirs. Nice bike. Mark Scherenbrock, Fred Factor, you know, that's Mark Sanborg. Wow. Mark Brown, Mark Scherenbrock, Mark Sandborg. That was just a coincidence. We're going to have a guest on a few weeks from now, Willie Johnson. I won. Just a minute. That's his phrase. But you had to get your Darwinism. So when he says, Darren, what's going to be your Darrenism?

Well, again, it starts with the brilliance of asking the question. I didn't know, but at least now I understood using your example. And I thought, well, what's the core of my message? And in the Toastmasters world, you have contest master, Toastmaster topics Master, table topics Master, all of these masters. But when I looked at, okay, what's my message, I thought, ouch Master. If we're going to be willing to fail, we have to master the ouch. And so I coined the phrase ouch Master, but it really goes back to asking that question. But when you can coin your own phrase, when you can take two words that you're trying to morph or fusion, bring them together, that can help make it unique or which helps make it unforgettable.

Yeah. And of course you said Dr. Gardner was an ouch Master, and people still remember that to this day using that Darwinism of ouch Master. So friends, think about this. You don't need to go crazy and wild, but is there a term or phrase you can coin that's going to make your message that much more memorable? Indeed, that much more unforgettable? Give some thought to that. It could change the power and the value of your presentation.

Yeah, Mark, I remember Lou Holtz, when he gave a keynote speech that to me Was unforgettable. Just loved him. And I'm usually not a fan of acronyms because sometimes acronyms can be a little passe or cliche. But he said one that I never forgot. And he said, even though he was one of the winningest coaches in collegiate football, he said when he was whitewater rafting, he went under the water, fell out of the boat, went the water. We came up, he came up underneath the boat and he said, when? And he used the analogy, what's important now, he goes, when I was up underneath the raft, he goes, it didn't matter that I won the national championship with Notre Dame. That didn't matter at that moment. The way he said it in the delivery, it just made it memorable for me.

That's wonderful. What's important now? Now, the thing is, with the contest, though, Darren, as you're going through all these questions, finding all these answers, you still have to bear in mind you're dealing with a timed event. You only have so much time to deliver a message. Now, giving a keynote, you may get 30, 45 or even 60 minutes for a keynote, but sometimes you have to be more frugal with your words. And you said earlier a little bit about the Subway sandwich shop. In the comedy routine, you had got it tight. It was tight. It was working for you. You had right number of words in there, but for the entire speech, did you always have the right number of words? Sometimes writing a speech, you take too long and you often chide our clients. You got to get there quicker. And sometimes we tend to narrate and weave this long tail to get where we're going. And you had to face the question is, how can say that better in fewer words or in no words? And that's a question you need to ask. It's always good to ask yourself this question number seven. How can you say it better with fewer words? Because tighter words, fewer words get to the point quickly. You draw the audience in its compact and more precise. Now, when that question was posed, darren, how can you say anything better in fewer words? You began to rack your brain. How do I condense it? What did you come up with when that question was posed?

Well, it was very interesting because you and Dave McElhenney both said to write out my speech. I said, but you don't understand. That's not how I work. I'm a bullet point guy. I need to be in the moment. That's my ninja skill. And you said, oh, Darren, you asked us to help you. We're telling you need to Write it out. And so I actually sat down at the computer and I couldn't. I couldn't write it out. And so I went to my coach, Dave McAleen. I said, I really want to do this. How else can I do that? And he said, okay. And Mark, I think you said, just say everything you want. Get it all out there. And that was releasing to me because sometimes if you're trying to write a short, succinct speech, you're going to miss some gold if you don't get it out there. And then condense it down. Condense it down, make it tighter, stronger, better.

Because people often think, I've got to write it short now. Write it long first and edit down to what you need to read. Because if you try to write it short now, you don't really write it. You say, oh, that's too long. You get one paragraph, it's too long. You begin to edit that paragraph four or five times, and you never get to the end. So I recommend write it out, and then we can work on editing. So how'd that work for you, my friend?

Yeah, when I couldn't write it out, I don't remember if it was you or Dave, but you said, go give the speech, record it and transcribe it. Was that you or him?

That was Dave.

Dave. And so I said, that I can do. So I went and I gave the speech. I was passionate, and I typed it all out, and I looked at my own words, and yet another humbling happens. I'm like, when I read, it sounded good in the moment. And that's part of the challenge, I think that keeps good presenters from getting great. Is that their ninja skill, which mine was animation and passion. But I wasn't saying anything. So what you taught me, I believe it was like 1492 words, and I had to get it down to 750 to fit in the timeframe and deliver it well. And so poor Mark, when we did have. For those younger viewers, we did have email in those days, I would send it to Mark and I would celebrate again. This is the question. Question number seven. Mark said it, but I'll say it again. How do I say it better in fewer words? And that was my ultimate editor. And that's what I would celebrate when I. Hey, Mark. I got it down to 1,152. And later that day, I'd be sitting at my desk working my day job, and I'd be like, how do I take that one sentence and make it better in fewer words? And then I got it down to 997 and then I got it down to 899 and then 870 and I just, I just kept tweaking it and tightening it. Poor Mark would be reading it over and then, ding. I would send another version even tighter. But here was the key. Here was what I really discovered. That I was doing wrong, that Mark helped me do right. And that was taking my stories from narration and turning them into dialogue. And that by far worked for me in my style. But I think it works for any great storyteller is to do just that, to say more in fewer words. Meaning when I gave the first version to Mark and he read it over, I had a story where I went home to tell my parents I wanted to be a comedian. The way it was written out originally sounded like this. So I went home to tell my parents I wanted to be a comedian. And they were speechless. They didn't know what to say. Boring. But that was past tense. And what Mark taught me was to bring it present. And Lou Heckler, a great speaker coach, says, take us, don't tell us, take us to the moment, don't tell us about the moment. And Patricia Fripps talks about, teaches us to say it in dialogue. And that's what we did. So that was the original version. I wish I had a recording of that, Mark. I don't, because you quickly saw that error and we quickly fixed it. And I'm gonna play two versions here. A version from the third version of the speech and then from the winning speech. So both of them are now in dialogue, but you'll see how it got stronger and tighter. Here we go. I remember how excited I was to come home and tell mom and dad about my new dream. Think about their reaction. They just finished helping me, paid for school. I had just had a business failure. And now I came home and I said, mom, Dad, I want to be a comedian. Silence. Ouch. They were well meaning. They had every intention to help me out, but they didn't want to see me fall. But they didn't realize this was my purpose. Imagine my parents reaction when, after stretching their budget to help me through college, seeing me fall on my face. And then I come home, mom, dad, I want to be a comedian. I was met my silence. They too are part of your process. And so that's the friends and family that love us and yet still can't encourage us or find it hard to encourage us. And if you heard in the second clip, which is obviously from the winning speech, you heard a long silence and then another laugh kicked in. And if you are listening to the audio recording, you can check it out in the championship speech. But I was so excited, so I had excitement on my face. And then when they didn't react and they were speechless, my face dropped down to being hurt. And that's when the second laugh kicked in, because people knew what was going on. So the story was told in the reaction as opposed to the dialogue. Mark.

And also, sometimes the best dialogue isn't. Sometimes the facial reaction is all the audience needs. Because what we can hear on the audio of a podcast is when you said, I met my silence and your face changed, you mouthed the word out, but didn't say it out loud. And the audience reacted again, not to the verbal, but to the physical. So sometimes, to keep it tight, not only do you go in dialogue, but sometimes the best dialogue is not. It's just the reaction and what you do, what the audience sees, that can really help to make it memorable and unforgettable. And because you have to be aware of how the audience reacts and responds to what you have to say in that particular case. And also when you mentioned you bombing at the comedy club, the audience's reaction to what they saw was powerful. But it's also important to bear in mind that you are giving your presentation for the audience and their reaction will tell you the story. You have to then ask yourself, well, when I deliver this line, how will they receive it? And what are they thinking when I say this? What are they thinking in response to when I do this, when I'm done? What is the audience thinking? And sometimes that can drive what you include, what you exclude and also how you sequence the components of your presentation. And I think, Darren, you had included in your speech a bit that I thought was kind of heavy. And I had to ask you, Darren, think for a second. What's the audience going to think when they hear this in the way you say it? What did that question help you to do in your process of appearing in this presentation?

Yeah. So question number eight is, when you're done, what are they thinking? When you're done, what are they thinking? That's the whole reason we're giving the presentation. And I had this brilliant closing that I had watched a documentary on Dr. Goddard and I took one of his quotes and I was like, oh, that's a perfect close. And I thought it was brilliant. But when I asked my audience and got feedback from them, none of them even mentioned that brilliant quote that I'm not even gonna bring up now. Cause I'm too embarrassed. But I also had one other joke that I took from my stand up comedy world about fun suckers, people who suck the fun out of everything in your life. And it was one of my favorite jokes. It was very strong. But at the end I found that people were talking about that joke and that Darrenism, fun suckers. Which, by the way, that came out before the movie Freaky Friday and they stole my joke. So just letting the record stand. But because it was so strong, I had to actually pull that out of my speech because that was not my message. It was too strong for this speech. So it doesn't mean I won't use it somewhere, somewhere else. But for this speech only having seven minutes and trying to stay on task, I had to remove that. And then the other feedback that I got, Mark, that this is where we're going with this is at the end. I went to 22 Toastmaster clubs to practice and they told me that the. Let's just say when I did the fall that I was down too long. So the feedback I would hear from everyone was, you were down too long. I was uncomfortable. You should get up sooner. You were down too long. I was uncomfortable. You should get up sooner. Every single club said that. And the problem was I didn't know what to do with that. Thank God I had a coach because they gave me. So Mark and I talk about this all the time, that there's two kinds of feedback. Number one, here's what I thought and felt. Everyone is qualified to tell you that. Number two, here's how to make it better. And that's where you need a qualified coach because well meaning speakers, well meaning experienced toastmasters told me I should get up sooner. That's just not right because I was confused. I went to Mark, I said, mark, everyone's telling me I was down too long. I should get up sooner. When I fall, what do I do? Mark, everyone's saying this. And Mark said.

I said, darren, stay down longer. What?

Mark, they're telling me I should get up sooner.

I get that. But if you stay down longer, what happens is you make the audience uncomfortable. And your job as a presenter is not to make them comfortable. It's to make them uncomfortable so they will change where they are, what they're doing and where they're going. It also gave you the opportunity to. To directly challenge the audience immediately when you got up. Because when you got up, you asked two questions. Recall what they were. I bet the clip will tell us.

All right, so this is what it turned Into. And we have heard stories from other world champions even who were in the audience that day. And we'll tell that story after. Can you remember a moment when a brilliant idea flashed into your head? It was perfect for you. And then all of a sudden, from the depths of your brain, another thought started forcing its way forward through the enthusiasm until finally it shouted, yeah, great idea. But what if you fall on your face? What do you do when you fall on your face? Do you try and jump right up and hope no one noticed? Are you more concerned with what other people will think than what you can learn from this.

Mr.

Contest Chair Fred and the people way in the back. Ouch. Did you feel I stayed down too long? Have you ever stayed down too long?

What was brilliant there, Darren, was the fall. And responding to what I told you to stay down longer. As I said earlier, it gave you a chance to ask them two questions. And what I noticed was when you asked question number one, do you think I stayed down too long? The audience laughed again. They said, have you ever stayed down too long? And immediately the mood shifted. Because what was brilliant was you took the humor of your fall and turned it back on the audience. And immediately they began to think of their own lives, their own situation. So look at the lesson here. The lesson is, when you deliver an unforgettable presentation, you know how to use what you have to tap into the audience experience. So even though the story was about you, it then became about them. You tapped into their emotions. They had a good laugh at Darren's expense. You fell on your face, you stayed down too long. All of a sudden, have you ever stayed down too long? And you were able to connect their experience to what you had just been through. And in the first two minutes, you got their attention and you grasped their hearts. That was actually very well done, borderline brilliant. And that's one of the marks of an unforgettable presentation, being able to connect the audience early and have them invested in what you have to say.

And I think it was crucial, too, getting that feedback where everybody said they felt. Felt like I was down too long. So I use that with your brilliant coaching, I use that to my advantage. And I had heard from some experienced Toastmaster contest junkies who, when I did version 7 of the 22 practice versions and they said, you're never going to win, I didn't feel anything. I was like, what? What are you talking about? Like, this is a speech. And I didn't get it back then. Now I completely understand that. We have our friend Michael Hague, who says the purpose of story is to elicit emotion. So I was eliciting emotion, but through coaching from you, I used that to make a point. That's where the brilliance came in.

And you redirected it. Now, don't forget, now, this question, number eight was when you were done, what are they thinking? And you wanted to avoid them focusing on the word fun sucker, but you wanted to get them to begin to think about the message you had for them. What's cool is you were able to begin to do that early in the speech. So by the time you got to the end, they were so fully invested, they could totally relate to what you had to say. But these questions are really key to help you to really find that message, to get the key points and to deliver to the audience the message that they need to hear in their minds and to absorb in their hearts.

I think my own personal belief went up when I was speaking, doing a quote unquote practice speech at mit, and this foreign exchange student who could barely speak English came up to me after the speech and she said, I am failing out of mit. My family says I should quit and go home. I heard your speech, I stay. And that was when, number one, I learned there's no such thing as a practice speech. And so from then on, it's like there are real people in front of me. Yeah, it's a practice. There's no such thing as a practice speech. And that, again, came from your brilliance of it's always a privilege, no matter what you're given the privilege of their time, from their life. What will you do with that? So that was big. Number two, it increased my belief in my own message that it was working. It was starting to work, it was starting to click. And then I got more excited because I knew it was having an impact. And that will make your delivery unforgettable. When you know you've got a message, people need to hear it and it helps them. Like, that was so critical just hearing that feedback that day.

But see, you had taken the focus off of, I'll get a few tweaks from Mark and I'm going to win myself a trophy and go out as the king of the world. At some point, your focus shifted on not what you could get, but on what you could give. Starting with the question about who in your life the child and your nephew Michael came up, you began to think more about, okay, what do I have to offer? What do I give as a gift to the audience? And, you know, people view that in different ways. Some view the gift they have as a commission from God. If you believe in God, their perspective on what they have to deliver shifts from, I have all this knowledge. I'm going to impart my wisdom, and they're going to revere me to. I have an honor, I have a privilege, and I have an opportunity. How did your mindset. How was your mindset affected by this revelation that you had a chance to really touch people's lives?

Well, it increased my belief dramatically. I realized I also now had a privilege and a purpose. And so one of the things that helped me with my delivery as well is you said, every time you deliver the speech, put your nephew in the fourth row. He said, just let everyone else eavesdrop. And then in the world championship, you said, put him in the fourth row. Give it to him like it's your last chance. And just let 1,999 other people eavesdrop on that conversation. That was gold. Question number nine. So if you were listening to this, we had part one, which had the first questions, and then part two. Question number. We're on number nine. If you're a believer, ask God. If you're not a believer, ask the universe and meditate on how else can I deliver this unforgettable message? And Mark, I remember I was in Putnam, Massachusetts. My girlfriend at the time, Tanya, we were at church together. And I was just asking God for help. I was asking God, we're in the middle of a service, in the middle of a Mass. And I remember all of a sudden this idea came to me that I had not had throughout the contest at this point, or the practice speeches about the fall forward, which was the essence of my message. So I felt at the beginning, I knew I was going to do that, but how do I encapsulate that and deliver this message? So I had the idea about falling forward. And I had never. I know that there were some books out at the time. I had heard that some other speaker had mentioned those words. I had not heard that. So this was. To me, it was definitely a revelation and inspired thought. And I literally asked her, I nudged her. I was like, give me a piece of paper. Give me a piece of paper. So I'm trying to whisper because service is going on. She hands me a piece of paper and I draw out this little stick figure standing up and then lying down and then standing up and still making. And I'm pointing. And I was like, oh, that's brilliant. And she's like, what? I don't get it. Out of context, she didn't get it. And so I was so excited because I knew the brilliance of this. I brought her outside the church. We stood her on the sidewalk looking up at the lawn. One of those classic New England churches with the three foot stone wall and the grass. And I stood on the grass like it was a stage. And I stood up on one side. I then fell down on the ground. And then I stood up where my head had landed and pointed back that I still made progress. And I looked at her. I'm like, do you get it? And she's like, what? I'm like, oh, it's perfect. But it was truly the summation going to the next question because I think the two are very much related. Something just wasn't working in the speech. So after I tried the second fall, it was so strong, but I had it in the middle of the speech. If you remember this part of it, Mark, I'm so literal sometimes that I'm like, no, no, no, no, that has to happen. And then I have this brilliant Dr. Goddard quote that I want to close with. And it was something to the effect of I have to look it up. I don't remember this part because I let go of that. But it was like, one man's vision is just a joke until he accomplishes it. And then I was gonna twist that around. And my jokes were just a vision until I was willing to fall on my face. I was like. And nobody in any audience ever felt the that I did. And so, Mark, if you remember, you had to help me see, because I knew it wasn't working, but I didn't know why. I'm like, why is it not working? And I didn't really understand what structure was, but structure was the problem. Mark, your thoughts on that?

Sometimes, what may seem like a big roadblock, all it takes is to restructure or move something around. And by simply putting a paragraph or a story or even a sentence earlier or later in your presentation, the flow is much more fluid. It makes that much more sense. And you did fall a second time in your presentation, and that one actually worked in the context when you realized where it properly fit in the structure of your speech. Several of my clients had the same issue where it doesn't quite feel right. I take a look at the script and the video says, you know what? That paragraph, if you move that up two paragraphs and move one word down, look at the flow that time and see what happens. Oh, my gosh. It makes that much more sense. But you have to Ask yourself, does the structure and the flow really work? And you have to put yourself in the seat and the chairs of the audience, because when you are the speaker, always a speaker, you're so close to it from a certain perspective. That's why to this day, both Darren and I recommend you videotape yourself and watch it as if you were in the audience and ask yourself, am I getting the meaning I intend? Is the sequence logical? Have I left something unresolved? Is something out of place? Do I need to develop a character or remove a character? But that comes from asking the question, do I have the right structure? Do I build to a climax? Or is it anticlimactic? Have I done it correctly? It's a simple tool, that red videotape. And you can use your mobile device, put it in landscape mode and just record yourself. You'd be amazed at how much that tool can help you to deliver an unforgettable presentation.

Yeah, it's the power of structure. And as you and I always say, clarity, clarity, clarity. And that's why you need a coach. We're too close. We can't see the problems in structure because we're just too close to the speech or the presentation itself. And then, Mark, we did something last time in your episode three where we discovered that the thread that you had that led us through, and this is a structure point that led us through so clearly and reconnected us to your message. So when I was deconstructing my own speech or dissecting it, I noticed that there was a thread in mine as well. So, Mark, I'm going to play the clip. I put together the thread of Ouch.

Yeah.

And let's take a listen. So what I did is I put a little chime in between each of. So you can tell just by listening, since you can't see the visual edit, the difference between that. So let's take a listen to the thread in Ouch. Friends and the people, way in the back.

Ouch.

In fact, the first time my brother ever laughed at me was when I told him I wanted to be a comedian. Ouch. The next morning, the headlines read, moon rocket misses target by 238,799 and a half miles. Ouch. I was met by silence. I said, please do something with your hands. She did. Ouch. That fell on my face. But I never took the next step. It's the step after the ouch that's so important. It's so difficult. We don't like the Ouch. We don't want to learn from the Ouch. Dr. Goddard was an ouch master. But it's because I took the step after the ouch. And when we're so afraid of that ouch, we forget lots of ouches in there.

11, my friend. 11 ouches, including ouch master after the ouch. And exclaimed ouch as well. Wow. That's a thread that ran through the whole speech. And I'm willing to bet that nobody knew you used it ouch 11 times or a variant thereof.

Well, 10. And one time I mouthed it.

Yeah, well, it flowed so well. I don't believe anybody actually counted that. I certainly haven't in the last 19 years. 18 years counted that. But it showed, showed the thread was throughout the entire speech for the entire length of the presentation. And that's one of the components of a really good presentation. It's a thread that runs through. You can go back to one find and say, wow, that was a theme that nobody could miss from that particular presentation. Powerfully done, my friend. I love it. And what's cool is that even though we mentioned a thread that goes through the speech, there are other variables that we can call must haves that we always talk about. And early on we had to ask the question. And I remember when I was practicing, when I was in 95 with David Brooks and he was working with me, I asked him a question. David, is this to me focused? Am I showing up too often in this presentation? Do I say me and I and my too much? And I had to have you ask that same question, Darren, are you saying I, me and my often enough? Do you have enough you focus questions in your speech? And I gotta commend you, Darren, because you brilliantly handled that, especially early on, to dispel the idea that this is all about me. Do you recall your process in determining the. The best way to handle that?

Well, I remember listening from Patricia Fripp. She taught us, be aware of what is your IU ratio? How many times you say the word I versus how many times you say the word you. And most speakers are I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And then maybe at the end you should too. Craig says that it's like, okay, that's not enough. You got to connect us in the beginning. And one of the things you and I teach Mark, is that you like the most powerful word in the English language is your own personal name. Because that's what catapults you, brings you to attention. Especially if you had a mom that used your middle name to accentuate that. Darren, Joseph, Mark, Leo. But the second most powerful word, which is universal one is you. So when you use the word you or your, it almost reaches out to the audience and reconnects them to your speech. Reaches out and reconnects them. And I didn't even realize how many times I used the word you and your in the first 50 seconds.

You know what, Darren, real quickly, you skimmed over this point. You said the word you understand how deep this is. When you say you to an audience of 400, it works on two levels. To the audience member, you are talking to us as an audience of 400. But on a personal level, you're also talking to me, the individual. We're using the word you effectively has a dual impact. We receive it as a collective. You are a wonderful audience. Why thank you. You are a wonderful person. That's me. So I get a double dose of validation, of connection and I can then more firmly believe that the experience you have shared with me is one I can experience as well. So, friends, write that down. Do not discount the power of Y O u.

Question number 11 is do you have enough you focus questions and most people don't. So we're going to take a quick listen. 50 seconds. This is the opening of my speech. So I don't say you all the way through this much, but at the very beginning, check this out. Can you remember a moment when a brilliant idea flashed into your head? It was perfect for you. And then all of a sudden, from the depths of your brain, another thought started forcing its way forward through the enthusiasm until finally it shouted, yeah, great idea, but what if you fall on your face? What do you do when you fall on your face? Do you try and jump right up and hope no one noticed? Are you more concerned with what other people will think than what you can learn from this? Okay, so 50 seconds. Ten yous now and two yours and two, that's. Well, there's eight you's and two yours. So I count it. I call it the you your count. So yeah, eight and two. If you looked at my whole speech, seven and a half minutes, or technically seven minutes 59 seconds. The total count is 34, which means there's an average of over four per minute. Now, a lot of that was front loaded, but it just goes back to that question. Are you using the word you or your? Especially if you're say, a corporate presenter or a pastor or you're an entrepreneur trying to sell something. We gotta keep reaching back out to the audience and connecting them to how our thought, our service, our Product will help them. Patricia says that your premise is the thought or the idea that you're selling. So even if you're not selling a product, you're selling an idea. That's why we're listening to you and.

Very effective also for those involved in sales, the client, the customer, the prospect needs to believe that what you have is going to be good for them, not feel that you are trying to sell them something, but you have provided for them a benefit, a service, a product that will benefit them, their family and their lives. That's really going to be a key. So the IU ratio is something we always look for, something that we teach about, something that we coach on. We encourage you to always again, when you record yourself on video clip, ask yourself, am I hearing? Am I feeling as an audience member that I'm being connected, that it's for me? So you have to put yourself in the audience place and ask yourself, am I asking enough you focused questions to make this meaningful for the audience? Now, Darren, you go through this whole process. You start off with the ideas and you find Michael and you find your message and you build speech. You toss out the fun suckers. That would be too heavy on one end. You've answered all these questions about what else did I research with Dr. Goddard? What do the champions do? You ask, what are my Darwinisms from a previous episode? You ask, how do I say it better in fewer words. You go through this entire process and you're almost at the point where the stage is calling you. But there's one more question that kind of nagged at you that really made you think shortly before you went on stage. Darren, how can you make this all clearer?

Yeah, I remember I was so I came up with this idea just a couple days prior to traveling to California. And I had the idea of using the stage to help me tell the story from where I was to where I was going. So for using the stage almost as a subtle metaphor. And that again was one of my quote unquote ninja skills. And so part of that came from I'm a horrible memorizer. So I took each little vignette and I put a piece of paper down on the stage when I was practicing for each vignette to help me almost, Tony Robbins calls it anchoring, or NLP would say anchoring each little story in each vignette. And I was so proud and so impressed that I established here's where I am and there's where we want to go. But when I showed Mark, I said, mark. So we Got to California, it was like the day before, something like that. Very close to that. And I said, mark, what did you think of the use of stage? And he said, what use of stage? Are you kidding? You didn't notice it. And then I went back and I asked myself, okay, how do I make it clearer? How do I make it clearer? And you've done for everyone. If you want to be unforgettable, you've got to be clear. If you're not clear, it's very forgettable. So what I did is I added a. Now, I'm not usually a fan of gestures, but here's one place where it just added clarity. So I said, we all know where we are and clearly where we want to go. And I pointed to the other side of the stage. So I used the progress of each of my little vignettes going across the stage towards that end goal. And then after the first story of strangers who are going to make fun of you, they are part of your process. And I gestured again towards that same side of the stage. Then I told the story of telling mom and dad, I want to be a comedian. And I said, even people who love you, they're going to get in your way of your goal. They're part of your process. And I pointed again towards that part of the stage, thus making it clear that I was using the stage as a, as a metaphor that just came through in the last minute because I thought it was super clear. It was not. It's never clear enough.

And the thing is, you know, we teach clarity, clarity, clarity, not just physically, but in the language that you use, the words you select. And never discount the importance of proper word selection when telling your story, because words have meaning and sometimes words may have a dual meaning. And you have to be clear on what the audience sees, hears things, and even experiences during your presentation. So it's wise to always ask yourself, especially at the end of your preparation for a presentation, ask yourself, how can I make this clearer? How can I leave as little room for doubt as possible? And sometimes it is the physical, sometimes it's the verbal, sometimes it's a non verbal, sometimes it's a combination of both. And sometimes it's simply where you plant yourself in the speaking area. If you have a large speaking area or platform or stage on which to deliver your message. And the key is to put yourself in the seat of the audience. What do they see? What do they hear? What do they feel, what do they experience? And consequently, what do they think? Because ultimately you want the audience to Come to a decision to think that to feel or to do. And this key question, how can I make everything clearer? When you find that answer, you exponentially increase the likelihood that you will achieve your goal of moving your audience in a truly powerful way. These are all key questions, Darren, to help us to come to a place where we can really uncover the gold that we have inside and set ourselves up to deliver what became for you back in 2001, truly an unforgettable presentation, brother.

Yeah, Mark, there's 12 and a half questions. So there's a half question that I have to bring up because it was crucial to my delivery and it was crucial to my own belief that I could deliver an unforgettable presentation. It was the night before the world championship and I was still living at home with my parents. So I was trying to dig out of my business debt, my subway debt, paying off my college loans. So I was very cheap. And I'm walking. This was in the Marriott in Anaheim, California. I'm walking past this little sign. There was a spa there. It said, massage $89. And I was like, who would now remember what my mindset is back then and how old I was? I'm like, who would ever pay that? And then my brain asked the question, you have the biggest presentation of your life tomorrow morning. What would a champion do? And I said, I would invest the money because it's the most important presentation in my life. I'm going to be under the most stress of my life and I have to do what I need to do to relieve that stress to be able to deliver. So if you're not in a contest, ask yourself the question, what would an unforgettable presenter do? Because a lot of what we do offstage, Mark, whether it's what we eat, how much sleep we get, all of that affects your delivery. So we've got to ask ourselves. So this is 12 and a half questions, and that is what would an unforgettable presenter do? And I think that needs to just be in there and you write that down. If you haven't been writing along with us, go back. Just know that these are questions that I didn't just ask once. I asked over and over and over again. Because I went from somebody who was ego filled, thought I was a good presenter, to a whole different presenter because of these questions and what Mark led me through, and one of my initial mentor, Dave Fitzgerald, asked very early on which got me to compete was take the stories you already have and make them so good, someone will pay to Hear them. And that's what led me on this journey. Having a coach was crucial. If you're looking for a one on one coach, go check out getupspeakingcoach.com you can find Mark there. If you can't afford that, if you're not ready for that, check out stagetime University. This is what we do and we give on our weekly live calls, we give feedback direct to you about your presentation. Again, if you're a pastor, corporate presenter, emerging professional or professional, we've never had anyone come in and we say, I wouldn't change a thing ever. So Mark, two episodes here, back to back. 12 and a half questions and one statement. What are your thoughts on wrapping this up?

Well, what comes to mind immediately is that this one statement and 12 and a half questions really epitomized the journey that you were on. It took you several days, 77 days of a journey that catapulted you to the world championship. So think, if we can ask those questions and make it a part of our normal process, if it becomes a part of our process, I believe it will increase the likelihood that we can create unforgettable presentations. If you're a pro or a toastmaster who wants to do more speaking, you're delivering different talks on a regular basis. This process can help you to get to a level of consistency where the quality of your presentations will be increased. We're so excited to be able to share these ideas with you. They have proven to work for us and we want you to learn more from us. So please, please check out Statestown University, see what we have to offer and tell your friends about our podcast. We want the world to know that these tools and techniques that work for us are for anybody who ever has to take the platform at any point in their lives. Because we truly believe you can be unforgettable. We want to help you get there.

Again, the questions. Would you coach me if you were going to die tomorrow? What one lesson that you learned from your life would you pass along to a child? Are there any other examples of failures? Because remember, that was my message that you could use. What else didn't I know about the Dr. Goddard story? So what other research could you do to learn more about the story you tell? You could go back to your family. If it was a family, ask them their perspective. They might have seen it differently than you even though they were involved in your story. What's my 11? How are you going to stand out? What are your Darrenisms? Marcus? What's that phrase you could coin that becomes uniquely yours. How do I say it better in fewer words? When you're done presenting number eight. When you're done presenting, what are they thinking that's going to be the key to how your presentation came across. Maybe there's something you need to take out. Maybe there's a structure you need to move. Maybe there's some thought that they have that you could use just like I did to your advantage and go back and change it. Ask a question to God or the universe. Meditate, pray on how else you could create this unforgettable presentation. Is the structure working? Do you maybe need to reassemble something? What's your IU ratio? How many you focus questions do you have to re engage the brain of your listener? And how do I make it clearer? How do I make it clearer? And then 12.5. What would an unforgettable presenter do? Mark Brown I can't wait to see what we're going to do next week.

Oh, it's going to be so much fun, Darren. I am so thankful we get to do this. We get to share what we have learned with individuals who also want to learn and that gives me the biggest thrill.

I love learning the stories behind them because I still continue to learn. We get Jajang, Jajang, Phil Henson. I want to see if I can get Lou Holtz. We got Willie Jolly coming up. I'm so excited. So you're going to learn. Stay connected to us. Remember I love that quote by Jim Rohn. He said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Well, spend some more time with Mark, me and our guest and we'll help you become an unforgettable presenter. See you next week.

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