Ep. 62 Shatter Norms With A Deep Message: Linda-Marie Miller

Hey, Darren, Today is going to be really special. One of our good buddies is here, the 2000 world champion, Ed Tate. How are you, Ed?

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for having me returned to the show again.

Yeah, clearly.

I mean, God, I mean, I got past the bouncers and there were several guards this time, so I, you know, anyway, I'm here.

You know, whenever you come in, there's always going to be some really in depth analysis for somebody's presentation. You took mine to a whole new level. You took Darren's to a whole new level. And Darren, you know, when Ed is here, we got something really special coming our way. What are your thoughts, man?

The analytical brain of Ed Tate has joined us. We've never had anybody join us as much as you, Ed, but you're brilliant. But this is not about us and it's not about Ed. It's actually about an amazing woman that Linda Marie Miller, who did an amazing speech on a controversial subject and rocked our world.

I can't wait to hear what she has to say. Let's go, man.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your, 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.

Yeah.

So Darren, Ed, I vividly remember sitting at my desk watching this virtual 2020 World Championship of a public speaking contest and Linda Marie Miller comes up to deliver her presentation and I just thought to myself, wow. And I remember having a conversation with, it was Kevin Burke afterwards asking him to assess the different speakers and the speaker after Linda said, what do you think, Kevin? He says, I got nothing. I'm still stuck on what Linda Marie Miller had to say. And we would have a really simple, honest, heart to heart conversation today with her about her presentation and the impact she has had on people all over the world. Welcome to our podcast, Linda Marie Miller.

Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

There goes the applause. Darren said, a boy was toy. He's got his sound effects going on back then. But we were really thrilled to have you with us today. Ed, I'm going to turn it over to you for the first comment or question for Linda.

Linda, number one, you just blew me away. So I'm sitting Here. And I'm thinking, like, okay, what's this going to be about? What's this, you know, what she's talking about? And you start off with this story, and then you hit me. Now, in the middle of you telling this story, I'm saying to myself, huh, this sounds familiar to me. And then all of a sudden, it occurred to me, oh, my God, this has been in news.

And then.

And then, like, it was just this. This series of, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And I'm going to tell you what I liked. I mean, there were many things that I absolutely loved, not liked. I loved your speech. Number one, you are courageous. You are brave. You talked about something that. What did Mark Sanborn saying? The newfound pain. You know, we, as speakers, one of our jobs is to talk about that newfound pain which is going out there in the world. And you talked about that PA that was going on out there in the world, and you did it in a very clever and a very brilliant way. And, I mean, there's so many things that I liked about it. There is a storyteller expert. Her name is Kendra hall, and she has a book called Stories that Stick. And the one thing she says that we must have is emotion. And this story definitely had emotion. And I'm not talking about the emotion where we're crying and there's tears and things, or there's some form of manipulation going on. It was genuine impact. It was genuine emotion. The one thing that I look at when I'm looking at a speech is how do I feel about it? Did it have an impact on me? And out of all the speeches, yours had an impact. In fact, none of the other speeches had an impact on me after I experienced your speech. So I want to thank you for that gift.

Yeah, eventually, we're going to let you talk.

Hey, you keep talking. I like what you're saying. Sounds good.

I think it's important for people to hear our perspective of your speech, and just in case they haven't seen it, and if you haven't seen it, go on YouTube. Check it out. Please, please, please. But we want you to know how powerful this is from our perspective, and then we will dive in. Mark?

Well, first of all, there may be those who have never heard a podcast before, and they're wondering, YouTube, what exactly we're talking about Linda Marie Miller's presentation at the 2020 Toastmasters International Speech Contest, the World championship, in which she chose a controversial topic for a couple of reasons. One, there is ethnic tension in this country of America continually. But the timing of this is just so critical at a time when our country is in turmoil and in pain. And Linda addressed this issue as a Caucasian woman head on, not from down in the lane or left field. She came down Main street in our faces and made us all feel and made us all think. So that's the context in which this is being presented. And I have to ask a very direct question, Linda Marie. Why in the world would you choose a topic of ethnic tension and bias to tell to the world at this time in a contest where the risk could be I might offend someone and not even have a chance to win the trophy? What prompted that decision?

Yeah, so I think Kevin put it really nicely. He said, contest be damned. It's a world audience, right? And so I had an opportunity not to speak on a big stage to 2,500 people, but, but to the world because it was virtual. And I'm about my purpose in life. I'm very clear about it. It's have people get that they matter. That's it. And as a result of getting that, they matter, they take different action in their life because what they say and what they do matter. When every time I open my mouth, I get that it matters. So when I speak, Whether it's to one person or to 50,000 people, I speak from place of how do I want people to be different at the end of my conversation, whether it's a seven minute speech or a one hour keynote or a nine month training, I want to change the world with how I show up in it. That speech was controversial. If I had come at it as a calling people out, like instead of calling them forth, Right. I called myself out. Right. So did I get some hate mail? Yeah, I got some hate mail. Did I get. I got an interview a couple weeks later by two people in Chicago. And the gentleman, black gentleman, interviewed me, was like, I don't buy it. 62 years. Like you're old enough. You were around during civil rights marches, you know, what do you mean you just now woke up? Right. And I had to speak into that authentically. Right. And at the end of it, he got it. So I think if we speak from a place of vulnerability in the world and if I'm willing to tell my truth, my hidden truth, it opens a space for other people to say, hey, that resonates with me. I think I can say it out loud. If a racist is somebody who's not fighting racism, then I'm a racist. I'm definitely white, privileged. It turns it into Something that's not a bad word, the R word. Nobody wants to be the R word. This is not a black people problem. White people created this problem. White people have to fix the problem. And if we have it as a binary issue like which I always had, I'm not a racist, I'm not the kkk. Ergo, I'm not a part of the problem. So there's nothing for me to do. I'm good. It's all the well meaning white people who aren't in the KKK who are silent, not doing anything that allow it to continue because the power system is the one that it works for. And then they, they throw things. The white people's, they've thrown a lot my way. The whole system has. It keeps the game going. So it's time to the jig to be up. And it's only through people like me speaking my truth and speaking out and getting a little hate mail that things are going to change. And so that's kind of why I did it and to win the contest. I never dreamed I'd be on the podium ever in a million years, I thought for sure. Because they're not going to have someone win who they can't trust. Who the heck knows what she'll say next. Someone said that's why you didn't win first place because you can't be the, you know, the poster child because that's like Miss America. You know, they don't know if you go out and do a porno flick or something. I mean, you're, you're out of the box and they don't know you. So anyway, so that's why I did it because I had an opportunity to shift a conversation with white people in the. And I thought it would be a US issue, but it's global. It's global and it's not white, black, in other countries. It's ethnic, it's tribal. And I've had the outpouring of response from all around the world has been stunning to me. Shocking.

Do me a favor, could you expound briefly on that outpouring of response? What's that look like for you? Positive and negative?

Well, it's funny because every time I kept winning, I kept telling my husband, okay, now there's this thing called, you know, division. And then after that it's over. And then district and then, and then it's over. And then my life, then we can, you know, life goes back to normal. We can put the cameras away, we can put all, you know, everything away. I can Stop practicing my speech and having you time me and all that stuff. And then it got region and this and this. And I said, well, it's definitely over after it's over. And then, okay, you know, then we're. Our life goes back to normal within minutes. I haven't been on LinkedIn for about 10 years. Within minutes, I got 300 messages to my email because even though my profile and LinkedIn is shut down, if something comes in, they send it on to the email. They have hundreds of emails. Are you the Linda Marie Miller that just gave it. And my Facebook and everything, People trying to find me on Facebook, Thousands of people just, you changed my life. And what, really? And this was it. There was two responses. White people saying, you opened my eyes to something. I'm gonna cry. You opened something for me that I've been hiding and you've given and where. And what's next? And where are you going? And what can I do? How can I be. How can I be in action? Someone watched it and said she sent it to her girlfriend. A lot of people sent it to friends and family, sent it to her girlfriend, who showed it to her father. And the next night he came to her house for dinner to talk about it and said, am I a racist? And she said, yes, daddy, you are. And he said, I'm immediately going to change my life. And he made a donation to the NAACP and he's 82. Okay, 82.

Linda Marie, you're supposed to cry. I'm not supposed to cry.

Let's get this. The next. The other people, the other people that shocked me that responded were the black people that contacted me to tell me their stories. The stories about how they have a relative that lives five states away. And when they go visit, they have to map out the travel plan and where they're going to stay, what cities it is safe for them to stay in. That night, a woman reached out to me and said her grandmother with a walker, walked across the street every day to go visit her white neighbor who was an invalid. She did it every day. She was walking across the street one day and a white woman driving her young child who was late to the dentist was speeding hit. Her grandmother threw her up in the air and she landed on the lawn of the woman she was going to visit. And then the white woman contacted the black family to ask if she could come to the funeral, and they welcomed her with open arms. Two weeks later, she sued the estate of the woman she had killed for the damages that had been done to her car.

Oh, My God.

The police never charged her. Wow. It was written up as an elderly black woman stepped off a curb into oncoming traffic. When she was hit, it was three lanes. It was one lane and then a turn lane and then another lane. She was thrown to the other side. There's no way she could have been with a walker stepping off her curb into oncoming traffic. So. And I received so many stories that I have decided I'm going to do a book. I'm going to start with 50. I'm going to call it 50 stories. That's what it's going to be called. And each two pages is going to be a summation of how somebody who's not white, what their life is like. One of the things someone asked me, well, how do you really gauge your white privilege? I said, never. Not one day, not one minute, not ever in my entire life, in any decision I've made, or where I want to travel to or what I want to be when I grow up, never once does the color of my skin has it ever come into play. And that is a privilege. When you have to worry about what city you're going to stay in, when you're making travel plans because of the color of your skin, there's something wrong in this country. I say that white privilege is the only population of people that are going to be able to turn it around. It's going to take some doing because I don't think people are going to turn it over easily. I think it's going to take some hard work and it's going to take some allyship between all parties to make it happen. And I'm committed to it.

Linda Marie, we have never had a podcast like this before and you're using terms that are hot button terms. We're recording this at the end of October right before an election, so people's minds will be in different places. But I can see from your tears, you're holding them back, your passion for this. And you saw this contest as an opportunity not just to win a lose side trophy, but to deliver a message. And you're telling Darren and Ed and me that the responses are not just North American, but they are global. People are opening their lies and their stories to you because you are literally saying, I own white privilege and I am at fault. And to do that publicly for a global audience is no small thing. And you get seven minutes to deliver a speech about a topic. And you were literally transforming the world. And when you began this journey, did you really think, if I do get to Deliver this message. I am going to change the world.

No, you know what I thought? I thought I might get like 20 or 30 people to join a book club. That's what I thought.

So how's that working out?

I've already got two books in mind to write, but more about it, about to support the movements. But yeah, it really. And here's the thing, too. I could have given a speech about what's going on in the news. I could have given facts and figures. I could have talked about the history of racism in this country and globally, the oppression in the world. But I knew one thing, and I know this from my history in. In my study of accelerated learning. People don't remember what you say to their heads. People remember through their emotion center. And one thing, that this is my first time in this contest. A lot of conversation in the semifinals and the finals was about, oh, no, I drew first speaking order. Yeah, I'm doomed. I'm doomed. They're gonna have eight speeches, and I'm the first, and they're not gonna remember me. And I said, if they don't remember you, it's because you didn't speak in a way that would have them remember you. There are people since that contest that have said, I will never forget your speech, Right? Never.

Preach it, sister. The other toastmasters need to hear this. Preach it.

And here's another thing people said, you might be making yourself look bad. Look what you're saying about yourself, right? And I said, here's the thing, though. When you get what it's really all about, which is ending this stain on our country, when you get what it's really all about, who the hell cares about me? It isn't about me, right? If I'm not willing to, I don't want to say, throw myself under the bus, but at least be honest. When you are passionate about something, when you know your purpose and this is the same thing, and I say this to toastmasters all the time, find out what your purpose is, speak into it, and forget what you look like, because it's not about you. And if it's not about you, you can change the world. I don't care what you're talking about. So it's kind of. That's where what I tell, I don't want to cry or I don't want to look bad, or I don't want people to talk about me if they ain't talking about you when you're done, if you haven't hit them somewhere in their emotion center, they are going to forget about you. It doesn't matter what speaking order you're in.

Thank you so much. I'm going to ask one more question, make a comment, and then let Darren and Ed take over because I am just overwhelmed. First of all, you mentioned about being remembered. Our podcast is called the Unforgettable Presentations Podcast. And if it's ever been a speech that's unforgettable, it is yours. You said you Hope to get 20 people to like it and have a little book club afterwards. But how has your delivery, and I want to touch on your methodology, your delivery style later on. But how has this experience changed Linda Marie Miller?

Well, it has expanded my understanding of the impact that I can have in the world. It's giving me the acknowledgement that when you speak powerfully and you speak authentically and you speak vulnerably, it's the trifecta of change that can happen in the world. So it gave me some really good feedback. It also gave me some feedback on those that, you know, that didn't like it, right? How I can be different, what I can tweak different. I had this reputation beforehand. I'm called the Inspirational Interrupter or the Great Disruptor, because in coaching, I interrupt what's not working for people. So Toastmasters was a great club for me to join, and I've changed my Toastmasters club. When you're giving me feedback, you know, forget about that sandwich method stuff. You know, something nice. You know, if you. If you're giving me something nice, I call that. You're just pumping sunshine up my skirt. I don't want to hear it. I can tell you everything I do, right? I can tell you I can make a list of 100 top 10 great things about Linda Murray. I don't know what I don't know. I don't see what I don't see. And you get to be whatever it is. I don't care. Just tell it me like it is. And someone said when I was getting some feedback, even for this speech, as I was, I gave it four different clubs. Someone would give me feedback and someone else would say, no, no, no, no. That was great. That didn't bother me at all. And I'd say, no, look, I'm going after 100% of people in the room. I'm not going after like 50% like it. If there's anything I can tweak or anything about my beingness or my delivery or, heck, the way I'm dressed, anything to reach more people, that's kind of what I want to be about. So for me, that's what Toastmasters really is. It's about not affirming how great we are. We know we're great. That's why we're in Toastmasters. We know we want to make a difference. We get to be. And that's what I love about Stage Time University. I'm sure you are being interrupted with people and you're interrupting what's not working for them. And that's what I say. I want to know what's not working for me. What? Anything you saw, that's not working for me. That's how I go about feedback. I'm a demand for it.

All right, so, Linda, get ready for some more sunshine up the skirt here. I think one of the things that was brilliant about your speech is you gave voice to what I call the unsaid. The unsaid is that thing that we don't even know it was a thing. It was this thing that no one talks about. So, like, one of my favorite books is called the Three Laws of Performance, and it says relationships die in the unsaid. It's not the things that we say, it's the things that we don't say that forced him to die. And I thought that was the brilliance of this. I said this to these guys. This speech is going to go viral. This speech is important. And the reason it's going to be viral because for several different things, you talk about what I call the universal. What's this universal thing that people can relate to one way or another? What can they relate to? It wasn't about winning a speech contest. And thank you for sharing with me all the feedback and the number of people who reached out to you, because I suspected that. Because I was. I said like, hey, guys, this thing's going to go viral. I know this for a fact. And it's going to go viral both ways. You know, people who don't like it as well. Darren Hardy says that you're not making a big difference in the world unless people are complaining about you. You know, and the more people who complain about you, the better. And by the way, the people who complain about you, sometimes it says it says far more about them than it ever says about you, especially if some of that criticism is directed to you personally. So, anyway, I just want to, you know, share those thoughts.

Thank you, Darren.

All right. I almost hate after this intensity, I almost hate to back up and go to something that I love that was technical. But first, I wanted to say you have three huge fans right Here, the fact that, you know, you've already given three sermons that we. That we love, that we've been, you know, we've been saying it for years. And to have somebody actually just do it, and you didn't even know us, which is awesome. But I want to back up to one of the brilliance of how you got across your truth. And where did the idea come from? For those of you who. I'm just kind of looking it up in the background here as well, but for those of you who hadn't seen it, Linda had this brilliant technique of speaking what her thoughts were and then holding up a card what her truth was that we could all relate to. And I wrote down several of them. Well, I'll let you talk about them, but first, just on a technical. Where did you get that idea? And by the way, if there's any Toastmasters watching this right now, don't do the cards in a contest.

Exactly.

Linda Marie.

Oh, man.

Linda Marie now owns it. Now, it's been done before in other places, but on this platform. So do not do it. I will call you out. We will all call you out. She owns it. She can do it now whenever she wants because that's part of her brand. So let me just say that little disclaimer, but where did that idea come from to get your truth across?

Yeah, well, it worked really well in the virtual world because, like, you know, a card can, like, fill up a big space, whereas on a stage, holding up a card would have been. What's that? Right. Unless it was, like, flashing behind me on a. On a big screen or something like that. What I wanted to do was give two speeches at once. The speech out of my mouth, and then the reality of what it is to be white and privileged. And so I experimented with a couple of things. I experimented with. I live in a very diverse neighborhood. All of my neighbors are black or brown, but I've never had them in my house.

Right, right, right.

But. But that's like. It's a secret I'm hiding because I'm ashamed of or something like that. Right. That has a. Oh, you know it, but you don't want people to know it about you kind of thing. This is like, I'm blind to it and I'm waking up. I wanted to give two speeches at once. And that's the way I thought I could do it. This inner, oh, my God, they've never been to my house. I've never dated a black guy. These kind of things. Like, so what is that really coming from and the reason it was so clear to me. It became so clear to me is I've seen it on the news. We've all. I mean, I did. I saw the fire hoses back in the civil rights. Because that's my age. I saw all of that. But this was. I experienced being black. And that's the best way I could say it, because I was talking with hospitals, I was talking with coroners, I was talking with police that were in another state, and they didn't. They were looking at the body. They didn't know I was white, so they were treating me over the phone the way I was treated. And it was kind of one of those conversations where I was like, let me talk to your manager. How dare you speak to me in that manner? Like that kind of a feeling. Especially with the Airbnb.

Yeah.

And it was, oh, my God, this is happening. They're being dismissive about the death of this amazing child because they think I'm black and they can treat me this way. And. And it just hit me that this is the way my friend Tony and I talked with him about it months later. I said, I gotta share with you what my experience was. And he's like, yeah, what? What up? That's it. Like that. Yeah. And Right. And to me. Then I started talking to my staff, and they would go, yeah. I said, I'm a racist. They go, yeah, we know that. We love you. You're a great boss, but, yeah, it's just the way the world is. And then I learned about code switching. I've learned. So I started educating myself at that point, because at that point, I could not that other human beings in the world walk around and they can't ask for the manager because they wouldn't get any better treatment if the manager came around. That is a privilege. And then I thought about, I don't have to worry about the color of my skin or ever think about it. And that's a privilege. All of the things. And then I started waking up to. Because I'm big in corporate America. Diversity training, busting your unconscious bias. It's racism. We have to tone it down. We have to make it comfortable for the white people in the room while black people that work here continue to be uncomfortable because we won't call it out. We want to talk about. We want to. Baby. White people, they have to be comfortable. We have to make them comfortable in the conversation. Well, I'm all about. And there's a Facebook page that's been started called One Shared Humanity. And we have uncomfortable conversations. And we interview. And I interviewed my partner, who is a black, an amazing black attorney here in Durham, North Carolina. And I had two questions for what do black people want white people to call them? Black people of color, Bipoc, African American? We ask questions like that other people might be thinking but don't want to ask. They're uncomfortable. She asked questions of someone else. So we have these conversations that draw forth from people getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. And she calls me out. She called me out because in my speech, when I was looking down at Michael's card, I said, this amazing boy. She reminded me of boy. Like, how that resonates in the black community. Calling an amazing black child, calling him boy. I don't know, like. So she corrects me. And I get uncomfortable. Maybe in the moment, but I'm willing to be uncomfortable because it's that important.

Real quickly, Linda Marie. The use of the placards and those who haven't seen it, you gotta watch it. You say one thing and you hold this large placard up, which shows your real truth that goes beyond any kind of ethnic difference, in my opinion, because all of us verbalize one thing, but at times internal dialogue, the internal truth goes a lot deeper. And you are showing us, all mankind, that if we are going to be really honest, we need to be able to speak our truth and show our truth to the world. That's one dimension. That technique is one way, that one thing, that one aspect that makes this, for me, an unforgettable presentation. And I don't want our audience or listeners or viewers to get lost in the idea of the subject without realizing the technique was really powerful and significant. But I reiterate, do not imitate Linda Marie's technique, but you and I need to be creative enough to find ways to be unforgettable using our gifts, our skills, our talents. You mentioned my singing 25 years ago. That kind of worked for me. Darren fell on his face. If anybody else does that fall, we're all gonna say, you're not Aaron Lacroix. Get up. So who. What makes you uniquely you that is not gimmicky, but gets the message across in a way that you can be unforgettable. I leave that with our viewers and listeners to consider how you can do what Linda Marie did in concept to make the message memorable. Our mentor, Fripp, she says, speak to be repeated and remembered. Darren?

Yeah, just before we go to another subject, just curious, because one of the things we try and inspire people to do is like, what you know, peeling back the process of creating this amazing speech. What was the feedback you were getting early on? Did you start with the cards right away, or did that evolve and you did a couple clubs. But what kind of feedback were you getting early on about the cards?

I used the cards right away because I wanted to give two speeches. And I also want to speak into something Mark said. Like, people don't do this. I would say to people, don't be thinking about, oh, what's kind of. What's kind of catchy or glitchy that I could do that's different, that, you know, the guy who pulled his underwear on over.

What can I do that'll shock me?

And then write a speech around that? Right. It's not about that. So don't do something outrageous. Be whatever your speech calls you to be. And it might entail something like that, but I first had started with the cards on an easel, like I did with my life of no regrets speech. And people were okay with that. They were liking it. It was difficult to turn because then I was losing the connection. Because what I wanted to do was. And that's the beauty of the virtual. If I was on a stage, the front row would have been, I don't know, 50ft away, right? I can't speak into people's souls, but when you're three feet from every human being that's watching it, and I can speak eye to eye right into their souls, I can be different. So I didn't want to lose connection by, you know, having to look to see, turn. Plus, then it's outside of me. I'm turning something. I wanted it to be here, me, right? And so. And I didn't want. So that's when I just decided. I put them on a table in front of me, and I just, you know, pulled them up. So it took up most of the frame. It wasn't performative over here where I'm showing something. That's when it hit me. But the first two times I did it, I did it on the. On this, and it just didn't. It was coming across separate from me. Like, it was two speeches, but it was separate. I wanted it to be me. And I wanted it to be me because, like, I looked down at him a couple of times. Like, I'm. Like, I see this is. I'm coming to terms with who I've really been in my life. And I even thought about it. Like, I would tell my son his best friend was black when he was growing up, and his best friend's name was Trayvon. I would tell people. And my son came home and told me one day, mom, the kids across the street say I shouldn't play with Trayvon because he's black. But that just shows how stupid they are. He's not black. He's beige. And he was 6 years old. And I'm not sure if I was more impressed with the fact that he wasn't a racist or that he knew what beige was. But here's the point. I told that story about my son hundreds of times because it meant I raised him right. I wasn't racist. I wasn't a problem. Right. These things started coming up for me about how my grandparents were wealthy, my grandmother was a racist. Every year, we had our Thanksgiving family reunion at the Widmar Country Club. Then one year, the country club opened up its membership to black people. And my grandmother said, we're not going to be meeting at the Widmar anymore. Wow. We all knew it. We never spoke up to her because she controlled the money. And when she died, and we all knew inheritances were coming and they were substantial, I have to live with the fact that I wouldn't stand up to my grandmother because of money. My grandmother was a racist. These are kinds of things. So I think I made up for it more by I always hired powerful. I always hired powerful black women, and I elevated them, and I got them more money and I gave them great careers. It's like, almost to make up for what I was hiding inside about how I was. So this is like, I'm all out on the table. I am what I am. I've done what I've done. I did what I did. I got what I got. But it's never too late. Every second is a new opportunity to turn around and change the world forever. That's where I stand.

Real quickly, Ed, please forgive me. I'm going to reference Ed Tate for a second. Ed Tate is a trainer, park soloist, and Ed sometimes talks about moments that we have in our presentations. Mike Davis, one of our coaches, also says that. So with all this background with your son and his beige friend and elevating black women and so on, was there a moment that precipitated this message that the world now hears from Linda Marie Miller? What was your moment of. Oh, my God.

Yeah, my moment was that experience I had in helping my friend Tony. That was my moment. I didn't know what to do with it. My life started playing in my head, and I started because I didn't know when I was telling that story about my son all those years, I came to realize it later. That's why you did it, to make people know that you were one of the good guys, that you were not the problem.

Here's my evidence.

Yeah, I got black friends, right?

I'm collecting evidence. I have all the evidence. Look here. It wasn't even so much. Well, here, here's another example. It was like I was. I worked for a large company that had a huge lawsuit against it back after the Rodney King issue in California. And it was. It had a huge lawsuit. We ended up paying 83 million out for discrimination. As part of the settlement, the NAACP came in and they created a program, a training that. That every single human being that worked at the company had to go through was called the yes we can training. And it was, you know, getting together in small groups and diversity and making posters and a group name and all that kind of fun stuff. I was high, kind of high level with the company in the finance area. And neither me nor my boss nor my boss's boss went and there was a small joke behind. And we thought, we're just too busy. We got other stuff to do. We don't have time to go make posters with people. And we even jokingly called it. It was called the yes we can training. It was called the no, no, we won't and we don't even want to. You imagine grown people sitting around and it wasn't. And we didn't. We saw it through our eyes as we didn't want. We didn't have time. We're busy. But later, I received the very first Abrazzo Achiever Award from the company for promoting diversity in the company. It was like it was on 60 Minutes. You know, I was on the stage and all this because this was a lawsuit that was very. It was all over the news. And I thought, how can I be getting the Abrazzo Achiever Award? Because I hired amazing people to work for me and I was all about diversity. I didn't even go to the training I made up in my head. I was too busy. But there all of these things that white people have the privilege of being and doing in their life, that kind of belittle the concept. And I spent a career blind to those little things, the little things that make a difference. And it's all we even call it at work. We call it microaggressions. What I experienced someone might even call microaggressions. Someone being rude to me on the phone or being dismissive with me on the Phone. It didn't feel micro. It didn't feel micro. And I don't think it's like, how many microaggressions does a person of color have to come across every day before someone wants to think it's not micro anymore? But that's just a word for white people to neutralize it down into something that's not. That's not a big deal. Or maybe it's just a managerial problem. Maybe your boss really isn't a racist. Or we have policies and procedures. We have policies that are anti harassment and you can't use the N word at work. And, well, what about if you didn't hire racist at all instead of just saying you can't be racist at war, you can't show your racist behaviors at work? What if it was like that kind of world where it wasn't even okay to be a racist outside of work instead of just at work because people at work and every company has racist working there. I mean, everybody does. It's time to stop hiding them in the closet. It's time to start speaking out about the issue in the world. And I think because I come from corporate America, I think corporate America is the way to shift the conversation. I think it's not through a book club because it's when it only is going to take a couple of really big companies to start speaking into it with honesty and truth and stepping into taking leadership in the domain that it'll start to. Others will flip. So I think it's just getting the right company to flip on it.

Well, going back to what Mark said about that moment, I think that's also in every speech. That's what we're looking for. What is that one insightful moment that makes the difference? It's not. For example, we have Michael Hague, who is a Hollywood screenwriter, and he says most Toastmasters speeches sound like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And you should do this. You definitely did not follow that format whatsoever. Side note, I coached Darren Taylor and it wasn't something to do. It's a true story that was told. And the real bully actually took the underwear and put it on his head. I told him, not in this lifetime will you put underwear on your head. We've got to come up with an alternative. So that's what. That's the backstory on that one.

That's funny. It's something in that speech, the cards were one thing, but it wasn't just saying that. I've had this awakening because I've had an awakening. You have an awakening. Let's all have an awakening. It was the fact that my silence people have paid a price for right? And my silence has bought me privilege, has bought me comfort in the world, not having to worry about being shot by a policeman. It never crosses my mind. It is not in my domain of thought. It's those kind of things that to land and the prices, people, this is it. The prices people pay for how I show up in the world. And I get to be accountable for the prices people pay for how I show up in the world. Whether it's I'm coaching someone in Toastmasters and how I'm not being honest with them or how I show up in the world day to day.

Well, I've got, like, you know, I have a checklist of 66 items. And one of the things I look at is, do I get insights and do I get wisdom? And in your seven and a half minute speech, I cannot tell you the volume of insights and wisdoms that you shared with me. I also want to look at a couple techniques because. Let's talk about that, because that's what this podcast is about as well. One of my favorite literary devices is called the tricolon and anaphora. And you use these techniques, these tools, in terms of reinforcing the message and making your message memorable. For example, I remain silent. So there are tricolons when you repeat a phrase three times. Anaphora is when you do it at the front. Epistle is when you do it at the back. And in this case, you said, I remain silent when. And I remain silent when. I remain silent when I don't have to worry. I don't have to worry. I don't have to worry. So I love that scripting that made the message that more powerful from a technical standpoint.

I just want to throw this at you, too. People said you don't have any humor. Where's your humor? So the very first time I gave this speech, I had humor at the beginning of the speech because I thought, oh, yeah, it's Toastmasters. You have to have 4.2 laughs every five minutes or something. You have to have something that would.

Happen to be my number. So, ironically enough, I mean, like, someone timed it, you know, funniest speech of all time in the world championship. But I digress. Back to you. Back to led, everybody.

I can mute you, Ed.

So I had it as pretending not to know, but I had it as three things I've been pretending not to know. And the first One was that I'm destroying the planet with my addiction to pod. Pods of coffee. And I had buckets of these pods of coffee that I, you know, that were dumped. All that came in from, like, it was funny. And then the second thing I've been pretending not to know is, like, I'm going to be dead soon. Like, in 100 years, everybody on this planet's going to be new, including you. Like, pushing up daisies kind of day. You know, we got to get with it. Life surgeon. So I was sewing in humor, and then I got to this, right? But what was happening is I was having to rush through the impact of this, and. And so I gave that first speech, and then someone said, what are you doing with all the funny stuff? You know, really? You're funny. You're funny. And then, boom, you blow me away. Why don't you first forget about that? And I did. And so the Sunday before, I totally rewrote it and got rid of all that. Got rid of all that humor. And I said, it's gonna be what it's gonna be, and there's not gonna be any humor because. And there really weren't any gestures. You know, there were a couple of gestures, and I think the one. Darren, you called it out. His head is hard as. You know. So it was contrived. It was, like, a little bit intentional. It was a little gimmicky. But other than that, though, you know, the cards were the gestures. That's all it needed. I didn't want anything to get outside of it. I wanted it focused on that. So I rewrote it, like, the week before.

The week before.

Wow.

I'm even more impressed. I'm even more impressed, you know, hey, Linda, you made all the choice, right? Choices. I'm sorry, Darren, Go ahead.

Yeah, Real quick, Linda, for saying that statement.

Marie, Linda.

Marie. Linda. Marie.

I'm sorry for calling you out. I'm sorry for calling you out.

No, dude, you called it. You called it. You called it.

It was.

It's perfect. So, you know, and that's what I really love about. And I don't even know if all of you guys are stage time or is this. But you are with people in a way that elevates their performance because. And not because. And I know you don't do it so they can win contests. You do it so they can make a difference in the world and that more people will hear them. And I tell people that, especially with my speech, it's not. They said, how many people are watching? I said, a Lot. A lot more people have seen it since I said, but it's not about the numbers until you get what it's about. Then it's all about the numbers because it's got to be about the numbers. And I said, I would have given that speech 50,000 times to one person at a time, but I just happened to have the opportunity to give it to a lot of people at once. So that's what I did. So it's not about. And this is what I've been telling Toastmasters that they say, how do I win a contest? I said, find your purpose. Decide based on your purpose how you want people to be in the world. Write a speech that would have people be that after seven minutes, and you will win. But it isn't about writing a winning speech. It's about being your profound message for the world, and you will win whether you get to the trophy or not. You can buy the trophy for what, a hundred bucks and make yourself. You can make yourself world champion on it if you want to. And I tell people this. I said, look, my son, I'm pretty sure is gonna throw that thing in the trash within a week after I'm gone, but he can't throw away the hearts and minds that I open, and they are going to last forever.

Nice question for you. Who did you decide to listen to with regard to feedback? I mean, what was your editor? What made you decide? Like, for example, in this case, someone said to you, let's throw out the humor and just focus on this message. So what made you receive that feedback? And maybe you got other feedback, and you just said, no, I'm not going to go there. So describe that process for me.

A number of people said, oh, no, you can't. Oh, no, you better not. You'll never win. You can't win. Just don't do that. You're really. Because people liked my. Other than a lot of people liked my life of no regrets speech. So they were going, just do something like that. I have a lot of messages for the world, and I can deliver impact in the world. So do one of these other speeches. Great. You can win with those. I said, but it's not. It's not, you know, it's not about the win. That's not what I'm going for. So. But. So I tell people, don't go for the win. And you can go all the way. Go for the. Go for being who you are and making a difference in the world and get all the feedback. You can get the very last feedback. I got was from a group of people. And see, here's the thing. I don't know who's a big wig in Toastmasters and who is it, because I'm relatively new. So there were someone said, hey, do you want me to put together a group of people that can listen to it and give you some feedback on a Saturday morning, the Saturday before? And I said, yeah, that'd be great. I could just run it through one more time with all my humor and everything else. And it turned out to be some people that were at our district that someone who had been a contest judge in the past. So there were some, you know, people much bigger than my club giving me feedback, and they didn't hold back. There was a woman on there who was a gestures specialist. And when I was talking about a. Gestures, like a global gestures. So, like in my speech when I was doing humor and I said, I'm going to be dead soon, I go, like. She goes, no, you cannot do that globally. You cannot do that. You can't do like this. So she, like, was calling me out on all these various, just even gestures that I was doing. They were so gracious that they sent me additional feedback even after the hour and a half that they were on the. On the call with me. And they did round robin. I didn't even know what round robin was before that call. First I got really bummed out because I'm like, wow, this is. This, my speech is crap. So. And then I just, I let it all in and I said, no, they're calling forth for me to just step in, just step into what it's all really about. And get rid of all the frills, get rid of all the glitzy, get rid of trying to make people laugh and get rid of people trying to make people like you before you tell. Before you tell them your truth. Right? Get rid of that. Because what did you say? I think, Ed, you said, if you want people like you, if you want to be like, get a dog. So. So that's what I decided to rewrite it. And it was. And it was funny because one of the people in that group, I didn't know it was Brian Wolf, and I've got his book, but Brian Wolf was one of the people who gave me, you know, gave me feedback. And he actually called me afterwards and he said, you called that in your speech? I call it a pivot. And I do that in a number of my training speeches where you're going along la de la. And then bam, like, I did it in my life of no regrets from, you know, experiences. And now that it's a verb, it's an accelerated learning technique that people and you pull them back in. What. What was that? And he said, where did you learn the pivot? I said, I don't know. I just made up the word. And so he said, can I include it in next book? I said, you're Brian Wolf. You can clue whatever you want. I say it's, you know, I love your. I love your work. So he was one of the people that gave me feedback, and he's one who said, really, just go for it and get rid of all that other stuff. You know, be here, be what it's about. And I have a coaching friend who says one of his tagline is, if you're going to be about it, be about it. And so I decided, okay, it's time to be about it. Nice. Wow.

By the way, I will say on this podcast, this is the least amount of time that we've actually spoken, the three of us, because usually it's all three of us, like, kind of like yapping like this. And I'm going to say that this. You've had the most airtime today. So congratulations. You have put us into stunned silence.

Well, Mark Brown, what do you got during the podcast? Linda Marie we all kind of take notes. So if you saw Mark putting his head down, it's because every time you threw out a gem, he wrote it down and captured it. We call them keepers. So, Mark Brown, what do you have keepers for this episode in just one second? Linda Marie Miller, if people want to follow you or connect with you, where would you suggest they go to connect with you?

Well, two places if you want to join the movement. One Shared humanity. Just go to one Shared Humanity. On Facebook, there are three questions that you must answer to get in the door. It's a private group. And then you can come in and step into the movement with us. That's for one Shared Humanity. If you want to find out what I'm up to, go to lindamariemiller.com I have trainings, I have coaching, both in the corporate, in the private domain. I have a killer training called the Power of Women. So if you're a woman out there and you want to elevate your power in the the world, look me up.

This was by far, I don't know if you guys agree, but one of the deepest, most powerful speeches in the history of the contest.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Not just this year, like in the history of the contest. Just Amazing, because we've been studying this, Linda Marie, since Mark Brown was in 1994. And then, of course, all of us have studied every year since then. And being part of the contest since then. So, Mark Brown, what do you have for keepers?

Well, I got a confession, first of all, because Normally I have 10, 12, 15. I was so engrossed. I was so emotionally moved. I have fewer keepers, but they're all gems. Everything we say matters. Linda, you mentioned that very, very early on. I remember that you said, speak from a place of vulnerability. You're not just a woke white woman. You really spoke from your heart. Find your purpose and speak into it. Speak powerfully, honestly and vulnerably and be your profound message for the world. And for those contestants, don't go for the win and you can go all the way. The rest, I was so engrossed, I forgot to write them down. But these are enough to keep me going for years. Thank you, Linda Marie.

Just go back and listen to the whole episode again. That's the keeper.

I don't want to add one thing here today because this is kind of relevant. I received a message this morning on Facebook from someone I met a long time ago. About a year ago. I was a trainer in a training that she was involved in. And after that, I never talked to her again. She saw the speech. She sent me a message this morning and said, do you have a few minutes? I want to talk to you. My mother died, and tonight I give the eulogy and I want to know if you have any advice for me. And I said, give me a call. Because she. She sought me out because it's her purpose tonight to make a difference for all of the people that are at her mother's funeral. About a life of no regrets. I said, and if you can speak powerfully, if you can be in a space to be about your purpose in life is to have people live a life of no regrets. Because she's a coach. Also, you can shift conversations. You can have parents that haven't talked to their children in 10 years over something absurd. You can have that healed tonight by how you speak into a eulogy. Get that? It's not just a couple of words you're throwing out to a group of people about your mother's passing. This is about so much more. And that's the way I feel about Toastmasters. Every time we open our mouths, we own the power of another human being's future in our hands. And I tell people when I speak around the world. Now, the bad news is for you guys. I'm not here for you. I'm not here for you. I'm here for all the people that you're going to be different with as a result of what you're going to hear in the next hours. So always speak not to the person, but to the people that person is going to touch. And you can change the world exponentially.

Ed Tate, final thoughts.

I got a couple keepers and you know, speaking to your purpose, that's, I think that's one of the walkaway messages for me. Contest be damned. People don't remember what's in their head. People remember through their emotional centers, speak into a place of vulnerability, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. And of course, again, this concept of speaking about that unsaid, that thing that we don't talk about and bringing that unsaid into the light. So thank you so much for that.

Glenda Marie, thanks for being who you are as an example, like I think the ultimate example for what people really should use the contest for besides their own improvement. So, Linda Marie, thank you, thank you, thank you. We wish you the best in what you're doing out there in the real world. Again, you've got three great big fans here. Mark Brown, take us home.

Linda Marie, thank you so much, Ed. Always good to see you. Friends, take what you have learned, apply it. And if you do this, I can guarantee you too will be unforgettable.

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