Ep. 83 The Unforgettable Capt. Charlie Plumb

Hey there, Mark Brown. When you get a chance to watch a Legends Legend. I mean, we've interviewed legends before, but when the legend is a legend to the legends. Oh, my gosh. Like, I have seen Captain Charlie Plum. Oh, he just. He's so authentic, and he so connects. And when you get problems in your life, you cannot even think you have problems. When you hear about his POW story for six years.

And the thing is, he gives you some perspective. And I realize his humility, his heart, his compassion, his forgiveness, all rolled up into one powerful story. It truly is unforgettable.

Darren, check this out. Take a listen.

Well, how do you serve that customer as best you can? Well, I think you start by packing parachutes. Let me explain that. I sat down in a restaurant in Kansas City not so long ago, about two tables over, a guy kept looking at me, and I didn't recognize this jet. He stood up. This guy walked over to my table. He pointed at me and he said, you're Captain Plum. I looked up and I said, yes.

Sir, I'm Captain Plum.

You're that guy. You flew jet fighters in Vietnam. He said, part of that Top Gun outfit in Miramar, California. You were shot down off the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You parachuted in the enemy hands. You spent six years as a prisoner of war. Somewhat dumbfounded, I looked up at this guy and I said, how in the world did you know all that? He finally broke into a smile, and he said, because I packed your parachute. Tell you this for this guy that runs around the country making speeches. Suddenly, I was speechless. The best I could do was stagger to my feet, reach out a very grateful hand of thanks. He came up with just the proper words. The guy grabbed my hand, he pumped my arm, and he said, I guess it worked.

Sid. Indeed it did, my friend.

And I must tell you, I've said a lot of prayers of thanks for your nimble fingers, but I had no idea I'd ever had the opportunity. Expressing my gratitude in person, he said, were all the panels there? I said, no, I've got to be honest with you.

You weren't.

Of the 18 panels I was supposed to have in that parachute had only 15 good ones. Three of the panels were Tor. It was mine. I ejected from that F4 Phantom jet at 600 knots close to the ground. I was well outside the envelope of that parachute. You did your job, I didn't do mine. I said, but let me ask you a question. Do you keep track of all the parachutes you pack? Do you know of all the lives You've saved. Guy said no. Now, this is the most important part of the conversation at night, maybe the most important thing I say to you this morning. I think it deals directly with Beck's philosophy of attitude, action. It deals directly with your core values of teamwork and integrity and innovation, adaptability, commitment, passion. Here's what he said. No, I don't keep track of all the parachutes I pack. It's enough gratification for me just to know that I've served. Here's a sailor well below the water line of this big aircraft carrier, okay? His job is to stand at a long wooden table, and he weaves the shrouds and he folds the silk panels of these parachutes and he passes them along one after another, just doing his job 10, 12, 14 hours a day, while the jet jockey, while the top gun zooms around the sky at the speed of sound.

And I couldn't have cared less about.

The guy down there in the hole until one day, my parachute came along, and he packed mine up for me. Hey, gang, at the end of the day, isn't that what this business is about is packing parachutes, helping that farmer be the best he can be, helping the kids be the best they can be, helping the spouses with their journey? That's what this is all about, see, is packing parachutes. So the question becomes, how's your parachute packing coming along? Who is it that looks to you for strength in time of need? Maybe more importantly, how's your parachute packed?

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 staged out time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, AHAs. Let's dive right in.

All right, Mark, we've had many legends on the show before, but we've never had the legends. Legend indeed. The person that the legends look up to, Charlie Plum. Captain Charlie Plum. Thank you so much for joining us. This is an unbelievable privilege. I've seen you speak at my church, at nsa, know your story, and it never, ever gets old. And you just have been changing with the tide, staying relevant. But you always move an audience with your sincerity, your heart, and, of course, your story. And some people have great stories, not too many close to yours, but the way you tell it, the way someone who is a master at telling you? Mark Brown. I'm thrilled. What are your opening thoughts, Mark? And let's dive in.

Well, I don't want our audience to hear too much of me. I want them to hear more about our guest, the unforgettable Captain Charlie Plum. Captain Plumb, welcome to our podcast today.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Darren. A pleasure to be with you guys. And I appreciate you helping me tell my story.

It's unforgettable. When did you first. Let's dive right in. When did you first realize, oh, my story could be a powerful speech? When did that start?

Well, I came home from Vietnam. I was repatriated in 1973. I decided to leave the regular military and get into the Naval Reserve and fly airplanes in the Navy Reserve, which led me an open opportunity to do something else. I started by starting a little travel agency, and then I started a public relations firm. But people kept asking me to tell my story. And in the first year I was home, I made over 400 presentations, all for free.

Wow.

I had no. I had no idea you could get paid for doing this. I mean, I was having a great time. My Fourth of July speech, which is in the Congressional Record, was one of four speeches I made that day. They signed and signed an army helicopter to take me from speech to peace. I couldn't make it on my own after 400 free speeches. Some folks asked me to come to a fundraiser. And I spoke at his fundraiser, and the guy said, I'd like to pay you for some gas. And I said, no, you know, I'm paid by the military. I don't need your money. He said, well, let me give you a couple of bucks for gas. He gave me three bills. The top one and the bottom was a $1 bill. When I got home and I tossed it on my counter, the bill was a $100 bill. I'm not sure I had ever seen a $100 bill at that time in my life. And I said, whoa, you know, maybe a guy could actually do. Make this for a living. I wrote a book. And the reason I wrote the book was to stop people asking me questions about my experience. Found out that I didn't work.

Now they had more questions.

Exactly. Yeah. They read the book, they come up with 100 more questions. So that's how I actually started. And I started small, like most speakers. You know, 50 bucks here and 100 bucks there. And. And every time I raised my fee, I thought, nobody's going to ask me anymore. You know, I'm out of Here I raised my fee one more time, and I'm. I'm off the circuit. Well, that was 47 years ago, and I've got bookings into 2022, so.

Nice.

Wow. And how did your story evolve over time? Like, what were some of those secrets that you learned either by doing or did you have a coach? Because it's pretty much flawless.

Well, thanks for that. I appreciate that. And it has evolved. I try to stay current and stay up to date. And it's interesting that every few years, something comes along that sort of enhances my story. There have been three or four different hostage situations. I don't know if you'd remember the Chilean miners that were stuck in a mine for several days. Well, the news media called upon me to tell them about what it was like to be interned in a cave with no communication with the outside. And what should they tell them? One of the interesting parts was eventually established communication with these Chilean miners, and they didn't know to tell them the good news or the bad news. And that's one of the questions they asked me, was, hey, had you known that you would be coming back to a divorce from. From your high school sweetheart, that the gal held on for five years and filed for divorce just three months, he came home. Had, you know, known that as a prisoner of war, would that have helped or hurt? And so. And that was the same kind of thing. And I can't remember exactly that one of the guys in the mine had lost, I think, a son maybe or a daughter while he was down there. And they didn't know whether to tell him that or not. So. But anyway. So these.

So what'd you tell them? Wait a minute here. Wait a minute. What'd you tell them?

You never ask.

We're slow. Eventually we catch up.

Yeah. I said, no, don't tell them. I said, you know, let them. You know, they got enough problems down there without worrying about coming home to that. And I feel the same way. You know, I mean, every night I went to bed with my wife in that prison camp, and for 2,103 days, I thought of her. And to deny me that, right, by telling me early on, it would have been a heartbreak for me, you know, on top of all the other heartbreaks I had. But other things have spread this on when John McCain became very popular. People ask me about John and his time in the prison camp. He was my flight instructor. He taught me to fly jets. And then he was shot down just five months after I was. And so I knew him pretty well, and so that stirred another series, but. And now with the pandemic, people are in lockdown, and I tell them about not having Charmin for nearly six years.

You go for a name brand, Captain. You go for a name brand.

Absolutely. In fact, my toilet was a bucket, so try that out for size. To answer your question, I try to stay current. I try to keep updated. I study my audience. You know, I think if they're gonna. They're gonna ask me to come speak and pay me for doing it. The least I can do is try to get into their hearts and minds and figure out what challenges they have, what, you know, what's on their mind, what are their frustrations in life, what keeps them up at night. And when I can figure that out, then I relate that to my experience and what the. The commonality is. My belief is that, sure, you know, I had. I had kind of a dramatic series episode there. My story is a dramatic story, but it is not unlike the stories of everyday Americans. You know, I mean, who. Who has been frustrated by this lockdown? Who has lost communication with those you love the most? Who has been put upon and feeling like you've lost control? Who has. Feel like you failed in your mission? See, all of those things were the biggest problems that I had in the prison camp. When I can relate those to people that are going through this pandemic, then it touches the heart.

Wow. Now, I need to ask a technical question based on what you just told us. You've asked several questions that relate to us generally. And I saw your TED Talk. It was flawless. And you have had years of this experience, which is remarkable for the speaker out there who says, wow, what a story. I have a story, too, but my story is so big. His story covers years. How do you decide what to include and what to leave out when you deliver a presentation? Because you have so much information and so broad and vast an experience.

That that question hits on one of my. My greatest frustrations. Mark. I have about eight hours of material committed to memory. Wow. And so I pick and choose from those eight hours, what I think is going to fit that particular audience. What do you. What do you include and what you do, you leave out? I put the filter on of what will that audience understand my saying, you know, there's several parts of my experience that are so difficult and so time consuming to relate to a person that it's almost. It's not worth it to try to home in on that particular experience. You know, if I tried to explain to you what it was like to fly a supersonic jet fighter and told you all the instruments and communication and navigation, the orientation, the physiology of it all. I mean, it would take forever. So what I would try to do is try to give you a feeling, a feeling of vertigo, for instance. You know, a point when you, when you, when you don't really know. Maybe it's when you first get up in the morning or on an elevator or on a circus ride where you don't know if you're right set up or upside down. If you're going to the left, you're going to the right. Those were the, those are the challenges that I would have as a, as a Navy pilot. So pick out the parts of your story, I think that appeals most to the particular audience that you're talking to and that'll make it easier to get through to them.

It sounds to me then, Captain Palam, that you're saying, if a concert is difficult, use a comparison to something familiar to your audience. Like when you first wake up, like you're going off a building, so they can compare the experience and understand without feeling the detail. That's just brilliant. What do you think, Darren?

Exit?

I agree completely. It's having eight hours of material now. You can choose. I'm going to do this story and this concept. And Mark, I love that he's just saying, which I think a lot of speakers is not about your story, it's about the parts of your story that will help them in their situation, in their day to day life. And one of my favorites, which I've never seen another speaker do with the perfect eloquence that you do. But you set the stage where it's dark except for this one spot on the stage. 1. Is it 6 foot by 6 foot?

8. 8ft. A lot of space. Yeah. Elbow room.

And you use that so well in the theater of the keynote, if you will, just showing us what your life was like. Where did that idea come from? Like, oh, I'm going to use lighting to help set this up.

Actually it came from a meeting planner who built a cage for me. And it was a bamboo cage, it was 8ft long and 8ft wide. I couldn't carry that cage with me everywhere I went. So I decided I'll describe this in lights. And it is, it's pretty. In fact, a lot of people who will remember my presentation will say, oh, you know, you're the guy that, that talks about the eight foot wide space. And so now what I'll do rather than to carry a cage around is to pace three steps one way and three steps the other, and then the light comes up. It's obviously a dramatic opener, but one that really catches their attention and then is embedded in their memory. Because people remember me from that opener. You know, one of the things. Long ago, a speaker started his presentation in silence and just stood there and looked at an audience for a full minute, 60 seconds of silence. And that was his opener. And it certainly got the attention of the audience. People are uncomfortable. They don't know what's happening. So I play a video of how I got shot down. The video ends with a picture of me in a flight suit in a prison camp. It's just a black and white still photo of me in a flight suit. The room goes to black, all right? And I take the stage in darkness and in silence. And I pace. I'm wearing my flight boots, so I pace three steps one way, three steps the other. So all they can know about what's going on is what they hear. Three steps by three steps by three steps. And then when I start to speak, the light comes up and illuminates me in a flight suit. So, you know, they just saw me in a flight suit on, you know, at age 24. Okay. But now I'm here in a flight suit, and it draws that connection. Well, about the second time over, about half the audience figures it out. They say, oh, oh, that guy's pacing off the space in that prison cell. And so it's sort of. It's a connection with the audience that suddenly they realize the secret, you know, they've solved the puzzle. And it's. And it's a great way to connect with an audience when they know that they've solved the puzzle.

Charlie, I gotta tell you, this is just brilliant because I have been. I won't say preaching, but teaching. We are both coaches, and I was teaching my audience. I always ask an audience of students, what is the purpose of your opening? And to a man or woman or person, they always say, to get the audience's attention. And they say, you are right, but only half right. The other half is to make a connection, a dual connection, to have a connection with the audience and a connection to your subject. What you have described, what you do, accomplishes all three. You get their attention, you connect with them, and you bring us to that prison cell. And it is one of the most brilliant openings I've ever seen. And you accomplish everything I teach my students to do. Get their attention, connect to them, and connect to your topic flawlessly, seamlessly, and we are invested. We are right there with you, and it is just brilliant. So for those who are listening carefully, listen to what Captain Plummet has done. He has taken this principle and applied it magnificently. And you need to watch his video and see exactly how he does it.

Darren, did you have any teachers along the way or who did you learn from?

Yes, many, many teachers along the way. Cabot. Robert was actually one of my mentors, Cabot and I and several. Bill Gove was another one. Ty Boyd, you might remember Ty.

Yes.

These are old timers. And in fact, all these guys have gone on to their great stage in the sky. Those guys were. Helped me out a great deal. Let's see, I've had all kinds of coaches. I was a drama student in high school. I was a thespian. And so that actually helped a lot in projecting and not being self conscious on stage and feeling comfortable with an audience. That helped a great deal. I was also in debate in high school, and so those things, I think, helped me out a lot. Having said all that, when I first started speaking, it was terrifying for me. And I remember those first 400 presentations that I made. You know, I would be in the hotel hoping there would be a, you know, earthquake or something to stop the meeting. And I think a little bit of nervous tension is okay. I think that that helps you be at your best. You're really on your toes when your adrenaline is flowing.

Well, you know, we mentioned being in that hotel room for the first 400 and wondering, oh, man, send an earthquake. Was there a specific technique that you began to apply, Captain Plum, that helped you get through those nervy moments?

Well, yeah. I mean, somebody early on, you've heard this before, pretend all your audiences are nude. You know, that gives you a little chuckle to think about that. Depending on the. Depending on the audience, of course. I mean, it's like everything else. It's like speaking people. People come to me and say, hey, I want to be a speaker. And how do I do that? You know, tell me about the brochure I have to make and tell me about the online presses I have to have. And I said, if you want to be a speaker, go speak. Find anybody, anywhere. And so those first 400 speeches, of course, none were paid, but a lot of them were Kiwanis clubs and rotary clubs and PTAs and anybody that wanted to know my story. And so it was just over and over and over. Five thousand speeches later, it's still. There's a momentum, I think, that you build up as A speaker. I'm seeing guys try to cut back. You know, instead of 10 speeches a month, I'm going to do three. Well, they cut back to three and suddenly they have zero. I'm not sure what the momentum is, but I think part of it is just the self confidence of knowing that you can stand up and deliver and be effective in your craft. In fact, it's like flying. I still fly airplanes. I have two little airplanes, an antique airplane from World War II and an experimental airplane. In fact, I'm going to go fly this afternoon. I know that if I don't fly for two or three weeks at a time, it's like I really have to study again what those instruments look like and what the charts look like and, and how to follow that map on my gps. And I think it's the same way with speaking that if I don't speak for two or three weeks, I lose that momentum.

Mike Rayburn is one of your mentees. When a legend mentors another legend, I just love that. And we've had him on the podcast and he's a great friend of mine. What kind of advice did you give someone like Mike early on his career? What would you give? Other than what we've said already, of course. What advice would you give to emerging and professional speakers?

One of the things that I, that I told Mike early on was don't be afraid to raise your feet. You know, I think most emerging speakers are afraid to ask for that honorarium. I mean, you got to figure that this is us and this is our time and this is our talent. And if you don't ask, you're never going to, never going to get that honorarium. I have suffered from that same fear, you know, that people are not going to ask me to speak anymore if I go up another hundred dollars on my, my fee. Well, first of all, you guys probably know this as well as I do is when you, when you do a freebie, you know, you usually end up doing the dishes after the dinner, you know, or stacking the chairs. It is really true that a meeting planner respect speakers with higher honorariums and really kind of crazy, but I try to do at least one a month. Giving back and playing it forward. In fact, when I do one of these free speeches for, when I do them for the military or Boy Scouts or the church, when I do a free one, I said, you know, I got a couple of suggestions and, you know, let's do this and do this and do this. Because frequently when they're not paying much For a speaker. They also don't pay very much for the sound system or the lighting system or place to hang your jacket or, you know, more than one restroom or porta potty or whatever.

Piece of book.

You know, it does become.

Sorry, I had to throw in. I'm sorry.

You know, they have toilet paper in there, too. Yeah.

As your. As your fee goes up, so doesn't the whole experience.

True. True that.

Because they take everything seriously rather than. Yeah, it's moving the chairs. And they don't get it too. Some of them with no fee, they don't understand what's important to us. So we're gonna have a dance after. So here's where the cord is gonna end, and then there's a huge dance floor and then the chairs. But anyway.

Yeah, exactly. I have that situation for sure.

I do want to go back for a second, and I know I should have asked earlier, but it's just rolling out in my head. You said you have eight hours of material in your head. Is that eight hours of rehearsed, prepared material or just eight hours of stories and messages? How you categorize those eight hours?

Good question. I would say that probably two and a half or three hours are rehearsed. Okay, I'm ready to go with that right now. And the remainder would be stories that I have that I would want to think about or even write out or rehearse in front of a video to make it smooth. So I guess it's a misnomer to say that I have eight hours of material. Well, actually, I do. It's committed to memory. But a lot of that material, I would certainly want to brush up and clean up and polish. Polish that extra. That extra material.

Well, I want to make sure everyone catches this. Here is a legends, legend with eight hours of material. What does he say? He says I still need to write it out to get it properly done. I need to brush up on it. I want to record it on video. Darren, these are all the things we teach our stagetime members and our clients. You need to write it out so you can hear what the audience hears. You need to rehearse it. Rehearse it on video. What will the audience see, especially in a virtual world? And Captain Plums, for a man of your experience who began with 400 free 47 years ago, still rehearsing, still writing, still recording, that is really instructive. And I hope our friends are listening. Even the best of the best and the legendary still go back to basics, Darren.

Yeah, and if they don't Listen to us. We'll just say, well, Captain Charlie Plumb said bring it up with him, you know.

Absolutely. Sure, send me in.

What are some of the lessons you've learned along the way as a keynote speaker to become unforgettable? What's some of those lessons that you learned?

The setup is so important. I will usually go in a day ahead of time to make sure that. That the setup is right. There's so many things that meeting planners don't know about staging. The lights, the sound, the temperature in the room, the setting. I've spoken to huge groups. I think the smallest group I've ever paid for, been paid for was seven people. The largest group I've spoken to is about 40,000 in a stadium. There's a big difference in not only the crowd size, but also the way people are collected with each other. Because. And I've never heard anybody else say this. I mean, probably a lot of smart people have, but there's a center of mass of an audience which has to be the center of energy of that audience. I remember I was in a snowstorm in the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. I was making this presentation in Hog Auditorium, Huge, huge building. And because of the snowstorm, there are only about, I don't know, 50 people in an auditorium that was whole, 3,000. And of course, they were just all spread out, you know. And I started speaking and I could get no response from this audience. And I finally said, stop, everybody. I want you to all come down here, you know, in this. The front three rows of this auditorium so I can talk to you. And it makes a big, big difference in the spacing and this center of mass. I spoke day before we in Wisconsin Dells in Wisconsin, and we had probably 350 people in the audience, but they were all spaced out, okay? They're spaced six feet apart. And it really makes a big difference trying to get emotion, pathos and, you know, and humor and everything about emotion that goes. Seems to be transmitted from one person to another. And if they're six feet apart, that transmission is slower. And so I would much rather have 100 people in a room that seats 75 than 100 people in a room that seats 500. Just because you got that center of mass right there, that center of energy right there, and they, they echo, you know, off each other and the other. The other part of that is, I think as a speaker, you have to give them the authority, give them permission to emote. And you do this a lot by timing. New speakers will go out and they'll tell a joke, and then when they don't hear anybody laugh at all, they go into something else because they're embarrassed that nobody laughed at that joke. Whereas if they will wait for a few seconds, you know, for some people to get the joke, then they'll find more and more people laugh. The problem I think we have as speakers when we feel embarrassed because nobody laughed, as we write onto something else and the audience immediately gets the signal that the speaker is not going to give them permission to emote. And it's the same thing, I think, with tears. If you're telling a really, really sad story, you have to give them give the audience permission. And then once they have the permission, you know, back to my center mass theory is that the closer they are grouped to each other, then the more quickly that emotion transfers.

My comedy mentor, Dave Fitzgerald, used to teach me, and he said, you've heard the phrase laughter is contagious. He said, if they're spread too far apart, it doesn't contage.

I think that's very true.

Another way of saying what you just.

Did, you know, it's funny. I used to do youth programs at La Cat and Plum. And I remember went to one middle school in New Rochelle, New York, and I was in auditorium, and these are kids who were 12, 13 years old. I've been doing it for years. It's my wheelhouse. I get to the auditorium, they bring the kids in, and they seat the kids a seat, a space, a seat, a space, a seat, a space. And I said, why would you do that? Well, you know, other speakers couldn't really control. These kids are going to start hitting each other, so we make sure they can't touch each other. I said, trust me, let the kids sit together. I will take care of it. I've been doing this 25 years. Not to brag, Captain Plum, but I knew how to connect with the kids in six seconds. And seeing them, the gap was just. I could feel the difference in the energy. So you were 100% correct, and you caught that early. And I won't tell too many people, but Darren Lacroix has been known when there are too many chairs for an audience, you know, rope the back or had them move out of the room completely. Get rid of him. But I won't tell anybody about it. It's our secret, okay?

And one question we like to ask to bring hope to other speakers, especially emerging speakers who might bomb or fail early on, just like I did, I thought, that's it. My career is over. We like to ask, are there any stories of any keynotes that you gave where you bombed and then you lived to tell about it?

I try to forget the ones. Well said, I guess, like most speakers I've told, and I try to plan something new for every presentation I make. Sometimes it's only a gesture or an expression or some timing or that kind of thing, but I try my best to improve every time. I also ask for critique, and that's tough for me to get. Most people are not really ready to critique a speaker, and I think especially with a story like mine, where who's going to pick on a Vietnam vet? That's true. That's to my advantage, but it's also to my disadvantage when it comes to getting critiques. One of the most memorable presentations I ever made was the setup was the audience was in bleachers on one side of a swimming pool, and I was on a stage on the other side of the swimming pool, and I tried to speak across that pool to these people. Another time, I was doing a high school commencement address, and I flew my little airplane into this little town in Washington, Missouri. The kids met me at my plane, and I rode with them, and they said, we really need to tell you, Captain Plumb, that there's been a little bit of discourse going on in the school you need to know about. The kids wanted to march into hard rock music instead of pomp and circumstance, you know, the old tradition. And the administration said, no, this school's been here for 103 years, and we're going to march into pomp and circumstance just like our parents and grandparents and great, great grandparents did. Well, the students got upset and they started to draw graffiti, really nasty graffiti on the walls of the school. And so the principal called them in and said, how can we do this? And they said, well, they came up with this compromise. They would march in with pomp and circumstance, and then they would give them five minutes to speak, and they could do anything they wanted. They could play their hard rock music, they could jump up and down or dance or whatever they wanted to do. For it was going to be called five minutes senior time. And so, you know. Well, it sounded like a pretty good compromise to me. Well, I said, that's the problem. What's that? Well, our five minutes are going to be used by the best debater we have in our senior class, and he's going to expose all of the dirty laundry of all of the teachers and who's sleeping with whom and who's his smoking pot behind the school. And so I said, well, that's pretty interesting. I wonder how this is going to work out. So it started, you know, and it was right on the program. You know, five minutes. Senior time was going to be right before my presentation. I wasn't too happy about that agenda. So sure enough, they marched into Pomp and Circumstance, everybody sat there and. And they had the valedictorian and the salutatorian and a couple of teachers, and then it was going to be senior time. Okay? They went right to my speech, introduced me, and it suddenly occurred to the seniors that they had been duped. They were not going to have their senior time. So I did my speech and I slipped out the back door, went to my airplane, flew away.

You literally flew. I'll fly away. Oh, glory, I'll fly away. You know what, though, Charlie, I gotta tell you this. It's hard to get criticism. It's a great story, by the way. Here's the good news, though, at least to our knowledge. Nobody has sent you nasty email at site that said you were terrible. Like Darren Lacroix has received because he had a critic that once did that to him. But, you know, it's important to understand that all of us as presenters do have those difficult seasons, do have those difficult times, and do have those unexpected moments. So I have one question regarding that story. Did you stick to your script? Did you not even address anything different? You simply gave the speech and left early in that particular case, good question.

And the answer is, I did not stick to my speech. I picked on the administration, I picked on the students, and I told the whole story. You know, I said, okay, you know, here's what's happening, guys. I believe in tradition. You know, I really believe it's important and tradition. But I also believe this is the senior graduation. It's their time. They should be able to speak their piece as well. Okay, Yeah, I addressed the whole thing. I don't think I made anybody very happy. I didn't get a standing ovation on that one.

Well, I'm sure to that particular group on that day, you certainly were quite unforgettable. And, you know, I realize so many of us have stories that we tell, but every single day something happens that we can add to our story file and augment our eight or nine hours of material. And I'm pretty sure, Ken Plum, that there are stories that people want to hear of your life as a pow, but along the way, you pick up more stories currently that you can then apply and augment and supplement and really, really massage your presentation and expand it with not just the past but also the present, and I would assume, also hope for the future. So thank you for enlightening me and helping me to understand what I can do with my talks going forward as well.

Darren, I think those extreme presentations and situations, as you mentioned, we all have them. We learn lessons from them, and I think it makes us stronger. One question I had, as you mentioned, speaking at churches, how does your faith play into your presentations?

Well, that's another part of this eight hours is I was talking about my faith. I grew up in the church and was a very religious boy. And when I got to the prison camp, well, back up at the Naval Academy, I had served with what we call the OCU Officers Christian Union. What we were doing there at the Naval Academy was prepare lay leaders to orchestrate services on ships where chaplains were not available. There are not enough chaplains in the Navy to be one on every ship. So frequently that job falls upon a junior naval officer. And so we were preparing to do that. Well, I got into the prison camp, so I knew a little bit about organizing a church and sermons and that kind of thing. And so I actually served for two years of my six year imprisonment as a chaplain. So every Wednesday night and every Sunday morning, we would have our church. Now, of course, the communists don't believe in religion or communism is actually their religion. And so we had to, you know, we had to post one of our people at the door or the window or wherever we could see to make sure that they did not catch us. So twice a week we would roll out the best rag we could find and take a couple of bamboo sticks and make a cross out of them and make a little altar and have our church service. It was a very comforting and unifying time for all of us because we knew that our people were back here praying for us as we were over there praying for them. Let me back up one moment because there's something I want to say about your last question mark about, you know, old stories and new stories and making things current after maybe five years on the speaking circuit when the Vietnam War was in, you know, everybody's history books and nobody thought about it much anymore. I had a couple of speakers, you know, of my. Of my heroes tell me that I had to divert to something else, you know, that I had to start quoting the philosophers, you know, or quoting other speakers or, or doing something else. And so I did. I started to back away from my story and start telling more of the same stories that, you know, the starfish story.

Never heard that before. Have you never heard that one before? The starfish story.

Tell some of these stories. And I did that. And the response that I got was, wait a minute. You know, we didn't hire you to come tell the same story that every other speaker tells. You know, you're credible, your credibility is because of your experience. You know, we. We want to know what that was like. To your point, I have to continue to update. But, oh, by the way, those baseline stories that I have been telling for 47 years have not changed all that much. I try my best to tell them better each time, but. But there's a lot of that baseline stuff and a lot of good speakers. You'll hear the same stories over and over and over from these guys and gals and just, you know, just because that's what resonates.

And who do you think is unforgettable as a speaker?

Well, there are a number of them. I love Naomi Rhodey. I heard her one of the first presentations she ever made, and I've been loving her ever since. And that was 40 years ago, as it turns out. As it turns out, in September, her grandson is marrying my daughter. Wow.

Okay.

You love her that much, Captain Plum.

Now she's family.

How's that for a connection?

That's pretty good.

Indeed.

Other guys, you know, I love Mike Rayburn. I've followed him forever. You know, I wish I could play these guitars like he does. He's terrific. Scott McCain is a favorite of mine.

The voice. The voice of Scott McCain.

Love Scott. Oh, yeah. What a great voice he has. Great voice. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. Dan Burris, Dan Thurman, all these guys are. You know, they're not the newest guys, but they sure have taught me a lot along the way. In fact, I have every. Every Friday, I have a zoom call with several of these guys. Nito Cobain is on that call just about every Friday. You know, I could just sit at his feet and listen to him. He is just really a great, great guy.

For context, before I forget, for context, you mentioned Mike Rayburn. You said, I wish I could play these guitars like he can. For those who are listening, Captain Plum's backdrop on a wall behind him are some beautiful instruments that appear to be three guitars. A banjo and what could have been. I'm not sure what the last instrument is, but they're beautiful. They're on the wall, and they're just beautiful to look at. So to give you context.

Thank you for that.

Other guitars you mentioned.

Yeah. That the Last one is a mandolin. And then one of the people that are watching this, the one next to the mandolin is the. Is my father's guitar. This guitar was. Was never on a stand or on a wall in my home as I grew up. It was always on the couch. And of course, this. We didn't have tv and so I'd come home and that was a thing you did. You know, usually my mother would make some little graham cracker cookies with a little icing on it. That was after school. And pick up that guitar and start plucking on that guitar. And so these guitars have a lot of meaning for me. I wanted to mention one other thing, since you guys are big Toastmasters. We had a Toastmaster Club in the prison camp. You know, you've always wanted those. Wanted one of those captive audiences.

Yeah, literally.

We were alone for a long time. Some guys were in solitary confinement for four and a half years. I was more junior, and so I wasn't in the solitary confinement cell for nearly that long. But things started to improve about the four year mark that I was there. And they started allowing guys to write letters home. And then there was a raid on one of the camps that forced the enemy to put us all back into the Hanoi Hilton, the downtown prison camp, and put us in larger rooms. They didn't have enough room to space us out. I was in a room with 57 guys. The room was about 20 by 30. We each had 14 inches of bed space, as I recall. But one of the guys had been a Toastmaster before he was shot down. And so he knew all of these rules of the Toastmasters. And he said, let's start a Toastmaster Club. And we did. I don't know if it's still the same today or even if it was then, but he had all the various stages of speeches that you walk through the Eyes have It or Contact and Hands up was one of the speeches where you emphasize your gestures and expressions. The first speech of Toastmasters is called the Icebreaker. Do they still have that in Toastmasters? Do you guys know.

Sir? Yeah.

The Icebreaker speech is a speech where your first speech. So it's pretty easy to talk about yourself. And, you know, here's where I went to school and here's where I graduated, and this is where I work and this is my family and talk about yourself. And so he started this club and it was my turn to have an icebreaker. I was very nervous about this, you know, speaking in front of these guys. So if you can imagine, my first. I Decided I'm going to make up a speech that will catch their attention. My icebreaker speech in the prison camp went something like this. The setting is heaven. The time is 11:43 in the morning on the 19th of May of 1967. The characters are St. Peter. God lifts his gavel and brings it down to the oak desk and says, next case. St. Peter opens the great ledger and says, well, we gotta really act quickly on this one. This is a guy by the name of Charles Plum and he's in real trouble, so you gotta think quick. And God says, well, tell me about the kid. Well, you know, grew up in a tiny town in Kansas and he was in the 4H and it was a boy Scout and he used to tease his sister a lot and he used to walk on the railroad tracks. And then he went to the Naval Academy and became a fighter pilot. That's the problem. We got to be God. God says, well, go ahead, what's the problem? Well, he's in this fighter jet and he's just been hit by surface to air missile. It's exploded some 12,000 pounds of gasoline he's got on this airplane and it's topsy turvy, end over end. And we gotta act quick because we gotta make a decision here. He's just ejected, he's ejection seat has come out of the airplane and the airplane has crashed the ground. What shall we do? God? And God lifts up his gappel and he brings it down to the table and he says, okay, open the parachute.

Nice.

That was my.

That was your icebreaker.

Icebreaker.

Wow. No idea.

No idea. A Toastmasters Club at the Hanoi Hilton.

Wow.

I am speechless. That is amazing. And you had the creativity of mind, the sharpness of mind to tell that story as an icebreaker. Which proves to us that somewhere inside young Charles Plum, there always was that unforgettable storyteller. Are you gonna bring us home with this?

Yeah.

Before I get my keepers in.

Well, he had to open the parachute for you so you could meet the guy who packed it so you could spread hope and love and encouragement around the world. I want to honor your time here. Thank you for spending so much. My final question, if you were having a cup of coffee with an emerging speaker who desperately wanted to tell their story and really wanted to leave their message in the heart, in the minds of their audience. They wanted it to be unforgettable, what advice would you give them?

First of all, I would ask them to explore their audience, you know, figure out what these people are about. Joys, concerns, heartbreaks, buzzwords, mottos, slogans, whatever you can figure out about that audience and then apply your story to the needs of that audience. You know, if you see if you're talking to a bunch of sales groups, okay, a bunch of salespeop, and they just really struggled because they've got this great competitor. You know, talk about competition. Talk about how you have gone through an experience in your life where, you know, where you were approached by a bully, right? Or where you had a teacher or a coach which would, was very disciplinary, very disciplinary and made you struggle. Talk about the competition that you might have had in sports at school. If you're talking to a management group and they're having trouble motivating their people. Talk about motivation. We've all had all these experiences. I mean, we're all really experts in the things that have gone on in our lives. So tell a story. I really believe that storytelling is the essence of presentations and essence of a lot of other things too. I think it's the essence of leadership. I think if you can be a leader and tell stories, but particularly as a speaker, if you can tell stories, certainly not stories that brag upon yourself and find stories that somehow may be self deprecating. You know, maybe it's the other guy that won and you can tell why he won over you in that competition. Maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a story of a, of a personality change where, you know, where you found somebody that just did not like you at all, but make them the hero in some way. I think one of the, but the best speakers I know are speakers that are humble. And Naomi Rode is an excellent example of this. Humility just goes an awful long way. And you can't brag and brag and brag on yourself and tell everybody, you know, how you spoke to the Million Dollar Roundtable and how that was and how you spoke to 14 different Fortune 100 companies. Don't tell them that stuff. They'll figure that out. Tell them things that will relate that shows your humility to them and then put that together, write it out. Practice, practice, practice. You know, I, to this day, I do not like to videotape myself. I don't like the way I look, I don't like the way I sound. But I force myself to do this because I am convinced that if you can't see yourself the way your audience sees you, it's tough to transfer any kind of knowledge or emotion or wisdom to that audience.

Well, thank you. And I just admire your humility your authenticity. And I think that's one of the things that just connects me to you personally and I know connects the world to you. And Captain Plum, as Mark puts together his keepers from today's episode. How would anybody get in touch with you if they want to hire you as a keynote speaker, if they want to follow you? Are you on social media? How would they connect with you?

I'm on all social media. Easiest way is my website, charlieplumb.com that's C H a r l I e p l u m b.com and that has, you know, all kinds of videos, you know, pictures and stories and lots of other things. And I try to be very transparent. And, you know, if any of your listeners just have a question they want to ask or somebody they might have known that I would know, I answer every email. I spent a lot of hours answering email because I get a lot of fan mail. But I believe that that's the way you influence people is by responding and by touching. So charlieflum.com's the website. Wow. Thank you.

Oh, man, you influenced me. I have several keepers here. I love this. You say, stay current, stay up to date and be aware of any situation that can enhance your story. Study your audience and get into their hearts and minds. Ask what will my audience relate to? And apply your story to their need. Hey, if you want to speak, go speak and develop momentum. Don't break it or you will lose the edge. Don't be afraid to ask for honorarium and don't be afraid to raise your fee. Also, give free speeches regularly. Technique. Write out your stories. Rehearse your stories. Practice, practice, practice. Record yourself on video, even if you hate it like I do. Give your audience permission to emote. And remember, your credibility is based on your experience. Be humble and tell your stories better every time you tell them. And last thought, don't think if you write a book, you will stop people from asking you questions because they always will. Captain Plumb. Great keeper. Thank you, Darren. Bring us home.

All right?

Hey, thank you. It's great to spend some time with a legends legend and keep doing what you do. We wish you all the best. If there's any way we can help you, please reach out because you you are unforgettable.

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