Ep. 87 The Gold in the Old!

Hey, Darren Lacroix. How are you today, man?

That's my line. What are you doing?

Sometimes we gotta switch it up, you know, and as part of doing that, I want to talk today about what we can do by switching our thinking and going back in our history and looking at our stories, our life experiences. And how can we find the gold in the old?

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

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

Hey there, Mark Brown. I just, I don't know why I had to say it once, just. But there's, yeah, there's so much to be said for revisiting the old, and that was good. But now we're, we're farther along down our trajectory, down our course, down our journey, and we've got new ideas, new insights that we could infuse into, into the old to make the gold even goldener.

Look that one up. Well, that's so true, Darren, because I've discovered over the last 25 plus years, it's very easy for us to want to look for the new. I've got to get new high tech, got to get a new technology, the new device, everything is new. I got to get fresh new material. And honestly, as presenters, we often hear it's time for new material. You, yourself, every year you make a commitment once a year to provide something new at our annual Stage Time Live event. Nothing wrong with that. What I think, though, is at times we abandon the old and fail to realize as we get older and more mature and get more experienced. If we go back to the old, we may find the gold that was there all along, but we lack the experience to mine it. So today's challenge is a question. Is there gold in your old presentation? Your old story for our pastors, an old sermon of yours. We're going to talk today about how you can find some of the gold in the old.

Yeah, Mark, you mentioned game changers. I do a new keynote to force myself because that creative side needs that outlet. And I love updating the webinars that you and I do. The free trainings, the district conference keynotes, my regular keynotes. So it's fun to update, but Sometimes it's also exciting to create something brand new. However, this year, when I was in the process of creating something brand new, I went back and I found a story I hadn't told in years. But for what I was doing and what I was using, that story was a perfect opening to set up my premise and get my point across. So sometimes those old stories that they did their time, they served their purpose, and now we have better content. But what we're talking about in this episode is go back to some of those old stories, those old presentations, which is one of the beauties of recording that we can go hear how we said and how we said it, but we're in a different place in our careers now, different skill sets than we used to have. We can infuse some new ideas into that old story and make it even better.

And Darren said, infuse. This is a very, very good thing. Yeah. I want to clarify one quick point here, Darren. I spoken to other presenters who will tell you, well, listen, man, that was back then. That was 20 years ago. I've gone past the experience. I'll never tell that story and I'll never give that talk again. And I appreciate that. But before you say never, I want to ask you, especially if you're experienced, to not say never just yet. Go back to an old story and ask yourself, now, 20 years later, is there still something valid in that story I hadn't seen when I first did it? Because 20 years ago you didn't have the experience you have now. You haven't gone through the last 20 years in your relationships with your family, with your business, with your life. The world has undergone so much in the last 15 months. And maybe, just maybe, a story you told 15 or 20 years ago can have new meaning and greater relevance now. And that's how you realize there may be gold in that old story. So, number one, I'd say let's look at our stories one more time. Darren, you and I always teach to build a story file, and there's so many stories we can find. And something occurred to me. I've always talked about looking at the seasons of your life, and I would challenge anyone, even a new or emerging speaker, to go back over your life, go to your youth, go to your childhood. An experience you haven't talked about for a long time may come back to you. You know what I haven't talked about? I was in high school when this thing happened, and oh, my go, now it makes sense. Even now, I'm talking about those kinds of experiences. I'm asking everyone to literally do some work here. Darren. Okay, What?

I don't. Mark Brown. I don't have time for that. I'm busy.

One story told in the right way that you could revisit could literally be the revolutionary change someone else needs to hear in their life. Now, we may not think you say, well, you know what, my life's kind of boring. Nothing happens to me. And our mindset is what happens now.

No.

No. Okay, so go back what happened 15 years ago. What happened when you moved or relocated. What happened when you changed jobs. What happened when you were in a season when nothing was happening for you. What did you learn in that experience? Go back and revisit the old experience. Tell the old story and use a tool of a simple recorder and ask yourself, is this valid now? And maybe you'll actually find some gold there. I love the fact, Darren, you went to an old story you hadn't told for and you thought, aha, this will be perfect in 2021. If we all did that, what power could we unleash from our own stories? Yeah.

It's almost like writing a book or writing an article. Then you're told in the industry, in the writing world, you're told, okay, write it out and then put it away, give it a rest, and then come back a few days later and look at it again and you'll find that you can make it much better. But if you're working on it, working it, it's hard to edit it, write it, all of that at one sitting. So what we're saying is, hey, go back and revisit it, let it breathe, come back. Now you're looking at it as the reader would rather than those preconceived ideas you had then and you can make it better. So I'm just saying. You're just saying, okay, now you had a 10 year gap. You've evolved, you've got more confidence. You're a better storyteller than you were 10 years ago. Maybe that old story, there's even more gold now because of who you are and what you bring to it at this point.

Yes. And the experience also, you're now able to tell the story in a better way because you've gained the experience and there will be details in the story you thought were not that relevant. You kind of blew by them or left them out. But as you revisit the experience and look at the story, oh, I didn't tell that part. And Darren, you and I both know we will do these coaching calls Sometimes. And someone brings a story and they work on it and they work on it and they present it and we say so. Or maybe, maybe our dear friend Mums, who loves to dig deep into stories. So why do you do that? Well, you know, my dad told me I could never do that. And we go, wait, stop, stop, stop. You mean all this time you have had this one part of the story that you have never told? But that part of the story, that one little conversation, that's where the gold is. So when we say go back to a story and retell it, it's not just for the sake of going back to the old. We wanted to literally mine the old to find the gold keeper. Darren. Mine the old to find the gold. And the gold could come from a detail you omitted. It could come from that conversation. It could come from something that you saw or witnessed that you thought at the time was insignificant. But now, as Darren says, 10 years later, you're more seasoned, you have more experience, a broader understanding of context. And then, boom, this old story becomes a gold story.

Yeah, I was trying to think of puns while you were saying all that, setting me up to be a little Mark Brown esque for the moment. I was like, you know, brush off the mold, Take the old and bring it and make it bold. I don't know.

And they find the go to the mold, the old, the bowl of the gold. You know what, Darren? I know there may be a segment of our listening audience who might say, huh, if I go to the old, people are going to know. And these are some of our friends who are pastors, who are ministers, who are the deep. The challenge of providing a new presentation every week for like 50 weeks, I.

Can'T even imagine that.

Yeah, we had Vince Antonucci at our live event and he talked about how difficult that could be. And I know other people who are pastors. And no, we're not trying to proselytize or make anyone into a Christian. We're just saying the principle here to have to provide a new presentation every week for 50 weeks. And some will do series 10, 12, 15 weeks in a row and get a series done. But I also know there's some pastors who will go back and they'll log everything. They'll go back five or six years and find an old sermon series. And they say, well, I'll look at this again. But then the aha comes. Oh, wow. It was good, but it was fairly naive. Now, 15 years later, 10 years later, with the experience I have, I can go deeper into what I had before. So I'll present the original material, but in a new way, with a fresh look, a different perspective, and find a deeper meaning and deeper message. And that's one powerful thing that pastors can do, or anyone who teaches regularly on a particular topic can do. Even you and I, Darren, we've been teaching the same principles for years, but we're finding new ways to look at the old and brighten it and have a different perspective. Even Toastmasters contestants have done that. I know a couple of contestants who have taken an old presentation, at least a year old, reworked it with very good results. You know, Manoj Vasudevan did that a couple of years ago when he was competing. And little known fact is that I did the same thing back in 1995. I took a previous speech that had done well at a different level, but I reworked it, I redid it, I changed some things, I added things, I took the old, I found the gold, delivered that one at the world championship and walked away as a champion. And of course, the person I admire the most for being the most resilient Toastmasters contestant champion would have to be Jock Elliott, the 2011 world champion who was in a final in 1990 and eventually won it in 2011, 21 years after his first final. What some people may not know is that Jacques winning speech that he gave in 2011 was a reworked and revamped version of his final speech from 1993, when he went one second over time. It was called what a feeling. Back then he was one second over time. But he came back in 2011 with a reworked version of a speech that he used, what, 18 years earlier. But it was better. He had found the goal. He brought new application. He mentioned Facebook, which never existed in 93, but he modernized it. He found the goal, kept the really good pieces embellished it worked on it, delivered it and it won him a world title. So for the pastors out there and the speakers out there, there is value in going back to the old, finding the gold and then giving that to your audience.

Yeah, quick hint too. How do you know which old you should revisit? Go back and revisit it and if you get excited and you like it again and you think that was good, that's one to work on. Because you can't just bring an old story and bring it to life if you don't have life or belief in it. Now here's our little worry that is just not reality. It's not true. But we think, oh, I've done that before. Okay. If it's really good, you know, we live in fear that the audience is going to think, oh, they've said that or told that story before. It's not the truth. If it's so good and you relive it and you bring it to life again with your new talent, your new confidence, your new experience, we might have heard it again, but, man, you love to tell it. So I love to hear it from people who love to tell it again and again and again. I remember taking some of my friends to see one of my comedy mentors and knowing what was coming because I heard it before. I remember like, oh, you're gonna love this one, you know?

Yeah.

Even though I had heard it before. So same idea that if it's really good and you're excited about it, you can sell it. And hopefully you're also, as we're saying, you're not just revisiting it and retelling it the same way you used to. You're now adding your newfound talents, your newfound excitement, your newfound, let's say, infusing it into a different speech or presentation or sermon. So it might be a different sermon series or a different speech, but now that story has great relevance in this new area, this new world. So maybe it's the old presentation, maybe it's the old story, maybe it's the old sermon, but bringing it back to life. A few people might have heard it before, but Mark, no one who was at our event, game Changers, said, oh, I've heard that sawgrass story before. Now, a couple of them might have thought it. You know, there's always that 1% that might have been, like he said, he creates new content. Well, 90% of it was. But that 10%, I think was gold. But really, it helped me make my point better than any other stories in my arsenal.

There is something else I want to point out, Darren, as well. If you think about it, so many of us find ourselves in social settings. We find ourselves with people who we love and care about. We go to a family event here in America. We celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas or July 4th. We go barbecuing. We have birthday celebrations and all of these kinds of experiences. And invariably, invariably there's somebody who says, hey, Darren, tell me that story again. When. Hey, Darren, you remember the time when you were with. You were with those guys. Oh, you went with David and you went to the Middle east and he made you, and you made him drink the tea. Remember that story? Tell me that story again. And what we invariably find is that there are individuals who will hear a story or will have a story in memory and they want to hear it again. And when you don't tell the story, they go, oh, I thought you were going to tell a story about a time when you went to the Middle east, you're in the desert and you made David had the tea. That was a really good story. I thought you're going to tell that story. And if we're being honest with ourselves and each other, most if not all of us at some point in our career have had somebody come and tell us, oh, I thought you would tell that story. It was a great story. Tell us again. And the thing is, you may tell a story over and over again and get a little bit wary of it, but when you get the revitalized perspective, hey, I didn't think about that aspect of my story. So I said earlier, it's going to take some work. Darren, if we are serious about being unforgettable, we're going to put the work in. What story have I not told in a long time that may contain gold? What experience have I had in my life in my youth, in college, in my marriage, when I'm parenting? What have I told before? But over time, with all my new material, my new programs, my new coaching, my new everything, I may have let that one go and not used it. And we need to really ask ourselves these questions because they're valid, I believe, for audiences to use what we have as tools for their own growth, their own development, their own education, their own inspiration, and their own enlightenment. But we have to be willing to go back, do the work, and maybe watch some old VHS videotape. Darren, I've seen your library, man. You were like the VHS king. Those are tools to help us go back and find those old stories. So question, do you have old DVDs or do you have old audio CDs? Do you have old VHS videotapes of your presentations? Even a short talk you can revisit, listen to again. And if you do, your eyes might go ding. And you may go, ah, that was good.

Yeah, I think that's a great challenge, Mark. Go back and even if it's just audio, listen to one of your old old speeches and look, congratulate yourself on how much you've grown since then. You might even get a chuckle. Grab a bottle of wine, grab a beer, grab a cup of tea and just enjoy and revisit the growth you've had. And look at the old and ask yourself, is a story that you used to tell because sometimes I'm surprised I hear my own recordings. I'm like, oh, I forgot about that story.

Exactly.

Yes, exactly. What we're looking for and what we want to help you find is that gold in your old. That story that you're going to tell differently now. It's still relevant now because chances are, as a universal principle. But nobody's sitting there thinking, oh, I've heard you tell that one before. Unless it's a horrible one you shouldn't have been telling in the first place. That could happen. But what if, what if you do find the gold in some of your old.

Yeah, you know, and the funny thing is, Darren, I don't recall anyone ever saying to me, you know, I heard you tell that story in Kuala Lumpur back in 2014. That was seven years ago. No one has ever said that to me. That story was old and was old and boring. And the truth is many of our well known respected peers who are pros people expect their signature stories that have been told for a long time, they've been told for years and years and years. And we'll say it's an old story, but we still want to hear it. So we have old stories that we can tell. We have ministers and pastors who may have old sermons that they can tell. And one more thought for those who are ministers and pastors. Yes, you may have an old sermon, but you and I both know when it comes to scripture, you can read a verse you've read for 15 years and all of a sudd, it means something new to you. Even though it's old in your mind and your memory, it may mean something new to you. It could simply be something someone said to you many, many years ago that didn't have the impact or the weight it did back then. Because your experience is different, your circumstances are different. Where you are in your life, in your level of maturity is different, your income is different, your business is different, your perspective has changed and just the process of maturing can change and shift the way we look at the old story and the old sermon. Similarly, we need to look at old presentations. I know we mentioned stories earlier, but an entire presentation you may have had one that you've used over and over again. And after a while you stop giving it. I'll raise my hand and say, guilty, I have done just that. I have done it. It was fine, it worked well for five or six years, but I stopped doing it a long time ago. When someone says, hey, could you do a program on this? And they go Well, I used to do one, and I talked about this and that, and it was, oh, you did? That'd be perfect for us. Now you go back and say, okay, I mean, I haven't done that talking like seven years, but they want me to do that. And when you go back and you pull the entire presentation out, especially if it's recorded on audio or video, you just might find yourself saying, oh, that was good. I don't recall saying that. Wow, you know what? I need to rework this presentation. And sometimes reworking an old presentation, here's a hard part, but it's a glorious part. Darren, Sometimes it's worth our while to look back on the ones that bombed or didn't go over so well because maybe at the time, we weren't in a place where we were ready to deliver that particular program with the maturity and experience that we have now. And we can see in, to use Darren's words, I could see in two minutes what I didn't see seven years ago, because back then I didn't have the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience, the understanding to know I could have delivered that presentation at a deeper level, but I lacked the experience back then to do it. So the second part of the challenge is not just an old story. Go back to an old presentation, especially if you have a script or recording of it, and say, how could I use this program now differently? And where's the goal that I missed? Because sometimes goal gets glossed over, pun intended. And we run by a scene, we go by a point, we think it's a minor point. And now what we thought was a minor sub point becomes an anchor. Oh, if I had done it that way the first time, the meaning will become so much more significant to my audience again. This will be a process of really digging deep and finding out where is the gold I may have left behind 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Not just in the story, but in the entire presentation.

Yeah, I just heard Vince, my pastor, someone we've sat down and interviewed before, and this past weekend or the last time I heard him give a sermon, he told a story about when his wife was sick and. And what was happening. And I knew the story. I've heard it more than once. But I find myself, like, looking around, you're like, you're going to love this, that you're going to love this. I want to look for their reactions because it is so good. And maybe that old presentation, like you're saying, maybe there's a story that's rock solid that you tell now. That if you took that and put that into the old presentation, that old presentation would then again have new life. And I know, Mark, just as a reminder to those of you listening, if you are a toastmaster, go and check the rules. The rules have changed. There's now the menage rule, so you can't use one. So Mark and I are not the authorities on the rules. So check the rules for those of you who are contestants. And, Mark, I know you just coached someone who had a similar situation and tell us that story.

Well, he. He and I were, you know, we spoke together a few months ago, and he had had a bad experience. He had bombed at a program, and he got some awful reviews. He was just so disheartened. And I said, well, listen, you know, it happens to all of us. I remember when I bombed, and my. My buddy Morgan MacArthur, who's a vet, of course a vet, said, hey, buddy, get back on the horse. You know, that was his thing. But I asked him to revisit his purpose, revisit his stories. What do you really have to offer? What is your skill set? Look at everything you have. You know, plan this out. How can I. How can you apply this differently? And two months went by. We hadn't talked, and we spoke on the phone. We had a Zoom call earlier this week, and he was different. He was beaming, he was alive, he was vibrant. And he had gone back to his old material. He said, I completely reworked the old material. I found where my strengths were. I was able to apply my strengths to the old material. Now had, like, two gigs in the last three weeks, and he began to read for me. He had. He had garnered and kept the responses, the reactions. And many of us as presenters don't want to hear what evaluation sheets say. We don't want to get the feedback forms. But he was reading feedback quote after quote after quote from everyone who appreciated, enjoyed, and loved what he had to say and the value he brought. Now, it wasn't a long ago, 10 years, but he had to rework what was old, what he thought was not going to work. He put the work in, redid everything, presented it, and got a result because he found the gold in his old, which was tempered by finding his strengths, looking at his weaknesses, drawing on the experience he had had, and applying that to the old material. He ended up with a couple of gems that have go him some good reviews. And of course, good reviews can lead to referrals. Referrals can lead to more business. And I wonder, for those who are professional, could we be Leaving business on the table by not wanting to go back to the old and finding the gold. Because get this, this is a cool thing to your current employers, those who hire you, those clients you have, you take your old, rework it, find the gold, prepare and present to them. That's a new material. It's a new ideas. It's new. Wow, he's got some new stuff. But what you and I, you and God know, or you and the walls know, it's not new stuff. Forgive us, please. I'm just quoting somebody else here. It's not new stuff. You've taken some older material, but you have tempered it, you have massaged it, you have worked it, you have crafted it. Now with the depth of your experience, with the knowledge of your mistakes, and with the maturity of a more experienced speaker. And that which was old to you, when you add the gold is fresh and new to a new client, to a new meeting planner, to somebody who wants something new from you. So your old may actually be new to those who don't know what you used to do. Your old may be new to those who don't know what you used to do. I'm sorry, that is really, really bad. There's no reason to that.

Mark, Mark. Mark. And if you're listening to this, we may lose you on this one, Mark. This is channeling my inner Mark Brown. So forgive me, but if you have to unsubscribe, I understand.

No, they won't. They love us too much.

We hope you are sold to revisit the old, to find some new gold.

That works. That works, man.

Well, I know it works for you. If you said that to me, I would have been rolling my eyes. But anyway, here's a case in point, too. This is from the blog world, if you will. Now, I know this is about presentations, but it's the same example today. Mark, you saw I took an old newsletter that I had put out there from my blog from a couple years ago, and I just. I was honestly scrambling for content to get my newsletter out on time because I've been working so much of my book and the things that you and I are doing, the event you and I have tomorrow or yesterday, by the time you listen to this. And I put the newsletter out because it was good, it's something I believed in, but it was the same content that I had used before. And, Mark, I got so many more comments from people who may have even used it than I did last week on something that was brand new. So sometimes just revisiting that old. And maybe it was gold. Or I love the fact that you brought up that maybe it bombed before, maybe it did, it didn't work. But you're not the same presenter you were back then, so there might be a reason it bombed. And you might even learn a valuable lesson realizing, oh, now I see why that didn't work. So the content, the work and the effort that you put in before is lost if you don't go back and revisit it. Learn the lesson, pull out the gold. Because I think 42. I'm going to count how many times we say gold in this episode. Think we're at like 42, but we're really trying to get you to see that there's some work and effort you had done before. That might save you a lot of time if you just take the time to revisit the old.

Yes, and regarding the reuse of the blog, we mentioned using a speech in Toastmasters a few years ago. But think about this. The fact that you were able to find a piece that you believe would appeal to your audience now reinforces the fact that even though it's old, it still has value. And the thing is, if it worked, let's say it worked two years ago or it worked five years ago, it can work again this time. But as Darren says, you now bring in more experience to it. You can make small modifications to enhance it and make it even better. And for the longest while, I know, Darren, you've had this concern about Toastmasters. One of your pet peeves is, why make me work so hard to create a speech and deliver it one time and then it's gone? Speeches get better over time when they're enhanced and reworked and revisited and tweaked and touched and changed and you bring more passion to your delivery. You change some things around, you move paragraphs around, and what was good five years ago becomes even better, becomes even greater, becomes even more powerful. If you put the work in to rework it, everything you've done so far, they will not all get the same level of reception. But you put the work in to create something, which means there's something of value there. And maybe today is the day for someone hearing our podcast to say, you know what? I'm going to spend a couple of days, go back over what I have not touched for a long time. I'm going to go find the gold in my old presentation. I'm going to revisit my story file. I'm going to go back to an experience I had that maybe was maybe was. Maybe it was a bad experience. But now, over time, that mess, that experience, that pain becomes something that you can use to inspire somebody else to lift somebody else who's going through what you went through. Maybe the timing was not optimal back then, but maybe now is the time for that goal to come shining through. So really give serious thought to this and be willing, my friends, to invest the time and the effort to mind the old and find the gold.

And Mark, as we wrap this up, because I don't want to belabor an old point.

I get it, but it's.

I'm thinking of the Aerosmith lyrics. You know, it's not the same old song and dance because you're in a new person, a new place. So please have fun with it. And and by the way, just as a side note, if you enjoy our podcast, do us a favor. Please review it, please subscribe and please ask your friends to go check it out. Because we love what we do and we'd love to spread the word and really touch the world by helping you give a more unforgettable presentation.

My friends. Look back at your speech, your story, at your sermon, at your experience. This is your assignment should you choose to accept it and you trust me, trust me. Revisit them. Rework them. Share them with your audience. Give them the benefit of your experience and what you have learned. If you do this, I can guarantee when you mine the old, you will find the gold and be unforgettable.

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