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What is your story? What was your life like as a child growing up? What kinds of things did you learn outside of the classroom? What kinds of jobs have you had throughout the years? Throughout the course of this book we’ve talked about documenting the things you’ve accomplished and the credentials you’ve attained. At this point, let’s shift gears and talk about how to articulate some of the many personal aspects of your life experience that helped craft who you are and what you have to offer today.
Our lives are the sum of our choices and because of that, we’ve all got a story to tell on how we got to where we are. From trials to triumphs, your story is exactly what you should be using to connect with others. Stories connect people on an intimate level. Intimacy, or in other words, closeness creates room for trust and likability which in turn nurtures relationships and inspire new ones to form. Relationships, as I’ve mentioned before, are the key to any definition of success, so although you are presenting yourself as a professional, it’s important to incorporate just enough personal details that it doesn’t sound like you’re reciting your resume.
The power of story-telling is that you get to take people on a journey through your past, present, and vision for the future. During that journey you can either gain the trust of those listening to you or gain their skepticism by not keeping it transparent and honest. The choice is yours. Your success journal has been just that so far—the story that you’ve been telling yourself. It’s time now to repurpose those narratives for your audience. Your stories can tell people how far you’ve come, what you’ve accomplished, what you’re interested in or where you’re headed. These adventures can be shared on grand stages, small groups, or one-on-one. Regardless of the setting, let’s talk about story composition and some key aspects of public speaking.
Organizing Your Thoughts
Great storytelling is an art and business skill that requires formal practice. Preparation is key so it’s important to know ahead of time, what you are going to say. Your aim is to get comfortable with the discomfort of having to introduce new people into your life. The story you choose is an introduction and is made up of details that highlight your strengths and abilities. It should be written first, summarized into bullet points, then spoken and rehearsed. Even if material is short, such as your elevator speech, it still needs to be memorized to a level that you can easily use it in conversation and integrate it into a myriad of situations. The goal is to get so comfortable with your stories that relaying them will sound sincere—not rehearsed. Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is, but if you get organized, you will do just fine.
There are three elements to a great story:
Beginning
Climax
Denouement
Unlike a chat with friends, building a great talk or speech first starts with understanding that you’re not sharing your ideas for the sake of getting something off your chest. It’s not about you. It’s about your audience. It’s about what you want them to walk away with after they’ve listened to you. If a minor detail doesn’t add value to your point then likely your audience won’t care about it even if you do.
Beginning
In your beginning, focus on saying a few sentences about yourself. Giving people context into who they’re listening to will make them more receptive to your ideas and anecdotes. After you’ve stated who you are, frame your point with a few sentences around what you want to cover.
Climax
Climax is the turning point of any story. Your intro narrative sets the stage for it. As you approach the climax, give examples that lead up to it such as key details into the time period, important statistics, who was part of your life, or the catalysts that brought you to that breaking point or change in direction. The climax is where you may face a conflict or perhaps hit a roadblock. It’s the part where you reveal to your audience (no matter if it’s one person or 1,000) the tension that brought about the change in direction. It sets up the answer for the big question, “Why should I care about staying connected to you?”
Denouement
Denouement is a theatre term that just means the part where you tie up loose ends and give a resolution to your talk—how you overcame the challenge or satisfied the issue. It’s just as important as the climax in that it gives people a sense of resolve and explanation.
You can have a two-hour speech or a five-minute chat that incorporates all of these elements. The point is, when you’re talking, remember it’s always a journey that you’re inviting someone to take with you. The elements of a good story start with a beginning, brings you to a climax, and leaves you with a resolution or denouement. Following this method will give people an opportunity to gain deeper insight and will evoke an emotional connection to your experience.
Using Your Experiences to Connect With Others
People need to be able to put a personality behind the business card you give them in order to remember you. They need the details that help visualize your skills in action or at least the pieces that best represent the impact your experiences have had on your development and growth. If you can master the elements of great speaking then you’ll be well positioned to stand with confidence when you approach an influencer, hiring manager, connector, or fellow entrepreneur.
And by the way, great speakers don’t have to be people that can stand in an auditorium of 1,000 people. Successful speakers can also be people more comfortable in a room filled with just a small group of 20. If you find your comfort zone and create great content, then you will already have the ingredients to speak with impact and gain credibility.
When I was launching a venture several years ago, I attended a lot of events to get my business out there. At one such event, I reviewed the guest list ahead of time and noticed a guest with a title as investor and CEO of a small investment fund. I made sure I did a little research and jotted down a few key facts about her so I’d be able to incorporate personal tidbits into the conversation should I have gotten the chance to meet her. I then turned to my success journal to see if any of my experiences had a great story that aligned with her interests based on what I found from the web.
Happily, I did get the chance to meet her at the cocktail hour—just before a crowd swarmed. Here’s a summary of what I said:
“Monica nice to meet you. My name is Tiffany Yarde. Where are you from? South Carolina? Very cool. I must admit I don’t venture south as often as I’d like but I know some folks with a cabbage farm near Effingham, SC. Do you visit home often? Oh ok. You travel a lot you say? I travel a bit myself. Visiting vineyards and going wine tasting is my latest obsession. Ha! Oh you own a fund that has a small portfolio interest in an up-and-coming wine company? That’s wonderful news. I teach business development and fundamental wine knowledge to companies and individuals all across the city. I also run international excursions focused on wine experiences. It’s wonderful that we connected. [Based on what she just described as her day-to-day], what’s the most interesting thing you accomplished this week? Non-work related is ok too! Ha! You hit a new record with your running time? Training for the half-marathon? That’s awesome. Let’s stay connected. Pleasure meeting you.”
Four days later, I sent a follow-up note and the CEO not long after, patched me in with a friend of hers from the wine trade as well as a social media content expert who was looking for some business development planning assistance. Completely unexpected, but a nod to the fact that although I had business experience relevant to her in some capacity, I identified most with her humanity and outside interests. It was me saying who I was, explaining what I dealt with in an industry that was potentially of interest to her. All in 15 minutes! The content was right and I spoke with confidence and intentionality.
Public Speaking
Also known as oration or oratory exercise, public speaking involves delivering a prepared speech to a live audience. Successful professionals look for these opportunities so they can persuade, inform, and sometimes entertain in the process. (In a business setting, you’re often running a combination of these). Public speaking is a big part of the business world and, according to Wikipedia, 70 percent of all jobs involve this communication method in some capacity.
This is a good time to point out that when you have a platform (social media or otherwise), you have a responsibility to make sure what you say and put out is purposeful. Every time you open your mouth or write your thoughts down for others to hear or read, you’re sending someone a message. Beyond the information you are trying to relay, that message will also be received as a reflection of your values. For example, you may agree with an opinion from a local news article and repost or circulate that article to a group of your colleagues. Sometimes you may forward the article with your own comments like, “I couldn’t agree more given this political climate that we’re in.” In this case, your voice is heard and anyone reading your post will have assumptions on what your viewpoints are. The power in this activity is that though it isn’t face-to-face public speaking, you’re in fact surfing the internet with a microphone. That’s fine but do so with thoughtfulness and be ready to stand by what you say.
Speaking With Confidence
Speaking to people in a formal setting can be a little nerve racking for some, but as the saying goes, “Don’t let them see you sweat.” Stand tall with your chest expanded and your shoulders rolled back and relaxed. Make eye contact, smile, and have faith in yourself. Speaking with power isn’t just about tone. It’s about body language. How you stand, where you place your hands, your facial expressions, and your volume all play a role on how others perceive your level of confidence.
You may, at times, feel intimidated with the idea of having to be the “expert” when you talk to a group of people. But being the smartest person in the room isn’t a requirement, says Adam Grant who wrote The Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. (11) He discusses research that proves child prodigies don’t usually go out and change the world or take the “bull by the horns” anyway. A common misconception is that all genius’ are socially awkward due their IQ but lack of emotional intelligence. Not the case—these human data machines can be just as lovely as anyone else. However, they are not typically skilled at being original and that’s because they spend so much time simply understanding the status quo and digesting the way things are as opposed to challenging accepted frameworks and schools of thinking. Grant says they aren’t typically skilled at being original. He also puts it well when he says, “Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.” Rule breakers and risk takers don’t have all the answers but they certainly have the creativity and objective eye to nurture and create possibility.
So don’t worry about having all of the answers. So what if you’re not as tech-savvy as someone else. So what if you didn’t graduate on the Dean’s list or obtain three degrees. You have valuable information to share and the world needs to hear about your journey and what you learned along the way. Having your ideas appreciated involves honesty, a solid understanding of what you claim to know, and confidence. The smartest people in the room don’t know it all and there is always someone, somewhere who needs to hear what you have to say!
Don’t Fight the Jitters
Say you have to present before a group. It’s just minutes from the time you will walk on stage and discuss your point of view. They expect you to be informed and if you don’t capture their attention pretty early on, you’ll most likely lose them. The thoughts of people staring at you with disregard or worse yet, walking out in the middle of your presentation, can be terrifying. And those butterflies in your stomach can make you queasy. Keep in mind that your worst fears are likely never going to come true and those feelings in your belly are just a reminder that you want to do well.
The natural tendency is to try and relax, breathe deep, and make those emotions go away. People will tell you to, “Calm down.” But Alison Wood Brooks, a Harvard assistant professor believes that the trick is not to calm down but to reframe your anxiety as excitement. She studied several situations involving math performance, karaoke singing, and public speaking that led her to this conclusion. (12)
When you are stressed or nervous you conjure negative images in your head and basically convince yourself that things are not going to go well or that you are going to fail. Who can give a successful speech with that kind of drama going on in your head?
The Brooks study reported that the worse thing a person can do is to suppress his or her stressful emotions. The findings confirm that reframing the anxiety into elation is definitely better than ignoring it. So basically instead of fighting to bring your emotions back down the scale, you can turn it all the way up past nervous and into the land of excitement. It’s kind of like giving a locker-room pep talk in your head. People in heightened, positive states are more likely to be optimistic and can visualize themselves in successful situations. This visualization sets you up to conquer and win!
Have Fun!
For larger audiences, one of the keys to connecting through public speaking is to share interesting stories or information that your listeners can relate to. Speak about things you know. Even if it’s a new concept, speak with passion and enthusiasm so you evoke the same emotion out of them. Organize your thoughts by setting the context in the beginning and bringing them to the problem that you’re trying to solve or the challenge you were positioned to overcome. Conclude with your triumph or the solutions you came up with. It’s a thrill to connect with crowds, especially when they understand or relate to your point of view. Be articulate, poised, and patient. Remember, you’ve planned for this, you’ve practiced (a lot I hope), and you have valuable information to share. Have fun with this!
Start thinking about your experiences and how you can craft them into engaging stories. Also, think about the kind of pep-talk you will want to create to deal with the nervousness that may come. I like to do 10 jumping jacks and high-five myself in the bathroom mirror before heading out (don’t judge! Ha!) After organizing some of that material and contemplating the questions below, I’m sure you’ll want to take a break for a bite to eat! In this next chapter I will share some tips on of my favorite topics—the pairing of wine with food. I’ll bet you never considered what to drink with French fries!
Contemplate This