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The key to a powerful presentation isn’t just telling stories – it’s uncovering the lessons within them. When you share a personal experience or an impactful moment, you’re not just recounting events; you’re inviting your audience to see the...
The key to a powerful presentation isn’t just telling stories – it’s uncovering the lessons within them.
When you share a personal experience or an impactful moment, you’re not just recounting events; you’re inviting your audience to see the world through your eyes, to feel what you felt, and to learn from what you lived.
Your stories become more than just a narrative – they can spark change in the hearts and minds of your audience.
This episode is the audio from a live show we did with three of our recent Thought Leader Academy grads: Moe Boles, Melinda Hrynewycz, and Sara Ecklein.
You’ll hear each woman deliver a 10-minute version of the signature talk they created with us, so you can see and hear them in action, demonstrating how drawing insights from personal experiences can create engaging, memorable, and impactful messages.
We also have a roundtable discussion about what they’ve learned from being in the Thought Leader Academy and what’s next for them as speakers and thought leaders.
Links:
Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/436/
Watch the video at https://youtube.com/live/qfOOs3Q3H5c
Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/
Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/
Connect on LinkedIn:
Carol Cox = https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcox
Melinda Hrynewycz = https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-hrynewycz/
Moe Boles = https://www.linkedin.com/in/moe-smith-boles-mba-hm-rn-b617236/
Sara Ecklein = https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-ecklein/
Related Podcast Episodes:
It's time to escape the expert trap and become an in-demand speaker and thought leader through compelling and memorable business presentations, keynotes, workshops, and TEDx talks. If you want to level up your public speaking to get more and better, including paid, speaking engagements, you've come to the right place! Thousands of entrepreneurs and leaders have learned from Speaking Your Brand and now you can too through our episodes that will help you with storytelling, audience engagement, building confidence, handling nerves, pitching to speak, getting paid, and more. Hosted by Carol Cox, entrepreneur, speaker, and TV political analyst. This is your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience.
The key to a powerful presentation isn't just
telling stories, it's uncovering the lessons
within them. You're going to hear three of
our recent Thought Leader Academy grads
deliver versions of their signature talks
where they do exactly this.
On this episode of the Speaking Your Brand
podcast. More and more women are making an
impact by starting businesses,
running for office, and speaking up for what
matters. With my background as a TV political
analyst, entrepreneur,
and speaker, I interview and coach purpose
driven women to shape their brands,
grow their companies, and become recognized
as influencers in their field.
This is speaking your brand,
your place to learn how to persuasively
communicate your message to your audience.
Hi and welcome to backstage with Speaking
Your Brand. I'm your host,
Carol Cox. Today, I have the honor of having
three of our recent Thought Leader Academy
graduates present ten minute versions of the
signature talks that they worked on with us.
During the past eight weeks,
we've been helping them to identify their
thought leadership message,
create their signature talk and framework
during that one on one VIP day that they each
got, and also they were working on practicing
their delivery with slides,
multimedia, props and so much more.
So today you're going to hear and see a ten
minute version of that signature talk.
So a condensed version.
But it's going to be a lot of fun because
you're going to get to know not only their
topic but also more about them.
And I think that's really the beauty of the
work that we do with all of our clients is
that we really try to find the essence of why
they do the work that they do,
why that matters to them,
why a personal story or an experience they
had has shaped who they are today,
and why their message is so important to the
audiences that they're presenting to.
After each of the women give a ten minute
version of their talk, then we're going to
have a roundtable conversation about their
experience in the Thought Leader Academy and
what's next to them.
Diane is saying hi in the chat.
Thank you so much for being here.
And if you are watching us live or on the
recording, say hi.
You're welcome to ask questions along the way
and also to participate.
If there are any audience engagement
questions that our presenters have.
All right. Well, let's go ahead and get
started. First up we have Moe Boles who is at
Tanner health, and she is going to talk to us
about the very important work that she and
Tanner are doing.
Moe, welcome to the stage.
Thank you so much, Carol.
I'm going to take just a few seconds to let
everyone look at this big jar of jelly beans
and give us your best guess as to how many
are in the jar.
You can jot it down or put it in the chat.
Okay. Pencils down.
All right. My name is mobiles,
and I'm here today to talk to you about my
favorite subject, women and children's
services at Tanner health.
Now, for those of you who don't know, Tanner
is a non-profit health care provider in West
Georgia with five hospitals and over 5000
employees. We rely on our foundation of
donors to help provide supplies and equipment
for our patient and our community.
Now, most of us try to donate money from
whatever we can gather to certain causes or
organizations like churches or animal rescues
or other local causes.
But in today's financial climate,
this can be challenging because we don't know
what's going to happen,
and it's hard to commit to donating money
when we're watching a global market roller
coaster ride. I'd like to take a moment today
to walk you through a brief tour of Tanner's
past, present, and future and paint a picture
of the importance of our foundation of
donors. Now, a little bit about myself.
I am moguls, and I have been with Tanner for
about 19 years.
I'm a registered nurse,
and most of my experience at Tanner was in
labor and delivery.
But I'm cross-trained in all the other
maternal areas, and I've spent some time
working in accreditation services.
So a good background at Tanner.
And before that, I was in the business world,
mostly with FAO Schwarz,
for about 20 years, working on organizational
leadership and operational management and
things like that. So I've combined those two
backgrounds into my role today,
and I'm loving it and helping lead our women
and children's services here at Tanner. I do
have a little bit of a personal interest and
the role I'm in right now.
About 24 years ago, my sister gave birth to a
little girl, and here she is.
Her name is Maddie and she was born at 28
weeks. And at that time,
I wasn't a nurse, so I didn't know what that
meant. But the doctor said that she had a
grade four brain bleed,
which meant that she was probably going to be
deaf and blind and potentially in a
wheelchair for the rest of her life.
And we really didn't know what her future was
going to look like. So she spent three years
in a NICU at a different hospital.
Because at that time, Tanner didn't have a
NICU, and her parents lived really close to
Tanner, but they had to drive almost an hour
every single day for three months to get to
their baby and be with her and take care of
her. And although that nursery and ICU did a
fantastic job, it would have been really
great to have a NICU at Tanner.
If you flash forward 24 years.
This is Maddie. Now, Maddie is amazing.
She is a ballerina.
She is a musician.
She was in The Sound of Music,
which is the picture you see on the left just
last month. She teaches little kids how to
dance, and she graduated from college this
year. So had it not been for the skill of
those nurses and physicians and respiratory
therapists, the entire team in the NICU.
I don't know where Maddie would be right now,
but I think it wouldn't be where she is.
So we're very grateful.
So going back into our past.
This is a picture of what Tanner looked like
when I started in 2006.
We had a level one nursery so we could take
care of pretty much, well,
babies, but not the really sick ones and not
the ones who needed that special care.
Not triplets.
We would have to send those people over to
another hospital, about 45 to an hour away,
and sometimes up to three hours away,
and it was not the best situation.
Just imagine if you had a newborn and you had
just delivered a baby. Maybe you had a
C-section, and the only way you could see
that baby was to get in your car and go to a
different hospital, drive through traffic.
Just a very stressful situation.
So we did a great job back then with what we
could do, but we didn't have that NICU
support that we needed for our community.
And I remember a situation where I was a
brand new nurse. I had only been a nurse for
about six months in labor and delivery,
and I had a very sick patient.
She had preeclampsia, so her blood pressure
was skyrocketing. She was at risk for
seizures, which could have killed her baby.
And we had to transport her to Atlanta.
And I think I might have been as scared as
she was. We were both trying to figure out
what would be the best plan for her.
Um, so we got her ready to put her on the
ambulance, and I was going to go with her and
monitor her and the baby on the trip over to
the other hospital.
And she looked up at me with tears in her
eyes, and she said, am I going to be okay?
And I really didn't know how to answer her.
I just looked down at her and said,
I've got you. And tears filled her eyes and I
tried to control my shaking.
And we got her there and she was okay, and
baby's fine. And she came to see me many
months later and showed me the baby. So it
all worked out. But I was thinking at that
time, man, if Tanner had a NICU,
it would be so much better for our community.
And I didn't realize it,
but the leaders at Tanner were already
working on that plan.
So as the years went by,
we were able to develop a NICU.
And just about two and a half years ago,
we had our five year NICU anniversary.
So this is a picture of our anniversary
parade. We invited all the families out who
had had babies for the last five years,
who graduated from our NICU,
and they had a stroller,
parades and decorated their strollers.
And we were able to visit with those families
and they were so grateful for the service we
provided. Now going back to the jelly bean
picture, the answer for the jelly bean number
is 386. Did anybody come close to that?
I don't see. Well, if we had someone with
386, you're correct.
And you were the winner of the day. So you
can feel good about yourself as you go
through the rest of your afternoon. But that
number represents the number of families that
we were able to keep in our community in
those first five years and keep them from
being separated from their babies and let
them just travel the short ride to our
hospital to take care of them. So that's
almost 400 families that are grateful for
what we're doing. We have a weekly meetings
to discuss the people that we would like to
spotlight, and a monthly magazine that goes
out in the community. So this is just an
example of one of those.
And again, our community is just so
appreciative of what we do.
Now moving to our present.
This is a picture of Tanner now,
which is a lot different from what it was in
2006. And we continue to grow.
We have a level three NICU and level three
maternity services, which means we can keep
more of these sicker moms and sicker babies
with us. Keep them together.
This is a picture of our lobby and a labor
room and one of our NICU beds.
So we've come so far and we're so proud of
the work we're doing. If you look at the
birth rates in the United States,
you will see that they are declining across
the country. That's the chart on the left,
but the graph on the right, those green bars,
that's West Georgia.
And for some reason we're not listening to
the national rates. We just continue to grow
Where birth rates are increasing every year,
and we expect that to continue for the next
few years. Our NICU admissions are also
increasing. Part of that is,
is you may guess, our moms are getting older.
People don't want to have babies when they're
younger, so they wait until they're in their
40s to have babies. And sometimes that
creates a situation where they might need
more NICU care.
Last year alone, we had 20 days where we had
more babies in our NICU than we could handle.
We have a ten bed NICU and we had 15 babies
for many of those days,
so we're trying to get creative with taking
care of those. And then our smaller hospital,
Billerica, usually can handle about 4 to 5
patients a day without feeling the stress.
But this chart shows that we've had days
where we had as many as 17 patients come
through our very small labor and delivery
unit in West Georgia in Billerica.
So the growth is there.
And incredibly, we are continuing with our
quality initiatives and we've won several
awards. Recently, we were named to the
Newsweek Maternity Best Hospitals list.
We received a designation from the Joint
Commission. And just this year,
we got a c CMS designation for birthing
friendly for both of our maternity centers.
So we are continuing to focus on quality.
We also have a lot of initiatives coming up.
This list is just a small list of the things
we want to do, like adding music therapy for
our NICU babies and adding a communication
system where parents can dial in and see
their babies and talk to them.
So a lot of great stuff coming up.
We also have a plan to break ground on a
brand new maternity women's center in our
Villarrica community, and that should happen
this fall. And at that point,
we hope to be able to move to a level two
hospital in Villarrica.
So if you've ever heard of the Texas A&M
model of having the 12th man,
that's what I'd like to focus on right now.
Texas A&M believes that the crowd is actually
their 12th player, so they have 11 players on
the field, and that crowd screaming and
roaring actually contributes just as much as
any one of those players.
That's how I see our foundation of donors.
The donations we receive represent another
player we're in. They're taking care of the
families and the babies hands on.
But we couldn't do it without the assistance
from our foundation of donors.
So I'm asking you to be our 12th man and join
in and help us take care of our community and
our babies. If you're interested in
supporting Tanner and our NICU,
there's a QR code that you can scan for
support. And we appreciate all of the support
we get, whether it's just emotional or
financial. So thank you very much.
Fantastic, Moe.
That was incredible.
And I loved hearing those stories because it
really does put, you know,
as they say, a human face or a sense of baby
face to the importance of the work that
you're doing, especially when you're thinking
about needing those donations and adding to
your fundraising efforts.
So we're going to I'm going to ask you some
more questions in just a little bit after
Melinda and Sara go.
But first let me ask, how did that feel to
deliver that version?
It felt good. It it helps that we have
practiced it several times,
so I didn't have to focus so much on the
content. I just kind of let it flow.
And it was it was pretty comfortable. So
thank you.
And how did it feel to include those personal
stories, especially about Maddie?
I'm proud of Maddie, and I'm proud of the
fact that I have that personal connection to
the work that I do.
It felt good, and I think it's an important
story to tell, to let people realize that I'm
not just here doing a job,
and we're not. We're not all just showing up
for a paycheck. Probably a lot of us have
stories like that that we could share about
people we know and relatives we have that
that have been touched by this.
Yeah, absolutely. And,
you know, we like to say here it's speaking
your brand that sharing your personal stories
and especially sharing them with a lot of
detail is what will connect you to your
audience. It's not the generic stories that
do. It's the more detailed,
personal stories that do.
Because even if someone hasn't personally had
a family member who had a baby in a NICU,
they maybe had a friend who's had one,
or they've had someone that they've heard
about or that they've known maybe in their
workplace, and then they put themselves in
that position as you're telling the story.
So then they have even a stronger connection
to the message that you're sharing, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, thank you again.
Incredible job. And we'll chat with you more
in just a little bit.
Perfect.
Thank you. All right.
Thank you so much. Next up we have Melinda
Hrynewycz. And she is a health care
executive. And she's going to take us down a
road that has two directions to go in.
And we're going to see which one the audience
chooses. Melinda, welcome to the stage.
Thank you. Carol, it's an honor to be here.
Today we're going to be talking about a new
way to say yes and to be brave.
So at an early age, We're asked to decide
what it is we'd like to do for the rest of
our lives. This expectation shapes our
choices. Where we invest our time and energy.
Commit our money.
We pick a path.
We commit to a path.
But what if the best decision of your career
was something that you never planned for?
So a quick show of hands.
Who here has ever worried about doing
something the right way?
What about said no to something because it
scared you off of me.
And what about is facing a new opportunity
right now? Feel free to post in the chat too
if you want to. Exactly.
So if you look around,
you saw at least our panel.
You're not alone.
And that's what we're talking about today.
We're going to talk about those moments when
we're faced with a choice,
big or small, and we wonder,
is this right for me?
Am I ready? What if it's the wrong move?
So this ladder may look familiar.
Get in line. Take the next step.
The perfect job is just around the corner.
But the truth is, there is no right way.
There is no perfect way to build a career or
a life. In fact, some of the best things that
I've done in my life have things I've never
expected, things I didn't plan for,
and frankly, things I weren't sure I wasn't
sure I was ready for.
So who am I?
I'm a licensed clinical therapist and I
haven't seen a patient in over a decade.
Most recently, I've been the vice president
of Patient experience and performance
excellence at a healthcare system in rural
West Georgia.
So how did I get there?
Well, three years ago,
I was living in the San Francisco Bay area.
I was working at a job that I really liked.
I had a boss that I trusted and a life that
I'd built. And then my boss,
Jim, comes up to me and says,
Melinda, I'm moving to Georgia.
You should come.
And I said hell no.
Georgia. And so then Jim left,
and he went to Georgia,
and he would reach out periodically over text
and tell me how great it was.
And then I should join him in Georgia.
And every time he casually reached out,
I would casually say no.
Um, he started asking me if I would work with
some of these leaders, if I would help out a
little bit and get some of his ideas off the
ground. So I started meeting with some of
these leaders casually,
and Jim started to up the ante.
He'd start to have more details in his text
messages, until finally,
one day he called me up with a real offer and
he said, Melinda, come to Georgia,
write your ticket, be a VP.
What do you think? So he made me a real
decision, a real offer,
and I had to make a real decision.
So I was faced with this choice.
I liked California, I loved California.
Was I really going to move across the country
to a state I've actually never been to.
Was I going to leave my friends?
Was I going to leave my routine my whole life
that I created?
Um, throw another piece in that puzzle. I
just started dating this amazing guy named
Matt. Was I really going to either leave Matt
or, gosh, consider moving across the country
with this guy that I'd only been dating for
three months. Uh, but the real questions,
aside from those, they may seem like real
questions was what if I hate it?
What if Matt and I break up?
What if I'm not ready for this opportunity?
The gym's offering, but it really boiled down
to a single question, which was,
what if I fail?
And that's a real obstacle,
I think we're not afraid of the
opportunities. We're afraid of messing up,
not being perfect, of taking a step without
knowing that it's 100% the right step or
worse. We're waiting for someone else to tell
us that we're ready.
So that's why I've created the Brave
Framework. Work. This is a way to help you
evaluate choices, big or small,
not based on fear or pressure,
but really evaluating it on who you want to
become. So today we're just going to talk
about the first three letters in Bray. That's
all we have time for.
We're going to go over boldness, reward and
authenticity. However,
I do have my contact information on the final
slide, so if you'd like to connect after
this, you can hit me up on LinkedIn or email
me. I'm happy to talk to you about the other
letters in the framework.
So let's go with B first.
So B is for boldness.
And boldness is really asking yourself,
am I willing to explore the unknown,
even if it stretches me in service of who I
want to become? So being bold does not have
to mean jumping out of a plane like I did
here. Certainly doesn't mean I have to jump
jump out without a parachute.
But in full transparency.
I'm giving a thumbs up here. That's that's
after the chute opened and I knew that I was
going to live, so definitely you don't have
to jump without a chute.
But it does mean are you being open to new
ideas? So will this opportunity help me
become more of who I want to be?
Am I feeling like I could belong and thrive
with this new opportunity and my dismissing
it just because it's unfamiliar?
Am I really giving this opportunity a real
shake? So ask yourself that,
right? Um, so my example,
when I started going through this real offer
from Jim and I stopped saying no offhand,
and I asked myself, am I just scared or is
this truly wrong for me?
And I realized I was scared,
but it was the kind of scared that really
comes with growth.
So then we went to evaluate the opportunity
with our next letter, which is R for reward.
So reward can be much more than just the
monetary, um that comes with that job title,
um, or any sort of tangible items.
For boards can be far,
far richer. So when you're evaluating the
opportunity. Think about some more are
letters or words.
So reinventions one.
Can I evolve or grow through this
opportunity? I also like to think about reach
by taking. This will expand my reach.
While I have a chance to do more with what I
want to do with my life.
Could this reignite joy or passion for
something that I'm excited about?
And does this align with my values and belief
system? So in moving to Georgia,
when I looked at this through the lens of
reward, I really felt like it would expand my
reach. I could do more,
I could influence more,
I could grow more.
I wasn't just another liberal in California
in a pond of people just like me.
I really had a chance to stretch and grow and
lead. So I want you to ask yourself this
question what would not moving forward cost
you? That's another way to look at reward is
the opposite Say okay.
So final letter we're going to go over today
is authenticity.
So does this opportunity to honor who you are
or who you're becoming.
So more than just about being yourself,
it's making decisions that reflect your
identity and your values.
Asking does this match with what matters most
to me? Do I know what I really want?
Can I be myself in this space and I'm acting
from my truth and not from fear?
So spoiler alert I took the job.
I moved to Georgia. I brought Matt with me.
It's going really well.
Um, and we got here at the end of June,
which a lot of people know is Pride Month.
And so one of the first things I did in my
community is I put up my,
my pride flag. It's important to me to show
that I'm an ally to all.
And Matt actually said to me, he's from the
South. He's like, oh, you're brave. Are you
sure we want to be putting that up right
away? Do we want to get to know people a
little bit before we do that? And I said, no,
absolutely. I want to put this up.
So put up the pride flag.
Nothing happened, which is fine every year.
I've put it up since, but a couple of months
ago one of my neighbours,
who's actually work colleague, came up to me
in a director meeting and she gave me this.
And if you guys can see, it's a little
rainbow bear, and this little bear who moved
there meant a lot to her.
She crocheted this and then gave it to me.
And what she said was she saw my act of
bravery. She saw my flag.
She said it meant a lot to her to know that
someone else would be an ally for others,
because her daughter is gay.
And so she wanted to make this for me as a
symbol of something that I could hold on to
about what I did and how that impacted her,
that moment. That was a reward.
That was the belonging.
That was the authenticity.
So I want you to think back and reflect on a
time when you said yes to something that
wasn't authentic, and think about another
time when you did feel the difference.
So now I've got some homework for you.
I want you to imagine your life if you make
decisions out of that place.
Not from fear, not from perfection,
but out of boldness and reward and
authenticity. What would that look like for
you? So here's your homework.
I want you to sit down and ask yourself, who
do I want to become?
Make a list. Just jot down some ideas.
It doesn't have to be perfect. You haven't
figured it out by now. There is no way to be
perfect, but you can do it by being brave.
So full disclosure.
That job I moved to Georgia for,
it got eliminated two months ago.
It was hard. It's disappointing and I have no
idea what is going to come next.
But I do know this that I don't regret saying
yes because, yes, aligned with who I am.
I chose to be brave then,
and I'm choosing to be brave now with my next
opportunity. And I hope that you guys will
reach out to me and connect and tell me how
you're also being brave.
Thank you so much for your time.
Fantastic. Melinda again.
That was so well done and I and it felt so
seamless and fluid.
Even this ten minute version,
integrating your personal story with the
framework and these lessons for the audience
to to take from it.
How did that feel delivering it?
Well, like Mo said, it's a lot easier having
gotten the practice several times leading up
to it and having the coaching the VIP day
with Diane was just phenomenal in helping me
really craft the message.
So when you stick in your personal stories,
it's a lot easier to just talk from the
heart.
And when you had that VIP day with Diane
going into it, I think you had already had an
idea for your framework,
right?
Yes. So use some AI and ChatGPT to help
narrow down some of my ideas.
But with Diane and doing post-its really
helped condense it even further and have a
clear message of where I wanted to start and
where I want to go.
And were you surprised That she was asking
you a lot about personal stories as she was
working on the board with the post-it notes.
Well, it felt very seamless with Diane where
she's just trying to get to know you. And
then before you knew it, she had this
beautiful board put together where she
incorporated all the different stories about
how you could stick this in here and how you
could stick that in there. And I love that
we'll be able to expand this talk into a 45
minute or a book or a seminar and also
condense it down to these smaller talks. So
it was a great opportunity working with
Diane.
Oh, I love that. Yeah, she is excellent at
what she does. All right. We'll chat with you
a little bit more in just a moment Melinda.
So now let's bring up our third presenter,
Sara Ecklein. Welcome to the stage.
Let me bring up your slides.
There you go.
Happy to be here, Carol.
Melinda, I love your presentation.
I took a lot out, and hopefully this kind of
final presentation will kind of lead nicely
into it. So, um.
Legacy of love.
I'm kind of changing.
Turning the page and changing the topic.
We're talking about all things estate
planning today. So how to plan with
intention, with our identity,
and really with integrity.
So, do you have an estate plan?
No. I'm seeing a lot of no's.
Any listeners I would love to know in the
chat if you do.
Um, for those that do have an estate plan,
have you reviewed it within the last five
years and have you communicated with your
loved ones on this plan?
This is a really important step,
um, with your communicating with your
proxies, who?
The people that you named in these documents
to act in the event of your incapacity and
death. Um, the next piece.
Have you communicated where your important
documents are stored in your files?
All of this kind of goes into comprehensive
planning. So I want to start off with telling
you a story that's a bit unusual.
At least for me, it was quite unique.
Um, over the holidays,
I was contacted by an attorney that I work
with regularly asking me,
do I have space in my in my caseload to take
on additional clients?
There wasn't much information.
Um, because she's someone that I've worked
with for many years.
The answer was yes.
I can make room.
Um, for for this.
Ask for this favor for her.
Um, soon I find out that another
professional, a professional trustee,
was literally on her deathbed and I had two
phone calls with her 30 minutes in length
before she passed away.
So there was very little time to take on the
information of the history of these cases,
of these clients that she had been serving
for, um, over two decades with both.
And she also had, um, basically her family
had to kind of pick up where she left off of
sending me the actual physical files.
So because of this experience,
it's just made me that much more curious of
why did this happen?
You know, I made some initial assumptions.
You know, was she holding on to this work for
money? Um, what what was this piece and why
did she not have a proper plan,
especially given the fact that she's a
professional doing this work?
We we should know better and also do better.
So it felt like kind of this deep lack of
integrity. We'll come back to Mary's story
later in the talk today.
So what I find in this work is that most of
us do know that we need to set up an estate
plan. Um, it it might be on our to do list,
but maybe we never get around to it.
So why do you think we procrastinate?
I don't know if anyone in the chat can
answer, but this is what I find in my,
um. In my practice.
This is what I usually think.
We think the obstacles are right.
A lack of time.
A lack of resources.
A lack of connections.
Like, who the heck do I need to work with?
I have to hire an attorney.
I have to name people in these documents.
Who am I going to name?
The more that I peel back the onion.
Of why we don't plan.
I find that really what it comes down to is
the denial of death that we really think that
will always be in control.
That there will always be a tomorrow.
And, you know, as we see in Mary's case,
the story I was sharing earlier,
I felt like this demonstrated exactly why we
must all need to plan.
And this isn't planning isn't only for the
rich and the wealthy.
It's not only for people with children,
it's really for everyone.
So hi, I'm Sarah Echlin.
I'm a professional fiduciary.
And what that means is I am a private
trustee. I can also act as someone's agent
for both health care and financial decision
making. I've administered over hundreds of
trusts and estates.
I've been doing this work for over a decade,
and it's an absolute honor to essentially
carry out people's final wishes.
And it's really what originally brought me to
this work. So I'm going to tell you another
story, and we're going to go back in time.
About 15 years ago, long before I was doing
the work that I'm doing now,
and I was actually working professionally as
a chef, and I got the call from my partner at
the time that her aunt was,
um, referred to hospice.
And I was at the restaurant work wearing my
apron, you know, prepping salad for the for
the day. And I just knew that I needed to be
there. So I dropped everything.
We drove up, um, up north two hours.
And little did I know that this would be one
of the defining moments of my life and
ultimately lead me to a career that I
absolutely love.
I describe it as a head and heart alignment
for the work that I do,
but I was with Lori the last three days of
her life and My experience with with death in
general, but also her death was everything
was really stripped away.
The busyness of life, the just kind of the
noise and the chatter.
And I was just forced into the present
moment, being present to her,
to her dying and also just being left with
the love, the love that we share in the
family. And that set my path on this
trajectory where originally I thought I would
be a hospice nurse.
And I quickly realized,
as I started going back to school,
that nursing wasn't quite the right fit.
And eventually I wound up working for a
professional fiduciary.
And really, the rest is history.
Like I said, you know,
I describe it as a a head and heart
alignment. And ultimately the the thread of
end of life care very much goes through each
and every one of my clients stories and
lives, um, where ultimately carrying out
final wishes is the work that I do.
So going back to planning,
I find that there's really three key elements
that's required.
The first is intention,
then identity and integrity.
So today we only have time to touch upon one.
And that's going to be intention.
So I find when most people come to this work
you know estate planning we're coming to to
this with from a place of worry,
a fear of not knowing.
And what I believe is that this sets out a
whole trajectory, not only for our own life,
but for our family, our loved ones.
And it has a ripple effect in really future
generations.
So coming to this work can deeply,
deeply change not just our life,
but those future generations.
And ultimately, being connected from this
place of love, of care and intention.
This is where we want to be moving from.
And this is really what I think can change
the world. So we're going to just briefly
show you this.
This is my legacy framework.
Um, we're running out of time already today.
Um, if this work resonates,
I would love to hear from you.
You can connect with me on LinkedIn or even
reach out by email.
But I want to just leave you with this
question. What's the next thing that you need
to take action on?
Um, do you need to move from a place of just
getting educated about what an estate plan
is? Maybe you know enough about that,
and you just need to get it done and set that
date on the calendar and meet with your
attorney. Maybe you've set that that those
documents up, but you haven't done those next
steps. There's a lot of administrative work
that goes along with the estate plan.
After you've met with your attorney.
And have you communicated this with your
loved one? Again, going back to where we
started. And then I would say,
lastly, you know, this is an area that we
need to tend to regularly having a yearly
check in review, whether it's looking at your
estate plan documents and seeing that that
plan is still makes sense,
or just maybe checking in with the people
that you've named in these documents.
Are they still appropriate and able to act?
So I have the Legacy of Love podcast,
and it's so much inspired by conversations
like this. Um, this is absolutely what I love
to do. There's so many resources and many
episodes there, from estate planning
attorneys to financial advisors,
and I really only bring on experts that lead
from their heart, similar to my approach.
And like I mentioned before, I would love to
connect with you on LinkedIn if if you have
any questions.
And I do have a free resource,
a free workbook.
Um, the link is is listed right there,
but it's at my website,
Trust and Honor Backslash workbook.
And that's really kind of an exercise to get
clear on what what are your values,
what are your wishes and what you really want
to not only leave behind,
but how do you want to live?
Thank you.
Well done. Sara.
You have such a calming presence.
I can see how your clients really would
really enjoy working with you.
Because I can just feel that place of love
that you're coming from instead of fear and
anxiety and overwhelm.
So I'm sure that that's so much of what you
give to the people that you work with.
Oh, thanks for noticing that.
Yes, that's I feel like being present.
Being calm. Um, you know,
I speak to a lot that my daily meditation
practice is kind of the the foundation of my
life and how I can really serve and lead with
heart.
How did that feel to deliver the ten minute
version?
It was good. It was better than I thought it
would go.
I know you've had a lot going on with your
little one, so I'm so glad that you were able
to make it here today.
Yeah. I think, you know.
Practice makes perfect.
Perfect. Practice makes perfect.
So I'll continue to practice this.
But I do think that this framework and,
you know, working with you and your coaching,
it's really kind of helped where you can see
where there's so much where you don't need
to, like, memorize a script because you can
you know this, right?
It's the work that I lived,
the stories that I'm here to share.
And that's really, um,
you know what? Where it's important to lead
from.
Exactly. Like we say, you know your stories,
you know your content.
It's just a matter of putting it together in
the flow so that you take the audience along
the journey to get them interested and to see
how this is relevant to them.
And you did a beautiful job of doing that.
Thank you. Hopefully I didn't lose anyone. I
know estate planning can be quite dry and
boring, but you know, that's ultimately my
message to is it's that it's really not so.
Thank you.
Yeah. And let's talk about audiences intended
Attended audiences versus today. And I'm
going to bring in Moe and Melinda for this.
So obviously here on our LinkedIn live.
And this is also going out to our YouTube
channel, is that you don't know who's
listening. It's not your ideal target
audience, you know.
And I know Sara, for you,
you're mostly talking to professionals in
your field. Moe.
You're talking primarily to other to people
who work within Tanner health or people who
are in your community.
And then, Melinda, we can talk chat about
your audience as well.
And so, I mean, I'm going to have Moe you
start me unmute you here.
So I know that you recently got to deliver
the pretty much the full version of this
presentation to the Tanner Foundation.
So tell us how that went and how did it feel
now kind of repurposing it for this general
audience here?
It felt really good in front of the the
actual foundation, a larger group.
Uh, it was a group that was at a higher level
than I'm used to addressing.
So I was a little extra nervous.
But having gone through the sessions that
we've had together and the sort of formula
that you gave us to structure our talks
around really made a difference in my
confidence and my comfort level in addressing
a group like that.
So I was excited about it.
Although that nervousness is always there. I
think they call it use stress versus
distress. So I had some of that use stress
going on, but I think that was a good thing.
And I don't know that I would have done as
well without the this personal stories that
we inserted into it.
I think that really made a difference.
So I was I was grateful that I had that
practice going into such an important talk.
And from what I heard through the grapevine,
people who were there for your presentation
said it was stupendous and that you were a
rock star.
I got some good feedback. Yeah.
Thank you.
Yes. You did. All right.
Melinda. So, Melinda, tell us about who your
intended audience is for your talk.
Absolutely. I've been doing a lot of work
with young professional women and have quite
a number of mentees, and really working with
Diane. We took the idea of this item that had
just happened to me, and how could I use some
real pain and real vulnerability to talk to a
younger generation about not trying to get it
perfect? So I've been reaching out to the
local university, even my old sorority,
for back in college to see if there are some
groups or, um, really more the young
professional women that might need to hear
this message. So it's not intended to be for
my peers or the other executives,
though it could be. But what I really like
about it is that you taught us how we could
take these different pieces of our big
message, and how you could tailor it to the
different audience that you might be
targeting. So if I was going to talk to
professionals, I might tweak it a little bit
to talk about what else could they be saying
yes to, to enhance the career that they're in
versus a young professional who's so worried
about, am I going to get this right?
And just taking that pressure off themselves
and doing something?
So I love that we can tailor the talk to the
different audiences that we want to speak to.
Yes. Yeah. And well done with that, Melinda
here today. And then Sara,
we work together in your VIP day.
And as I mentioned, just a couple of minutes
ago, your intended audience or other
professional fiduciaries or attorneys who are
in this space and do this type of work.
And so that was like our that's what we were
thinking about as we were mapping out your
talk. And then for here today,
I said, well, this is very much a very
general audience, but everyone needs an
estate plan. And I felt like those things
that we identified the identity,
the integrity, the intention,
the denial of death as the ultimate obstacle
applies to everyone, whether they're in your
space or even just people like me.
Yeah. No, absolutely.
And I think that that's what I really
appreciate about, like the framework.
I can see where I can turn certain things on
and off within my kind of signature talk,
depending on the audience that I'm speaking
with. Am I talking to just,
you know, non-professionals and just a more
general audience?
Or am I, you know, speaking with
professionals like estate planning attorneys
and similar people doing this work.
So, yeah. So it'll be nice to next month.
I'm, I am, um, speaking at a local fiduciary,
um, chapter.
And so I'll be obviously turning on different
things in my signature talk then,
um, that's more geared towards,
you know, to speaking to not the general
audience. So I'll let you know how it goes.
Yes. Please do. Well, and that is and this is
what I love about this. So this is for those
of you who are watching. So this is our
framework. And you can see a bunch of post-it
notes on here. So this ends up being about a
35 to 45 minute talk based on the number of
post-its when we put it together. And then,
of course, as you just heard,
they condensed it into a ten minute version.
But what what I find so useful about it is
that just switch out the questions or just
switch out some of the examples for whoever
your audience is, like in Sarah.
In your case, you asked us,
do you have an estate plan?
Has it been updated and communicated recently
versus with the professional fiduciaries and
attorneys you're talking to? You would just
switch the question, but ultimately the rest
of it still applies.
Exactly. Yeah.
Yep, I love that.
Yeah. Great. All right.
Melinda, so let me ask you this.
What do you feel like was your biggest
takeaway from the eight weeks that you spent
with us and the Thought Leader Academy? What
are you taking with you going forward?
Mhm. So you challenged us to see ourselves
differently. In fact, you gave us homework to
go into our LinkedIn profiles and change it
to say I am a speaker.
And that was a big change for me is thinking
about speakers as this other thing or this
other profession, instead of seeing myself as
doing that already. And so again,
giving myself that permission to say I am
this, I can do this.
And having that additional framework really
gives me the confidence to go out and look
for opportunities to speak,
instead of maybe only saying yes when asked.
So I'm going to actively go look for some
speaking opportunities.
Yes, that's one of the things we do challenge
you all to do is to find speaking
opportunities and to submit speaking
proposals for conferences,
or to reach out to local groups and
organizations. One of the things that I love
doing with you all is the pillars of your
personal brand, because we have in here for
you to think about what affiliations do you
already have, whether it's the universities
you attended, sororities you were a part of,
organizations that you are a part of at any
time in your career, and going back to them
and just letting them know,
hey, I have this topic.
Would you be interested in having me present
to your audience on that?
And that could be either in-person or
virtual? All right, Sarah,
let me go to you. So thinking about the
Thought Leader Academy, what has been your
biggest takeaway from the time that we spent
together.
I mean, it's very much connected to
confidence. But I find that so much of what
you say. Right? You are the messenger for
this message of like, really feeling that and
knowing that. And, you know,
before I started, you know,
I listened to your podcast.
I heard that time and time again,
but I hadn't really connected that for
myself. So I would say by the end of this
journey working with you,
I'm absolutely connected to that.
And, um, you know that that's where it is
inspiring because it's not just about,
oh, let me book a bunch of,
you know, presentations or podcast
interviews. This is really about connected to
the, the the message and the meaning.
And ultimately I've been really connected to
a movement and making that impact for the
collective. So thank you Carol.
Oh, I love that. Especially the part of like
creating this movement,
this legacy of love, which is the name of
your podcast too. I love that and yes,
you, Each of you is the messenger that your
audience is waiting for.
As we like to say.
Moe, what has been your biggest takeaway from
the time you spent with us in the Academy?
What are you taking with you as you go
forward?
I think I have two takeaways.
One is added confidence that I can do this.
And the second part kind of feeds into that.
And that is the the importance of
storytelling, because I feel like I am a
decent storyteller just in a casual setting,
but I never saw the value of inserting my own
personal and vulnerable stories into
professional talks.
But this has really shown light on the
importance of that, and I feel like I'll do
that a lot more going forward.
Yeah, absolutely. You are a great
storyteller. We've seen it on display during
our group calls here, so I love that you're
taking that with you.
And so thank you so much,
Moe, Melinda and Sara for being a part of our
Thought Leader Academy, for supporting each
other and encouraging each other every week,
as on our group calls.
And I'm excited for you.
You are speakers.
You are thought leaders.
Embrace that identity.
Put that on your LinkedIn profile and go out
there and deliver your very important
messages and stories to your audiences,
who are indeed waiting for you.
For those of you who are watching and
listening, if you would like to join us in
our next Thought Leader Academy Group,
you can get all of the details and apply as
speaking your Brand Academy.
Again, that's speaking your brand academy.
Until next time, thanks for listening.