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The essence of persuasive communication is about getting your audience on board with your ideas. But, it's not about throwing out facts or making logical points; it requires connecting with your audience on an emotional level, understanding...
The essence of persuasive communication is about getting your audience on board with your ideas.
But, it's not about throwing out facts or making logical points; it requires connecting with your audience on an emotional level, understanding their needs and concerns, and addressing them effectively.
By sharing personal stories, using relatable examples, and demonstrating genuine passion and authenticity, you create a sense of trust and rapport.
This is exactly what our Thought Leader Academy grads do in their signature talks!
You’ll hear two of our recent grads, Angela Crawford and Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez, deliver a 10-minute version of the signature talk they created with us, so you can see and hear them in action.
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.
Angela Crawford is a vegan transformation coach and educator. Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez is the founder of Walking Tree, which works with companies on sustainability and green tech.
This audio is from a live broadcast we did on May 22, 2024. You can watch the video at https://youtube.com/live/UPUMGsAjRV8.
Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/394/
Angela’s website: https://angelacrawfordphd.com/
Eloisa’s website: https://www.walkingtree.green/
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:
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.
Carol Cox:
How do you buy in from your audience on your
message? You're going to hear two of our
recent Thought Leader Academy grads deliver
ten minute versions of their signature talks
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 we have two of our recent Thought
Leader Academy graduates who are going to
share a ten minute version of their brand
new signature talks that they created with
us over the last eight weeks.
This is the first LinkedIn live that we're
doing with two of them.
Next week, we're doing another LinkedIn live
that will be hosted by our lead speaking
coach, Diane Diaz, with our other two recent
Thought Leaders Academy grads.
If you've ever wondered how to get buy in
from your audience, especially around a
topic that they may not necessarily have
been waving their hands to feel about, then
you're going to really appreciate this
LinkedIn live and hearing their talks.
We know that to be a persuasive
communicator, you have to understand where
your audience is, where they're coming from,
what they want from themselves, and how you
can help them to get what they want, even if
it may not be exactly what you want or as
quickly as you would like.
So that's what you're going to hear as we
walk through these ten minute versions of
their signature talks. And then at the end,
we're going to have a round table discussion
about what their experience was like
creating them, working with us in the
Thought Leader Academy and what's next for
them as speakers and as thought leaders.
We have Angela Crawford, who's a vegan coach
and educator, and we also have Eloisa
marquez Gonzalez, who is the founder of
Walking Tree, who works with companies on
sustainability and green tech.
So here we have vegan lifestyle and we have
green tech and climate change.
Again, things that not necessarily everyone
is jumping up and down to to hear about
except for me, like I'm the one who would be
in your audience is very willingly, but we
know how important these messages are for
more and more people to hear.
So that's why I am so happy that you are out
there delivering these message messages on
behalf of the important work that you're
doing. So we're going to just kick it off
right now. First up we have Angela.
Angela. You ready?
Angela Crawford:
Yeah. Ready to go.
Carol Cox:
All right, let's do it.
Angela Crawford:
Well, I am thrilled to be here presenting
about the power of plants for transforming
our mind, body and spirit.
So we've all been told that we should eat
our veggies.
You've probably heard it like I did growing
up from your parents or grandparents, and
the United States Department of Agriculture
recommends that we eat 5 to 9 servings of
fruits and veggies each day.
But what statistics find that we actually
eat is less than two and a half cups per
day, and a lot of that the more processed,
unhealthy versions.
So I invite you to think about what is your
intake of plant foods on a regular basis?
Where do you fall on the spectrum?
And let's expand beyond fruits and veggies
to include all foods from the plant kingdom
beans, lentils and other legumes, grains,
mushrooms, nuts and seeds, and all the
different foods made from these.
Where do you fall on that continuum of plant
based eating? If you find that you don't eat
as many or not that high of an intake,
you're not alone.
Statistics find that the average American
consumes most of their food from processed
foods, followed by animal based foods, and
only a small percentage from plant foods.
Now in full disclosure here.
As you may have guessed from the
introduction, where I fall on that plant
based continuum at this point in my life is
that I'm fully plant based.
I became vegetarian about 17 years ago and
vegan about five years ago.
But before you run out of the talk thinking,
oh, you know, she's going to go on about
veganism and try to convert me, I want to
reassure you that that's not actually the
focus of the talk.
However, I will expect you to sign the vegan
pledge before my talk is over.
For those of you who are Star Trek fans.
So in all seriousness, I know that if you're
like most of us, you may have goals for
better mind, body, and spirit wellness.
You may want to just be healthier, have more
energy. You may hope to prevent future
medical issues from coming on, or help to
heal ones that you already struggle with.
Maybe you want to inspire your loved ones to
make healthier choices, or you just want to
feel better emotionally, mentally,
spiritually. At the same time, things
sometimes get in the way of our goals.
And so you might find that between
conflicting messages about what's healthy to
eat, that we always are getting in the
media, or being too overwhelmed or busy to
make, you know, changes or to actually
integrate healthy new nutrition in your
life. Or maybe it just feels like nothing
really makes a difference.
Or you have these favorite foods or habits
that you know are not healthy, but you don't
want to give them up.
I can relate personally and professionally
to all of those struggles.
I've been a psychologist for over 25 years
and until recently, for most of that time I
worked as a psychotherapist.
I helped my clients heal from trauma and
stress and to deal with chronic medical
conditions. And I was always passionate
about holistic wellbeing and tried to
integrate that into my own life and help my
clients with that as well.
And at the same time, I didn't have the
healthiest eating habits for so many years.
I ate what was comforting, convenient,
tasty, and I definitely had a chocolate
addiction. I'd heard I should eat more
fruits and vegetables, and sometimes I did,
but often it was the foods that gave me the
big dopamine boost that one out.
Several years ago, I happened to go to a
conference where they served plant based
meals and the food was so delicious I
started to see like, hmm, this could be a
possibility. I can understand more how
people might eat this way.
I thought if only I had a personal chef, I
could probably do this, but I didn't have
one. And so after the conference, I
continued eating the way that was convenient
and comforting.
But only a few months after that conference,
I had what I think of as a light bulb
moment, sort of an awakening experience.
I happen to be watching a program on PBS,
and they featured a segment about workers in
meat processing plants, and these workers
had frequent injuries due to the repetitive
and often dangerous nature of the work they
were doing. And the program featured how
their employer was discouraging them from
seeking treatment or taking time off work or
reporting their injury, or they were at risk
of losing their job and their livelihood.
Many of the workers were immigrants and felt
they had few other choices.
Seeing this program, even though it didn't
really show a lot of details of the actual
meat processing plant, it opened my eyes to
think more about how my food got to me.
For the first time in my life, I started to
consider the process by which my food was
produced, and I was really distressed by how
the workers were treated.
And that got me thinking.
If I don't like how the workers are treated,
what do I think about how the animals are
treated? I had grown up in the Midwest, and
what I saw were the cows grazing in the
field. I had no awareness about
industrialized animal agriculture.
Or factory farming, which is now what
produces 98% or more of the meat and dairy
that we consume.
That program got me thinking.
And so the very next day, I bought my first
vegetarian cookbook and made my first plant
based recipe intentionally.
It was a red pepper artichoke and spinach
lasagna and it was delicious.
I had to go out and buy new pots and pans
while I was cooking, because I hadn't been a
cook before then, but it started me on a
journey where I began cooking plant based
meals each week, and I started to read all
the books I could about plant based living,
and I learned about the ethical impacts of
our food choices, the devastating effects
that animal agriculture is having on the
environment, and also the healing power of
plant based eating for reversing and helping
to prevent many chronic medical conditions.
And I myself was experiencing some
improvements in my health and well-being and
just feeling more fulfilled.
It became a passion for me.
And I realized that the way I had seen
healthy lifestyle and plant based eating
before was as depriving an all or nothing
kind of choice. Either I do not do it all or
don't do anything at all, or just too
difficult. And what I came to see was how
everything is connected.
I came to see how my food choices could
affect my well-being and mind, body and
spirit. I came to see how they also affected
other things I cared about, like animals,
other people, the planet.
And realizing how this was interconnected
actually made things simpler for me rather
than overwhelming me.
I found that when I connected with a strong
why a reason why to make a change, it helped
make the how so much easier and adventure
rather than a chore.
My experience led me to go on to do some
research for a book, and I interviewed and
surveyed people who were on a fully plant
based vegan diet, explored how their
lifestyle has affected their lives
emotionally, physically, spiritually.
And what I found were that the majority of
those I interviewed and surveyed had what I
call seven pillars of transformation that
were part of their experience, and alignment
with values was the core pillar that all the
others rested on. And so I used that as an
acronym, this first pillar of values to
describe the other six, to make it easier to
remember. And those other six pillars are
vision, having a vision for a better life
and a better world.
Authentic fulfillment, love, or meaningful
connections. Unity, which is our our
interconnectedness with nature and all of
life, and just realizing the truth of that.
Expanding our circle of empathy and
compassion to include ourselves, others, and
all sentient beings.
And lastly, self-empowerment, empowerment
over our health, realizing that we have more
impact over our health and well-being than
we've ever been taught to believe.
In future talks, I will expand on these and
describe them in more depth and share
examples of them and how each of us can
integrate these into our life.
But for the purposes of today's shorter
talk, I'm just going to invite you to
reflect based on what I've shared, what's
one step that you can take?
Maybe it's simply to put more fruits and
vegetables on your plate.
Maybe you might swap beans instead of beef a
few times a week.
Maybe you might take one of your favorite
recipes and Google a plant based alternative
to it. There's always an option that you can
try that can taste really great.
Or maybe you just want to do a little bit of
research on your own of anything I mentioned
today that made you curious.
I'm going to leave you with a quote from
Jane Goodall, primatologist, protector of
chimpanzees and the environment, and also a
plant based eater for several years.
And she reminds us that what you make, what
you do, makes a difference.
And you have to decide what kind of
difference you want to make for your life
and beyond.
Thank you.
Carol Cox:
Thank you so much, Angela.
That was fantastic.
I, I love listening to you talk because you
have such a warm and soothing delivery and,
and the presentations that you do, and I
just kind of I just want to have you keep
telling me all these wonderful things.
And that is what I'm going to ask you this,
and then we'll come back to this and the
roundtable after Eloisa does her
presentation, is that I remember when you
first started the Thought Leader Academy,
you expressed that one of your concerns was
you wanted to make sure that when you did
these presentations to audiences, that you
didn't want them to feel like you were
lecturing to them or evangelizing to them or
judging them or anything like that.
And so how do you feel about the talk that
you've come up with?
Angela Crawford:
Um, I actually feel really good about it.
Um, my, my VIP day with Diane, um, shed a
lot of insight into ways to meet people
wherever they are.
And I think, like, knowing that I could
speak to a range of different audiences and
share a message in a way that can speak to
whatever the needs of that audience might
be. So it felt good.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, I feel like you, you know, you meet
them where they're where they're at, which I
mentioned in the intro, and you very much
are about here's how, here's what your
journey look like.
And it's almost like, you know, you're
extending an, an invitation at hand to say,
you know, if you would like to learn more or
pick this up here, you can.
But if you if this is not the right time,
that's okay too. That's what it feels like
to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Well done.
Angela. Yes, your slides are beautiful.
And for those of you, if you happen to be
listening on the podcast instead of on the
LinkedIn live, you can actually watch the
video either on LinkedIn or on YouTube.
Links are in the show notes for this podcast
episode. If you would like to see the video
with the slides. Next up we have Eloisa
marquez Gonzalez, who as I mentioned, is the
founder of Walking Tree.
She works with companies on sustainability
in green tech.
Eloisa, you're up.
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
Hello. Thank you and good afternoon and good
morning, depending on where you're joining
us from. I'm Eloisa marquez Gonzalez.
And we'll be talking today about the walking
tree approach.
Has anyone gone ever ziplining?
It's so much fun.
If you're not afraid of heights.
So I had the fortune of going with my family
to Costa Rica a couple of years ago.
And uh, before I left, I was looking for a
new name for my brand, for my company.
The former name was just not really, uh, not
working out. It was too long.
Really? Didn't mean, uh, didn't stand for
what, uh, means what we stood for or met our
goals. So I was looking for something new.
And I went through a very systematic
approach for branding and naming and came up
with about ten different options.
Before we went on the trip, I decided to
leave this options marinade and I will pick
the the winner.
When I came back.
Now for my business.
I have some goals, and I wanted this name to
reflect those goals, to reflect what we
stand for, to reflect our mission.
I know you have goals.
Maybe it's to bring innovation to meet your
revenue goals, or just to have a greater
impact on our planet and society.
However, when we're trying to achieve our
goals, many times we hit obstacles.
You might just be having to wearing too many
hats, having changing priorities, or trying
the latest tool out there and you just not
working. It's actually getting in the way.
I anyone?
Does it ring a bell?
Well, I totally understand.
I've been there, I've seen it.
And as a trained engineer that has been
incorporated and now consults for green tech
organizations trying to improve their
business performance.
I've seen it.
I understand, I've seen all these obstacles.
And through my years of consulting, what I
have noticed is that these obstacles will be
there. However, there's something bigger
missing, and that is intentionality.
Intentionality in creating processes and
structures that help you and your team
proactively approach and deal with these
obstacles to get better outcomes and also
have a greater impact on the environment and
society. The obstacles will be there.
Is how we deal with them.
Now. Have you heard of the Maturity Matrix?
If you haven't, it's okay.
The Maturity Matrix is a framework that
helps you evaluate your your company's
capabilities. Can your company repeatedly
deliver the same level of service, the same
level of quality?
And there is five levels in this framework.
Number one is is ad hoc.
And usually this is where this is where
companies that, uh, just come in every day
and try to do their best to deal with the
tasks. There's no real way, standard way of
doing things.
Your employees just come in, get things
done, however it's best for them.
Then we have the second level, which you
have some basic processes, but there's still
not standardization.
Not everyone does the same things, the
things the same way.
On the other side of the of the range, we
have number four, which is measured here.
We have standard processes, and these
companies are already measuring the health
of their processes or measuring how the
processes are working for them.
And then number five, if optimized, these
are the data driven companies.
They make decisions using the information
they capture from their um, from their
operations, from their customers.
And they have a continuous improvement
process. Now I'm going to ask you to think
for a moment.
Where does your company stand?
You don't have to put it in the comments.
No need to to tell others where you are.
Just think about it.
If you fell on number 1 or 2, don't worry,
65% of the companies out there are at this
level. Back in 2002, there was a study done
that was published at PMI, the Project
Management Institute, and it found that 65%
of companies fall on this area of number one
and two. Ad hoc or they have some basic
processes. Then ten years later, in 2012,
the Lloyd. Did another study and surprise,
surprise, it was again 65% of the companies.
And because this is reality doesn't mean
that it has to be this way.
There's a better way.
That is why I developed the Operations
Optimization Roadmap to help organizations
develop, develop clear structures, clear
processes to achieve their goals, deal with
obstacles, and have the impact that they
desire in our environment and society.
It is composed of four stages.
The first one is the, um, organizational
clarity. Do you have the clarity of what
your mission is?
What are your values?
What are your goals?
This becomes the North Star for decision
making for you and your team.
Then we have rapid alignment.
And I'm not talking about alignment of
bringing your team in once a year.
Get them in the room and then just send them
out for a year and see them in 12 months.
This is about having structure to bring
alignment throughout the year, making sure
that everyone knows how things are shifting
inside the company or outside the company.
Now that you have your North Star, your
alignment now, are you having efficient
processes? Are you doing things the most
effective and efficient way possible?
And are these activities having the impact
that you expect that you are trying to have
in the world? And then we have adaptive
agility, which is being proactive, being
proactive about decision making, being
proactive about the shifts that you make is
not about only about what happens with the
external factors, but about making decisions
with the information that you have and
making an organized shift as needed.
So with this, uh, operations optimization
roadmap, you can develop this clear
structure for your company to work in a more
organized manner.
And in other talks, I will go in more
detail. But for now, remember, once you have
your operation optimized, then you can
forget about having to firefight every time.
And also you can forget about your team just
throwing deliverables over the fence and
hoping the next team is going to catch those
deliverables in. Know what to do with them.
Instead, you're going to have an organized
operation optimize operation that can adjust
in an organized fashion to any demands on an
organization that has practices that match
your mission of caring for the environment
and for society.
Now, I want you to imagine the next week you
get this amazing opportunity.
The opportunity you were waiting for that's
going to make such a big difference in your
business. And how would it feel to be able
to say yes to that opportunity?
Because, you know, you have an optimized,
adaptive organization that will deliver the
best outcome possible.
They will nail the delivery.
So I want to challenge you in two ways
today. The first challenge is going to be
easy. I want you to go back to your desk and
pull out your mission statement for your
company. If you have one.
And look at it and think, does it still
stand? Does it still stand for what you want
to do today, where you're going?
Have you shared with your team?
If you haven't, this is a perfect time to
share it. The second challenge is it's going
to be a little bit harder, but try it.
And it's about looking at your supply chain,
about all the processes that are needed for
servicing your customers, for developing
your product.
And in this case, just just take the initial
portion. And think about those processes.
Are those processes designed and set up in a
way they're going to help your employees do
their best work.
Are those processes going to set up your
employees, your team and your customers for
success? Now.
Do you remember my story about ziplining?
Well, when we arrive to one of the
platforms, there was this amazing sea of
trees that had all the roots outside of the
ground. So amazed by what I was looking at.
I asked my guide, what are these trees?
And to my surprise, they were called Walkin
Trees. These trees move every year, 2 or 3ft
in search of sunlight and minerals.
And that is when I realize that these trees
were intentional about the way they grow,
about the way they move.
So that is how I decided that Walking Tree
was going to be the name for my
organization. Because we help businesses
develop strong foundations like a tree.
But with the adaptability of a walking tree.
So I wondered for a second to think what
these walking trips mean for you and your
organization. How does the intentionality
that this walk in trees bring to the way
they grow means to you?
And I want to close today with a quote from
Arianna Huffington.
We think, mistakenly, that success is a
result of the amount of time we put in at
work. Instead of the quality of the time we
put in.
And this comes back down to intentionality
in the way that we design our processes and
systems in our organization.
Thank you.
Carol Cox:
Well done Eloisa.
That was fantastic.
I love the walking tree photo again, for
those of you who are just listening on the
podcast, you just have to come find the spot
in the video where she shows the slide of
the walk literally walking trees.
I had never heard of them before, never seen
them before and they are so cool.
And I love how you tied the end of finding a
name for your company to the beginning.
With the story of ziplining and going to
Costa Rica. How did that feel?
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
Amazing. It was.
It was great.
Yeah, it was great to be able to share the
story and the knowledge and be able to, um,
because everything is connected.
It's what we do at work is connected with
who we are.
And it's very, um, it's very neat to be able
to interconnect and share that, that, uh,
connection in our talks.
So, um.
Carol Cox:
Yes. Well, and we're gonna, we're gonna dive
more into that now. So Angela and Eloisa,
you, as I mentioned, at the top, you just
completed our thought Leader Academy.
We just had our graduation call.
And one of the things that we talked about
during the Thought Leader Academy is, you
know, this idea of getting buy in from your
audience, through empathizing with them and
through validating what they're, what
they're already experiencing or what their
goals are. And both of you did that
beautifully in your talks.
The other thing we talked quite a bit about
is using humor.
And so obviously, Eloisa, you had that in
your talk with some of the funny, uh, memes,
the funny GIFs about, you know, feeling like
everything's on fire at work or things just
are just, you know, getting thrown left and
right. And, Angela, you had humor and your
talk as well with the resistance is futile
signing the vegan pledge.
So with that, you know, thinking back to the
presentations that you've delivered in the
past, you know, how have you been
intentional about incorporating humor and,
you know, and how does that look to you
going forward? Angela, I'll start with you.
Angela Crawford:
Yeah, I think in the past I wasn't always so
mindful of that. Often I was giving a talk
for a specific reason and.
I don't think I fully realized the benefits
of integrating that. So definitely I'm going
to be more mindful moving forward that
somewhere you know, where it's appropriate.
There will be some humor.
So definitely cool to realize that.
Carol Cox:
And Eloisa, what about you?
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
Same here.
And especially when when I'm talking about
technical topics, it's sometimes it feels
like you have to be dry like the topic, but
it's not uh, it's not necessarily true
because by bringing that humor, we are
acknowledging our obstacles and challenges
that we are hitting as we are trying to
develop this technology or process, whatever
you are doing, um, and it's acknowledging
that these things are there and it's okay.
It's how we deal with it.
So humor, uh, brings us together.
Uh, definitely. Yeah.
Carol Cox:
Absolutely. Angela, let me go back to you and
tell us about the VIP day that you had.
I know you worked with our lead speaking
coach, Diane Diaz, and you spent those three
hours together to map out your signature
talk from beginning to end, using our
framework with all of the colorful post-it
notes on it.
What were your thoughts leading up to the
VIP day? What did you expect, and then how
did the process go for you?
Angela Crawford:
Leading up to it. I wasn't sure what to
expect, but I had done a lot of the
exercises that you had in the workbook,
which helped lay the foundation for when I
met with Diane. So I had my thoughts more
clear. And, you know, I was hopeful that it
would bring clarity, but I really was
surprised at how much clarity it brought
that very quickly through the questions she
asked and then the post-it notes that my
responses ended up on, it brought what felt
like a lot of confusing, disparate ideas
together into a focus and and then into that
focus brought in elements that are important
for having a meaningful talk.
You know, again, things that I hadn't always
thought about before, the humor, making sure
that there were ways to connect with the
audience and engage the audience.
So it wasn't just me talking.
And so that that whole process, it just, I
don't know, it brought, brought everything
together in a way that I couldn't have
imagined. And then it also laid the
foundation for future talks, because I can
clearly see now how I can vary my larger
signature talk based on who I'm speaking to
or what the objective is of specific talk.
So it was amazing.
Carol Cox:
Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
We really, you know, our goal when we work
with all of you and the Thought Leader
Academy is we we want to get you to kind of
think like us, think like us in the sense of
how we approach creating presentations and
doing public speaking and sharing the best
practices and everything we've learned over
the years, not only as speakers ourselves,
but after working with so many speakers like
yourself and Eloisa in your graduation
speech. So we have each of the grads deliver
a short three minute graduation speech using
what they've learned and say you did your
graduation speech, and it was so fun because
you came up with an acronym.
You're a framework, so you definitely and
you I could tell, you know, with you and all
the rest of the women who we've worked with
that you really learned and took in
everything that we were teaching you.
So can you give us an overview of that
framework that you came up with with?
Sure. So generously letting me borrow and
use. And of course, I will give you credit
for it.
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
Yeah. So, uh, it was uh, in.
General, the, um, the Thought Leader Academy
was an amazing experience because it shows
how to put all these different pieces
together when, um, in the past, it just felt
kind of like I didn't know how they fit.
Like, if I was just making things up by
putting them together.
But you and Diane showed us how to, in a
very elegant way to to streamline and
combine things.
And um, and the show, um, acronym, if I
remember correctly. Now I'm forgetting, um,
it was with, uh, show share your stories.
The S stands for Share Your Stories.
That helps you make a connection with, uh,
your audience.
Then the H stands for humor, which is just
don't be afraid to use humor.
It's always breaks the monotony.
Then we have the O is to overview, not
overwhelm. In the past, I would go into a
lot of details because I thought I needed to
give details and instead I would overwhelm
my audience. So you have to give an overview
instead of overwhelming.
And then the W stands for weight.
You need to learn to pause and let their
audience, your audience, absorb what you're
saying.
Carol Cox:
Well done Eloise, to see the power of an
acronym, because you remembered all four of
those in a way that would probably have been
much more difficult if you hadn't put it
into an acronym. So I love it.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Louisa, let me ask you too, about why did
you decide to enroll in the Thought Leader
Academy? Where were you at earlier this
year? And what?
What led you to decide that this was
something that you wanted to do?
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
So I have been doing already talks in the
past, and but my topics have always been
technical, and I always ended with a lot of
facts and figures and and graphs and.
I wasn't sure how engaging I was being on my
speeches or my talks, and I was looking to
to become more of a speaker and have that
more of a practice and have a more engaging,
um, presentation.
So by, by joining the The Thought Leader
Academy, it helped me bring all these pieces
together, understand how the structure
should be, how to break down my story.
For example, that was something that I
thought it was, uh, magnificent that Diane
helped me break my story and bookmark my
talk with my story.
In the past, I struggled to do that, and she
was able to very elegantly do that, uh,
bookmarking the story so it will make sense.
So it would actually be memorable.
So.
Carol Cox:
All right. Fantastic.
Angela, I know that you have a book that it
is set to come out.
And so tell us what is next for you as a
speaker and as a as a thought leader.
Angela Crawford:
Yeah. Well, the book is coming out early next
year. So in the months leading up to it and
following it, coming out will definitely be
doing podcasts, um, speaking engagements,
um, at Veg Fest and other events and.
And I think, you know, creating some
workshops and trainings as well, and maybe
some group coaching, even things like that.
So.
Carol Cox:
Oh, good. Well, we'll make sure to include
links for both Angela and Eloisa in the show
notes to their websites, as well as to their
LinkedIn profile. So definitely make sure to
connect with them there. And Eloisa, what
about you? What's next for you?
Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez:
As I mentioned, I'm looking forward to, uh,
doing more speaking engagements and sharing
my knowledge, helping other, um, businesses,
uh, improve their performance and also
improve their impact on our world and
society. So that's that's what it's
important for me. So.
Carol Cox:
Well, again, thank you both for doing the
work, putting it in the hard work to create
your signature talks and to put yourself out
there as speakers to share these very
important messages with your audiences.
I am so proud of you, and I can't wait to
see all the big things that you're going to
do. So for those of you who are watching and
listening, make sure to connect with us on
LinkedIn. If you're interested in joining
our Thought Leader Academy, you can get all
the details as speaking your Brand.com slash
Academy again, that's speaking your
Brand.com slash academy.
Until next time, thanks for listening.