414: Using ‘Stages’ and ‘Lessons’: Live Signature Talks from Our Thought Leader Academy Grads

Show Notes

In your presentations and keynotes, you want to take your audience on a journey of discovery, sharing with them your personal insights and stories along the way.

One of the best ways to do this is to frame your content as stages, lessons, or a framework, such as an alliteration or acronym. 

Want to see what this looks like in an actual talk?

You’ll hear three of our recent Thought Leader Academy grads, Wendy McManus, Nelly Some, and Heather Burright, 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.

This audio is from a live broadcast we did on October 2, 2024. You can watch the video at https://youtube.com/live/khaXnBCKRXk. 

 

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/414/ 

Video from the live show: https://youtube.com/live/khaXnBCKRXk 

Wendy’s website: https://www.connect2potential.com/ 

Nelly’s website: https://makingadifferencewithnelly.com/ 

Heather’s website: https://www.skillmastersmarket.com/ 

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

• Wendy McManus (guest) = https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-mcmanus/ 

• Nelly Some (guest) = https://www.linkedin.com/in/nellysome/ 

• Heather Burright (guest) = https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-burright/ 

What is Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies?

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:
From stages to lessons here.

How our recent volunteer academy grads are

focusing on transformation, not just

information in 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 you're going to hear from three of our

recent Thought Leader Academy graduates as

they share a ten minute version of their

signature talk for the very first time

they've been working very hard for the past

eight weeks with us to develop their thought

leadership message and to create their brand

new talk. And here's the thing.

As I often say, the women that we work with

are incredibly smart.

They're incredibly capable.

They already create great presentations.

The reason they come to work with us is

because they know they're ready to step out

of the expert trap.

They want to go beyond teaching and training

and doing something more than that to

empower their audiences in a different way.

One of the best ways to do this is to think

about the stages that your audience's

audience goes through as they develop and

transform, or to think about key lessons

that you want to share with your audience.

And that's exactly what you're going to hear

today from our recent grads.

We have Wendy McManus, Nelly Somi, and

Heather Barrett.

So we're going to go the three of them in

order again, about ten minutes each.

And then we're going to have a round table

discussion with them afterwards about what

it was like to create and deliver this talk

here for the very first time, what their

experience was like in the Thought Leader

Academy, and what is next for them as

speakers and as thought leaders.

For the very first one, we have Wendy

McManus, who is a leadership coach based in

the Orlando, Florida area.

Wendy, I'm going to load up your slides here

and take it away.

Wendy McManus:
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Carol.

I'm really excited to be here.

So I have a question for you.

If part of your job is to manage people,

here's the question.

Do you remember what it felt like when you

first got promoted from an individual

contributor to a people manager?

Do you recall those early days?

Were you excited?

Were you scared?

Were you thinking, Holy crap, I'm not sure

what I'm doing.

How am I going to figure this out.

I remember that day when I had my first

director report, my first role as a people

manager. And to tell you the truth, I was

excited because I had been told for most of

my life that I was a born leader.

So even though I didn't really know what I

was doing as a people manager, I just

reasoned that I would figure it out as I

went along and I really needed help.

I mean, I was drowning in work, so with my

first hire, it felt like I'd found the

release valve for the pressure that had been

building up.

Now I knew what needed to be done, but I was

pretty much clueless about how to guide this

other person to be successful in her role.

And for example, my approach to one big

challenge of leadership, which is

delegation. My approach to delegation was

what I would now call dump and run.

I was perpetually in a hurry to get the work

off my desk by dumping it on my team member

and then running as fast as I could back to

my stacked up workload.

I was constantly overwhelmed.

I was perpetually operating in crisis mode,

and as a result, I wasn't very thoughtful

about how I was leading my young team.

As a people manager, I was a naive newbie,

and looking back, I can see that my

leadership style was based on, honestly, gut

instinct and charisma.

I felt like everyone else had figured out

the secret to managing people, and I was the

only one who was floundering.

I wondered, like, do I need to go back and

get my MBA, go back to school?

Is there some book that everyone has read?

Could I find the answer at a conference?

Does any of this sound familiar or was it

was it just me?

Now I actually got positive feedback for my

leadership style. I'm pretty sure that was

because my first direct report, my teammate

Megan, she was so good that she made up for

my shortcomings.

She barely needed a manager, which was a

really good thing because I was barely a

manager. Now I knew that something needed to

change or I was headed for a very bad

outcome. It felt like I was going to drag my

team down with me.

I'm going to tell you all how all this

worked out later. Don't worry, the story

does have a happy ending.

So among our viewers today who loves the

feeling of being confident and solid,

feeling like I've got this right.

Me too.

I mean, who doesn't?

It's no different when you are a newer

manager. You want that feeling of confidence

that comes from being competent, from being

good at the job of leading and managing

people. You want to feel like you know what

you're doing, like you're not faking it.

And if your goal is to advance in your

career as a leader, you want to feel like

you're solidly on that path.

And if you are a senior leader, you want to

fill your leadership pipeline with

confident, capable people managers.

You want and need those managers to be able

to get great results from their teams.

And you want to have happy employees.

They enjoy reporting to those managers

because, you know, as the saying goes,

people don't leave jobs.

They leave managers.

So as a senior leader, you don't want to

lose good people because their managers make

it so hard for them to flourish.

But it's tough, right? Because even though

it's incredibly important, we generally do a

poor job of preparing new managers for the

role. What happens far too often is that we

have a rock star, individual contributor

that produces stellar results.

So then we tap them on the shoulder, and we

reward that performance by promoting them

into management, which is an entirely

different job than the one they recently

excelled in, and most of the time we just

expect them to figure it out.

Is it any wonder that newer managers are

struggling? And if you're that person who

just got that promotion, you just got that

tap on the shoulder, you probably think that

you just need to learn more skills or get

more frameworks or tools in your toolbox so

you can be effective.

I wondered what book I needed to read, the

one everybody else had apparently read that

I hadn't. The one that would give me all the

answers. If you're a senior leader, you

might think you just need to offer more

training to these new people managers.

You might be caught in that same trap of

wanting to arm them with more skills and

more tools.

Or maybe you think they just need more

encouragement to bolster their confidence.

But somehow all those skills and processes

and frameworks, they don't seem to solve the

Problem and all the pats on the back and

those. Affirmative. You've got this

comments. They don't seem to make a

difference. It feels like something is

missing and indeed something is missing.

If you think about it, there are two

journeys towards mastery as a people

manager. There's the outer journey, and

that's all the stuff that people can see you

doing, stuff like delegating and giving

feedback and navigating conflict.

And then there's the inner journey.

And that's all the mindset stuff that

happens inside, like knowing your values and

being intentional about your impact,

recognizing the thoughts and the fears that

might hold you back.

Most of us tend to focus on the outer journey

and our quest to become effective people

managers. We focus on acquiring more skills

and frameworks for our toolbox, but there's

still something missing.

And that's the inner journey of mindset and

intentionality. And as a leader for nearly

two decades and a leadership coach for the

last six years, I've seen this story play

out countless times.

I've coached everyone from CEOs to first

time managers, and on the outside, their

challenges appear to be very different.

But peel back a few layers and the issue of

mindset turns out to be the real issue.

Most of the time.

And that's why I no longer teach the outer

journey stuff without the solid foundation

of the inner journey.

I no longer teach the skills without

addressing the mindset, because working on

the outer journey of leadership, without

addressing the inner journey, is like

building your dream home on a foundation of

sand. It might look good at first, but

before long the sand will shift and your

house will crumble.

Don't get me wrong, the outer journey is

important. You know, we were talking earlier

about delegation, so you're going to need to

know how to delegate in a way that someone

is engaged and excited and prepared to

handle the project.

But you'll also need to take that inner

journey. You'll need to take a look at how

you resist delegating in the first place, or

why you do that and what you can do about

it. You'll need to address the fears that

are holding you back before you can become

an effective people manager.

And that's what I cover when I give the full

version of this signature talk, we explore

how your mindset, including your thoughts,

your fears, your assumptions, and all that

stuff that people can't see is the bedrock

and the foundation for successfully doing

all those people manager things that people

can see in that signature talk.

We walk the path that most new managers take

from the naive newbie that is just winging

it, to the tool collector who's always on

the hunt for the next magical framework, and

finally to the intentional leader who has

both the skills and the mindset that's

needed to unlock their team's potential.

Now, remember in the beginning when I said

that my early leadership style was based on

gut instinct and charisma?

I promised you that that story had a happy

ending. I don't want to leave you hanging,

even in this truncated version of my talk.

What I learned along the way is that gut

instinct is a wonderful tool, and charisma

is a superpower.

But what I was really missing was

intentionality. When I became more

intentional and more self-aware, everything

started to change.

My team showed up differently because I

showed up That differently.

I asked more questions and let my team take

the lead more often.

I let go of my controlling ways and loosened

my death grip on how everything was done.

And once I did that, I noticed my team

beginning to shift.

They became more motivated and more engaged,

and they showed more initiative and more

creativity. And because I had more trust in

them, I was a lot less stressed.

So what would it look like for you to be a

more intentional leader?

And I encourage you to start with small

steps. Just identify one change that you

could make, and then pay attention to the

thoughts and the feelings that pop up when

you begin to put your plans into action.

The mindset is the real key to making the

change stick.

Maybe you need to ask more powerful

questions to bring out the best in your

team. Or perhaps you want to resist jumping

in with all the answers so your team has a

chance to think for themselves.

Or maybe if your path resembles mine, you're

realizing that you need to release some

control and show more trust.

You might need to let go of your death grip

on the details, so give it a try.

Find the courage to extend trust and see how

it goes. And if it doesn't work out, you can

always go back to the death grip.

But I have a feeling you won't.

I want to thank you so much for your time

and attention. I'm grateful for each of you,

and many thanks to Carole Cox and Diane Diaz

for this opportunity to speak today.

It's been a lot of fun.

Carol Cox:
That was fantastic, Wendy.

Congratulations on the first time out with

your signature talk.

So well done.

And really the ten minute version you.

I've learned so much even just from this ten

minute version. You did a great job.

Still wrapping the end back to the

beginning, not leaving us hanging.

With how your leadership journey turned out.

You got the three stages in there.

Obviously, in the longer version of the

signature talk, you go into much more detail

of what those three stages look like, along

with audience activities and questions that

they can reflect on as well.

So, Wendy, let me ask you this before we go

to our next participant.

How did that feel to deliver that for the

first time? And tell us a little bit about

how the development of these three stages

happened in our VIP day together.

Wendy McManus:
That felt amazing.

I needed the deadline, so thank you for

that. It was really, really good for me to

have a little bit of time pressure, um, and

developing the three stages.

Right. So I had this very big idea, um,

based on what what I teach and how I coach,

it's a very lofty idea about this inner

journey of leadership.

And I really wasn't convinced that it could

be the basis for a signature talk.

And when you and I got together in our VIP

day and you started asking me questions and

saying, like, what are the three stages or

what are the three steps?

It's like, Carol, I don't know.

But the more we talked about it, it just

like it all clicked into place and I

understood and could see my own journey more

even than my own journey.

I could picture clients when they first come

to me, the stories that they tell me, and

then that phase that they get in where

they're just like, oh, another book, another

podcast, another conference.

I can figure it all out.

But they're still not addressing their

mindset. And then where they end up, where

they really start making a big impact.

So you just asking me questions helped me

see what was right in front of me, and it

all just clicked right into place.

Carol Cox:
Fantastic. Well, again, well done.

And for those of you watching or listening

to the replay on the podcast, think about

for your own talks.

Are there stages that your audience or the

clients that you work with go through?

What's that first stage when you first, when

they first come to you, or the first stage

that your audience is at. And then once that

second stage where they maybe they think

that they're there, but they're not quite

there because something is still holding

them back. Like in Wendy's case, it's the

toll collector where they're they think the

tolls are going to solve their problem, but

not quite. But it's really then getting over

the hump because it's hard like stage two to

stage three and whatever it is that you're

doing is the hardest.

That is the hardest challenge to get

through. But that's where you see that

transformative impact, like in Wendy's

example with that intentional leader stage.

Great. All right. Well done Wendy, thank you

so much for letting your slides were

beautiful. Very well done.

All right Nelly, you are next.

So Nelly Somi is the author of Making a

Difference. She is a serial entrepreneur.

If she sees an opportunity, she is going to

make it happen for real.

And so in this ten minute version of her

keynote talk, you're going to hear a little

bit of her story of how she became this

incredible entrepreneur and how she finds

opportunities wherever she looks.

Nellie, welcome to the stage.

Nelly Some:
Welcome, everybody, and thank you so much for

having me. You know, today I will talk to

you about my two stories that have stuck in

my mind for a long time.

The first story is about me being raised up

in Kenya when I was two weeks old, since I

was two weeks old.

The second story is about me coming here to

Seattle, here in America.

You see, I was raised up in the countryside,

so being in the city is a big deal for me.

Leave alone being in America.

So you can imagine when I landed in the

America in the SeaTac airport in America,

first of all, when I arrived, I had my

backpack. I had two shirts, two skirts.

So with my lovely backpack, I was ready to

visit America.

Yes, I landed.

Everything was different.

You have to remember coming.

Being raised up in the countryside, in

Kenya, being around the city and all that

was very hard to me.

Leave alone being here in America.

So you can imagine when I landed in this

airport, there were lights all over.

The place was so clean, squeaky clean, and

there were so many machines running around

all over. I mean, it was this wonderland

that I remember when I was raised up.

I was raised up, um, you know, as a

Christian, I always read about the Bible

stories about how heaven looks like it's so

beautiful and all that.

To me, this sounded like heaven to me.

As I said, as I stood there waiting for

other passengers to go through the exit

door, I realized that there was this machine

that everybody was following and going

through it. This machine looks scary to me,

but everybody was smiling and enjoying it.

So I stood behind the line to wait for

everybody to go through.

And I think that machine.

Now I know the name.

Of course it's the excavator.

No, no, no not excavator.

Escalator. Escalator.

Yeah, that's the one.

So everybody went through this escalator as

I just looked at it and wondered how I'm

going to do that. At the end of the day, I

decided to be the last one so that I can

have the courage to go through it.

But even with that, I couldn't.

It was going so fast.

Then all of a sudden there were two parents

that came in grown ups with three kids with

ages around five and seven.

They just slide in that machine.

They were smiling, chatting with their

parents, and that's when I got the courage

to try myself.

I was like, if they can do it, that's easy.

So I went there, put my one step on the

escalator, not excavate the escalator.

And I was holding this.

Oh boy, did I know.

I didn't know what I had signed up for.

So one leg went to an escalator, one leg was

stuck behind, I was holding for my dear life

and I was being ripped literally apart.

This is a true story, by the way, and while I

was struggling there, there was some good

Samaritans that were trying to help me like,

hey man, let's help you. And I'm like, no,

I'm okay. Smile.

Smiling in my face but so scared in my

heart. You know what you don't realize when

you're an immigrant coming to America.

There are so many myths you're told and

you're, you know, everybody wants you.

And I had been told, be very careful when

you go to America. You have to know what

you're doing or else they'll take you back

in Africa. So at that moment, I was thinking

about that and I thought, if these people

help me, they will realize I don't know

anything about this machine and they might

take me back to Africa.

That's what I was scared.

The pain I was going through didn't matter.

I was thinking about, I'm not going to go

back to Africa.

So after a few minutes, literally, I think I

started bleeding.

One of the excavators cut my leg and there

was this guy that had they had that power

and I think he just felt sorry.

He just decided to act and help me.

He held my hand. She was like, ma'am, you're

bleeding. I'm not going to let you be

bleeding like that. Let me help you out.

She pulled my one hand backwards very nicely,

by the way, a very wonderful guy.

I took the scarf I had in my head, you know,

covered my bleeding, and he showed me the

stairs going down where I could use until

now. Let me tell you guys, I do not use an

escalator. My husband, the kids use it.

I always either go through the stairs or use

the elevator.

But when I went down.

Speaking of faith, sometimes when I went

downstairs, I had to look for a restroom

where I will clean my bleeding.

My my leg was bleeding bad, so I went to the

restroom to try to go clean it up.

When I arrived there, there was this

wonderful lady that talked to me, helped me

out and we started chatting and I realized

he she came from Africa, a different, a

different country from mine.

But she had a very heavy accent and her

English wasn't better than mine.

Mine was way better.

But as she continued talking, she told me

how she made it in America.

She had kids.

She was living good while working as a

janitor. At that point in my life, I

realized if she can do it, I can do it.

She talked.

She talked to me so many times about how

opportunities are there.

I ask her so many questions.

Remember back in Kenya, which I'll talk to

you about is I started becoming very

independent as early as four years old, and

I took as I took care of my grandmom when

she was sickly most of the time.

I learned very early to be a caregiver at a

very early age.

So caregiving was just part of me.

So when this lady went on and on, she told

me, you know what? The best job you can get

that African can easily get it is

caregiving. It just blew my mind.

And I continued asking so many times about

the caregiving. She told me so many things

about caregiving, how I can go.

She gave me a few contacts, some friends she

knew, and you know, me being very outgoing

as I've always been and that little survivor

I used to, this was a moment for me to suck

all the information.

Fast forward three weeks after that, 2 to 3

weeks after that, not only did I get a job,

but I worked four jobs.

I worked in a nursing home, two nursing

homes. I worked in a in a post office.

Priority mails to to be, you know, sorting

priority mails. And I also worked to King

County Library arranging the books.

You know, when I had those few hours with

the nursing home, I decided, you know what?

This was not enough.

I had all the time in my life to make it

work, to make a living and survive.

So I took every job I could get.

That's, I think, how my American dream and my

serial entrepreneur started.

But going back to my first story, um, you

know, I was raised up since I was two weeks

old. I was a product of an early teenage

pregnancy. You can call it.

I guess they were doing some trial.

My father and mother were trying some trial

and error while they were kids.

Well, here I am looking back.

I'm like, hey, but now I'm so grateful that

I'm here. But since my mom had to go back to

school, I was left with my grandmother since

I was two weeks old. So literally, I haven't

really been raised up with my mom, my

grandma, but her being older, she became

sickly. A lot of time.

God bless her heart.

She loved me, protected me, and provided me

everything I needed despite the fact that I

was very poor and she was very poor.

In fact, I, I started becoming an

entrepreneur at a very early stage.

I sold pineapple in the village, eggs in the

village, and moonshine, they call it

chang'aa. But here I realized the name is

moonshine. No no no no, don't look at me

like that. Yes. Moonshine made my life.

I'm proud to say that.

And that's how I really survived.

Over and over.

But you know what?

That survival skills.

When I came here in America, those survival

skills really paid off.

It's funny how your childhood really can

shape you to become who you are.

Remember, I came here in America.

I didn't know anybody.

I had my step aunt who was picking me up in

the airport, and he was very late and I was

a little frustrated. But guess what?

Her being late made me meet with this lady

in the bathroom and all of a sudden meeting

that lady. Speaking of having people in your

life help us in our life to help you

through, to become who you are.

And speaking of having scenarios and

situations happening in your life that

sometimes you don't know why they are

happening, but they turn out to be meant to

be there. Okay, so my first lesson, um, you

know, after coming, I'll just make a

summary. I have the first dream coming in

America with all the hardship, but I

realized that I wasn't really good at

getting help. I'm talking about the

elevator. I'm talking about realizing that I

can really use some help in the bathroom

with this nice lady, then going back to

Kenya with all my life, having very hardship

life and, you know, struggling to survive

and depending on selling food, um, you know,

vegetables, pineapple, moonshine in the

street back in the day, since I was young,

you know, I thought that was very tough.

Little did I know that my childhood really

prepared me to be wherever I am now, a

serial entrepreneur.

I mean, I do own a few businesses from

construction, health care.

You know, I am an author to motivational

speaker and the and the list goes on.

My point is for everybody out there, please

do not do not give up on your dreams.

No matter what your life has been, no matter

how tough has been in the past.

Just think about it.

It might really be a way of that hard life.

It's a way of it preparing you to be a

successful person and to be whoever you are

to to be wherever you want to be.

To me, in my case, all that entrepreneur and

struggling when I was kid really prepared me

to be an entrepreneur.

When it comes to health, trust me all the

time during everything I've done from Kenya

and from here, it's taken a lot, a lot of

time for me to do that, but with help of so

many people along the way.

So please, please, please do accept help.

There are so much help out there if we can

just accept the help with me in the

elevator. You know I refuse the help because

I just didn't want to look, that I was weak.

But guess what?

That guy who decided to help me really

helped me a lot. Maybe I would have broken

my leg struggling there and then.

They helped that.

I met again, this lady in the bathroom, and

she was able to navigate and show me how to

navigate around. To be a caregiver is what

really helped me to get a job.

In the next three weeks.

After 2 to 3 weeks, I was working and that's

where my dream came in.

So my my advice or my my inspiration to you

is keep on looking for that help.

Keep on pushing for that dream because you

never know when you knock, whenever the door

will be open. Keep on knocking all those

doors with me.

I'll tell you that is a story for another

day. I have knocked so, so many doors that

have been closed. But finally, you know

there are few that open.

And guess what? It's really helped me to be

wherever I am now.

If you want to know more about me, uh,

please do uh, to visit, um, do visit the

website, visit uh w ww making a difference

with Nellie Dotcom.

You will know so much.

You will learn so much about what I do.

And of course we can always have one on one

virtual tours, virtual discussion.

So and also check out the book.

It's in Barnes and Noble and it's also in

Amazon. Uh, making a difference with Nellie.

And my name is Nellie Somi.

N e l l y s o m e.

People call me Sam, but Somi is okay.

Thank you so much.

Carol Cox:
All right. Thank you so much, Nellie.

Fantastic. Let's go to Heather and then we

will do a roundtable discussion.

Heather. Heather Bright is the founder of

Skill Masters Market, and she works in the

learning and development field with

nonprofits. And she's going to share with us

her the ten minute version of her signature

talk. Heather, take it away.

Heather Burright:
Have you ever tried to change a behavior or

create a new habit?

All right. Is it coming to mind?

What happened? Think about that experience.

Was it easy?

Were you successful?

Where did you stumble?

So I want to tell you a little story about a

habit that I had to create.

So last year, I went to my primary care

physician, and they did some blood work.

And the doctor called me after the

appointment to say everything looks good.

So I didn't take any action.

I didn't do anything different because I

wasn't aware there was any kind of problem.

Later in the year, I saw a specialist about

something else, and they pulled up my recent

bloodwork. Bloodwork as they do, And she

pointed out that my iron levels were

actually a little low.

And so this doctor suggested I take iron at

least every other day.

So I left the doctor's appointment.

I bought some iron.

I took it when I remembered, but I wasn't

super regular about it.

I didn't have a sense of urgency motivating

me to do it.

Then later in the year, I saw a different

specialist about something else, and this

doctor too, pulled up my bloodwork from

earlier in that year.

But this doctor paused.

You know that pause.

You don't like to have that pause at the

doctor's office?

She paused, and she told me that my iron

levels were actually really low, and that if

I didn't get them up, she would want to

start me on an IV to give me iron.

Well, that's a completely different picture.

And do you know what I did?

I started taking my iron, but it wasn't

until someone made me aware of the problem.

They gave me instructions on how to fix it

and made me uncomfortable thinking about the

alternative, that I decided to change my

behavior. And even then, I had to set an

alarm on my phone to remind me to take it.

Behavior change is a funny thing.

Taking iron is a simple task.

Yet I needed awareness, a sense of urgency,

and a prompt to do it.

So why are we surprised when we want our

learners to change something and they don't?

Even a simple change can feel really

complex. And we have to be intentional as we

design for behaviour change at every step in

the learning and development process.

And that's what we're going to explore

today. Here's the challenge.

Knowledge doesn't equal behaviour change.

Yet most of our training focuses on what

people need to know and maybe do.

If we're lucky, they don't actually account

for the behaviour change.

So I'm Heather, I'm an LD pro, I have about

20 years in the field, and I've worked

internally at a national nonprofit for about

eight years, and now I consult with some of

the US's largest nonprofits on their

training and leadership development needs.

I know what it's like to be asked to create

a training because someone thinks the

learner needs to know something, and I'm on

a mission to change that.

I'm the host of learning for good, a top 2.5%

globally ranked podcast where I explore

trends, lessons learned, and real world

experiences related to L, D, and I formed a

private community for nonprofit and

association L and D pros to learn and grow

together. And I'm also a contributor to many

industry organizations organizations such as

Chief Learning Officer and Training

Industry, Inc..

I've been at this for a while, and I'm on a

quest to always do it better because the

people we serve deserve it.

So as we head into this talk and we lean

into the conversation, I want you to have a

specific change in mind.

What is one change you need a key audience

to make? And then how will you help them

make that change?

Historically, our answer has been training.

In fact.

My slides are going a little too fast.

In fact, the Harvard Business Review found

that companies spend $350 billion globally

on training every single year.

And here's what typically happens.

Someone in your organization thinks we have

a problem, but they say we need a training

and they schedule a meeting with a learning

leader who schedules a meeting with the lab

manager, who schedules a meeting with the

instructional designer, who then reaches out

to the subject matter expert.

It's like playing a game of telephone when

the gossip wasn't even accurate in the first

place. And the training doesn't always work.

Traditional training focuses on knowledge,

not behavior, and it crams too much

information into one solution.

It isn't based on behavior change

principles, and it doesn't account for

external factors like supervisor buy in or

existing systems and processes that the

person is going to have to deal with.

It isn't personalized for the learner and it

often just doesn't work.

So why do we always go with training?

As American rapper Cheryl James said, change

is not an event, it's a process and training

is an event.

So I want us to shift from training an event

to a human centered process.

And today we're going to cover the first of

three keys to help you get there.

The three keys are context change and

community. So we want to avoid the telephone

game. Instead, we want to go get first hand

information and experiences from the

intended audience.

This is the context these conversations

provide us with the context we need to

inform how we design for behaviour change.

And there's two components to context.

The first what is happening inside the

organisation or even potentially outside the

organisation that's driving this need for

behaviour change.

So here's an example.

I was working with a client who had tons of

staff changes happening, and one team in

particular had experienced a lot of

leadership turnover in a span of 6 to 12

months. The new leader's goal was to create

a team that would really work together in a

more collective impact approach.

They had traditionally worked with external

partners on a very transactional level, and

to achieve the organisation's strategic

goals, they needed much deeper partnerships

in the communities they were working in.

So the organization's strategies in this

case were driving that change.

The other component of this is what is the

day to day experience of the learner.

What might motivate them or discourage them

from making this change?

For this client in particular, the amount of

leadership turnover had impacted morale.

Staff didn't feel seen, heard or valued.

Why should they put a ton of effort into one

executive's vision? When history told them

they were going to get a new one in just a

few short months?

On top of that, the team had other work.

They had enrollment quotas they had to meet

because on top of creating these

partnerships, they were responsible for

enrolling students into their programs, and

so they were both real and perceived

barriers to this change.

And if you had asked them why they weren't

creating deeper partnerships, they would

have told you, I'm busy working.

So at the beginning, you identified a change

that you need your audience to make.

Now I want you to empathize with them.

Put yourself in their shoes.

Think about their daily experiences at work.

What might motivate them to make that change?

What might prevent them from making that

change? Wendy, I think about your talk and

the leaders that you're coaching and what

might motivate them to make that change.

Maybe they're just tired of it feeling hard.

They're tired of feeling overwhelmed.

And they want some solution, right?

If they're in that, they're collecting all

their tools.

They want a solution.

There is a motivation and a desire to

change. But what might prevent them from

making that change?

I would say you're probably going to face a

couple of things.

One, they're busy, which is why they're

having a hard time doing it to begin with.

And so that will also be something that

could be a barrier for them.

Or it might be that they haven't bought in

to mindset because they're so focused on the

tools and the skills.

And so at this point, really this is all

just a guess.

But these are things you can discover when

you spend time with your audience.

And this will give you the context.

You need.

Context is just one of the three CS, and

it's the only one we're going to explore

today. But when you use the three CS, you

can create the play by play for your

learners, and then they can get out on the

field with their team and win.

And really when you do this, when you focus

on these three CS, there is no limit to the

impact you can have.

You're doing important work.

You're a strategic partner to others in your

organization. You're helping people navigate

change and show up as their best selves

every day.

You're building the future leaders of your

organization. You're amplifying the work of

your nonprofit, accelerating its impact and

making a difference in communities around

the world. A couple of years ago, I created

a learning experience for a client.

We knew that postpartum death rates were too

high, and this organization was committed to

bringing those numbers down.

They saw doulas and midwives as the conduit

for this. So we set out to create a behavior

change. We needed them to build a great

relationship with their clients, and we

needed them to recognize urgent warning

signs in postpartum women.

We needed them to leverage the relationship

they were building to encourage their

clients to seek medical care.

And so we designed an experience to help

create this change.

A few months after we launched, we heard

from one of the learners.

She had done it.

She had recognized something that was going

on with her client, and she got her to seek

care. She was right.

She probably saved a life.

All because we were intentional about how we

designed that experience.

Do you want to have that kind of impact?

And that is what we have today.

I invite you to create that kind of impact.

Thank you, Carol, for this opportunity.

Carol Cox:
All right. Congratulations, Heather.

Well done.

Well done. Really. You did a great job with

that. And you know, here I'm going to ask

you a question. Then we'll open this up to

the roundtable. So first, Heather, how did

that feel delivering this ten minute version

of your talk for the first time?

Heather Burright:
Um, it felt fine.

I feel like I have I have shared pieces of

that, but never everything together.

So it felt good to do it.

Um, it feels really bad that the internet

isn't working great.

It's been a two week battle at my house,

but, um.

That's all right.

Yeah, well.

Carol Cox:
We manage, we manage. We can still see you.

It's okay. All right, so then let me ask you

this, Heather. So I know that when we work

together on your VIP day, clearly, because

you create trainings for a living, right?

That is that is your business.

That's the work that you do with the

nonprofits that you work with is you create

these training experiences for them.

So that I knew when we were working together

on your signature talk, that it would be

very easy for you to do a training for your

audience, conference, presentation, whatever

it happened to be. And so I knew we needed

to pull back and think about the bigger

thought leadership and what makes your

approach different.

And that's where in all my questions during

our time together was was deciding on the

three C's, the context, the change, the

community because and for the audience who

are watching and listening.

So this is what I want you to think about is

like, Heather's not there at the conference

to teach the audience how to create a

training. Like that's not her role.

Her role at that conference is to help the

audience see maybe where they're getting

stuck, maybe why things aren't working as

well as they could be, and what can make the

difference. And then obviously, why Heather

is the go to expert because she's still the

expert. Why?

Heather is the go to expert in her company

is to help them navigate that journey that

they want to for their learner population.

So then, Heather, so let me come back to

you. How did you feel when I suggested that

you open with that story about needing to

take iron and that habit not taking, you

know, not taking hold until that third

doctor that you saw?

Heather Burright:
Um, I mean, it felt it felt natural, I think,

in that, um, we use stories and training to

as, as a learning tool, but I hadn't really

figured out how to pull all the pieces

together. And so I knew that the story was

relevant. I wasn't sure how to, um, create

all those connections because I hadn't

really labeled my three CS.

I hadn't really thought through how all of

those pieces were connected.

So I knew it was a good example of behavior

change. I just didn't know exactly how to to

tie it together yet.

And that's really what you were so good at,

is helping us kind of frame, um, you know,

what are those stages or what are those, you

know, things that people are going to go

through the the steps and the process.

Um, and then connecting those dots so that

that story has a through line throughout

the, the talk.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. And, and this is why, when you think

about opening your talk for the three of you

here and for the rest of you listening is

you could start with audience questions.

You could start with a story I always like

to think about. Where is the audience at?

How can you get them not only interested in

your topic, but validate probably what

they're already experiencing?

And I know all of us have tried to form new

habits, and we probably have been successful

at some have failed at others.

And so right away I'm like, oh yes, like I,

I'm there, I'm there with you, Heather,

because I have probably been in a similar

situation. And so now I even though I don't

do anything with L and D in that industry

like you do. I'm still interested enough in

your topic to to want to listen to the rest

of it. All right. So let's open it up to the

rest of you, Nelly. Let me bring you in.

You can unmute yourself.

Tell us a little bit about what the

experience was like for you going through

the Thought Leader Academy.

Nelly Some:
You know, when I came to the Thought Leader

Academy, as much as I'm so successful on

other businesses, I wasn't really I didn't

know that I had, um, the courage or the, you

know, or the material rather, or the

confidence to become a motivational speaker.

I used to talk to people a lot, to my to my

staff and all business acquaintances.

But in, in terms of just inspiring people, I

used to do that on one on one, but really on

this level of motivational, motivational

speaker with your training.

Carol, thank you so much.

Because now not only do I have confidence on

doing it, um, um, you know, in front of

bigger crowd. But I also have the I'm

confident about my material, but I can now

even stick to my script because I'm coming

from Africa. Trust me.

I remember when we started Carol, I was

giving you a story like almost two hours

now. I know you always told me, Nelly, you

know, try to, you know, and you taught me

how to navigate, to really stick on my

script and really realize what kind of

audience to to really talk to, to identify

their audience. So thank you so much.

I couldn't have done better than that.

So thank you for you.

And of course, thank you for all the

supportive women on this, on the on this

program that have really supported me along

the way. Wendy, thank you so much.

And Heather.

Carol Cox:
Fantastic. Nelly and Wendy, let me ask you

what is next for you as a speaker and as a

thought leader?

Wendy McManus:
What's next? I can frame up by kind of

looking back.

As I've been on stages in the past, I've

always been in that teacher expert space.

And so that's really what why I joined

Thought Leader Academy.

And the big shift that I made was figuring

out how to take my big idea and craft it

into a talk.

So what's next for me is refining that talk

and getting out there and starting to pitch

it. I live in Orlando.

There are loads of opportunities here.

I just have to go out and make it happen and

and find them.

Carol Cox:
Yes, I know you are ready for keynote

opportunities. You are excellent at

workshops and all the conference sessions

that you have done, and I know you provide

so much value to your audience and I, I'm

excited to see you as a keynote speaker,

gracing bigger and bigger stages as time

goes on. Me too, me too.

All right. And, Heather, what about you?

What's next for you as a speaker and thought

leader?

Heather Burright:
I have a couple of things I want to continue

refining in my talk.

Um, there's a couple of things I want to

build out a little bit more in the community

section, because I think the relationship

piece, the social influence piece is a huge

part of someone's success with behavior

change. So I want to do that and then I will

be pitching it to conferences as well.

Carol Cox:
All right. Fantastic. And Nellie, I know that

you are on track to be an incredible

motivational speaker.

Audiences are going to love to hear your

stories and your lessons, so I'm excited for

them to do that. And Nellie and Wendy are

actually going to be at our in-person

speaking workshop that we're holding as of

the date of this recording in mid-October in

Orlando, Florida. So it'll be great to meet

them in person.

For the rest of you who are watching and

listening, if you would like to join us in

the Thought Leader Academy so you can

develop your thought leadership message,

create your signature talk, and learn the

business of speaking, you can get all of the

details and join us at Speaking Your

brand.com/academy. Again, that's speaking

your brand.com/academy.

And be sure to connect with Wendy, Heather

and Nellie on LinkedIn.

All their links to LinkedIn and to their

websites are in the show notes for the

podcast episode. If you're listening to this

later on the podcast.

Of course, if you're listening to this on

LinkedIn live, you can connect with them

right there on LinkedIn.

Wendy. Heather, Nelly, thank you so much for

joining us today on our backstage with

Speaking Your Brand. Congratulations again

on the debut of your signature talks, and I

can't wait to see what's next for you.

If you two would like to develop your

thought leadership message and framework,

create your signature talk.

Learn the business of speaking, practice

your delivery and join us on a LinkedIn

live. We do all those things with you in

small group calls, as well as a one on one

VIP day and our Thought Leader Academy.

Get all of the details, including pricing

and how you can join us at speaking your

brand.com/academy. Again, that's speaking

your brand.com/academy.

Until next time.

Thanks for listening.