Episode 427: Lisa Nichols: The Art and Science of Impactful Communication + Audience Connection Techniques

Speaker 1 Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

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Speaker 2 So, today on the podcast, we have the incredible Lisa Nichols. You guys, I am not kidding you.
This woman, when she speaks, it is next level. You really are.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Like, when, like, the word motivational speaker is such an overused, stupid hashtag.

Speaker 2 It's, it's horrible.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 2 I hate using it. I hate saying it.
I hate these like trendy, hashtaggy words. Right.

Speaker 2 But, like, I don't even know the euphemism to describe what you talk about because I can go through and I don't ever do this But the reason why I even like was so like adamant to get Lisa on this show is thank you for your persistency like how can I not be is because whenever I saw like randomly one time I was on YouTube and something that you did showed up just randomly and it was so powerful and so good It was this clip that you were talking about like someone's perception of you

Speaker 2 is none of your business and that I was like wow and the way it's not even what you said it's how you said it right was so powerful the conviction the conviction the tone the body language everything about your speaking just like hooked me and i went down that that rabbit hole about you and i'm like oh my god i need to meet this woman because she is like literally the real deal because in a world and you know this i do most people are not the real there's zero authenticity in a world that's supposed to be authentic they market well.

Speaker 2 It's all marketing.

Speaker 1 They market well.

Speaker 2 But there's, there's like no substance and there's no depth at all. Yeah.
So, which is why I, I'm so happy you're on the show.

Speaker 1 Everyone's snorkeling and you want a scuba dive.

Speaker 2 Again, another perfect. This is, you, this, you should just write a book of great analogies.

Speaker 1 This is, yeah. So

Speaker 2 this before we even go into anything, like, have you always had this gift of wordsmithing and creating these super impactful ways to resonate and impact people.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I needed to discover Lisa first. First of all, I just have to start and pay homage to you.
No. Thank you for showing up, searching for authenticity.

Speaker 1 Thank you for being hungry for something deeper than surface because it allows us unicorns.

Speaker 1 to find each other and go,

Speaker 1 okay, oxygen, you know, water, realness. So thank you, because it gets lonely in the universe

Speaker 1 and amongst, you know, I always say, listen, I woke up a unicorn. I just take my horn off and act like a horse so y'all don't feel so uncomfortable in my presence.

Speaker 1 And so when you get around another unicorn, you're like, oh, okay, hold on. Let me screw my horn back on so we can just sit and have a real conversation.
So, no, I wasn't always that.

Speaker 1 What you, what you resonate with is the awareness of the work I had to do to get to my level of certainty because you know you've been on that journey yourself.

Speaker 1 And so it's the, we have a soul connection of similarity that we haven't talked about yet. It's a natural draw.
It's the pheromones of authenticity. It's just that thing thing, right?

Speaker 1 And so I can't say I've always been this way because I was busy trying to at one point get my own oxygen.

Speaker 1 I was busy at one point trying to affirm that I was worthy of having a message like the one you saw, even in my mocha skin with my full lips and my round hips hips and my kinky hair in a world that didn't say i was beautiful i had to discover and accept me and then give myself permission to have a voice of value that was a journey i wasn't overnight which is why my conviction is unshakable because i fought for this clarity this clarity ain't for sale it ain't for bargain it ain't for marketing i'm not doing it for likes which is what makes people like it

Speaker 1 seem like she's not she not asking permission to be her and we all want that even those who are trying to market the next gimmick they would they wish they can get up one morning and just discover themselves i do i do believe that and so my job in whatever way i can in my most humble way is to give examples of what i've discovered as possible and then to still learn too so well you just said something at the beginning which was all the cool i want to talk about this on the podcast that you came from really humble beginnings humble i mean and that's and that's say and that's like being polite that's right putting it nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I got to say, I have an amazing mom and an incredible dad.
And so on the outside, you look at me and, you know, we kind of like the black Brady bunch.

Speaker 1 You know, like there wasn't a lot of chaos in our house. We had the dog and we had the white picket fence and we had the great family.

Speaker 1 But I lived in South Central LA and I had three fights a week to get home from school. And at a very early age, I lived in fight or flight.
When I left my house, it was chaotic.

Speaker 1 And in my home, it was safe, but I had to leave my house every day. And so I grew up in this energy of worry and anxiety.

Speaker 1 And then when I had my son years later, my son's father went to prison when he was five, eight months old. And that took me on a spiral.

Speaker 1 And I wish it didn't, but I had spent all of my high school years and my late middle school years avoiding relationships because I didn't want to get tethered to the neighborhood. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Real talk.

Speaker 2 Wait, what did your husband go to jail for?

Speaker 1 My husband, not my father. Or your father.
Or my son's father. I don't know.
What's funny is people often ask that. And what I said to him when we were dating is, there's a calling on my life.

Speaker 1 I'm not clear what it is, but I can feel it. So I know we both are born and raised in L.A., but I keep my nose clean here.
And if you are to go to jail for anything, you're on your own.

Speaker 1 I don't do jail. I'm not a jailhouse girlfriend.
So trust me when I say I'm going to keep my promise. You go in, you're on your own.

Speaker 1 So I am honest with you when I tell you, I don't know because when it happened, I needed to live my life and continue going in the direction that I knew my life was supposed to go in.

Speaker 1 So my son is 30 and my son's father is still in prison. And my son's father, I have to say, is a brilliant man because he's authored 26 now, 26 books from prison.
26.

Speaker 1 His first seven books were authored before I authored my first book. So it is not for lack of awareness and brilliance.
It's environment, environment and influence.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the three strikes law didn't start out fair, but it made it easy to put people away. So I say all that to say, I have this pile of reasons for me to feel shame, blame,

Speaker 1 regret, anger, fear. And then on top of that, I end up having to get on government's assistance to take care of my son.

Speaker 1 And so now I have back in the day, back in the day when you had food stamp booklets, I got my food stamp booklets.

Speaker 1 I got my WIC card, WIC, women, infant, and children, free cheese, free pasta, free butter. I will forever be grateful for those programs, but I always had shame because I needed them.

Speaker 1 And so when you look at Lisa, who she is today, this was a radical decision, girl, to to go hold on my past does not equal my future and this chapter is not the end of my story and no one else holds the pen to write my story but me and though chapter four is funky and messy baby chapter 24 is still coming and that's what you felt when you saw me and that's what i try to give every time i open my mouth because someone's in their chapter four or they're 14 or they're 20 wherever you are in your chapter, let's make the next one delicious, even more so than the last one, even if it were messy.

Speaker 1 Because at the end of our life, Jennifer, I believe we want to sit back and read our story. We want to share our story with someone else.

Speaker 1 And when they're reading, because this is what it feels like for me, someone's reading the story when I only had $11.42 in the bank.

Speaker 1 Someone's reading that story of when I was at the ATM at 7-11 in Englewood. Right, right.
Someone's reading that story of when I didn't have money to buy pampers for Jelani.

Speaker 1 So I had to wrap my son in a towel of various towels for two days. That's messy.
You got one job as a parent. Protect your baby.

Speaker 1 When someone reads that story, Jennifer, I want to be able to sit back and go, keep reading.

Speaker 2 That's such a good.

Speaker 1 Stop being.

Speaker 2 See, this is what I'm saying. Like, you're the best story.
Like, like, this is what I mean, though. This is your gift.

Speaker 2 Like, your storytelling is a gift because that can happen to lots of people, but they don't have the ability to the like you, you're, you're a great orator.

Speaker 2 So, you must have had at the, let's go back to all those years ago. What was the first step into being like, okay, I'm not going to play, I'm not going to be a victim.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to allow my past to dictate my present or my future. What did you, did you, did you have like an inkling or did you know that you had a talent in this where you like went in

Speaker 1 what was like your maybe the evolution of how you became yeah but you you obviously went from here a to z yeah what was the yeah yeah what was a to b i get it sis there's no way i would keep you hostage and not showing you that middle point yeah and for years i didn't know how to articulate it just so you know so i'm grateful that we're here now because for years people have been telling me and when i say people like people whose books we read as young adults, you know, the first time I was told by someone I admired that I had a gift, it was Jack Canfield.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Right.
So just go straight to the top, right? Yeah. And he.

Speaker 2 How did he know? How did he meet you?

Speaker 1 So I was at a conference that I borrowed money to go to. Like I like sold everything I could.
And if it wasn't nailed down, I sold it to be able to afford this entrepreneur's conference.

Speaker 1 And I could barely, like, I couldn't spell entrepreneur, right? But I'm like, I think that's me.

Speaker 2 How many years ago were we talking?

Speaker 1 We are talking 28. Okay.
You know how you measure things by the age of my child.

Speaker 1 He was two. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So it was 28 years ago.

Speaker 1 I'm late 20s, early 30s, and I'm just, I'm late 20s. And

Speaker 1 I know I have something in me. I could feel it.
And I would do things in LA. Like when this 1992 civil unrest occurred, when LA was burning down, and I was an activist.
I would get in the streets.

Speaker 1 I was ignorance on fire. I didn't know what I was fighting for, but we're going to fight the system.

Speaker 1 And I remember being in a march and I was fighting for them not to provide loans to the liquor store owners to rebuild liquor stores in the community, that instead build grocery stores.

Speaker 1 That was my first thing. Like, don't build another liquor store on another corner.
Build a grocery store. So that was my first thing.
And I'm I'm no more liquor stores, no more liquor stores.

Speaker 1 And the organizer of this march down Western Boulevard noticed me and then gives me the bullhorn. No more liquor stores.
I'm like, okay, I got this. Then the organizer's boss puts me up on the truck.

Speaker 1 And now I'm on the truck. By the time we get to the rally, the councilman knows that I'm leading.
I don't know how I'm leading this march. I started seeing this happening over and over again.

Speaker 1 Sometimes your gifts will reveal themselves to others before you're clear on them.

Speaker 1 Because I still had all my self-doubt. I still am dealing with the fact that at 25, I discovered that I'm functionally dyslexic.
So my 12 years in school, my 12 years in school was hell. I bet.

Speaker 1 So I wasn't building on this great self-esteem experience. My math teacher at Dorsey High School gave me a D to pass me in math because he said I was nice.
I took the D.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. That's how much I struggle.
So here I am academically struggling my entire life, not knowing that I'm flipping all my words. So I'm not building this on, I see a gift in me.

Speaker 1 My first year, well, let me not mislead you, my first and my last year in college, I got a fail in English.

Speaker 1 And my English teacher said in front of the entire classroom, Lisa, you have to be the weakest writer I've ever met in my entire life. And at 19, to me, she was really old.
She was like 42.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 She was a fossil.

Speaker 1 That same year, and I'm only telling this so you can understand what I had to climb over.

Speaker 1 My speech teacher that same year said, Miss Nichols, quote unquote, I recommend you never speak in public, that you get a desk job, and gave me a D.

Speaker 1 So I didn't see, because I kept saying, I'm not, it can't, I can't be this good. And so as I began to open up, I went to this conference and I'm at this conference and I'm sharing a poem with someone.

Speaker 1 and the CEO of the conference is standing within earshot and looks at me, a woman. She says, would you like to share that poem on stage?

Speaker 1 And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 And I shared the poem on stage. Now, mind you, there are 800 people in the audience.
760 at least are older white men. My scary person for me.

Speaker 1 Older white men represented the educational system that wasn't kind to me and the justice system that wasn't kind to me, or anyone I knew.

Speaker 1 So, I'm in front of my scary, hairy person, and I do the poem, and I see people doing this. And I'm wondering, I see a lot of this, and I wonder, what's falling from the sky? Like, what's happening?

Speaker 1 Only to find out later, those were tears. First sign of the superpower.
Then Jack Canfield comes to this event and he sees it.

Speaker 1 He begins to tell me, You got a gift, and I would not accept it. I can't tell you how long it took me to accept the fact that this was worthy of focusing on so that I can help you.

Speaker 1 My gift can be your skill set. It took me years.
I was at dinner once with Jack and he said, I wish I could know that I can inspire people the way you do. I said, oh, Jack.
He goes, no, no, no, Lisa.

Speaker 1 I'd give my pinky finger to know I can do what you do versus wondering if I'm doing it. And I went, really? He goes, I would.

Speaker 1 And so I went in a cave and I said, God, show me what I'm doing because I don't want to die with this in my belly. I don't want to be the only one to move and inspire people to be unforgettable.

Speaker 1 I'm not, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I don't want to be an anomaly. There's no, to me, there's no grandioso in being an anomaly.

Speaker 1 Like, I think that what I do, as many of us as possible should be doing it, because quite frankly, I'm bored with everyone intellectually trying to tell me what they know, but no one's moving my soul.

Speaker 1 Stir my soul, expand my diaphragm, take my breath away. Right.
Make me want to stand on my tippy toes when you finish speaking. I wanted to give that.

Speaker 1 And so to answer your question, I went away and I began to look at what I was doing every single time. Nothing was planned, but what was I doing?

Speaker 1 And then quite honestly, I looked at Nelson Mandela and then I looked over at Dr. Martin Luther King.
And then I looked at Mahatma Gandhi. And then I looked at Mother Teresa.

Speaker 1 I looked at people who were movement makers. I don't want to make a moment.
And I don't want to to have a nice speech. I want to ignite a movement if I can in this lifetime.

Speaker 1 So I looked at people who were movement makers. What charged them? And then I began to write it down and I put it in a framework.
And for the last five years,

Speaker 1 only five years of my 28 years of teaching, that's what I've been teaching. How to be unforgettable.

Speaker 2 So give me the first couple things.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 How does someone become unforgettable?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So number one, seek first to inspire, not to impress.

Speaker 2 That's amazing. It's true.

Speaker 1 It's your come from space. So I'm not going to give you a technique to do.
I'm going to give you an essence to be. And if you're willing to be that, now you're ready for the technique.

Speaker 2 So let's say someone comes to you or they're listening to you and they have no idea where to pull that from.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Absolutely.
So

Speaker 1 I started in transformational training. So that's my foundation's transformational training.
So whenever our students step on our campus, they think they're going through speaking only,

Speaker 1 but you're going through self-discovery. That if you discover more of you, then you'll give me more of you.
Right. You can only give me what you have and you know you have.

Speaker 1 So number one, your to-do list is long. People like you, your to-do list is long, but your to-done list, T-A-D-U-N, to-done list, it's a lot longer.
What in your to-done list?

Speaker 1 can you give yourself credit for? Just sit in that for a moment. Things that people will never see that you did.

Speaker 1 The way you love the proseemingly unlovable, the way you forgive the proceedingly unforgivable, the way you get up in the dark of the night, who you have to be in the dark of the night to show up as who you are in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 I said that once to Angela Bassett at an event. I hugged her and I said, thank you, sis, for who you have to be in the dark of the night to show up the way you do.
in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 And she pushed me away. She goes, girl, don't you make me cry here

Speaker 1 because we all all know what that feels like. And so first is, can't you acknowledge you? Three sentences will help you.
Number one, get in the mirror.

Speaker 1 Look at yourself in the eyes and say, I'm, I'm proud that you and find seven different answers. Even if you say, I'm proud that you got up today and brushed your teeth.

Speaker 1 I'm proud that you walked away from an unhealthy friendship. I'm proud that you put the bread down and picked up some broccoli.
Baby steps, but celebrate you. Second sentence.

Speaker 1 Now I'm answering your question. How do you get to that person? There's a way to get to them.
Second question. Cut the shackles.
Second sentence, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Cut the shackles to shame, blame, guilt, regret, and anger as it is attached to you by completing this sentence. Look at yourself.
Say your name. I said my name, Lisa.

Speaker 1 I forgive you for eye to eye with self. And when I first said it, the first thing I said, now this was 20,

Speaker 1 1997, the first time I did this, I said, Lisa, I forgive you for being so lonely that you lowered your bar. Real talk.

Speaker 1 Lisa, I forgive you for being so afraid of being alone again that you let them stay. Lisa, I forgive you for finding solace in food.

Speaker 1 Lisa. I forgive you for forgetting your value.
Real talk. Now, the first time I did it, you couldn't understand what I was saying.
It sounded more like, Lisa,

Speaker 1 you unrecognized, but I was just talking to me anyway. Right.

Speaker 1 Third and final sentence. We're so comfortable making commitments to other people and keeping those commitments to them before we keep our commitments to ourselves.

Speaker 1 So the last sentence is, I commit to you that.

Speaker 1 Before I made a commitment to anybody else, before you make a commitment to anybody else in the bathroom mirror, right before you brush your teeth, go through all three of these.

Speaker 1 The last one is, I I commit to you that. And my first commitments were, Lisa, I commit to you that today, I'll think more happy thoughts about you, more nice thoughts about you than negative.

Speaker 1 And Lisa, I commit to you that today you'll only say yes when you want to say yes. And you'll say no when you need to say no.
So to answer your question, there are ways to the journey back to you.

Speaker 1 I did those three sentences every day for six months. Now I recommend my students do them every day for 30 days at least.
And if you want to go further, go further.

Speaker 1 But that helps you get connected with who you're going to give to the world. Because you have to be deeper in you, scuba dive, so you can give me more of you.
So I can see more of me when I see you.

Speaker 2 But a lot of people that you see, they're not able to do that right away, I would imagine, right? There's a lot of blockages, right? Because of like we should go back one, right?

Speaker 2 Because of self-doubt, because of the fear, because of all of these things. So, like, that's a great way to kind of tell people to start, like, that's an action-oriented thing, right?

Speaker 2 Baby, it's a big baby step.

Speaker 2 Is that also how people can start overcoming their

Speaker 2 self-doubt and beginning to feel confident? I guess, could they start feeling confident in that way?

Speaker 1 More certain. More certain.
Over certain overconfident. Right.
So

Speaker 1 self-doubt, worry, fear, energy grows where energy goes so if we put energy on self-doubt worry and fear we're just growing that 100 so if we do these three things that will begin to dissipate right so every time you say i'm proud that you you're looking at your to-done list you're collecting evidence right so if you do this There's a reason why it's, I'm proud that you, I forgive you for, I commit to you that.

Speaker 1 It's a reason why it's those three sentences. Right.
Because they help you build more certainty in self. They help help you go, oh, I actually am okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, I am not my past. My past makes me who I am.
It's not who I am today. It's not my future.
And so I say jump into that, even if I say seven different endings every day for all three sentences.

Speaker 1 But on day one, you may have two. Right.
You may have two. On day one, you may just stare at yourself.
When's the last time? You gave yourself the gift of just looking into your eyes in the mirror.

Speaker 1 Like I, I did all of my messages in the mirror in the bathroom first. I saw myself.
I spoke to me first.

Speaker 1 Do you know that when I'm on YouTube sometimes, and sometimes it's very strange because I pop up on YouTube in my own and you're looking at yourself.

Speaker 1 Do you know I listen, but I don't listen as I'm the deliverer of the message. I listen as the woman that the message popped up in front of.

Speaker 1 And I'm sitting there sobbing, completely disconnected from the fact that it's me talking. Because right now I'm going, God, what in this message did you bring to me that I need right now?

Speaker 2 Well, you said something that's interesting because I, I, when I was watching your stuff and even you said it now when you were talking about the seven things that you say to yourself, like, why did I, you know, it's okay, you, you forgive yourself for this and you forgive yourself for that.

Speaker 2 Because you said that you were in like this abusive relationship, right?

Speaker 2 Which is an interesting thing to say because I saw this video once that you did about your your father taking you on your first date. It was a great video, by the way.

Speaker 2 Again, this is like what you're, this is the power of you, Lisa, because everything that you do, maybe it's just, I can't imagine, it's not obviously just me, it's everybody, but it lands so hard.

Speaker 2 Like he took you on your first date to show you. Well, you tell the story.
You're way better than I am.

Speaker 2 But I love listening that it, it so this is why, this is why I felt like I felt like this was really powerful is because you said that, and I'm paraphrasing, but your dad took you when you're 12 or 12 you're 10 years old or 11 years old on on a dinner date to the marina to the marina del Rey yep and he said to you afterwards something like you know you had a beautiful dinner everything he treated you nicely he was beautiful napkin whatever napkin opened the car door open everything opened the car door was very chivalrous was very was very gentlemanlike and he said now lisa this is how you should be this is now that you've had your first date this is how you should be treated what was the and and then it goes, he said, this is how you get to be treated.

Speaker 1 And now you choose how you'll be treated. But I wanted to show you how you get to be treated.
And

Speaker 2 you're going to watch the clip because I butchered it.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry. No, no, no.
It was so great to hear you reflect on it. I haven't done it in years.
So it's so old, but this is how long I've been trying to get you on the show. Oh my gosh.
I'm so glad.

Speaker 1 Thank you for your persistency. So yeah, so how does that happen? And then I look

Speaker 1 end up, I end up in an abusive relationship.

Speaker 2 Well, this is what, could you keep on making these references that you did grow up really nicely? You had,

Speaker 2 you know, you maybe didn't grow up in a wonderful area and you were on food stamps. However, you had a nice family.

Speaker 1 Amazing family.

Speaker 2 A great dad, a great mom.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so you don't have the

Speaker 2 typical

Speaker 1 foundation to fumble into that.

Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.
And then your dad even showed you how you should be treated. Yeah.
And then what was like, how did you allow yourself to become like someone who was in this terrible relationship?

Speaker 1 Yeah. The first thing I forgave myself for in the mirror was, I forgive you for being so lonely that you lowered your bar.
And I didn't see it coming.

Speaker 1 I wasn't in an abusive relationship that was at all, had any indication that abuse was coming. It just hit one time and that was enough for me, but it hit one time and came out of left field.

Speaker 1 But I'm sure somewhere underneath three layers, there was a sign. It just wasn't the natural signs that we know as signs, raising your voice or being a little overbearing.
None of that.

Speaker 1 My, at the time, my abuse of former fiancée was chivalrous and gentlemanly. And all the way up to the abuse, people were asking, does he have a brother? Like all the way up.

Speaker 1 No one said, get away from that guy. No one said that.
And so I didn't see any signs because I didn't know that it came in a package package of perfection looking like marketing perfection.

Speaker 1 And then after dinner one night and after having an amazing evening, after, you know, intimacy, I went to sleep and I woke up with his hands wrapped around my throat with no argument, with no discord, with no, no indication of what was going to happen.

Speaker 1 And from that moment forth, I was with him three months, for three months after that, because I was navigating my way out of the relationship without being in a body bag.

Speaker 1 I knew if I gave him a reason, I knew in the pit of my belly that I would leave that house in a body bag. And so I negotiated myself out of that relationship very creatively.

Speaker 1 And it was the fight for my life, which showed me how I could fight. Number one.
And it showed me how I needed to be aware of my blind spots.

Speaker 1 And it also was the catalyst of me being diagnosed as clinically depressed. And that was the catalyst of me getting in the mirror.
I had lost Lisa. I lost Lisa in being his fiancé.

Speaker 1 I lost Lisa in having to embrace and swallow that I was now an abused woman with all of my history with my amazing Superman dad

Speaker 1 and my Wonder Woman mom.

Speaker 1 How did I get here?

Speaker 1 So I love that you asked that question

Speaker 1 because I asked myself that question only 9,000 times. And the only way I could navigate my way back to Lisa was to get in the mirror and to complete these three sentences seven different ways.

Speaker 1 every single day for six months straight to go somewhere in this debris of pain and this debris of guilt, hurt, and shame, anger, and resentment,

Speaker 1 she still exists.

Speaker 1 Let me go get her. And I put on my hat, turned on my door, the explorer light,

Speaker 1 and I went after me.

Speaker 1 And for the next, now it's been 28 years, I always give that same exercise to people as either your starting point or to ramp you up. I give the same exercise.
It's the starting point, mirror work.

Speaker 1 Because if you can start in the mirror, we can go anywhere.

Speaker 2 That's great. Because, you know, I think hope is so important, right? Like, and so many people, if they don't have hope, then that's when they really are lost.
How did you maintain hope?

Speaker 2 Or how do you tell people to hold on and have hope? Because I think a lot of people, when they feel hopeless, there's no

Speaker 2 going back. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I love that question.

Speaker 1 I really like it. Really? Thank you.
I like you.

Speaker 1 I like where you play. I like where you live.
Thank you. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I love gentlemen in the world.

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 1 I like, I always pray when I'm going into an interview that they'll ask me the real questions.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 don't

Speaker 1 try to make it stay neat. Yeah, no, because people are looking for real

Speaker 1 over neat.

Speaker 1 I agree. Yeah, hope is priceless and no hope is costly.
And your question was, how do I

Speaker 1 help

Speaker 1 people

Speaker 2 to when they're really like hopeless?

Speaker 1 Like I know a lot of people who are like in the outside, they seem great, right?

Speaker 2 But they have no hope because they feel trapped. They feel stuck.

Speaker 2 They don't have the means and they don't have, they don't think they have the means. They don't think they have the support to kind of get out of their own way.

Speaker 2 And so they stay doing something that they don't want to be doing.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it takes somebody who has a lot of self-worth. Yeah.
Not self-confidence. Self-confidence is a diff is very different than self-worth.

Speaker 2 You can have self-confidence and be confident in one thing, but have really bad self-worth and then

Speaker 2 let your life just kind of flail.

Speaker 2 So that, I think that to me is, you know, I don't know. When people feel hopeless, I think that's when, I think that's when people really kind of go down a bad place.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So how do you inspire people to feel like, A, that it's not over till it's over, that they're not alone, that this is just chapter five in a chapter book that's 30 chapters. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like all the things things that you've done. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I appreciate that question because I think you're reflecting on what my whole life has been. Right.
You know,

Speaker 1 I just did a one woman show on Broadway. Yeah, it's crazy.
You did? I did. I know.
It's the best kept secret. When? In December of 2024.
It was a sold out show.

Speaker 1 690 seats, not one seat open in the house. It was on Broadway.
By the way, I never, ever even have on any vision board that I'd be doing a one woman show on Broadway. Wow.

Speaker 1 And I only say this to share that on during that show,

Speaker 1 I told the stories. You would enjoy it.

Speaker 1 I may tell you about one of them. I'm not sharing it again because it was storytelling.
All I did was just theatrically told one story after another on the journey of Lisa.

Speaker 1 And I was able to full on live in the theatrical for the first time. I've never done that before.

Speaker 1 So freaking cool.

Speaker 2 I bet it was, I bet you were, it was excellent.

Speaker 1 So freaking cool. Like I was a little girl.
But I say that to say, when I look at that, I look back at, it was just a journey of constantly keeping hope, giving hope, keeping hope, giving hope.

Speaker 1 So the reason why you make me think about that, because I was like, what was all I, all I've been, all I, all I've stood for is don't give up hope. And if you do, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Let's pick it back up again. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So we don't have to write a 30-chapter book. What I would tell someone who's in that hopeless place to pick up hope again is: let's just write the next line.

Speaker 1 Let's not pick up the shovel. Let's pick up a teaspoon.
And we can pick up a teaspoon. Let's not take a deep breath.
Let's just go

Speaker 1 for now.

Speaker 1 Finding what you can do next. And let's hold on to the, at the end of your life, when you look back, what do you want your dash to have said?

Speaker 1 And have we said it all yet? And if we haven't, then it ain't over. It might be hard.
It might be messy, but it ain't over.

Speaker 1 And you might need to walk 10,000 miles, but you only need to take one more step. That's it.

Speaker 1 One step today.

Speaker 1 Can we take one step? I think what I've mastered is helping people take one more breath and one more step and go, huh, let me sit in that for a minute.

Speaker 1 Now let me take one more breath and one more step. I think so often we're watching someone else trying to run their race, trying to fly their their way.

Speaker 1 And Benjamin Franklin said it best, comparison is and will be the thief of all your joy. What saved me, Jennifer, was that I wasn't trying to live Dr.
Michael Beckwith's story.

Speaker 1 I wasn't trying to live Bob Proctor's story.

Speaker 1 I wasn't trying to live Tony Robbins' story or Les Brown's story or Jet Campbell's story, anyone else's story that I was put in the beautiful bucket with them. I'm grateful for the bucket I'm put in.

Speaker 1 I'm grateful for the people I call my circle. But man, you will not catch me up in trying to run their race.

Speaker 2 You know, it's interesting when you're you're talking, and I just realized, I mean, I've realized this before too, is that there are not many women who do this well.

Speaker 2 I'm being, and I'm being totally, like, I have this conversation with a lot of my friends because, and as you're talking again, it's like, even the ones you named, right? They do it very well.

Speaker 2 Why is that? And I mean, it's the truth. Like, I don't know many besides you.

Speaker 2 There are women who are doing it, but they're doing it in a very vanilla, in my opinion, very vanilla way that's not that inspiring. And they're not very good.

Speaker 2 It's like, and this is like a total tangent. But why is that? That there's not, I can't really point to any that I think are that good.

Speaker 1 Like they aren't a storytelling.

Speaker 1 Truth be said.

Speaker 2 No, it's true because think about it, right? Like if you think about like storytelling and all that creativity, all that emotion, you would think that.

Speaker 1 Soul-stirring storytelling.

Speaker 2 Soul, exactly. Fire igniting don't fire igniting

Speaker 2 soul wrenching actually you would think from what we've been told that it's much more a women centric world but yet women are not in that in this space able to to really make it land have you not noticed this oh girl right it's not let me just say it's been lonely it's um like if i were to ask you in your world don't ask me i'm gonna have have to.

Speaker 2 Could you name all the good men?

Speaker 2 Name one woman that you'd be like, you know, she's great at this.

Speaker 1 Do not put me.

Speaker 2 Because like she's really inspirational. She's really someone that I think does this really well.
Can you name one?

Speaker 1 That is in this industry.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in this industry who is, and I hate that word motive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, don't. I'm not sure.
Transformational, self-development, personal development.

Speaker 2 Personal development. Okay, let's just go with personal development, okay?

Speaker 1 It's a much more generic you know that's an unfair question because you know you know i have girlfriends in this industry that okay so but i i mean i've right i get it i've met a bazillion okay as i'm sort of

Speaker 2 there there's i don't think i've met one that's like honestly amazing great not even amazing that good can you name one just one i'm not asking for more than one right

Speaker 2 just one

Speaker 1 oh

Speaker 1 we'll be back after this commercial break.

Speaker 2 You can't think either. See? You can't, right?

Speaker 1 I know some beautiful souls that are getting stronger because they recognize that there's a gap. And I can say this.

Speaker 1 No, I cannot answer to the level in which you're looking because you're looking at probably for them to touch. And there's some level of resemblance to where to, I only know my marker.
Well, okay.

Speaker 1 I only know my marker. And no, I don't.
But let me just say this.

Speaker 1 Quite honestly, I don't don't know a lot of dudes who do it either.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying dudes are that great either.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 But I will say, if I were to count on my hand, there's more guys that I feel who are

Speaker 2 like, who are closer than the women.

Speaker 2 And in fact, actually, I know this to be true in other ways because other places that are hiring, they're looking for women because there's like all these big organizations and they're like, we can't always bring in men.

Speaker 2 Like they're trying to find, they can't find, what they can find for women are women who are talking about fighting, like who are business-oriented.

Speaker 1 You're right. No, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 So let me give you a bit of why I believe it to be so. Okay.

Speaker 2 I know this is a total, because as you're talking, you're so impactful. It's like, there's nobody.
I'm just thinking about it again.

Speaker 1 It's been lonely. Yeah.
And I,

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 my mouth to your ears, any woman who wants to become unforgettable speaking, I want to coach them because it's been lonely.

Speaker 2 But isn't it good for business that you're the only, like there's not many? Or people don't really, I think more people. They don't even know.

Speaker 1 They don't even know that I, they don't even know, they don't even know that you exist. They don't even know that I, they don't know that what I do is available for them to learn.

Speaker 1 They, a lot of people make me, make me an anomaly, which I respect my individuality. I respect that how people say you're the goat.

Speaker 1 Do you know they called me a goat for years and I was like, what is that? Really?

Speaker 2 You are for sure.

Speaker 1 I didn't know what a goat was. Really? What made me feel good is that Merle Street was called a goat and she didn't know what the goat was.
Exactly. So you're in good company again.

Speaker 1 I was like, Why would they say that about me? I'm a goat. And then someone said what it was.
I respect that.

Speaker 1 But a part of it was, I didn't know how to teach it for a long time.

Speaker 1 It wasn't until Jack Canfield, J.J. Virgin, Vishnu Lakiani, Marcy Scheinhoff, many of the people who were very successful said, Can you please package what you do?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can do and show us how you do it they've made my friends in the industry said help make us better and then i finally sat down and i put together what i call the science of unforgettable speaking and i gave corny names to stuff that i do but i created it in such a way that i can show you the beginning middle and end of it and then I started teaching it and watching people get really really good at storytelling.

Speaker 2 So are they?

Speaker 1 Because I mean, yeah, no, there are people out there who are, they started with me at a three and now they're a six. They're not a 10 yet.
They're not a 10. They're not a 10 yet.

Speaker 1 So I want to be honest. They're not a 10 yet, but they have the skill sets now that can make them constantly get better.

Speaker 2 Okay, so this is the other question: skill versus talent in this area.

Speaker 2 Most other areas in the world, in anything else, in sports, for high performance, which is what I can, I'm involved with, I do a lot with, it's a lot of it's hard work, tenacity, practice.

Speaker 2 There are certain things, though, if that require talent and a lot of it, or else you're just, you can only get, you're, you can only get so far, right?

Speaker 2 Like, if you want to be a basketball player and you're five foot zero, you can practice all you want, right? But you're only going to, you're not going to be an NBA player, right?

Speaker 1 But Spud was good.

Speaker 2 Okay, but how many, okay, there's how many, how many,

Speaker 2 like, or Damon's daughter by is another one. He's like five foot two, not like maybe five foot eight.
But the point is, you'll never become, there's very few.

Speaker 1 There's a nun between you and LeBron Jack. Right.

Speaker 2 It's a major.

Speaker 2 There's a none of it.

Speaker 1 No, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 2 Like the hard work gets you so far. And I'm saying this because also a lot of people in my world, like, they'll talk and maybe they can have a really great speech.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it's a moment. Right.
I always say, turn your moment into a movement because everyone's creating great moments. And you said that earlier.
You started with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And while I'm honored that people will say, you're the LeBron, you're the Michael Jordan, you're the, you know, Kobe Bryant, where I am now in my life is I want to be Phil Jackson.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 I want you to really get this.

Speaker 1 If I watched you at a keynote nail it because you learned how to tell the story, you learned how to do audience connection, you know, learn how to do verbal highlights, you learn how to do cadence and iteration play, like all these techniques that I've created, I'm going to be so beaming on the front row.

Speaker 1 It's much more than I beam when I get off stage. Right.
When I'm off stage, I'm like, thank you so much. You get off stage and you nail it.
Oh, we about to throw you a party.

Speaker 1 That's where I am in my season. So let me give you a technique right now.
May I do that?

Speaker 1 Go ahead. Yes.

Speaker 1 Because I want to show you how the techniques, it's not magic. Yeah.
It's not magic. Now, I respect what you say and I agree.
Some of its essence. Right.
Like,

Speaker 1 I got faith. I got unwavering faith from my core.
I have done the work on me. So all of that, all that zhuzh, that comes from me.

Speaker 1 But I can give you the techniques that you couple with the personal development of self. And all of a sudden,

Speaker 1 you can become untouchable and unforgettable go ahead

Speaker 1 i want to hear so one technique is audience connection so many speakers the ones that you're referring to they're talking to an audience but they're not talking with an audience and it's difficult to talk with an audience if you don't know how to do it because the audience isn't talking so how do you turn a dialogue into a monologue without anyone else saying anything that's a technique in the science of speaking that i teach that's called audience connection formula there was a time when i doubted that i could build a multi-million dollar business we have a tendency to have a dream but then not know how to deliver the dream so we doubt ourselves has there ever been a time when you had a dream about something but didn't know how you do it yes all the time i just did the technique to you i just did it to you how

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 so let me just say it's smooth like butter y'all it's like a carry gold butter y'all who's your sponsor any sponsor that you it's like that tons it's like tons yeah it's tons no tons

Speaker 1 it's like sponsor like tons

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 i just did the technique but how okay so i know that's how

Speaker 1 okay so audience connection formula is the is bringing the audience along with you so first it's me then it's we then it's you i just did it to you there was a time when i

Speaker 1 go on we have a tendency to

Speaker 1 have you ever

Speaker 1 There was a time when I thought women were not going to be successful in this industry. We have a tendency as women sometimes to doubt ourselves because it's a male-dominated industry.

Speaker 1 Have you ever looked up and saw all men and said, where do we fit? It's perfect. I did it to you again.
Yes, it's amazing. Right.
So now I want you to do it.

Speaker 1 There was a time when I take me back to something that was before you this moment, a doubtful moment, a less than perfect moment. There was a time when I.

Speaker 1 Right now?

Speaker 1 Oh, God. There was a time when I just, there was a time when I doubted myself.
Okay.

Speaker 2 There was a time when I doubted myself. We have a tendency to be scared of failing.
So we don't make it, we don't, we don't even take a shot. Have you ever? Have you ever had that experience before?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. What you just did was you went back.
So most people, old school speaking, they're on top of the mountain saying, the atmosphere is good up here. Come join my atmosphere.

Speaker 1 No one's turned on by that anymore. We're a social community.
We want to climb together. So with the audience connection formula, you walk down the mountain.
There was a time when I. You grab my arm.

Speaker 1 We have a tendency to. and you walk up together.
Have you ever?

Speaker 2 That's a great tactic.

Speaker 1 Okay, give me another one. I have 16 of them.
Okay, and when, so, so good. Give me another one.
You want another one? I do. This is amazing.

Speaker 2 I'll hire you in a second. And by the way, okay, this is, this is totally true.
So, like, there's a lot of people who like have to talk, not because they want to talk,

Speaker 2 but they have to.

Speaker 1 So they want to be good at it.

Speaker 2 So you want to, and like, I'll talk for myself. There's been things that I, like speaking gigs that I was, you know, offered and I'm like, I don't want to do it because I'm bad at it.

Speaker 2 I'm scared of it. And therefore, I just won't do it.
I know.

Speaker 1 I know a lot of people like that.

Speaker 2 And I want to, and one more thing to that, since why not, is that.

Speaker 2 Even though like in my real life, I'm not shy or I'm super honest and real, like I'm not a, I'm not a fake or phony person, it doesn't necessarily translate when I'm on stage because I get nervous because I don't feel like I'm good at it.

Speaker 2 And I think a lot of people,

Speaker 2 but the the people who are really good at it, they're actually like the most disingenuous. They're not the, they're messed.
They're not real.

Speaker 2 They're not even good at it, but they became master marketers. Master marketers.
Or they have a great speech person who put, who gave them a great speech and they just practice it.

Speaker 1 I love serving people like you, which is why I'm probably the best kept secret because I don't go up and announce.

Speaker 2 I had no idea you even did this.

Speaker 1 I don't go and announce because all of, well, in addition to the you're in the world, all of the fake folk will run, consume me, throw lots of money at me.

Speaker 1 And I go, I really don't want to work with folk like you. Like I love helping great people uncover or build their superpowers.
So I always say the techniques I give you, they're a superpower.

Speaker 1 What you have to commit to me is you'll use your powers for good. Because here's what I could tell you.

Speaker 1 You learn these techniques and you don't even know why you're becoming like you can stand still and people begin to come to you. You don't have to pursue as much.

Speaker 2 Okay, give me another example.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Yeah, this is absolutely.
Yeah. So that first one is called audience connection formula.
Okay. Me, we, you.
Just fill in the blanks.

Speaker 1 There was a time when I, we have a tendency to, have you ever? That's it.

Speaker 2 I love that. Okay.

Speaker 1 Now you're climbing with them. Okay.
And then let's see another technique. Ah, I'll give you this one.
Okay. So we are a world of rhythm.
We love rhythm. We love music.

Speaker 1 When I was in Taipei, no one spoke English, but when they put on Beyonce, you should have put a ring on it, 3,300 people were singing, should have put a ring on it, right?

Speaker 1 Same thing when I was in Shenzhen, same thing when I was in Swahili. Music is a unifier, right?

Speaker 1 So if we use that as a premise, I want to introduce you to iteration and cadence flow, another technique that I use.

Speaker 1 And that's using words that start with the same letter, or end with the same ending, T-I-O-N, I-N-G, starts with the S or starts with a P or ends with the same word, up.

Speaker 1 And then you create a rhythm that the audience begins to lean into. You feel a little poetry, you feel a little like John Legend.
They don't quite know what's going on. So it sounds like this.

Speaker 1 It's time for us to speak up, stand up. You might want to show up.
You might want to get prayed up. It's time for us to rise up so that we as a community can hold up.
All All I did was use up.

Speaker 1 I'll use another one for you. We all deserve inspiration.
We need education. We got to go get our motivation.
We got to tap into our determination.

Speaker 1 You might feel some frustration, but don't worry about it because that has its own elimination. But you got to be willing.
You see?

Speaker 2 Of course I see. That's amazing.
But you, it comes like, it's like, it's easy for you. Right.
Nope.

Speaker 1 But my, my middle, my fourth quarter can be your first quarter. I see it all the time with my students.
If I gave you a list of words, I've seen it happen. I know this sounds crazy.

Speaker 1 I've had students never do this before. I give them the list.
See, what makes it seem magic now is that you don't see a list in front of me. I have it in my head.

Speaker 1 But if I gave you a list and I just set it in front of you, I said, okay, Jennifer, here are seven words. Just start talking.
You would be blown away by what you do. S's, up, I-O-N-T-I-N-G.

Speaker 1 And then what you begin to do is, as you're writing your own speech, you go, I want to play with T's.

Speaker 1 I want to play with mother. And you start playing with it.
All of a sudden, you realize now, most people are playing here.

Speaker 1 If this was the piano and they're speaking, they're only using the center 10 keys. That's why they're boring.
That's why you said what you said.

Speaker 1 But when you realize the same words, you go all the way out. There's 66 ways you can play in the lexicon.
All I've done is I've mastered all the the different ways you use words.

Speaker 1 So that's cadence and iteration. That's just using the same ending or the same beginning.

Speaker 1 And you would be blown away if you just write the list of words and then you start playing with the list of words and you record yourself so that when you say something you like, looking at the words, you transcribe it.

Speaker 1 And then you say something again with what you've transcribed and add another word to it. You'll build.
a message, just a moment in your message, a moment. This is not your whole message.

Speaker 1 This is just a moment in the middle of a speech. Imagine the only person that does that was Dr.

Speaker 1 Maya Angelou. She'd be in the middle of a speech and just drop some poetry and then go back to the speech.
And you're like this. What did she just do? I saw her do it in 2000.

Speaker 1 I said, okay, when I grow up, I'm going to do that one day.

Speaker 1 And so when I was on Broadway in December, in the middle of my Broadway show, I dropped spoken word and then went back to the show and didn't highlight it. I'm about to do spoken word.

Speaker 1 Just drop into it. Imagine if you were speaking for nine minutes and two minutes in the middle, you did iteration or cadence flow and then kept going.
Now you, you're standout.

Speaker 1 You keep doing one more thing after another standout. One last technique, verbal highlight.
You've seen me do this a lot. You know, know what's happening.

Speaker 1 But a verbal highlight, most people, especially when they call it motivation, Oh, Lord, they think that you got to be loud. You got to scream.
Motivation is not screaming. That's just screaming.

Speaker 1 It drives me crazy. So you don't have to be loud and you don't have to be fast only.

Speaker 1 Verbal highlights is making a distinction with your words. I want you to follow my words with me, okay? Well, you, I'm going to give you words to say, but I want you to follow the tonation.

Speaker 1 Remember, I said 66 keys on a piano? Part of those keys are not just what you say, it's how you say it, right? So when you felt that, ah, for me, normally you also experience verbal highlights.

Speaker 1 Repeat after me, along with my pacing and my tone, okay? Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm committed.

Speaker 2 I'm committed.

Speaker 1 To be the best version of myself.

Speaker 2 To be the best version of myself.

Speaker 1 I don't apologize.

Speaker 2 I don't apologize.

Speaker 1 For one thing that's happened in my life.

Speaker 2 For one thing that's happened in my life.

Speaker 1 Because it makes me who I am today.

Speaker 2 Because it makes me who I am today.

Speaker 1 And I

Speaker 2 and I like

Speaker 1 her.

Speaker 1 her

Speaker 2 it sounds weird when I do it. I had this woman on my show the other day, which is completely new.
I'm talking so coincidental. She's like the top voice coach in the world, right?

Speaker 2 She works with like the Shakiras of the world, right? And

Speaker 2 everybody. And she walked me through, which is so weird, how your voice is like an instrument for like power and authority.

Speaker 1 And she was doing all these things about like quiet and then louder and all the, you're kind of saying similar things and I have no idea and you have no idea about that but like but yes it doesn't it come across if I do it disingenuously no because you're gonna place it to the appropriate words that it fits for you I see what you're saying I just have you repeating after me right now so you're just like choosing words that I chose for you but when you are saying Like if I can ask you, what's one moment in your life?

Speaker 1 Give me a little bit of a moment in your life when it felt, I don't know if I'm going to bounce back from this one.

Speaker 1 It tested your faith.

Speaker 2 A moment of that?

Speaker 1 Yeah. A real moment.

Speaker 2 Actually right now in my life. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's unpack it. So without even knowing the details, I'd love to work with you because then we go and make sure that you feel safe.
about that thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because until you feel safe about that thing, it's not available to the world.

Speaker 2 Right, exactly. I was going to say that's why I don't want to say it out loud.

Speaker 1 It's not available to the world. I remember when I first got frauded, I I got frauded in my company and one of my employees said, I don't feel like you're being genuine.
I said, why?

Speaker 1 She goes, because we're dealing with this fraud and you're not telling anyone. I said, oh, sweetheart, please.
I don't tell anybody about a battle that I'm still fighting.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Soon as I get through this one, whether I win or lose, then it's available. But right now, this is mine.
I'm quite comfortable with the stories that are still mine.

Speaker 1 And I'm quite comfortable with the ones that never belong to the public. With the ones that I give you, I'm going to give you as much of me so that you can find you.

Speaker 1 So, this other technique is called scooping.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to tell you how to do it now because it's kind of advanced, but I'm going to tell you the theory because you can appreciate it because it's what you experienced with me.

Speaker 1 Everything I'm telling you, you experienced this with me already. It's why I'm here.
It's why you worked so long to have me here. You didn't even know what was happening.

Speaker 1 Scooping is: I tell my story in its own authenticity, but I widen my story up in the examples enough so that you can see a part of you and my story. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 That's exactly why people like you.

Speaker 1 And now that is, I will tell you, that's LeBron James level. That's not a first level.
No one that I've taught how to speak at the first level can do that.

Speaker 1 But if you get the first level, if you get the audience connection formula, you get the cadence iteration, you get the pregnant pause, I just taught you verbal highlights. Verbal highlights is range.

Speaker 1 We just work on range for a while. I listen to your story and I go, tell me that again in what I call the bottom of your belly.

Speaker 1 Top is, hey, we all get to be happy. Bottom of your belly is

Speaker 1 because abundance is your birthright. That's non-negotiable.
You see the power? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, abundance is my damn birthright.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2 Like, you feel how you, okay. So give me an example of when you've done that because I mean, I've seen so many of your videos, right?

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, I got a, I got, did you see me on the stage at agape? I'm in the black dress, and I'm like, my, my English teacher told me. Yeah, that's what I told you.

Speaker 1 And I said, but other people's perception of you.

Speaker 2 That was the one I said.

Speaker 1 It's none of your business.

Speaker 2 But I don't have the, I don't, forget about me. People like don't have that flair, right? Like, this is what makes you do, right?

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 2 But you gave the story, like, this is a couple things.

Speaker 2 You, you know, how to pull stories.

Speaker 2 Like again, when you ask me, and you can ask a million other people, they won't even know stories.

Speaker 2 Like they've had a lot of life experiences, but they don't even know how to like extract them from themselves.

Speaker 1 So you don't look for a story. You look for an incident.

Speaker 2 And isn't it the same?

Speaker 1 No, it's not. People think a story, stories

Speaker 1 have more range. They have their totality.
If I ask you, Jennifer, find an incident, an incident that made you go, oh, that hurt, or wonder, or did I make the right decision? We go back.

Speaker 1 We sit here long enough.

Speaker 2 I have an example for there you go this is like a it's a simon and this is more like a meeting but like what i was going to say this is interesting i didn't i did a ted talk a few a few years back that went viral and it was based on this story that was very i think it was compelling to everyone because people can basically it was about the fact that when i was a kid i got somebody i got kiann reeves to help me make a demo tape for a job and and nobody thought i can do it and everyone laughed at me and then i met him somewhere completely, just completely miraculously.

Speaker 2 I asked him and he ended up saying yes. And they came to my house and my mom made him like cookies and lunch.
And then I like basically had a camcorder and he

Speaker 2 allowed me to interview him for an hour for a, so I can be a VJ on MTV, basically. And so, because I thought nobody would like look at me unless I had a big celebrity, right?

Speaker 2 And I told all my friends and he all laughed at me and then he ended up doing doing it for me, which was like a big, and so I talked about in my first, my first TED talk, the power of being bold because that was that my word is being bold, like chase what you want, don't take what you get.

Speaker 2 Like chase, chase, chase. Don't just sit back and acquiesce to good enough.
And I think it did very well because A, I think everybody feels that they acquiesce.

Speaker 2 to whatever's in front of them and what's good enough. So it connected to people.

Speaker 2 And because it was such a like real story that people thought it was like cute that this like kid who's 17 did all this stuff to get to kiana reeves and it actually worked right and the idea of like being bold and not letting your self-doubt right anyway why i'm bringing the story up is it had a lot of these elements that you're talking about yeah right not just competence and and and so people liked it yeah but it's hard to recreate like so like the reason why i i pulled that story because it's like such a memorable thing that it it changed the entire trajectory of my life right like i never let anybody ever tell me

Speaker 2 i can't do it because i can who's why would i listen to anybody right so the reason why i loved your perception story is because it resonated yeah so what what i was going to ask you is how important is the content how important is the content because i think what makes anything good regardless of all these other things yeah is if people can see themselves in the story And then give them hope, hope, because hope is such a big thing, in my opinion, too, that

Speaker 2 they too can do this.

Speaker 2 They too can live that life.

Speaker 1 The technique I call scoop them.

Speaker 2 That's when you said scoop.

Speaker 1 You can scoop. I can see myself in your story.
Right. It's so important.
It's so important. And the more intentionality you do it with, while keeping the integrity of your story.

Speaker 2 That's hard.

Speaker 1 The mistake that people make because they don't know the technique is that they get out of the story and start teaching. You can't teach and be in the story at the same time.

Speaker 1 You're either in the story or you're teaching. Most people don't know how to make them sit next to each other.
Another technique that I teach is the bridge.

Speaker 1 They don't know the bridge that connects the story to the content and then the content to the story again. And after this interview,

Speaker 1 I think you're going to watch me differently. Like my students, do I tell my students after we do this?

Speaker 1 this i say go back and watch me now because now you're behind the black curtain and now you're going to go oh she just scooped me oh she just audience connection for me oh she does verbal highlight now that's great your brain is looking at the techniques because if you can nail the techniques individually then we can technique stack and that's what makes you unforgettable but do you do one-on-ones or do you do groups only i do one-on-ones you do one-on-one i do a lot of i do one-on-ones all the time but most most of the time when I do a one-on-one, they're playing at a higher level.

Speaker 2 Right. They're not just, they're not just like, they're, so like, how did you make all your money, though? Like, you weren't doing this before.
This is a new thing that you're doing.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, no.

Speaker 2 You weren't teaching up until when? Now?

Speaker 1 Well, I've always been teaching, but I've been teaching transformation.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 So I made a lot of money teaching transformation.

Speaker 2 You weren't teaching how to speak. No.
This was like, this is your new thing.

Speaker 1 The industry pulled me into it. Right.
Because

Speaker 1 my friends were like, we don't want, we don't, we want you to teach us how to do what you do. Like, Like they forced me to do it.

Speaker 2 And that honestly is because I, I didn't even, I know because I'm a business person, right? That's good. When I see this, I'm like, this is something, this is actually a business.

Speaker 2 And then I, and then I found out that you're doing it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What's funny is, so I just did a podcast with Scott Miller, who.

Speaker 2 I know Scott, he interviewed me too. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I did, when I did his interview, at the end of the interview, he goes, number one. Where have you been all my life? And number two, why don't more people know about you? That's what I said to you.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Literally, it was.
So Scott was just at my house this past Saturday, and we did the framework for my next book that the working title is Becoming Unforgettable.

Speaker 1 And it's how to speak to for, to make an influence. And the entire ecosystem of this training will be born out of that even more so, because it's, it's taken me a while.

Speaker 1 It's hard when you've been on Oprah, Larry King, and Dr. Phil and Steve Harvey for personal development.
Right. Oprah's a big one.

Speaker 2 I mean, forget about the other ones.

Speaker 1 But you get from under personal development.

Speaker 1 like people are like no you're the transformational lady and so that screams really big my first book was chicken soup my second book was the secret so it's like i totally yeah it's like and so people they want me for that so it was the industry leaders you know vishan lakhiani ceo of my valley i know he's he he he always says she's the only person that i flew 33 hours in coach in a middle seat because it was the last seat on the plane to go to her speaker training because I needed to know when she finally decided to teach it.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, I've been quietly kind of teaching it. And now I'm just coming out going, you can get my personal development.

Speaker 1 First of all, I have to build a library of all my personal development trainings so people can get access to it without having me.

Speaker 2 So, this is so interesting to me in a real way. I think this is the most like because that's how everyone knows you.
I mean, that's why you were like,

Speaker 2 until you just said that, I forgot about the chicken soup secret and the secret. I mean, you did the two biggest

Speaker 2 and Oprah. So like you are literally like in a box of person, like you are like the personal development woman because there's not many others.
Honestly, you know.

Speaker 1 It takes a lot to get out of a big box.

Speaker 2 How do, that's a, how do you even pivot? Because people want to keep you in that box.

Speaker 1 Actually, it's through engagements like this, because I have a whole body of work around speaker development. So I'm ready for this interview.
I'm ready to go.

Speaker 1 By the way, these are my legacy years, Jennifer. These are my legacy years.
Like I'm 10 more years. I just want to sit beside my super delicious husband as much as possible.

Speaker 1 So these are my, I'm like, real talk. I know, right? Girl talk.
I got it. I saw him.
I know. Right.
So, so these are my legacy years.

Speaker 1 And so I'm more passionate about, I don't want this to sit down with me, especially when you can turn around and do it the way you just did.

Speaker 1 If you can do one technique that I taught you, you can do all 16. Some are easier to grasp than others.
some come before others.

Speaker 1 And so I'll just spend the next 10 years going, can I help make you more impactful? Can I help make you more unforgettable?

Speaker 1 Can I help with that? And I don't think we'll have a hard time because what you said is so true. People who need to lead need to speak.
People who are assigned to leading want to feel more confident.

Speaker 1 You want to accept. I won't drop any names by anybody, but what you said earlier resonated so much with me because I've heard it before.

Speaker 1 I decline speaking engagements, not because I don't want to go, but because I don't feel confident about how I'll show up when I go. So I just, I'm too busy for them.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Or it makes me so nervous that it's like, there's a truth in the fact that like it's a bigger fear than like dying, right? Like it is.
Than getting up there.

Speaker 1 It's bigger than dying by fire.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 2 it's 100% true because it's just and the anxiety that it just puts on. But when you did, when you made your money in transformational coaching, what were you teaching people then?

Speaker 2 How to overcome self-doubt?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I was, yeah, I was teaching the extension of if you took chicken soup or you took the secret and you made it a training, if you took, you know, limiting beliefs, how to overcome them, how to set goals, how to send all those things, Stephen Covey's training.

Speaker 1 You take that.

Speaker 1 billion dollar industry, right? So there was no lack of opportunity. But what people kept watching and the opportunity was, how do you do that? How do you say that?

Speaker 1 And I'm like, don't worry about how I said that.

Speaker 1 Just go do this so you can get this breakthrough and people began to look at what i was doing and how i was saying it more than the transformation from and and it wasn't the people in the seats it was my colleagues that were on the roster with me so when i'm on the roster and i'm sitting in the back in toronto canada and there's 11 400 people in the audience and it's me jack canfield bot proctor tr veckert and john asaraff i know exactly who it was i call them my brothers from from another mother.

Speaker 1 And I was often the only woman.

Speaker 1 And we're sitting in the back, and all of them are busy typing their PowerPoints. And I'm sitting there talking to someone and we're laughing and talking.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, I look around and I see everyone has a PowerPoint. They're all head down in it.
And I'm the first speaker. And I'm kikiing and laughing.
And, ooh, I like those shoes.

Speaker 1 And I go, oh, crap.

Speaker 1 I should be doing a PowerPoint. For a moment, I forgot.
I'm going to be honest. For a moment, I'm looking at the good old boys.
They're all wildly successful. And I'm going, you

Speaker 1 peon, you should be doing what they're doing so you can have what they have. So I go next to Jack, who Jack has always been my binky.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he's always been my binky. And I'm like, Jack, I really should have a PowerPoint, shouldn't I? And I freak out and drive my assistant crazy.
I'm like, Write something down.

Speaker 1 Give me something on paper. She's like, what?

Speaker 1 I'm like, the conversion rate from the canadian dollar to the us i don't know write something down and she writes down the conversion rate i'm i'm just freaking out i completely lose my core of confidence and i go out on stage and i just start talking and i do my thing and at the end of my speech i get a roaring five minute standing ovation like roaring and as i'm walking off stage jack's walking up because he comes after me and he goes don't you ever

Speaker 1 like he was like pissed, don't you ever talk about needing a PowerPoint again? And I was like,

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 at the end of the night, we all have dinner together and Bob Proctor comes over to me and he says, I've never seen you speak, young lady, because I'm just trying to get into the club.

Speaker 1 I said, Yeah, I've seen you speak. You're amazing.
He goes, No, no, no, I'm good.

Speaker 1 You're amazing. I took four pages of notes.
He goes, But you have a being.

Speaker 1 There's a being in your belly. A being.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, and you offer your being to the audience.
Bottle that up. That's what you're going to get paid for.
And went on about the night.

Speaker 1 When I tell you every speaker I've ever admired, because I'm young in the game. Like not so much now, but back then.

Speaker 1 You go back to 2006, I was the youngest person by 10, 15 years. Right, right, right.
They had all been established.

Speaker 1 I'm literally putting my credit card on hotels saying, run it for one night at a time. Right, right, right, right, right.
Like real talk. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm there for five nights, but I'm like, don't run off five nights. Like it was, it was very bootstrapped.
Everywhere I went, though, the speakers would look back and go, wow.

Speaker 1 Do you know the torment that came with? I would go back to my room and I'd cry and go, what? What is it? Because I don't know how to bottle it up and sell it. I don't know how to offer it.

Speaker 1 What are they seeing? First, I didn't know what they were seeing. And then I didn't know how to contain it.
Then I didn't know how to articulate it. Then I didn't know how to shape it.

Speaker 1 Then I didn't know how to serve it to you the way I just said, do this technique. I didn't even know.
And so it was in my unconscious competence.

Speaker 1 And so I'm excited about the last five years because I feel like if I don't ever get like, if I don't have to build a multi-billion dollar industry from it, at least it doesn't die in my belly.

Speaker 2 Well, then how did you do it? Like, would someone help you kind of like create it?

Speaker 1 Number one, my friends forced me my friend like i got you know i got strong friends jj virgin vision jack they were like look go lock yourself in the office and in my prayer time i gotta tell you i said god what's next and what i heard the spirit say was quit being lazy you said

Speaker 1 do you see my calendar and that word like it shook me it was disruptive and lazy was just because it's difficult don't mean you shouldn't be doing it make your skill make your gift someone else's skill set period And so then I went, I started searching.

Speaker 1 I started how do you do it? How, and I started coming up with crazy names and putting post-it papers all around my office. I don't think I showered for like five days.
And I'm like,

Speaker 1 my son was little. He's like, mom, come out.
I'm like, no, eat a sandwich. You know, like, it was crazy.
And then I tried it out. And my first version.
was wildly effective. I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, it was so, I don't want to sound bragging. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging.

Speaker 2 No, you're not.

Speaker 1 But it was so in my sales. It was so in my sales that when I gave it to you and you try it, I go, yeah, yeah, that's what my art looks like outside of me.
But there's another version to that.

Speaker 1 Once you get that, tell me. Cause I got like three more versions beyond that.
Like it was so much.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Do you do, do you do a lot of speaking engagements? Like, do you get hired by companies a lot now? Like, what's your revenue stream? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, so I love this because you know I'm a businesswoman.
Yeah. Well, that I know that, right.

Speaker 2 well that's why i'm asking you these

Speaker 1 business woman like our business like is like foreplay to me i love business so me too well you keep on mentioning jj version she's all business too so yeah that's my girl like we talk business together her cynthia garcia we all we sit down and we talk rois revenue streams we talk in you know uh are you going to that thing in my uh side note mexico is that part i am they want me to teach there oh you are going to teach yeah okay so are you going to teach there

Speaker 1 they're they're 70. They 70% got me.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Both of them took me out to dinner the other day.

Speaker 2 Who's the other one? Cynthia.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she's co-founder of the unicorns. Oh,

Speaker 1 she's delicious. When you meet her, you'll fall in love.
Oh, okay. No, I know JJ, but I don't know.
Oh, this one is.

Speaker 1 It's a well of dynamic women with all different gifts and talents.

Speaker 1 And it's walking with like-minded unicorns who are all very different from the rest of the world, who doesn't get a chance to plan their greatness as well as have challenges.

Speaker 1 Because the world doesn't have like we're not allowed to complain out loud because our problems are what people are pursuing yeah yeah yeah and i'm mindful of that and sensitive to that but in that environment we get to be all things and it really is a sense of sisterhood i'm not real big on like girl bands and girl groups and it's not yeah i'm kind of an alpha woman and uh so it took a while for them to get me there and are you a member of the thing is that what you're doing i think i am i'm not sure i think i don't know what member means but i've gone three times oh okay well she's invited she told me to come to this thing in mex i won't be able to unfortunately but when you kept on bringing you brought it up a couple times I'm like oh I wonder if it's the JJ and I were friends before then though so she's the person that's how she got me yeah so speaking is a revenue stream I I'm now doing more speaking than I was before I used to do a lot of speaking 38 keynotes a year you know all around the world and then I dial back considerably so I can build my training programs yeah and so I can have something for people who couldn't make a keynote right so now I have this library of personal development all the way from the beginning to making it to a retreat with me.

Speaker 1 And now I have speaker development all the way from the very beginning, $4.97.

Speaker 1 I'm real big on making things available for everyone.

Speaker 1 So the first level here, you need 500 bucks, two payments of whatever. The ultimate level, you want to get in a room with me, it's going to be an investment.
$15,000, we'll spend five days together.

Speaker 1 Those are groups. I also have a mastermind.
They meet in my house. Those are the gladiators, only 15.
Meet in my house four times a year for two days.

Speaker 1 We're going to take your business and we're going to rocket your business or your brand or your message. So I spent the second day of our mastermind literally helping everyone.

Speaker 1 I love what you said earlier. I broke down a speech.
I said, you want an unforgettable speech? It needs to have these components to it. And we...
put each component in their speech.

Speaker 1 Everyone was working on their own and they were shocked to see the limited amount of content compared to what they thought. Still a good amount of content.

Speaker 1 But in a 30-minute speech, let me show you how much needs to be an opening, needs to be a bridge. I need your story.
I need a bridge. I need your content.
I need some inspiration.

Speaker 1 Give me another small story. Now give me a charge.
Now close me. So I just put together the construct and they're like,

Speaker 1 I said, now let's fill in each one for you.

Speaker 1 I'm never going to touch your content. You're the genius of that.
Let me touch everything else with you. Because if you want someone inspired, they'll never be inspired by your intellect.

Speaker 1 They'll be impressed and informed. They'll be inspired by the way you scoop them.
They'll be inspired by your story. They'll be inspired by your charge.
What's a charge?

Speaker 1 A charge comes at the very end. Never do a charge before the very end.
Charge is the very end. I challenge you.
That's bold statement. I challenge you to love like you've never been hurt.

Speaker 1 Forgive like you've never been betrayed. Leap like you've never fallen.
So a charge has some elements in it. It always has to make humanity better.
That's some movement stuff.

Speaker 1 We don't see anyone doing that. Who does that? Everyone ends with how I can help you and remember this.
Don't tell me to remember this. Please don't end like, huh, like boring.
Charge me.

Speaker 1 Charge me to be the better, best version of myself in a way that feels inviting, that leaves me like this. I just did it when I was in Dubai.

Speaker 1 They had to call a break after my keynote. It was not a break planned.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 1 They're like, okay, we're going to take a break so everyone can catch their breath. Okay, I'm done.
And then I stood outside and took pictures for two and a half hours.

Speaker 1 Two and a half hours while all the other speakers. left and went to dinner.
I even told the people in line, I got to go do four interviews.

Speaker 1 If you, if you're here when I get back, I'll keep taking pictures with you. I went, I spent 40 minutes doing interviews.
I came back. They were all still there.
And I took pictures with them.

Speaker 1 And Vision goes, what would make someone stand in line? It was the tippy toe. It was the breath.
It was the scooping for a picture. That's all I got was a picture.
But that's, that's the combination.

Speaker 1 So I do that as well.

Speaker 2 Okay, so what do you talk about though? Because that's, these are all the greatest tech. This is great techniques.
Like I love all, like I'm, I'm like so interested in what you're saying.

Speaker 1 Because you can do all of it here, too. This is not relegated to stage.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, I know. This is book.

Speaker 1 This is podcast. This is every time you open your mouth, you get to use these techniques.

Speaker 2 But what do you speak? When you go speak in Dubai, what are you speaking about now? Like, what's captivating people? Do you have a few different keynotes that you just kind of play with?

Speaker 2 Do you just go up there? I never did.

Speaker 1 I'm not the same.

Speaker 2 Like, so that's what I was going to say, because you said earlier in Toronto, you didn't. I'm from Toronto, by the way.

Speaker 1 The best people on the planet.

Speaker 2 Canadians are great.

Speaker 1 Let me just say, let me just say.

Speaker 1 My very first tour, my very first time out of the country on tour, I went to Winnipeg.

Speaker 2 Winnipeg is where I'm from. Like, I was born.

Speaker 1 My very first. When I tell you the way those people loved me, the way.

Speaker 2 Did you just say Winnipeg?

Speaker 1 I said Winnipeg. Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Listen.

Speaker 2 That is where I am.

Speaker 1 I went to Winnipeg with a really big coat on with some flip-flop shoes in December because I'm a Californian and they did not tell me, please buy some boots.

Speaker 2 That is amazing.

Speaker 1 And they loved on me. Well, I love you.
It was the first time I saw it. First time I was out of the country.

Speaker 1 And it was 2009. I'll never forget.
And I was scared. Jennifer, I was scared.
I was like, why is the world responding to me like this? What's happening? I didn't know what was happening around me.

Speaker 1 I'd just been in the secret. And Winnipeg loved me.

Speaker 1 Anyway, keep going. No, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 my sister from another mission that's crazy we were meant to be the kids nobody even knows what Winnipeg is I do I lived I moved to Toronto when I was like 21 no 18 or 19 my first stop in Canada was Winnipeg

Speaker 1 oh my god nobody even knows where that is I loved it they loved on me I love that you know where Winnipeg will always be a part of my life story Always you see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 Did you hear that? That is hilarious.

Speaker 1 I've been around the world a few times and Winnipeg is one of the places that I talk about. I don't talk about everywhere because of the way they loved me, the time of my life it was.

Speaker 1 I didn't know if they were ready for a mocha woman with an afro with full lips and round hips. I wasn't sure.
I wasn't sure how they would accept me. I was nervous and then they went, we love you.

Speaker 1 And I was like, they thank you. They were my evidence that the world was ready for me.
Winnipeg.

Speaker 2 Well, what's talk to love, by the way?

Speaker 2 You know, but you said that you, okay, but I don't even know what I was gonna say. What was I gonna say about, oh, yeah, when you do, so you just go up there when people and you just talk.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 So number one, I don't invite any of my students to do what I do because

Speaker 1 I'm fourth quarter,

Speaker 1 Michael Jordan. So, but I can teach them how to do the version.
So what I do is I ask the same three questions. This, I will invite you.
Please do this.

Speaker 1 I ask the same three questions to every host that hires me to come everywhere. And I coach my students to do the same.

Speaker 1 I ask the question, what do you want the audience to feel as a result of my keynote? What do you want, what action do you want the audience to take as a result of my keynote?

Speaker 1 And what would you like them thinking at the end of my keynote? What do you want them to think about? Same three questions every single time. And then I make the rest up to get there.

Speaker 1 But let me tell you what I start with. The one thing I walk in knowing is what story am I going to tell? I match the story to their answer.

Speaker 1 Oh, now number one, another thing I help my students do is I help you create your stories

Speaker 1 and then create your story library. You only need about four, but I help you curate each one so you have something to choose from.

Speaker 2 Give me an example.

Speaker 1 Tunka Toy. So, Tunka Toy, the last time I did that, it was with Eli Lilly, and which Pharmaceutical, and the HR department invited me in.

Speaker 1 It's a hard time for our team, and everyone's feeling overwhelmed. We're probably, this was in 2007, we're there again, and people are tired.

Speaker 1 they're exhausted and we want you to just keep them going so i said oh tonka toy tanka toy is about jelani now mind you it's nothing to do with work it's about jelani and his tanker truck and how he kept picking this truck up and dropping it and it kept going

Speaker 1 slow picking it up and dropping it

Speaker 1 picking it up and dropping it

Speaker 1 this truck no matter what jelani did to it it just kept going mmm

Speaker 1 and at the end of telling that story toward the end i go when when jelani would pick the truck up and drop it i was surprised it would keep going but when mattel built that truck mattel said when they had the truck on the assembly line this truck right here is going to meet jelani malik nichols and this truck needs to be extra strong and this truck needs to be extra tough and this truck needs extra endurance.

Speaker 1 I believe in whatever your faith is, just as Mattel

Speaker 1 what that tonka truck was going to go through when God had you on the assembly line, when God was building you and shaping you, God knew what you were going to go through.

Speaker 1 They said, this woman, she's going to be picked up and dropped a few times. This man, he might lose his job.
This woman, she might be lied to. This man, he might get exhausted.

Speaker 1 That everything you need, you were built with. See, I would never think of that.

Speaker 2 Nobody would. Like, this is by point.
Like, that is what I'm saying. Like, that's in no world would I ever think to create a story out of a Tonka truck.

Speaker 1 Because you're looking at all of it together. Remember, I told you and my mastermind in my home, I break it up.
They don't have it together. You don't come with it together.
It's just an incident.

Speaker 1 And we help to unpack. And I even have the way to show you how to unpack the incident.
I got the framework.

Speaker 1 Trust me when I say I understand why you can't see it because you haven't seen the framework yet that I have. I get it.

Speaker 1 Everyone was telling me this about eight years ago i don't at least i don't get it okay great so every day i would go to my office and i go how can i help her how can i help jennifer get it so now i have a framework for how to tell the tanker story i'll show you how to do that then the way you get over to the inspiration remember the tanker story was jelani picking up the tanka truck and dropping it the bridge was i don't know what your faith is i and my faith i call them god and your faith call him whatever you choose but i don't believe now i'm over in a whole different part i'm out of the story.

Speaker 1 Now I'm into the inspiration. So you see it all together, smooth like butter, right? Earlier when you did the audience connection, you didn't even know that I had done a technique on you.

Speaker 1 Smooth like butter. So when you put them all together, you're technique stacking.

Speaker 1 You can't see the difference. You can't see where one starts and the other stops.
But I stopped the story. I went into the bridge and then I went into the inspiration.

Speaker 1 And then I was on my way into the charge.

Speaker 1 You don't know that because you haven't seen the framework but once you see the framework you will blow your own mind when you do it individually then i go okay let's put it together now like i've had people cry at their own story cry at their own kid and they've never cried before and they always say i don't cry i go i know i'm not trying to make you cry but be open if you do i got tissue just in case you do because they get more out of themselves I was sitting in one of Jack Canfield's training and I did my thing and there's like 200 leaders and this guy came came up to me afterwards.

Speaker 1 I won't say his name. You won't know him anyway, but he goes, I don't cry.
I said, okay, I don't cry. I never cried as a child.
Okay.

Speaker 1 You made me cry.

Speaker 1 I said, okay. Like, I thought I was in trouble.
Russian, very direct, very stern. I want to pay you to help me make other people cry.
I said, I don't want you to pay me. Like, he's, he scared me.

Speaker 1 He was really intense. I said, I don't, I don't coach people.
This is when I first, I never coached anyone on storytelling before because it was too easy for me. I'm like, in my culture, in my

Speaker 1 faith as well, I grew up Baptist. If something's of value, it has to be difficult.
Right.

Speaker 1 It can't be a natural gift and it can't be easy. And so he was like, I want you to pay me.
I want to pay you to help me make people cry. I said, I don't know how to do that.

Speaker 1 Just teach me how to tell the story the way you told the story. I do a horrible accent.
But so I kept trying to tell him no. So he, I said, he goes, well, how much?

Speaker 1 I said, well, it's $25,000 for a full day of VIP, knowing that he was going to say no. He goes, I want three days.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh,

Speaker 1 like I could puke. I could puke.
I was so nervous and I didn't know what to do. So it's what forced me to figure out how to tell someone how to tell a story in a way that was powerful.
So

Speaker 1 for three days, he would tell me his story.

Speaker 1 He would just sit across, very firm, and tell me the story with stern face and then i would replay the story back to him and put what i call on it texture same story yeah just texture i totally same core just texture i didn't change the details at all and he would sit there and cry i am crying see you made me cry do it again

Speaker 1 And that's what started me coaching people on how to tell a story. So part of it is you tell me your story and then you videotape me me telling you your story back

Speaker 1 now you see oh you could see the variance and the variance that you see from me i then teach you each technique individually because all together it will feel overwhelming but you can learn it when i tell you the person who ran runs the marathon at one point didn't know how to walk

Speaker 2 No, I think I listen if anyone's going to do it, you're going to do it. I mean, by the way, I got to say, I had all these questions for you, and I just we didn't ask you any of them.

Speaker 1 Congratulations. We just leaned into each other.

Speaker 2 Well, I have a couple more questions.

Speaker 1 I'm good.

Speaker 2 Do you mind? Okay. I do.
Because I think this is important, right? Because I think I want to know some of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to inspire others.

Speaker 1 They

Speaker 1 have a monologue, not a dialogue. They talk at people and not with them.

Speaker 1 They expect their audience to put skin in when they're not putting any skin in. There's no transparency.
There's no vulnerability. You want me to give you my all, but you've given me nothing.

Speaker 1 They speak as if they've arrived and not as if they're on a journey. They touch humility at the beginning as a protocol and they don't live in it.

Speaker 1 They ask the audience to buy something from them before they've earned the right to sell.

Speaker 1 They do passive aggressive shaming. Shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't.
They assume that everyone starts at the same dot. You are here.
Not everyone's there. Speak to the variance of the human experience.

Speaker 1 Many people speak through one set of lenses, whether it's a cultural lens or a gender lens.

Speaker 1 or a faith lens and they don't allow multiple lenses to exist in the message and I have to as the listener find my lens instead of you giving it to me and i i just want to know that i fit in this story so the listener is trying to fit in your story i you see you see you you you pushed a button like you

Speaker 2 no i think that's i think all of that is Why, I think that's so accurate, right?

Speaker 2 And I think that that's why story, being able to connect with an audience and do storytelling is what you do so well is so hard, right?

Speaker 2 And that's after all of this, I still think it's something that it's an art. It's an art.
It is an art.

Speaker 1 I just taught,

Speaker 1 I taught, I was just teaching, oh, yeah, today, today and yesterday, I was teaching a webinar and it was the art and science. of impactful speaking.
It is an art and it is a science.

Speaker 1 And a lot of people have the science and people who are just great orators, but you don't quite know where they're going, they have the art.

Speaker 1 But when you dance, which is, I think, the answer to your, you know, why am I one of the only women, if not the only woman, is because I pull in the art and science.

Speaker 1 And linear people who need to be anchored, they're going to ground in the science. And people who are about the emotion and the feeling, they're going to be rooted in the art.

Speaker 1 And if you can dance art and science, you'll get them both always.

Speaker 2 That's a hundred percent true. I feel that.
I feel that.

Speaker 2 I think that is, again, though, a talent that is so hard to do, but everything you've shown me today with the techniques and how you do it and the bridges, like it's, it actually gives me like hope.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, not because I think that, no, like, not because people can become a 10, but if you can even move from a three or a one or a zero to a four or a five.

Speaker 2 That gives people the confidence, right?

Speaker 2 Especially if you're trying to be a leader and you're trying, because that is such a big piece of leadership, I feel, is to being a really effective communicator.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. It's a non-negotiable to know.
Unimaginable.

Speaker 1 What you've done at a zero or what you've done at a, at a four,

Speaker 1 if we can take you from a zero to a four, from a four to a six, now what will you do? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Okay, now completely switching gears, two things. Number one, I want to know what is the

Speaker 2 most

Speaker 2 asked question that people ask you because you've been around for many years in the trend and transformational now in terms of now you're the Phil Jackson, not the Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 Of all these span of years, what is the thing that you see the most and what people ask you about the most?

Speaker 1 It's so funny because I don't know how you feel, but

Speaker 1 I still get tickled at being considered a, you know, I was at Mind Valley recently and before that I was at another event and the the young bucks, you know, the 34 year olds and the 37 year olds and the 29 year olds call me a living legend.

Speaker 1 And I'm grateful for any, I'm grateful for all the labels people choose to give me. I just don't get caught up in any of them.
But I was tickled at,

Speaker 1 I was like, well, the good part is the living, the living legend and that I have a body of work. that has spanned enough time for you to say, in the last 28 years, what have you been asked the most?

Speaker 1 Right. And i'd say the last 15

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 1 this is what you do when you've been experiencing enough you pause i think the number one thing that i've seen is

Speaker 1 people

Speaker 1 wanting

Speaker 1 one

Speaker 1 confirmation that what they believe in their belly is so for them is true and that they're not crazy dreaming that that dream can become my reality. Like, just, is that possible?

Speaker 1 And on the flip side to that is,

Speaker 1 I can do it no matter what's already happened. Like, I, I, like, that is my, that, that's my possibility no matter what's happened.

Speaker 1 So, people want confirmation and validation that that is a reality that's yours to have. And it's not keeping score on anything that's already happened.
That's the number one thing I see.

Speaker 1 No matter where, I mean, people coming from, you know, very well lifestyles to, you know, bootstrapped up. The number one question that I'm asked, and a lot of people ask, how can I be unforgettable?

Speaker 1 I want to make an impact. How can I make an impact? I want to make an impact with my life.
You know, they may not want to be Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, or their version of that. That's me.

Speaker 1 I really want to do, I want to, I want to, I want to do human work. I want to do human work.

Speaker 1 And if I can do human work by giving people their voice and helping them strengthen their voice and make them unforgettable, and then my work here is good.

Speaker 1 So I'm excited about, you you know, my next 10 years. The question that I'm probably asked the most now is, what will you tell your younger, what would you tell your younger self?

Speaker 1 I get asked that a lot. I'm just blown away.
I'll say, what would you, what would you tell your younger self? And I laugh because it used to be my younger self and I think, oh, my 20-year-old.

Speaker 1 Now I think my younger self is my 35-year-old.

Speaker 1 My younger self gets older. How old are you now? 58.
Oh, 58. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Very excited about that. Love my 58.
But I get asked that a lot because people are looking for it. I love what you said.
Between A and Z, tell me what's in the middle. You're at Z, right?

Speaker 1 But what's in the middle? And people are looking for breadcrumbs, instructions, frameworks, blueprints, evidence, outlines.

Speaker 1 And I believe that a lot of times the experts are offering the possibility without the outline,

Speaker 1 offering the possibility without the blueprint because they're afraid that if they give you the blueprint, you'll stop coming to them and stop giving them your money. That's my opinion.

Speaker 1 And so I love making it available.

Speaker 2 I think that, well, I think that's exactly the problem with social media these days, right? Because I think you have a lot of people who can, who can flowerly speak about all these possibilities.

Speaker 1 I can't say nothing.

Speaker 2 But there's, but there's zero,

Speaker 2 there's zero, it's very, it's very vapid because everybody needs to know, like you, like I said to you, it's like, I get that you were down and out. And I get now that you're a multi-millionaire

Speaker 1 what's the first three steps to even start and then what's after that like there's there's tranches and there's levels and people don't have people don't have a blueprint then then yeah right and when you said the beginning i took you to when i was diagnosed as clinically depressed yeah and i went straight to the mirror That's number one.

Speaker 1 So in the webinar that we were just teaching,

Speaker 1 people were going, you're giving us so much and we haven't registered. I said, if you don't register, it's on you.
But at least you walk away, at least do.

Speaker 1 And I'm a coach coach. So I go, if you're not going to act on what I gave you for free, there's no sense in registering.

Speaker 1 There's no sense in following me because you like the sexy conversation more than the application. And application is not always sexy.
Application births outcomes, but it's like an athlete.

Speaker 1 I'm an athlete. I ran track.
I swam competition. I was a synchronized swimmer.
You know, the swim meet or the track meet, that's only one small part of the entire week.

Speaker 2 I also think that the actual meat is boring, right? Like what you have to actually do,

Speaker 2 it's the daily habits that are exceptionally boring that you have to do at nausea over and over and over and over again before you move on and get good at them.

Speaker 1 And everyone wants to fast forward Google download excellence. I want to Google download mastery.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to tell you how to get to the top without the stairs.

Speaker 2 Right. You need to exactly, and that's, I love that line.

Speaker 1 But I'll climb beside you. I'll climb beside you, but you got to build your glutes and your hams and your quads and your calves.

Speaker 2 Speaking of which, also, side note, you said you lost 100 pounds. How did you do it?

Speaker 1 Well, it was a number of ways. It wasn't pretty.
And that's the Broadway show that I talk about. It was the first time I revealed.
I had six blood transfusions in three years. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We're going to get distracted with that. Like, that's a whole.
Oh, okay. Like, will you invite me back?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I was going to say, like, I have a whole list.

Speaker 1 Will you invite me back? So when we come back, I'll talk about my health transformation.

Speaker 1 But before I talk about my health transformation, I'd love for us to create a safe space for me to reveal my health hell.

Speaker 1 Because while I was making bestseller after bestseller after bestseller, I was going through a private health hell. Wow.
Another conversation, whole other day.

Speaker 1 We're going to have to drink some of the stuff.

Speaker 1 We're going to have to light the candle and zen out the room.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I was not expecting that.

Speaker 1 I know you weren't. No one.
Will you come back soon? I will. And I live around the corner, of course.

Speaker 1 And you have to know the only reason why I can talk to you about this is because I decided to come out about it on Broadway. It's why I cried almost every day leading up to Broadway.

Speaker 1 I was what we call terracided, part terrified, part excited. But I knew my next iteration of Lisa required me to share with you what you would never know.

Speaker 2 That was last year you did this, the show in December? That was

Speaker 1 almost just not 90 days ago from the recording of this. Wow.
From the recording of this, from sitting in front of you, not 90 days ago.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm not even going to ask you anything.

Speaker 1 Yeah, don't even. Like, it's so big.
Okay, fine. Okay.
But just for the record, I'm in discussion to do it again in another country, which I'm sure you have a passport. I do have a passport.

Speaker 1 And a lot of my friends are gonna when i tell them they're gonna be like we'll meet i will go i know i would totally go i know it's the kind of girls i run with they're like absolutely absolutely you just tell me when and where and i will be there i'm like okay i know that you got to leave because i know that you have a car and all the other things and what time is it it's probably like she's so cute like can i tell you what you are you're like new girlfriend drunk

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 You're like new girlfriend. And I only know it because when I feel it and I see it, you're a new girlfriend drunk.
We'll spend time together.

Speaker 2 oh my gosh she's so i love you because you know what i love about you you have such a nice way about you and you i love the way you described like i just think because you're authentic and real number one but like you actually give people and you give you gave this episode tangible yeah things yeah that people could integrate yeah what my biggest pet peeve is when people leave everything and they're very verbose and they talk in platitudes and then people get nothing They get zero to extract from and they can apply to their own life.

Speaker 2 And then I leave like very kind of unfulfilled. And then I have to be polite and nice because what else am I going to do?

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 1 I so love the fact that there are other humans. Sorry for your experience.
And I'm glad that there are other humans that understand the pain. Like if you, if this is painful, I'm at events.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm at events and this is my experience.

Speaker 2 and then they want to go to dinner with all of us i said there is no way i am going to extend this experience beyond these moments so thank you no thank you because i i i don't do well in i don't suffer fools well i don't like to sit with people who are very like the here and very like there's no snorkeling it's exactly you want to scuba dive i want to like right i'd like i like to get right in there i felt it and get shit like like get get in there i cannot stand the surface, like, la,

Speaker 2 and then, like, leave very, just very unfulfilling.

Speaker 1 So, you, you've, you, you delivered, lady, with your green hat and your leather pants, and all of it. So, thank you.
Thank you. You're welcome.
And, and there's one more gift that I brought for you.

Speaker 1 Oh, um, it's on your green leather pants. Yeah, yeah, you can have these.
Listen, and I do pass on my fabulosity to my friends. Okay, do you like them?

Speaker 1 I'll be done with it, and then I'm not attached to it. So, I brought a link to a quiz that people can see how do I rate when it comes to speaking?

Speaker 1 And most importantly, what should I do if I'm when I'm there? What should be the two things I focus on to move the dial and to move the needle?

Speaker 1 I realize that I come and I do this and people are like, okay, what do I do? Where am I? And I spent six hours on an international flight.

Speaker 1 curating what should you be looking for to really see am i at the beginning levels and by the way there are people who have been doing it for 15 years who rate at the beginning level. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then am I right in the middle? And am I a little more advanced? And then what should I focus on? That's the most important part. What should I focus on if this is where I am?

Speaker 1 You don't want to eat the whole elephant.

Speaker 2 No, no, no.

Speaker 1 I think that's what should be my next bite. So if it feels right to your community, it just, it's a, it's just, it allows you to kind of see where you are and where, and how to get to the next step.

Speaker 1 Because I'm a, I, I want to, I'm a breadcrumber. Can you give me breadcrumbs? Can you show me how to step forward? Can you give me some clarity? I think most people are breadcrumbers.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. And I think that you need breadcrumbs to see a path or else, you know, there's no path.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But okay, Lisa, go check her out. Check out, she has this program.
Check her out on Instagram. She's going to come back for part two.

Speaker 1 You promise, Lisa. I will.
I will. Take the quiz.
See where you are. Don't judge yourself too much.
You have the link. I think it's motivatingthemasters.com forward slash quiz.

Speaker 1 I'll put it in the show. You'll do do it.
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't worry about it. But find out where you are and give yourself grace.
Be gracious. Wherever you are, be gracious.
I so enjoy you. You are a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 2 You are.

Speaker 1 Seriously. Yeah.
Thank you for your commitment to have this conversation with me.

Speaker 2 Thank you for having the conversation with me.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. You're yummy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you are too. And so is your husband.

Speaker 1 Bye.