Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review. Now storytelling is a universal concept that connects all of us. But at the same time,
00:27
So many of us, they just miss those one or two elements to keep improving in this art of storytelling. And my guest today, Laura Lewis-Barr, who is the CEO and founder of Training for Breakthroughs, who works also with stories of fiction and nonfiction, is here to tell us exactly how to go about perfecting the art of storytelling.
00:53
and connect with our audiences. And before I go any further, please help me welcome Laura to the show. Hi. Hi, thank you. That was a perfect and beautiful intro. Yes. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you, Laura. Well done, yes. I'm so glad you are here. Tell us a little bit of your background. My background's in the theater and I wanted to be an actress. Got my master's in the theater. I also thought I was gonna be a counselor.
01:22
therapist, psychotherapist. So I was sort of studying both of those things and then I became very interested in emotional intelligence and all of these things kind of come together for me as a trainer. So I offer training that incorporates emotional intelligence, the psychology of communication, all that theater background in terms of voice and movement and executive presence, all of these things.
01:51
I have been teaching for many years and I'm also a filmmaker and that's a great love that I have right now. It's interesting you talk about theater and then you incorporate the psychology and the human behavior aspect of it because a lot of us think of theater as just entertainment. How is it that you were able to see the connection between theater and
02:17
psychology or understanding the human behavior element of that. I suppose it was because it was my deep interest. And so I started to see it everywhere. When I was first studying, I would notice what we call subtext. And subtext is when I might say to you, hi. And you immediately know that's different than, Hey, hi. Subtext is completely different.
02:45
which is what we often miss out when we're too literal with words and miss nuance and subtext. I guess I was always looking for the psychology and it tends to be what I write as a playwright and screenwriter and tends to be the type of theater and film I gravitate toward. For me, that's the best entertainment that integrates. Those two elements. Also, when it comes to theater, the communication aspect,
03:14
Isn't it just them reciting the lines that get given by the filmmaker? Okay, you're going to recite this in the scene. Is there more to that than just, oh, I'm just reciting my lines, doing my job as an actor and then go home? Yeah. One of my great interests and what my master's thesis was on is the energy that we have when we're in front of a group and actors are especially skillful
03:44
really compelling. And when you see a non-actor get up on stage and try to do that, there's often something missing. And so I've been trying to search for what is that missing piece so that we can all get up in front of an audience and be compelling. And there are a lot of dimensions. That's a whole complex art in itself, but one of the pieces has to do with passion,
04:14
The problem with passion is it can often be linked with our terror. What I'm most passionate about can terrify me too. It matters. You know, one of the key things for any kind of presenter or performer is to make peace with the energy that is both passion, but sometimes terror, and use that to be compelling, use that to...
04:44
Fill your body up with a lot of energy. To make peace with that kind of energy. To play big. You know, actors have to learn how to play large. We spend our lives, get me out of the soapbox now, but we spend our lives playing too small and we don't have to. Which is what we do in our real lives as well. We usually play small. Exactly, and in a meeting or when we're asked to speak at work or any of those places.
05:13
I worked on that, I continue to work on if we become successful and we're getting to ready to the next step, there's more to work on to am I ready to accept that attention or that challenge. And just completely revel in it and raise it and play big as you say. Yeah. So then when you were tackling the issues of emotional intelligence. Yes.
05:40
What have you found that we need to be mindful of when it comes to developing our EQ, our emotional quotient? You know, I've taught both EQ or EI and public speaking and the problem with EQ is that it's a lifetime work. We can take a great workshop in public speaking and we can make a change pretty fast. It's a forever work too, but we can make big changes. I think.
06:09
EQ, well let me just focus on it for speaking. I mean EQ is a huge subject but one thing that's interesting is that when I'm afraid, what we know from emotional intelligence study is when I'm afraid the higher thinking brain that has to do with language doesn't work as well, which is why if I'm really triggered and upset I can't find the word I'm looking for when I'm talking to
06:39
the part of the brain, the amygdala is firing. We're in fight flight. Just don't have those words. So learning to relax on a certain level before a presentation, again, embracing a certain kind of mindset that's going to help me instead of make me more tense. Cause, and then we're all terrified of forgetting what we were going to say. Every coaching client.
07:08
For public speaking, that is one of their main fears. I'm gonna forget my speech, I'm gonna be judged by the audience, and I'm gonna be a failure. That's why I don't wanna give it a try. Right, and that's why I'll read PowerPoint slides where I put every single thing I'm gonna say on there, because I'm terrified, and it's normal to forget. And it's really normal if we're nervous. But the mindset, the game changer is to embrace imperfection.
07:37
Embrace the mistake, embrace the fact that there's no real perfection in the art. There's just authenticity and passion and love, servant leadership, those things. Exactly. Because the best speaker in the world, no matter who your favorite is, he makes mistakes to this day. I do. We all do. If the audience notices, you can use that as a connection tool.
08:05
and use that to just laugh with them. Because first of all, a lot of us are not good at injecting humor into our speech. So sometimes those moments are good for just reducing the tension, making sure that everybody's okay and you continue with your speech. So it's not this monster that everybody should be avoiding this making a mistake part. Exactly. And if we all start to get that, imagine how beautiful life will be when we stop reading to each other.
08:35
and just start speaking to each other from the heart. Aren't we all looking for connection? Yes, that's the point. Otherwise just send an email. Look how the last two years have been towards us without any human contact, minimal human contact, and it's driven us crazy. Right, right. So when it comes to communication, what are we not getting right? Or what have we not?
09:03
been able to master yet? Well, specifically in terms of storytelling, the smarter the person I'm working with, the bigger the challenge often, because we've all been taught to think at the 40,000 feet level from the airplane view. We've all been taught to speak abstractly in general, and that's supposed to be the smart way of talking. And I have to really struggle to help people recognize
09:33
that a story is an individual moment. It's the micro, not the macro. And one of the ways I help people get that is when you listen to the president at a State of the Union, the president always tells stories. He or someday she will not just give us the broad outline. We really can't take that in. We can only take in...
10:01
that human to human scale. So we have to scale down. We have to be willing to scale down. And for some people, that is just a really tough shift. Once they get it, wow. Once we get that, then our everyday stories can become compelling. We were talking about this challenge of, are my stories compelling?
10:29
Yes, if we're willing to share them, I should find a story that just happened this morning. I'm getting ready for a trip and I'm going through all my clothes because I haven't really gone through my clothes since COVID, like going and trying things on and do they still fit me. And it's a huge job, but it feels really good to give stuff away and to make these tough
10:58
clothing decisions, I find them really excruciating, these clothing decisions. Now that story which I just grabbed needs polishing. Our stories should be practiced. They don't come out just like Athena out of the head, but if I practice storytelling, I can start to recognize there are stories moment to moment that could be useful to me. I do want to say a story about practice.
11:25
I had a football player, a professional player in one of my workshops, and we were talking about practice. He said, you know, Laura, I threw that football all day, every day. And he was a guy, right, who was getting hired to do presentations because of his fame. He said, but I never practice a presentation. That was like, yes, you're getting it. That's exactly it.
11:52
There's an art to throwing a football. There's an art to public speaking and storytelling. Why do we expect out of everything we do that it would require no practice? Just shoot from the hip. And I think part of it is because we all know how to talk. We all know the language we speak, but that's different. Yeah. Our stories ideally are crafted and we do that naturally. Like if we have a favorite story.
12:20
It's a favorite story because we've told it a bunch of times and we figured out how to tell it and where the punchline is and where we should pause. That's what we need to do all the time. Isn't that the reason we love comedy so much, especially standup comedy, that they build up to the punchline and whether the punchline is going to be something exaggerated or an irony or something, which is the complete opposite of what we're building up to.
12:47
That's why we enjoy them so much. That's why the joke becomes funny when they drop the punch line, because we thought it was going a certain direction and then it makes a U-turn. So true. And if we watched these specials about the backstage, the preparation that these comedians go through, wow, you know, they make it look like they're just coming up with it. And sometimes they're just funny that way, but this is an art. They work really hard at finding that exact rhythm.
13:16
that exact sequence of images that pays off, and we'll do the same as we work on a story. That's right. Somebody would say, I don't think my story is compelling because when I hear other people's stories, you know, there's that mess that becomes their message. They were alcoholics and went through the program and now they coach people. So people come to them because they heard of the mess and they can relate.
13:45
But I don't have that Laura, so how could my story be possibly compelling? Right. So I think we all have stories to tell and they're not all earth shattering. If you look at what people write memoirs about these horrible things that have happened to them and these great triumphs they've had, but I think there's an audience for all of our stories too. Whether or not it's just.
14:15
Learning that I have a story. I mean, that could be the story. It just doesn't end. There's always story. When I have my workshops and we have eight or 10 people in a room, every single person feels the way you just described, all of them do. And as each person gets up to share a story, the group goes, wow, that was great.
14:41
It's only the person who tells the story that thinks it isn't great. I don't know why we have so much interest in others and we disdain ourselves, but it's almost universal. I don't think I've ever met a person that doesn't have that thought. Yeah. The suggestion I would make is to work on the story. And even if you don't get professional coaching, somebody you love and trust can give you.
15:08
feedback on a story and if you love and trust them, they're going to be kinder to you than you are to yourself. Yeah. Don't we do the same thing with friends? You know, when we make a mess, we're so hard on ourselves. Oh, Roberta, how could you? You should know better. Whereas if a friend makes the same mistake, I'm much more gentle. Everybody makes mistakes all the time. You're the one telling them to be gentle towards themselves and it's okay.
15:36
But we don't use that same dialogue to ourselves. It's true. First of all, my greatest source of learning from all the mistakes and messes I make, and they make the best stories, as you've already said. The little messes are comedy. The big messes are sadness or tragedy, but they both make good stories. Hmm. Back to the point of thinking you are not interesting enough to have a story. You have people who just say,
16:05
Oh, I'm just a mom with two kids. What's my story? I'm just a student. Oh my gosh. It sounds to me like we're saying, it's the normal way to live in the first place. What's the story in that? Oh my gosh. So the mother is constantly telling stories about raising her kids. She's constantly telling her friends, her family, her doctor about what,
16:35
Little Joe did and the crazy frustration she's having with Little Joey right now. That's a story. Story is the air we breathe. It's the daily life. And so we discount it. So my little dog, so I don't have kids, but I have a dog and Reggie seems to have a little doggy dementia. You all, uh, he's good. He's good. And he's getting a little doggy CBD.
17:03
which is helping him, little doggie mood enhancer. You ask a person with a dog for a story, they got a zillion of them. Kids, same with studies. Maybe it's because we just don't take ourselves seriously enough and the daily challenges we face are valuable to reflect on. And all of them have messages in them if we look for them. I think it's a habit that we can develop.
17:32
And I've seen, so my workshop is often two days. The first day people really struggle with story. Some people faster than others. By the end of the day, we've done so many stories that they're starting to come to them. They're starting to remember other stories. Then they're starting to see the story in their day. So it can happen. It's just something to practice and then it gets easier. Do you think journaling might help?
18:01
us develop the stories in our lives, it might help us reflect and not just see it as, oh yeah, that's normal life, that's nothing, there's no story in there. Yeah, I think journaling is a great, great, great idea. And I think when something happens and we go, wow, that was really weird, that was really funny, that was really hard, then we can make a note of...
18:24
the details so that we can practice that story, especially if we're a manager at work. We want to lead other people by sharing stories. So we start to recall the story of when somebody had a breakthrough and we share that story. It doesn't have to be mine. It could be somebody I'm working with or somebody who learned something the hard way. That's my favorite story.
18:54
Stories, questionary tales. When we're a salesperson and we say, this client, this is what happened to them and we're gonna try to solve that for you so you don't have to have what happened to them. I mean, every salesperson should be telling tons of stories. We work quite a bit with the tech industry as well because they usually are the ones in need of presentation skills, needing to now take this brilliance and present it to people who are not.
19:23
necessarily tech. Exactly. How do they incorporate a story into the graphs and the tech presentation? Yeah, I get that pushback a ton and statistics are just a compilation of lots and lots of stories. That's what a statistic is. This is what the state of the union does so beautifully. If I'm going to say
19:51
million people are suffering from lack of broadband, then I'm gonna tell a story about a guy in Appalachia who because he doesn't have broadband can't, you know, the story of whatever it is that makes the stat come alive. And sometimes people say to me, well I just have to give the specifications of a product. I'm just describing a product, there's no story there.
20:19
Well, how was the product developed? Why was it developed? There are stories. There's tons of stories always. It's just pausing. Now, here's the thing though. Stories have a bad name in business. Because we don't always know how to tell them, people get lost in a story, they get too much backstory. So we have to learn to be concise in business to know what the story's about.
20:47
to focus on the struggle. It's an art, we can learn this art. What else in this art should be something we've become mindful of? Well, I think we're always trained in our culture to ignore struggle, to pretend there was no struggle. But that does not lead to story, because story should always have struggle. We go to the movies and the theater and we read novels because we love the struggle.
21:15
And how does the hero overcome? That's the whole issue because it reflects how am I going to overcome the challenges of my life? But we have to be willing to share those challenges. And that's what we're all hungry for. So that's another shift that we need to make. And there are ways to share it that are upbeat and focus on the journey and not, you know, we don't get lost in
21:43
self pity or any of these things that aren't gonna help our story. But we don't want to leave it out because when we leave it out there is no real story. So instead of just saying all the great things we did for our clients we might share the biggest struggle we had that year and how we overcame it. Because a lot of people relate to that more. Exactly. Why are we afraid to share the messy parts?
22:09
Laura, my life is perfect. Everything I'm doing with the coaching is great. Nothing goes wrong, which is not true. I remember I had a podcast guest a few weeks ago. He said, I want to know what actually happened so that we don't make that mistake again. Yeah. But if you just hide it, it's not gonna help us in the future to avert that and to be prepared for it. Why do we wear these masks? What are we afraid of? I think
22:38
We live in this world of photoshopped, airbrushed media. It's scary to show up with my warts and all. Yeah, there's pressure. Our world is competitive. Yet, I think if we take baby steps, we will see them rewarded. And I think if we look at the speakers that we admire,
23:04
They usually are full of self-deprecation and that kind of humor that invites us to drop the mask. Getting back to emotional intelligence, I think the biggest thing we can do in the world we live in is to show up at work as a human being. Because when we're sort of just this robot doing the work, then all sorts of terrible things happen. We have to show up as a human being to keep...
23:33
the system's human, humane, and life-giving. Which is what leadership coaching is about. Because I think that the one struggle leaders have is, will they still respect me? Will the subordinates still respect me if they know I also make mistakes? If they know that I don't know everything, because then that's where that story part comes in. Yeah, an EI exercise I used to do with executives would be to say,
24:03
Think of the mentors you've had. Who have you most admired? Who helped you the most when you were coming up? And to a person, there are always these emotionally warm people who are vulnerable. Share the whole story. They never think of those people that are sort of beyond reach like God. Those aren't the people that made the biggest impact on them.
24:31
They might have worked really hard for them and were frightened of them, but those mentors who they most appreciated are the ones that were that vulnerable to a person always. Because something in them emotionally moved when those mentors shared their vulnerable moments. Exactly.
24:57
That's more likely what people are going to remember about your speech rather than the rest of the content. Exactly. And they'll remember it for a long time. So Laura, what have I missed in the art of storytelling? The last thing I want to say, and it has to do with the art of storytelling, is that the art of storytelling is knowing how many details I need to give you so that you
25:25
are in the story with me and how much I should leave out that really isn't important and is going to bog us down. And I think for many of us as women and all the women I've worked with, I really encourage myself and the women that I've worked with to tell the story means to take some time, to not rush through, to not feel like there's no time for this, there's no time for me.
25:55
To feel like I have something to share of a human moment with you, and I'm going to take the time to do it. I think that's another mindset shift that makes the difference. And I'm still working on that shift constantly. You know, can I really share this story? Is it worthy? Can I really take the time to share it fully? Yeah, I can and I need to. What am I working in progress on?
26:23
I do the thing you just mentioned, winch-chairing the story. I get bogged down a little too much on the background information before getting to the actual story. My boyfriend, he was like, let me know when you get to the point. And I know I take too long, but I feel like I have this need to give you the background info so that you understand where I'm going with this. And I know half of it is not necessary, but I'm still working on it. It's an art. It is.
26:51
Definitely, definitely an art. And I think in business, the opposite can happen too much where people are so nervous and they skip all the juicy moments and there's no connection made. So we need both. We need to edit, but we also need to share. So yeah. Any last words of wisdom for us? No, I wanna just thank you for all your wisdom. I really.
27:20
Love everything you've said. Thank you for having me on. Thank you, Laura, for being on our show today. I really enjoyed listening to you and you've opened us up to so much when it comes to storytelling. So I appreciate your time spent with us today. Thank you. And before you go, please give us your social so we know where to find you. We want to continue this conversation. Yeah. Everything about storytelling and my public speaking business is at training. The number four.
27:49
breakthroughs.com, breakthroughs, T-H-R-O-U-G-H-S, training for breakthroughs. Training for breakthroughs.com, Laura Lewis-Barr, the art of storytelling. Thank you so much for being on our show today. Thank you, Roberta.