hey there mark don't you listen to a story of course can they see your story what [Music] what anyone can give a presentation few deliver Unforgettable presentations what's the difference you're about to find out welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcast with your hosts world champion speakers and coaches Mark Brown Mark Brown your life Tells a Story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it and Darren lroy and Darren lroy stage time stage time stage time ready for
some powerful presentation ahas let's Dive Right [Applause] In so Mark you and I do what's called dynamic duo coaching Duo never mind sorry that's bad which means there's two coaches you know you've heard of one onone coaching but this is two-on-one coaching and why it's so I think it's so much more quickly transformational because you've got both of our perspectives you know with each coach having a different ninja background we've talked about this yours being digging into the heart of the
person and the story and the life and asking those great questions it's not my skill set uh and your word smithing which again not my skill set oh well skill set more on the stage use the characters the delivery and it doesn't mean you're not good at that too you are it's just like my focus and what I see so we just got off a call with a coaching client and we're helping him and really um he's a CEO owns his own small business um an attorney and and he he's just really good and really
likable and when we were just showing him and talking about stories one of the things that came up was just can they see your story and this is twofold so can we see the setting and can we see the characters now if you've heard us before it's a little bit review if you haven't heard us talk about this listen in this is lean in lean in yeah the goal is just to give them two or let's just talk about setting first and then we'll talk about characters but the setting what were one or two or three
details that you can paint but my mom's a painter and when she starts on a canvas she paints with oil paintings she starts by touching the canvas and then she proceeds to brush in different colors okay that's where that's where it's different for us as presenters our goal is to give one or two specific details so the audience does all of the painting our job as a presenter is just to touch the canvas one or two spots so uh for example one of my stories and Mark I'd
love to hear one of your examples that you think of one of mine is in the photocopy room with Dan Jones my Toastmaster Club president if you were standing there you would have seen Reams and reams of paper on the wall in the photocopy room so seeing the Reams and reams of paper on the wall and Mark you've seen me do this before I I stopped the audience and I asked them what color was the paint on the walls in the photocopy room and a lot of similar answers um
eggshell off-white blue um but a lot of common alities why because a lot of photocopy rooms look the same I never say what color the walls are I suggest the and I and I put my hand up if you're listening to this I put my hand up high like I'm pointing to the Rams of paper on the wall so I'm putting my hand up there like I'm gesturing towards it and then I look at it I look at it so that helps the audience see those reams of paper and they fill in the rest of the blank I don't say it
was you know 32 square ft and Peter was not working that day and uh you know the light bulb we let the audience paint it's too much time for us if you're writing that's different but as a speaker paint just the right details and it doesn't matter what they see as Patricia FR says it matters that they see see Mark yeah it's funny I do have one particular story I tell quite a bit of you know playing High School football soccer to North Americans back in the 1970s and I bring the audience to
Jamaica my home country I bring them to Jamaica's national Stadium where the event took place and I talk about this young man Leo who was on the bench for the whole season and finally he gets a chance to play in a cup semifinal with the last 10 minutes to go so I already create the atmosphere of tension and I tell them you know in this in in Jamaica High School football when I was playing you don't get 85 people or 100 people come to a game you get 10 15,000 people
coming to a game and the bench was ped up at the beginning of the grand stand against an angled cycling track and I say the angle cycling track and I show them the angle of the cycling track and everyone pictures a cycling track we're in a stadium around a running track and in the middle is a soccer pitch now what color are the Lanes on the running track are they blue are they red are they green I'm guessing everyone pictures what they normally see so I mentioned he
had to go down the angle cycling track uh cycling track across eight Lanes of running track and when I say across eight Lanes of running track the audience now begins to look and begins to count the steps he gets to the field and he took his place on the sidelines so they're visualizing a stadium with 10,000 people they visualize a cycling track at an angle they visualized a long jump it I forgot to say long jump pit and eight Lanes of running track so they visualized the whole scene with just a
few words but what you did Darren you said you pointed to the walls and by showing the angle and on video you will see it on YouTube video on the audio I'm raising my hand to show the angle of the cycling track I said across down the cycling track across cross the long jump pit across eight Lanes of running track and he took his place on the sidelines to go into the game and the audience they picture a stadium they picture a crowd they picture a track they picture
the long jump pit they P because they seen the Olympics right and they picture the track and they picture this young man Leo standing at the sidelines waiting to go on just enough details I could have said it was the track track was you know 35 yards wide the long jump bit was so what they used gray sand not white sand not relevant the track was blue green it was made of this no they want to see the stadium the crowd the track the pit and all they want is a distance from the bench to the soccer
field and the audience everyone pictures that themselves simply a couple of details a track a longum pit and a cycling uh track in the same way we can use just enough details for the audience to see it and it brings me back to a thought I've been sharing for a long time when you're telling a story if you can give the audience an experience then they will see your story they'll see your characters they'll see the setting we always say let them picture the setting anyone who was heard us teach
know we always say let them picture the setting if the audience can picture the setting and the characters and feel the atmosphere the tension those are all ways for the audience to see the story so number one make sure you paint two or three details touch the paint on the canvas so they can get it and let the audience see it Daren yes and then the characters we again want them to see the characters you don't have to paint the whole picture of the character but just as a
guideline give us one Visual and one emotional one Visual and one emotional so we can get a sense of the character at the beginning of the story we're just focusing at the beginning of the story in today's podcast because if they see it if they see the setting if they see the characters they will go with you the whole point is to take them on that Journey with you so if they picture it and it's our job to paint it with just enough details that they fill in the whole setting we see the whole
character now you know when I say Mark Brown if you don't know Mark Brown now I'm standing on a stage so people don't even know how tall I am really MH and so I give the comparison I'm 57 is okay yeah yeah yeah 5 seven okay yeah and I say Mark Brown is 6 foot2 he has a heart of gold he's a native of Jamaica and he has beautiful booming laugh like the guy from the old 7Up commercial and so it's a fun way to picture Mark but I'm also setting up the end where he says oh we have some work
to do so that voice at the beginning is important because it's setting something up at the end of the story but right now we're just talking about the beginning so you know when I hold my hand up how Mark how tall Mark is compared to me so I'm physically and emotionally looking up to mark my mentor now I don't say well Mark Brown has size 12 shoes he sings in his chorus he's you know he wears a uh 52 I don't know I have no idea thank you very much buddy what about a 46 long we be 4
um for those who wear suits with American Standards but you did say something Darren that's very interesting about the visual because I've used this idea of having the audience see the characters nonverbally as well now if you're listening to the podcast if you're listening on you will not see this clearly on the video you will see this but there are times you can describe a character by your action and not by your words for example I could say you know I heard about this guy you
know they call him you know Tiny Tim I turned the corner and I and there he was the audio that silence was my I was looking up and my facial expression was one of shock awe and wonder because Tiny Tim was 6'6 275 and he looked like a bull right Tiny Tim was a was was a misnomer I was fooled by that but when I turn the corner I saw a Tiny Tim look of Wonder and looking up you know I'm seeing a giant in my own mind and if I'm six foot inches tall and I see this guy who is clearly bigger than
I am visually you are seeing you are picturing Tiny Tim in your own mind because the way I look at the character myself here's the key we can give the audience a visual without giving them a verbal I'll say it again we can give the audience a visual without giving them a verbal I did this without knowing it almost 30 years ago when I was competing in the Toast Masters World Championship I used a line to describe a woman who was pretending to be a homeless person
in New York City and I talked about some looked right at her and right past her others looked right through her we call that 3D speaking when I said look at her I'm looking at somebody in space looking past her I look past them in space look right through her I look through her in space but the way I portray the character in the moment you could actually see me looking past someone you could see me looking at someone you could see me looking through someone because the way my eyes looked the way
my face looked and we can really portray a character without words if we do that well to some it is an advanced technique but there are simple ways to apply that principle even now as descriptors can the audience see your characters in the story and Visually representing Darren uses hand to show height and depth how tall or how short you can use Simple motions and body language to help the audience get a visual picture of a character of a scene of a setting of
reaction now we did restrict to what we see at the beginning but even if you start to do that now and you can practice front of a mirror can the audience see that record yourself on video and watch it back do I depict that character well you can really help the audience to see your characters see your scenes and eventually see your story it could be an article of clothing they always wear it could be a smile that's always on their face it could be a frown uh her favorite red jacket again
just let the audience paint most of the picture you just give us the one or two details to literally and figuratively touch the canvas this is so important at the beginning we're just focusing at the beginning the setting the characters and yes and sometimes down very quickly if we can hear at the beginning a voice the quality of a voice can speak volumes you you know you need not say oh when I met her oh I could tell she was alien she had this really raspy voice and I could see she was kind
of older and going through a lot that says much but if you said I walked in and she said hello Mark I haven't seen you in a long time and just saying hello Mark I haven't seen you in a long time it paints a picture in the audience's mind of the character you're trying to portray these are small little details and small little tweaks that you can use but what what you will accomplish is remarkable because at the very beginning you just met that character but at the
very beginning the audience is beginning to see the character see the setting and eventually they will see your story these small tools can be so instrumental and once you master them it'll become second nature to you again we're looking at the beginning right now and at a later date will take you through a process so the audience will see not only the beginning character and the setting but eventually see your whole story yes yes yes yes and here here's the test if you're part of NSA the
National Speakers Association or Toast Masters uh or put together an audience and tell the story just tell it the way you normally tell it and then after ask them the question did you picture the setting did you picture the characters and ask them what they saw because that's going to give you some feedback as to did you touch the canvas properly again it doesn't matter that they're all seeing the same thing it matters that they're seeing something and like Mark just alluded and gave us
an example of you could also introduce a character is using interesting dialogue you know maybe they're overconfident maybe they speak really loud maybe they speak softly or as Mark gave you that example uh it allows us to say fewer words yet say volumes Amen to that by giving an emotion of the character and by the way you're wow you've grown about two feet since I've seen you last you know we uh there's ways to use the dialogue to help us picture the character and the setting
it's creative it's powerful but most importantly it's compelling when your audience sees your story Mark I like that last line I can't I can't even better than that it's creative it's also compelling we we urge you we ask you we invite you to to try this technique and as Darren says find or create an audience let them see what you are what you're showing them and ideally if they can see it with their eyes closed by how you deliver a line by the lines you use
and the dialogue you share then you're certainly on your way to telling Unforgettable stories yes test it in a lowrisk atmosphere get the feedback but don't lead the witness just ask them what did you picture don't say okay so I'm working on this and I'm trying to see if you saw the story at no just ask them questions and get feedback um whether you do a written feedback or oral feedback whatever get the feedback see if you're on the right track we're looking for commonalities and we're
looking that they saw it not exactly what they saw Mark bring us home yeah and when they can do that they have they'll have the necessary emot connection to absorb your story and then run with it here's a question can they see your story tell us about it we'll see you next week all right hey there this is Darren lroy thanks for checking out this podcast episode on YouTube if you want all of them not everyone is on YouTube check out your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss an episode
keep being a sponge so you can be Unforgettable check out stagetime university.com where good presenters become Unforgettable