Building the Conversation

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host today. Now, if you've been following at all over the line, the last couple of sessions, I've been focused on this idea of content structure. And today, I want to take it one more level into actually what I'm going to call building the conversation.

[00:01:59] Most people, when they start to dive into this, always, you use the term bar to have to go present, and I have to give a public speech. I have to public speak. I am not fond of either one of those words. If I could write the script, we would take the word presenting and public speaking out of the vocabulary.

[00:02:21] I think all that does is put fear in people's hearts. If you look at it, the number one fear in America is public speaking. The fifth fear in America. Is death. Now, if you follow Seinfeld and remember one of his famous quotes, he said most people would prefer to be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

[00:02:44] Why do we want to put fear in people's hearts? Because they feel like they have to stand in front of a group of people and share their message. I might toss to you whether you're standing or you are seated. It is a conversation. But here's how people's minds think. If I invited you to go to Starbucks and have a cup of coffee with me, we sat at a table, sat in a cushy chair, and we had a conversation, get to know each other.

[00:03:12] We would not take one moment to think about how we're seated in that chair. We would just get comfortable. We would not take one moment to think about what you are doing with your hands? slightly, you got a cup of coffee or whatever you're drinking in one hand, and maybe you're gesturing for the other.

[00:03:26] And you're not even going to think twice about it. And most likely, we would look at each other as we have this conversation. What I find interesting is as soon as I say, now, John, can you get up in front and share with us what your division is doing? All of a sudden, John goes from the seated position of having a conversation to a standing position of presenting.

[00:03:51] I'm going to challenge you. There should be no difference when you're standing than when you're seated. You just happened to be standing. I don't care whether it's five people, 50 people, or 500 people when you're standing with a coworker after work in your car. And you're talking about the day and bantering about the weekend.

[00:04:10] Do you feel like you're presenting when you're at home in the kitchen with your spouse or significant other, your family, whoever you spend time with, do you feel like you're presenting? No. Do you feel like you have your conversation? But because we get into this mindset of presenting in my mind, you let go of all the natural things that you do so nicely.

[00:04:36] One of the most important things we can do when we communicate, whether you're standing or seated, is be conversational and be authentic, be who you are naturally. But here's what happens when you put yourself in presenting mode, you put yourself in performance mode, and when you put yourself in performance mode, you put yourself in perfection mode.

[00:05:02] And when you put yourself in perfection mode, you feel like it has to be done a certain way, and then you fall apart. But when you just have a conversation, With whoever you're discussing something with, you don't think of any of those other things. You don't put yourself on a performance treadmill. If there's one thing I wish I could get all of us to do, if there were one place that I'd be committed to helping anyone with, it's getting off that performance treadmill and letting you share your heart.

[00:05:34] I truly believe that you should let your life speak. And when you let your life speak, you're letting your words speak and your body language, speech in congruency. And when those two things happen, you get power. I remember reading a book called to let your life speak by Parker. And he said, when your true self and your true service come together, that's when you find your vocation.

[00:06:03] That's when you find your groove, that's when you find your gift that you're going to share with the world, but you can't share your gift with the world, whether that's on a personal basis or professional basis if you're in prison station mode, you could only do that when you're in conversation mode. So I'm going to share some things with you today.

[00:06:23] They will help you stay in this idea of having a conversation and not presenting. And this still is an all-around structure. It's still all around your ability to communicate whatever you want to communicate. I would believe that your structure is foundational to what you're going to communicate. It is a cornerstone.

[00:06:44] You build everything from that structure, whether it's a complex structure or a simple structure. But there are some challenges with a structure that I constantly hear. Number one, if there is a lack of structure, people are verbose. They're all over the place. People will say I lost track. I went down a rabbit hole.

[00:07:08] I didn't stay on track, and I didn't even get through my information. That's because they had no structure, no guidelines to work with. When you drive down the road, there's a line on one side of the line on the other that keeps your vehicle. This is where you're supposed to drive between now, as they're passing lanes, okay.

[00:07:28] Here's a place where I can come out of the structure and come back into the structure. But if you don't have some type of structure, you can't do that. You're just all over the place. I think my greatest experience of that was the very first time I went to India. I remember when my driver picked me up at the airport and where we came out of the airport, and he's going down this major highway, and for four or five minutes, he was in what I perceive to be a lane.

[00:07:58] And as we went down the road, all of a sudden he's out of the lane and all over the place. And I being a little more fearful, said, don't you want to stay in your lane? And I still remember him saying, here in India, we don't do that. And I was fascinated how they have a lack of traffic accidents, but they're all over the place in moving and jiving with each other in their vehicle, no structure in the way they drive, making it work, but no structure.

[00:08:29] So the typical challenges of a lack of structure. You ramble, you're verbose. You lack clarity. And by no means, are you concise? I think the other factor that happens when you're not, you don't have a structure to work within; you do a data dump. This is where people show up and throw up. This is where you fire hose people with information.

[00:08:51] This is where you're throwing anything you can to make it stick up on the wall, instead of having a focused message. And when you don't have structure, you can't stay on track. And when someone asks you a question, then it is not even relevant to what you're talking about. You get sidetracked, you lose control, and then you lost your moment to drive the listener forward.

[00:09:16] Now, those are just some of the challenges that I typically see in helping people as they go to craft content. The other big challenge I get from content is a mindset by people. They will say, if you're going to make me worth it, work within a structure in narrows me, it limits my big beef. I get all the time.

[00:09:38] The second thing they'll say is, that's just not who I am. I talk from the cuff, I just get up, and I am spontaneous, which is how I've always done it. Those are some of those m...