- Today, I'm going to react to Brené Brown.
She's an author, a speaker, and a couple years ago,
she actually has a Netflix special
that she put out called "The Call to Courage."
It's about her research, and she's a really dynamic speaker.
She's got an excellent reputation,
and by watching her, we can learn a little more
about how we could improve our presentation skills.
So I'm going to watch the introduction portion
of this message, because the special is quite long,
and I'll pause it a couple times along the way.
And then, when it seems like the intro is about over,
I will make some summary remarks at the end.
So let's take a look.
- [Announcer] She spent 20 years studying courage,
vulnerability, shame and empathy,
wrote five New York Times number one best sellers,
and her TED Talk is one of the most watched in the world.
Please welcome Brené Brown
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
- Wow.
That's a warm welcome.
And by the way, she's already doing something
without ever having said a word.
She had someone introduce her,
and she's a bestseller, she's been doing this for 20 years,
everybody knows her.
You can do this, too.
So I don't care where you're speaking.
I once spoke to four people, four people
at a lunch and they introduced me.
So whenever you're going to speak anywhere,
bring a card with you, a note card,
that has your name and a couple of interesting points
about you that relate to that audience,
and relate to that message about your background,
and then, before you ever talk, just like her,
that person that introduces you already builds
your credibility, and they're getting to know you
before you even say a word.
It's a really smart technique.
Okay, let's listen to this rock star introduction here.
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
- Oh my God, hi.
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
- That's unbelievable.
- Hi, everybody.
Whoo!
Hi!
- [Audience] Hi.
- How's it going?
(audience cheering)
It was so funny, I'm backstage,
they're like, can we take your purse?
I'm like, no. (audience laughing)
It's totally a Texas thing,
where I always have to have my purse and an exit plan.
(audience laughing)
I'm not sure until I walk out here
that I'm actually going to do it.
(audience laughing)
But I am so happy to be with y'all tonight
and I have to say, honestly, the older I get,
the more I realize that time is the big,
precious, unrenewable resource.
Yes or no?
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
Yeah.
So thank you for spending it with me tonight.
I really appreciate it.
I think we're gonna have some fun,
talk about some hard stuff,
laugh a little bit, and hopefully,
learn something from each other.
- So this is a fantastic opening.
Already, she's doing exactly what we tell presenters to do.
She started with an attention grabber.
It might not have seemed like much,
'cause she's so natural, but she said,
"Hey, how you doing?" Big wave.
She welcomed everybody nonverbally,
and then she used a little bit of humor,
telling a story about not wanting to give up her purse
and needing an exit strategy.
And then, she is engaging the audience
in that way where it feels like
there's a relationship, there's a dynamic back and forth.
She's really stacking up, what I call stacking.
She's not just saying a quotation
and then she moves into her message,
or an example and then she moves in.
She's using all of these things, humor,
examples, engagement, questions.
Fantastic.
That's called stacking, and you want to use
more than one technique in your attention grabber
to give people a chance to settle down
into what you're gonna say.
And then she went into the key purpose.
She said, and that's how you know she's done
with her attention grabber,
'cause she said, so time is precious,
and tonight, thank you for spending the time.
We're gonna laugh, we're gonna learn,
and that's the overall point.
We're gonna laugh, we're gonna learn.
- I'm always laughing when I'm listening to the bio,
that you know, she studies shame, empathy,
courage and vulnerability.
You have no idea how handy that comes in my life.
(audience laughing)
So really, not just in my work, but in my life,
because how many of you know,
I recognize some of y'all, so you know,
so I know you know me, but how many of you know
that I'm super introverted?
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
Like yeah.
Where are all the introverts?
(audience cheering)
- I would not have guessed that about her.
(audience cheering) - It's super handy,
when I'm traveling, because I'll be sitting
next to someone, and sometimes, I'm in the mood to chat,
and sometimes I'm not, and so, they'll say,
"So what do you do?"
And if I'm not in the mood to chat,
I'll be like, "I study shame. What do you do?"
(audience laughing)
And they're just, they're just like,
(imitating window whirring) - Okay.
Wonderful.
Again, she's following a classic
public speaking introduction.
We talked about her attention grabber, her purpose,
and now, she's giving her background.
She's establishing who she is, her credibility.
She even said, oh, I was laughing
as I was listening to the bio.
Remember, we talked about someone
introducing her with the card?
So now she's continuing the bio.
She's saying, oh, I study shame and vulnerability,
and how many of you know I'm an introvert?
And how many of you know that?
How many introverts are out there?
She's engaging as she's sharing about who she is,
and that establishes common ground.
So we wanna listen to her, we want to lean into her message
because we feel like we have some similarity.
I would not have guessed that she's an introvert
because she's speaking, but when she's not on stage,
apparently, she's more introverted.
So she's creating a background story for us
to help us get to know her.
We call this establishing credibility,
but it can be anything about your background
that helps us create common ground
between the speaker and the listeners.
- And then, recently, it was really funny,
'cause I was like, oh, I study courage and vulnerability
and the guy was like, oh, opposite ends of the spectrum.
(audience laughing)
And there's that minute where you're like,
do I engage or do I not engage?
(audience laughing)
I was like, no, actually, they're the same.
Courage, you can't really be brave without vulnerability.
And he's like, (laughs) Yeah, no the opposite ends.
(audience laughing)
Now I can understand- - She just did
something amazing. - Why it's complicated
for some people- - And I'll tell you
about it in a moment.
I wanna see where she goes here.
- Of trying to disprove that I had to be vulnerable
to be brave, but I really,
this came to life for me when we started looking at covers
for "Daring Greatly," which was the first book
where I wrote about courage and vulnerability, right?
So I say to them, let's make sure we really capture
the spirit of vulnerability and courage,
that we really have to put ourselves out there,
and they're like, we've got it.
- So what she's doing here is telling us
her thesis statement.
But unlike many speakers, many wonderful speakers,
she doesn't just say, my main point today is,
or my bottom line is, which would be fine.
She doesn't do that.
She does it in a much more artful way.
She does it through a couple of examples.
She says, oh, I was on a plane and this guy said,
"Oh, courage and vulnerability,
"opposite ends of the spectrum,"
which I'm sure is a common misunderstanding in her work,
and she says, no, you have to be brave to be vulnerable,
or she may have said, you have to be vulnerable to be brave.
She's connecting that they're not opposites,
they're connecting them, and she said it
a couple different ways, and then she just said right there
to her publisher, let's talk about this,
'cause I really want the cover to capture
the spirit of this connection.
So she's emphasizing her thesis that connects bravery
and vulnerability through examples.
It's just a really artful way to do it.
Instead of coming right out and saying it,
she says it through the illustrations,
through the examples, and it's really clear.
- Do you need to see the cover?
And I was like, uh yeah, I need to see the cover.
(audience laughing)
So they sent me the cover.
(audience laughing)
I've named that piece "White Guy on a Wire."
(audience laughing)
I was like, I would never buy that book.
(audience laughing)
Had I known what was coming next,
this would've been the cover of "Daring Greatly."
(audience laughing)
I guarantee it, because I go back,
and I'm like, that's not gonna work.
I don't want a white dude on the front of the book, period.
(audience laughing)
Especially with like an 1980s briefcase.
(audience laughing)
- Briefcase? Why'd he have a briefcase?
- I got an email that says,
(laughs) This is it. We all love it.
And I'm like, oh man, dude.
Don't use your invisible army with with me.
Like I'm a shame researcher.
You can't do the, we all love it thing with me.
Like I will drill you down till you are crying.
(audience laughing)
And who is the we?
Unless you got a mouse in your pocket,
that is chicken, like, no we.
Just like, I love it.
So I'm looking at it like oh God, we all love it.
We all think this it, we're all excited.
We're all behind it.
So you know, right?
I'm gonna test your empathic powers here.
(audience laughing)
If you're really highly empathic, there'll be no laughter.
(audience laughing)
I was like, what?
(audience laughing)
Okay, so here's the thing.
Like every woman born in this country,
I've had to do my share of body image work.
(audience laughing)
And I have.
To the point where I am dangerous
I like myself so much.
Like I'm good with everything.
Right? Yeah.
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
But the chance of my name being under an elephant ass
on the front of a book is zero.
Zero, there is zero opportunity for that to happen.
- Okay, I'm gonna stop it there and talk about
all of these big picture strengths that I'm seeing.
So she's doing a fantastic, really masterful job
with this message, this opening, and this audience.
So first of all, the content itself is just killer engaging.
She's using, first of all, she really cares
about the topic, that's obvious,
but she's using such a variety of material.
She's using examples and visuals and humor,
a ton of humor, which we'll talk about more in a second,
little stories, little information about herself,
engagement, Q&A, already Q&A in an introduction.
I mean, that's really masterful, and so,
the content itself is incredibly engaging and interesting.
Even if you don't care about this topic,
she makes you care about it.
The second thing is she hits all of her points.
We're looking at just the introduction here,
and she's hitting all of the points.
It sounds like one connected story,
because it's so, there's so much of a natural flow to it,
but if you diagram it, she's doing what you would expect
on a presentation checklist.
She has her attention grabber,
she explains the purpose of her message,
the main purpose, to laugh and to learn together.
She gives her background and credibility,
and then she gives her thesis statement, you might call it.
She doesn't do a preview statement that I've heard,
but you don't often hear a preview statement
for a keynote message like this.
But it sounds like one big story
because there's such a natural logic
and flow to it, and she's practiced it,
probably, enough to really make it sound conversational.
Let's talk about her humoristic style.
This is probably the number one strength,
and I think the reason why it's such a strength
is because it's unexpected.
If I were to tell you, I'm gonna talk to you
about vulnerability and courage and bravery,
would you really expect me to be this humorous?
But see, what she does is she picks a style
that fits the message because it allows her
to talk about difficult things, hard topic,
but also, do it in an interesting and fun way.
So it makes a harder topic easier to talk about.
It's a genius choice to come at this
from a standpoint of humor.
It makes the whole thing more interesting and engaging
and time just flies.
Also, her delivery is really warm.
So her voice is excited, her face is excited.
She's got lots of gestures.
She's very animated, and that really enhances her message.
Everything she says is conversational
or you might call it extemporaneous.
That's the official word.
She's not reading from notes that I can see, of any kind.
She doesn't have teleprompters,
and she's making little adjustments as she talks,
so that tells me she hasn't memorized it word for word,
but rather, has internalized this.
It's extemporaneous conversational,
and by the way, how do you get there?
She knows her stuff.
She has probably done some version of this message
dozens of times, 50, maybe 100 times.
When you know your stuff, you get the feeling
that she's able to improvise and extend things
or cut things if she wants to.
So you wanna really work, when you're doing this,
work on your message behind the scenes.
She's probably taken this on the road.
We're not gonna take our message on the road,
but you can practice, in the privacy of your own home
or your office a couple dozen times if you need to,
to really get it to the place
where you have a mastery of the material.
So I'm mentioning a couple words like delivery
and style and those are concepts from public speaking,
and I made a related video
on the five canons of rhetoric or public speaking,
and it's a really helpful, instructive education.
It's not a reaction video, but it's an instructive video
that you can use to help shape your public speaking
and improve your public speaking skills.
I will put a link to that in the description below.
So two questions: what are your impressions
of Brene Brown's public speaking skills?
What are your gut feeling, your initial reaction,
and secondly, who else would you like me to react to?
I would love to hear your comments
in that section below the video.
We can learn from any speaker, whether they're good or bad,
and so, suggest someone and maybe we'll take a look
and we can all learn together.
So thanks for watching.
Until next time, God bless, and I will see you soon.