Ep. 98: Influential Storytelling: Revolutionize Your Communication with Mike Ganino
EPISODE 98
Influential Storytelling: Revolutionize Your Communication with Mike Ganino
About the Episode:
You’re going to love this episode today with Mike Ganino, a public speaking, storytelling, and performance coaching methodology. He is so good at his craft and that shines through throughout the whole episode. There were a couple moments where I was blown away at his ability to take a story and run with it as he related it to the practice of public speaking and/or making the ask. As you listen through this episode, you’ll hear tips on becoming a more effective and confident communicator (even if you’re an introvert). These are skills that you can take with you into the board room for your next directors meeting or as you sit down to ask for the bigger donation from a long-time donor. I can’t wait to hear how you put this into practice!
Topics:
One of the biggest misconceptions of public speaking and why it’s not always the best to be the loudest in the room
Why introverts actually make great public speakers and the thing that more stories need to be brilliant
How to reconnect with your inner self and find your spark again after being told you’re “too much”
Reminders to yourself so that you can become a more effective communicator and the power of rehearsal
Mike’s advice for those people who feel awkward and uncomfortable with public speaking
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“As soon as you stop talking to yourself in your head, that’s public speaking. We are all public speakers.” – Mike
“Introverts can make great public speakers and communicators because a lot of times they are paying more attention.” – Mike
“Nonprofit best practices are killing the entire pitch because they take the best things out of them.” – Christina
“Public speaking is relational, so we can only get better when we are in it together.” – Mike
“I am in control of the way I communicate this story and what I show up with.” – Mike
“The worst thing you can do is remember all the words and forget the meaning.” – Mike
“When you’re confused, scared, or lost, return to truth.”
About Mike:
Mike Ganino is the creator of The Mike Drop Method – a public speaking, storytelling, and performance coaching methodology. His clients call him “The Keynote Director.” He is a storytelling + communication expert who hosts The Mike Drop Moment podcast. He’s been named a Top 10 Public Speaking Coach by Yahoo Finance, and California’s Best Speaking and Communication Coach by Corporate Vision Magazine. He is an author, former Executive Producer of TEDxCambridge and has been named a Top 30 Speaker by Global Guru. He’s a trained actor and coach from the World Famous Second City, Improv Olympics, and Upright Citizen’s Brigade. In addition to his track record as an executive in the hotel, restaurant, retail, and tech industries, Mike’s worked with organizations like the Disney, American Century Investments, Caesars Entertainment, and UCLA.
Connect with Mike:
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 00:05
Welcome Mike Guinea note to the podcast, I'm so excited to meet you in real life, take you out of Instagram, DMS and bring you to the podcast.
Mike Ganino 00:19
It's like a like, beat me up, beat me up into the out of the Jeep. That should be a program someone runs like, out of the GMs and
Christina Edwards 00:27
into almost real life into into this into Yeah, welcome. Well tell us about you tell us about your work. And we're gonna dig into all the things today.
Mike Ganino 00:36
You know, I, when I was growing up, I always kind of watched people who had better, better situations going on, I grew up pretty poor, wrong side of the tracks. And over and over, I was seeing these examples of people who had done things who had gone somewhere. And I kept recognizing that it was how they show up that how they walked into the room, how they use their voice, use their body use their ability to communicate, to really kind of change their circumstances. And I became really obsessed with that when I was little just watching and saying, how do you do something different than what you've done before. And it always starts with movement with speaking with voice. And so that was just something that always was in my head that if I was going to go somewhere, if I was going to go to college, I was the first one in my family to graduate high school that it was gonna be because I used my voice, you know, figuratively, whatever you want to say. And it happened for me again and again, through college and going into the restaurant industry being a restaurant tour selling a restaurant company. I was an award winning small yay, I travelled around teaching people about wine. And even there, it was about how do we make this not boring? How do we not talk about licking chalk and limestone and dirty moss on a forest bed floor that people like I don't even know what that is? How do we make this fun. And so when I started seeing other people struggle with that after I sold a company, I was a partner. And I thought there's all these smart people, all these heart led people trying to do good things. But they don't know how to talk about it. They don't know how to get in front of a room and share their story. They don't know how to walk up and and approach fundraisers to lead an auction to tell the kinds of stories that actually get people invested in interested. And so that's what I do now.
Christina Edwards 02:34
Amazing when you're saying the thing about the Somali, a one of my most favorite jobs ever was as a bartender at a rock club. And there's so much I learned from bartending that I use in this in this world, because all it is is connecting with people, it's just connecting with people. And the most fun shifts, the one where you blink, and you're like five hours went by, and I made a ton of money. Those were the ones where you're just connecting with people. And then you just kind of break that that wall. One of the things that you have on your website are the sound, I want to read it because I thought it was so good. You said I learned early on the most impactful people in the room aren't the loudest, or the most authoritative voices. They are the ones who know how to tell a story and be radically president with their audience. So this is good news for my introverts. So tell us about. Tell us about that. Because that really hit me I was like, Yes. And I think that there's always the person who's the loudest in the room. And that's frustrating, right? Yeah, they suck the air out of the room. So let's dig into that piece.
Mike Ganino 03:34
Yeah, well, it's interesting too, because that loudest person in the room energy, a lot of times when I'm coaching clients, or somebody sends me a video to review, when I'm doing, I'll review the video and send them notes back of like, here's what I'm seeing, here's what you could try. The people that are those those really loud energies on stage or on a video on social, sometimes that is also a protective thing. Like that's a lot of pushing energy, because they're so scared to be intimate, and actually connect with people. And so it's interesting to look at it from that perspective, too, and say, Oh, they're trying to connect so badly, because they're so in need of that. And they don't know how to do it besides be big and be loud. So one of the misconceptions I think, that happens so often with with public speaking, and when I think of public speaking, and storytelling, I think of if you're, if you're standing in front of a board, boardroom with 10 people in it, if you're getting on a podcast, if you're calling someone on the phone, to see if they want to get involved in your event, see if they can, if they could donate if they can sponsor if they can show up. Those are all public speaking, as soon as you stop talking to yourself in your head, your public speaking. So when I say that for the rest of the show, that's what I'm talking about. So don't think like, Well, I'm not getting on a TED stage anywhere. No, we're all public speakers like we are. We have these voices for other people, by the way. So we are meant to communicate. So when I hear sometimes that that somebody say, Oh, I'm an introvert, I don't. I don't like public speaking. I think well, that's not really related to being an introvert. That might be really added to not having the skills that you needed, not having the practice, maybe your social, cultural family trauma, childhood history has told you, You're too much. You're not enough. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say they're gonna laugh at you. Maybe you haven't had that maybe you haven't had the same training that I have as an actor to learn how to play with your voice, how to not sound monotone, how to how to communicate what you really need to communicate. And so when I hear someone say, Well, I'm an introvert, I don't like to do public speaking, I think, Well, those are not related. Because an introvert is more about, I don't get energy from interacting with lots of people. And so I think introverts can make great public speakers, great communicators and storytellers because a lot of times they're paying attention better to Yes, we don't need, like we don't need. We think sometimes the storytelling like well, I didn't, you know, I didn't save anybody. I didn't climb Mount Everest, I didn't go to the moon. By the way, I've worked with global heroes who are best selling authors of books about what they did. I've worked with Everest climbers, and I've worked with two astronauts, they struggle with their big stories, because they're so unrelatable. What we need with storytelling is not your origin story, or like my story, what we need is yesterday, while I was grabbing coffee, I saw this thing and I was so curious about it made me remember this moment. And so that's why it's important that you always do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, those are those moments. So it's like a, it's like a Taylor Swift storytelling like, oh, the moment that something happened, and you noticed it, and you fixated on it. And so introverts can be really brilliant storytellers. Because they're often really check it out the circumstances they're watching. And so totally What if every day you wrote down something that happened that day that maybe someday you'll use a story you'll write a story about, you'll tell the story about it. That's such a great place to play from,
Christina Edwards 06:43
I think they're they're also tend to be a little more perceptive, and like introspective in that way. And it can be a magic, you know, of like, they'll notice the details. And that's constantly what I'm telling my clients is like, put me in the room with you what happened when you got that WhatsApp message, like put me in the room, I want to know you're in between meetings, and then what happened, don't take all of the like, little bits of humanity out of it. And that's what we see in a lot of nonprofits storytelling, and I love that you talked about just like, let's just anchor it with like whether public speaking is the same as a donor pitch meeting is the same as talking to a foundation, a potential funder, a potential sponsor, that's just you talking about your mission, and then asking them to be a part of it. And a lot of times, nonprofits have been schooled on best practices. And the best practices are like killing the entire pitch, right? Because it's taking anything interesting out of it. So what do you say to that?
Mike Ganino 07:36
Yes? I agree. Yes, yes. To all of that. I think, you know, at the end of the day, if we want to get things done like it, okay, so go back to thinking like, we're, we're children, I have a three year old. And so all the time, I'm like, Oh, I'm really seeing the world differently through her eyes, what she's learning. And so from the time we're babies, we use our voice and our movement, right? Babies are moving around and doing things trying to figure out where's my body? How does this work? Where are you at that. So movement, and our voice crying, screaming, doing these things, our face smiling a certain way, you know, when if you if you've had, if you've had a child from an infant, then you remember the first time like, they smiled at me, there's a connection, those things are so powerful for us. But we also start to get messages really, really early about, oh, that's Don't cry that way. Don't have that feeling that's too big. That's Jeff small. I don't like when you do that. Don't yell. And all you're doing is expressing what's inside. And so you start to feel this, like, Oh, my voice is dangerous, my movement is dangerous. Then we go to work. And we say, well, being vulnerable is dangerous, but we like it. Like, we want to watch TED Talks and be like, yes, be vulnerable. Everyone do it. Except not me, I am unwilling to do it. Because it's frightening. Because from a child, I was told, could be a good girl beat. We don't yell, use your inside voice. And the problem is, so many of us then walk in and we, we get jobs, we go and we start working with people. And we only know how to use our inside voice. And we're so disconnected from all the rest of it. But if you go back to that really, really little baby stage, those babies have that movement, and that voice and that ability to use their face and their eyes to see if they can for a reason. And it's to communicate. And everything we do to strip away that is really hurting our cause. Whether the cause is, you know, hiring people and bringing in the right recruits, whether it's speaking with, with donors, whether it's working on fundraise. All of those things suffer at the hands of our inability to use our voice, our breath, our face, our eyes and our bodies to tell the kinds of stories that get people to take action because all of those things from the time were Born. We're designed to help us get what we want and what we need.
Christina Edwards 10:04
Hmm, how? One I agree 100% I see that I think we are socialized. It's like, it's cute. When you're little too, you're allowed to have the range of emotions, you're allowed to make mistakes are allowed to do all this. And the older you get, it's just like, act normal, be normal be normal. I hate that. So how do we get that back? How do we get our spark back? How do we get our voice back? How do we get all of that back? When you're like, if anyone's listening? And they're thinking, yeah, that that hits? That sounds a little like me. How do they get that back? How do they weave that? Particularly? How do they weave that into their work life? Their purpose? Yeah, part
Mike Ganino 10:40
of it is understanding that all of these things are about that no one is necessarily more talented in these areas like that. It's all about choices we make in those moments, right? It's about little tiny choices. And a lot of times what happens when we're communicating. When we're speaking, when we're telling a story, when we're hopping on something, when we're reviewing, you know, how things are going is that we have forgotten we can make any choices. We think there's only one way to do it. You talked earlier about like, oh, the corporate model, the this is the way this is the nonprofit model, we forget that we actually can make choices. So it's not that people are making someone asked me the other day, like, Oh, do you think people are making lots of bad choices? And I said, I just think they're not making any choices? Because they're not aware they can. They're not aware that they can stand up from a table and go stand near someone like what is that signal? They're not aware that, oh, in this moment, you can speak softer, which then tells the audience, this is a really important thing that we're about to cover here. Because it's what we would do naturally, if I was telling you a sensitive story about when my little baby girl was born, and she was three months early. If I was pushing, like I was two minutes ago pushing, that would land really weird, it would feel like is he disconnected from what he's saying? Because it sounds emotional. No, I would drop into something like this, and I would get really earnest. So Are you even aware? First step is just becoming aware of the choices that you can make in those moments, to connect with people, to connect with yourself even really is what we're trying to do. That's step one, just that if you are someone who is in a group of people, or you are working with peers, you know, or you're a leader, even then how can you start to bring these ideas that I'm sharing here into your meetings as well? How can you weave it like, worked with the American Heart Association, helping some of their team who goes out and is doing fundraising and doing Yep, connecting with companies to get them involved? And we were talking about the power of really, as leaders, why would you not start a meeting every week and say, Hey, we're gonna take turns every week, I want to hear story what something happened this week, I want you to do it. That's how they get better. I want to hear some I want to hear about a story from out in the field, if that's what they're doing, or I want to hear someone you met this week, tell me their story. That's how they get better. That's how they learn. Like, oh, I can practice this. It's not sitting in a room and writing out things for yourself. And then hoping that when you get in front of someone, you'll do it, it's actually doing it because public speaking is relational. And so we can only get better in relation, right? We can only get better with each other. And so if you want to have a team who are really brilliant communicators, then how can you as a leader or appear if you just say, hey, let's all do this together? Let's get better at this. Every week, let's do a three minute story, someone's going to do it. That's one way to just start to push. And then if you're the person whose week it is think, how could I use more of my voice here? How could I play with the speed that I tell this park because I want it to be funny, or I want it to be feel like a ranch, right? Like, and I remember I walked into the store, I looked around, I saw everything around me There were shops and bags and tools and pickles, and this and that. And then I saw it. I saw the little girl who needed help. Whoa, like, you don't have to be dramatic. It's just the truth of what you would do. I was overwhelmed. And then I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. Like, how can you just play in a safe space. So you can get your reps in and get used to it and learn. It's almost like you have a new guitar, right? And you've got an old guitar, you got all these strings and you got all these strings. And the only way that you can kind of see what is my range? How high can I go? How Low Can I go? How fast can I go? How slow Can I go is to try to play to get used to playing and we get so stuck playing one chord over and over and over. But we got choices. That
Christina Edwards 14:31
was so good. I'm like you're good when you do when you gave us the for instance. I was like yeah, I'm with you. I'm leaning in. Oh, that's good. So there's so many places I want to go here. What? Here's where I want to go. Many times people want the perfect blink, the perfect script, the perfect pitch the perfect. My favorite question I'll get on coaching calls is like what what should I say? And right and it's like that precept poses that there are 10 words that you say in a sentence together that equals a million dollars in funding right? And like it No, I actually believe it's less about the exact set of words you say, and more about how you say it, the energy and the meaning behind you using it. So what do you what do you say to somebody who's like, Listen, I've got a big presentation coming up, okay, this thing matters. We're trying to get this meeting or, you know, this is a funder we've had for five years, but I want to upgrade them, I want to ask them for more. And I'm going to be sitting with them and you know, a bunch of higher ups, I need to nail this. First of all, even just saying that to you, I felt pressure. In this fictitious scenario, right? So what would you say to somebody who's like, what do I say in that moment? How should I be in that moment? What how do we prep them in a way that actually makes sense?
Mike Ganino 15:46
Yeah, I think it's, it's probably three things. One is to you really, this is like real Buddhist, or Zen or something, I don't know. But you have to disconnect from that outcome, you have to disconnect from that outcome. Because then you are only looking for solutions to that outcome versus looking for solutions to connect. Because all we're doing is saying everything relies on me getting them to do this. And maybe the conversation you're having this first one is not the one that's going to secure that we often do that as well. I see this all the time when I work with sales teams. It's like, No, this is a four part conversation in the first conversation, do not make it about aiming to get the contract signed, do it to get the next meeting, do it to get their interest. And so the first thing we have to do is we have to disconnect from the outcome on the other side, meaning we have no control in life. I have a three year old I know this over what someone else does, we don't. And the more we try to do that, the less effective we become versus saying, I am in control of the way I communicate the story. I'm in control, which is the second tip here. I'm in control of what I how I think about this of the stories I go and find of the examples I bring in of the way that I package the why is now the time. Why is this right for you? I'm in control of what I show up with. I am never in control of what someone else does. And anything I do go back to rule one to try to control that takes me out of being an effective communicator. Yes. And then the third one I would say here is it's we struggle with rehearsal. I even say that word. And I know, I know you're out there and you just like clenched up and like rehearsal. I'm shocked. I'm shocked at the amount and I know why I'll give you I'll give you the out in a minute after I shame you for a second here. I'm shocked at the amount of people who walk into very high stakes conversations, marriage conversations, board conversations, funder conversations onstage in front of hundreds of people conversations, and have never actually communicated the words to another person. Maybe they did. You know, they got there. They're thinking that I made sense. And I'm gonna go okay, what? I'm going to say that. And it's like, well, you're practicing to not play the game. Guilty. Totally done that this be totally because the reason why here's everyone's out, I'm done shaming you. I'm a good guy. It's because we never learned it. Unless you were unless you were someone who was a theater really, unless you had that background. And even there, you really had to be doing like, creating the theater. Like workshopping a show, because we don't learn how to rehearse. So what we do and then there's such there's such fear, because go back to the little baby, right? The the baby is crying and don't cry. Don't be too loud or too much. Don't do this, be quiet in the store, do this. So now we bring all that with us. And then it's like, well, I'm supposed to like, I don't know my stuff yet. I don't want to be messy and be like, Okay, I'm working on this guys. So I'm gonna go to my room, and I'm going to okay, but it says click, and there's advantage of app. But you're not practicing to play the game, then you have to practice fallout. And so the third thing is really, really and I'm gonna give you a word to replace it with because I know when I say rehearsal, people get real like, ooh, rehearsal. I don't do rehearsal. Call it workshopping the idea. Call it crafting the message, whichever one of those helps you. That would look like, Hey, we've got this big thing coming in. I want to upgrade this this donor. Yep. Great. Cool. What's the meat of the meetings in three weeks? Cool. Let's work on the story together. Now, in this session. If you have to buy someone coffee and say, I just need a face. I don't even need your feedback. Feel free. Also say your director, my clients call me keynote director. Say your director said that they're not allowed to give you feedback because sometimes the feedback then takes you back here, right? You go back to baby like, oh, no, she got and then it destroys your whole thing and you don't do it anymore. So it is 100% I'm giving you permission everybody to say, hey, all I need is just a face to talk to. And so I'll buy a coffee. I'll do something For you, I don't want any feedback. I don't want any notes. Like right now I just need to practice feeling the words, record yourself. I know it sucks, record yourself on like an iPhone, and then go back and say, Okay, how do we upgrade it? How do we do and then do it again. And then do it again, until you're like, This feels really good. Now, when you go and you ask someone to go from two and a half million to $5 million, it won't be the first time the words are coming out. And you won't have to worry about and this is like a big, I'm gonna change my you know, you ask this like genius question from listening to the show, I'm doing a in in the moment swap, and I'm gonna give you one now and then I'll change my one for later. The worst thing you can do in that room is remember all the words and forget the meaning. workshopping it this way that I've just said, allows you to have that just in your bones. And maybe now you've tried it four or five ways. So you've got all those in there. So then when you go in front of them, and you're gonna ask them to double to double up to become a partner. Now, you have such confidence in this because you've said it so many times that now you can be really present with them, while still having planned what you're going to say versus showing up winging it and being so full of adrenaline, that you're no longer serving them. You're just trying to serve the idea. So I'm going to say one more time, just so everyone can get it. The worst thing you can do is remember all the words and forget the meaning.
Christina Edwards 21:26
So good. I mean, yeah, mic drop moment. So I put my hands to my face, because it was like you basically described I mean, I know I practiced. But back when I really started scaling one too many and had my first webinar, I think that what keeps people from practicing, is the inner critic a lot of times is like, oh, it's gonna sound stupid. I'm gonna mute it. And so for me, I think there was probably that happening of just like, Oh, I'm not even going to practice. I don't want to judge myself on it. Yeah. And then when that happened, and it went, how it went, it was fine, whatever. But I really was like, Okay, let's make this webinar better. I remember I practiced that thing. 10 times. And I was like, go, go, go. And it was like, second nature. On the 10th time, I was like, I fuck know what to say here. I've said it. Like, you know what I mean? And it does make asking for whatever the price is, whatever the gift amount, whatever the donation is, before you know it, you're like $100,000, that's a number, or whatever the number is like, it just comes out so much easier. And I think, yeah, we get in our own heads. We don't We avoid practice. And that's a normal thing. But if you can see that you actually make the process easier for yourself through the practice. I think that's that's the point here. The other thing you said, throughout this interview, I think it's really, really helpful is that it helps us understand that like, people aren't just born natural public speakers, they come out. And that's it, right? Zero
Mike Ganino 22:50
people, zero people were born as public speakers, or 100% of people. Or you could look at it the other way, and say we all came out with the ability to use our bodies and our sounds to get what we wanted from other people. So you could go either way, either none of us work, because none of us knew how to say words, or all of us were. And then we slowly I would even say, just again, let me let me let me come over and I'll be I'll be everyone's stage dad for a minute. What you said about the inner critic, I also want everyone to think of like, because then what happens sometimes is that we get mad at ourselves for having an inner critic. So we like the inner critic of the inner critic. And it's like, oh, this is getting twisted. Now this is like, this is like a movie that I don't even understand, you know, Inception. What I want you to think about is this, that inner critic is actually this like inner protector of you. And what it's doing, it's going back and saying remember when you were told to be quiet? Remember when you were told to shut up? Remember when they laughed at you remember when this remember when that remember that? You don't know what in the moment? We don't know what in the moment that that inner protector is really good at hiding their sources, which is great. It got us here. The reason you're here is because that thing protected us and taught us how to be in the world. But we sometimes don't need those lessons anymore. We sometimes don't need to worry about am I going to cry and they're gonna yell at me. Am I going to scream for a cookie? And then they say, you know, good girls don't scream, you don't get a cookie. We don't need those lessons anymore. But it's not a critic. I don't think it's a critic at all. What it is, is the inner protector trying to keep you safe. And I think if we can look at it that way, we can sometimes even journal on that if you want. We could start to understand Oh, this is where it came from one of my clients, you and Linda, you below she has a great book on this. She teaches people this really inner process of how to enjoy it's called delight in the limelight her book and she really walks through a lot of those more of the how do you go back and unsourced and I've learned so much from her in that way. But it is not really our inner critic because then we get mad at ourselves for having and we think Shut up inner critic. Well, all it's gonna do is say shut up back. You know, it's like we're gonna fight with it versus saying Oh, yes. Oh yes. You don't want need to be looked silly. I get it. It's okay. I got this like, really, really do that because it changes the game so much like you said, You did it 10 times you're like, I got this like what? The screen dies? The mic dies? No, I got it. I'm fine. God, fine, because I've done it so much. This is what football players do. This is what great Olympians do they practice and they visualize success. Oh, could you imagine? Could you imagine showing up to the Olympics? And saying, you know, practice was awkward, because I wasn't very good. So I'm just gonna see what happens. You imagine? Yeah, we owe our work. Our voice you owe the mission of the organization that you're supporting the people who are part of that you owe them and you owe yourself enough to invest in this work.
Christina Edwards 25:51
I love that reframe is that is the part of you that's just trying to protect you. And we don't need that part. today. We're okay today. We're not We're not a small little child anymore. I think we all have those moments. Where Yeah, they're like, they're like moments we remember in childhood, that felt pretty terrible. And so it's like, yeah, it makes sense that that part of us is just trying to protect us from being criticized or being falling or anything like that. The other piece that you said, and I'm glad you brought up your daughter, because I think one of them and really just in general if like it really is the practice and that we are all born speakers or not. It has to be one or the other. Is I see this in children all the time. Is there such great teachers. So my daughter has been just hell bent on learning how to she's five do pull ups. So we bought her pull up bar. And I was trying to calculate it. I'm like, I bet she spends an hour an hour and a half a day. Between recess and home. Her hands are calloused. And now she's up to four pull ups. And I'm like, I should do more than I could do, by the way. It's like, and it's more than my eight year old can do. You know, he His ego was shattered, you know. And it's like, it's not because she was born with, you know, any sort of Madonna arms right out of the gate, you know, and it's like it's happening simply because she is like, I'm figuring this out. I'm figuring this out. I want to figure this out. I'm practicing. And here we go. And I watched that and I'm like, Oh, if like we sometimes lose that in adulthood that like grit mixed with that, like the I left out the ER visit where she sprained her, she sprained her wrist, you know, because she did fall off the bars one day and it like, and she, the minute she got that splint off, she was like, I'm back at it. And I was like, oh, there's so much teaching here. Yeah,
Mike Ganino 27:33
and a great story. By the way, this is also this content, like, this is content. This was the joy of B, I have a candle over here, my mom gave me that said, if you don't want to get written about Don't Don't f around with a writer. And I think the same thing applies to storytellers. If you don't want them to tell a story, then stay, don't do things to me. But the thing that I think also happened that I'm really aware of, and I'm trying to read all the books and you know, we're doing the ever gentle parents and stuff is the and I know this from my time as an improv performer. And then I in the beginning of my own speaking career in 2014, I would teach organizations improv and how to apply them to cultural leadership, that kind of thing. So improv theatre, the idea is around play so much. You'll hear people talking about play and play. And this what your daughter's doing at five is playing. This is why as kids by the way, we play dress up, we play house, we play doctor, we are starting to learn to be adults, we play to do that. Now what happens is and you, you were kind about it, you said, you know, hey, we, we remember these things that happen to us as kids. And we don't remember a whole bunch of things that happened to us as kids that shape us all the times that we were told or saw boys don't cry. Girls don't do this, this this this, like we aren't even aware sometimes of the message. And that is why I always say public speaking. And remember, public speaking is anything that is someone else hearing you is so impacted by our cultural family, societal, social, educational, trauma, all of those things. It's relational. And there's no way we show up to our job. We're on a board, we're running a group, we're doing things there's no way we show up to that. And all of that history from the moment we were born probably before we're born, I haven't studied neonatal, what we're what we're getting, but I know we get a lot of messages. All of that is in that meeting too. And we never thought about it.
Christina Edwards 29:37
So I'm thinking about a large group of my clients who feel uncomfortable being in the spotlight, whether the spotlight is a stage, whether the spotlight is a phone call a webinar, an email, anything right that that it's almost like that, that that spot light on me feels like they would rather put on anyone else. But that spotlight is a vehicle to funding that spotlight is a vehicle to the people they serve. And so they understand that. What would you say to somebody who's like, I just feel so awkward? I just feel so uncomfortable when all eyes are on me, or I just feel whatever you're what whatever you imagine that type of client kind of coming to you with?
Mike Ganino 30:26
Yeah, I think the first thing and that is to think back to what we said earlier of like, what are you? How can you become more aware of why that is? How can you become more aware of why do you feel that way? Now, if it's I feel uncomfortable or awkward talking about myself? So nice. People hear me talking about story in there like I don't, it's inappropriate for me to tell Nice. Yes, of course it is. It's an appropriate for me to like, like, yes, it is. It can be. But what if you told the story of something you saw happen, it doesn't have to be like, I'm baring my soul, we hear this, like, I need to be vulnerable. So I need to go out there and talk about when my mom upset me. And but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is, you know, your story with your daughter. And watching her one day and an observation you had you thought whoa, like, where am I not practicing enough for something I want? Where am I not allowing myself room to not be good at something. And that's when I realized I had to do something different. And that's why I did this, like we could turn that story into, you could sell coaching with that you could like we could turn that story into so much, because we get to choose how we frame it. So if someone is saying, I feel awkward, because I don't want to talk about myself. Then I would say let's look for the stories. Let's look for the stories of what the funding has done in the past. Let's look for those. But but we we got to be careful if there is not turning into a sterile case study, we need you to react to the story. So let's say that I was talking about, I'm a type one diabetic. So I've been around the world of raising money to cure diabetes for 30 plus years. And if I was going to go and talk about this, I would say, you know, hey, here's, I need to react to the to what I'm asking. So, hey, we're talking about this. And this thing happened in all these kids diabetic camp, I help raise money for kids to go to diabetic camp like I did when I was little that someone raised money for me to go. So I don't have to say I was poor and living in a trailer. And I couldn't get to camp and someone made it. I don't have to say that. But I could say, you know, last year when we were watching the kids come to camp, and I saw them getting off the buses, and they all have their bags, they're excited and some are nervous, some are scared some it's their first time away from home, some just got diagnosed, some have been doing this for so long. And you see him getting off the bus with hopes and dreams and fears. And what's this summer going to be. And every single one of them gets off the bus. And they just all have this fears, hopes, dreams, some combination of that. But they're here, and they're excited. And they grab their bags, and they take them to their cabin. And every kid gets off the bus and the last kids done. And all I saw was hopes and dreams and fears and excitement. And here they are. And they're here together. I didn't see which one had to get help to get here. I didn't see which ones needed funding. I didn't see which ones families could pay for someone else to attend. I didn't see any of that. What I saw were a bunch of kids on an equal playing field about to have a positive experience. That is why it's so critical that we help we help kids who can't get here, get here because once that I just made that up, but some
Christina Edwards 33:26
are really good fundraiser. Oh my god.
Mike Ganino 33:29
I mean, I've worked with lots of organizations to help them become better storytellers. So in that I'm not really telling my story, right. But I'm reacting to something that happened. So if you are someone who's like, I don't want to tell anything about me. It's it's not appropriate. Sure. Of course, it may not be. But you can take a case study, you can take a situation and you can How did you feel when you read it? What did you think about what was exciting about it? What are you curious about react to what you're saying so that if someone else shared the same case study, it would sound different? Because they would react to it. So that would be one and then the second thing is if you are worried about being awkward, like they're looking at me my body my but you haven't done enough rehearsal yet? You haven't done enough work shopping? Because you're worried about yourself? Yeah, which is fine. You're worried about yourself, because you'll feel safe yet. Instead of worrying about the work worrying about the message and saying, Oh, I've done this 10 times. I'm ready and we got to help these people. We got to help them see this because we gotta we gotta go. And I know that all the people that are doing this work, do it because they see something that needs to change. Focus on that, then it'll be about that and not about a robot on my hands doing. Don't worry about it. No one else's. No one else is thinking about it that much.
Christina Edwards 34:41
Oh my gosh, this is so good. All right. I have two more questions. One is this popped into my head. So one of my case studies that I have for like this is a webinar that's a few years old, but it's one of my favorites and we my neighbors who are not fundraisers, but who are raising $100,000 in 30 days and it was the most Fun fundraiser I've ever been a part of. Because they're actors, and they are an improv. And they're so fun. So fun. They just weren't so serious. And so it was just such a good reminder of like, maybe for anyone who has some like, Okay, I got some workshopping to do I wonder if a good prescription would be like, go take an improv class, like, go just let yourself play. Go like, what would you say to that? What do you think? Yeah, I
Mike Ganino 35:28
certainly think it can be. In general, if you find that like, Oh, I get, I get so worried. I'd like to feel a little more safe in my body, like for sure that can be a positive thing to do. I still think even with that the way for each of these important messages that we can get there is to do this work because sometimes with improv, what happens is people go, I used to be an improv teacher. And then I taught corporate I taught, yeah, corporate people improv. And so sometimes what happens is, it's like, well, that's so fun, but like, I'm not gonna go and be like, I'm this, I'm a basket driving. Like, I'm not going to do that when I go ask them to go from 2.5 to five, got it. So cute fun. They translate it, they can't translate it. Apply those ideas that you're learning there to allowing the workshopping of your, of your speech that you're working on or your talk or your pitch. Allow those ideas to infiltrate meaning you come in, you're like, Okay, so here's what I put up. Let's try something new here. What if we did this allow that freedom to come in, but you still have to, like, do the work on the things that are high stakes and important for you? Okay. All
Christina Edwards 36:35
right. We ask every single guest on the podcast, what is one thought they like to think on purpose? It can be an affirmation, a mantra, just like a go to? Would you share yours? You already shared us one really good one. So I know that's going to be a lot of people writing that one down, but share another one with us.
Mike Ganino 36:51
Yeah, so that first one was the whole idea of if you the worst thing you can do is remember all the words forget the meaning. And the other one that I would say here is that I think about all the time and I say a lot to people even in performance or in work or when they're stuck. And I think about it all the time with everything is when you're confused or lost return to truth. When you're confused or lost, return to truth. If that happens on stage in front, you're like, I don't know where I'm supposed to go next great return to truth and even say that say, you know, here's what I'm trying to say. That's a great like line to save yourself. Like you know what? I want to stop here's what I'm trying to say here. Great. If you find yourself rambling returned to truth. Here's what I'm trying to say here. If you find yourself disconnected from your body, think of your feet return to truth. I'm here. I'm right here. I'm connected. If I get frustrated, I think what is going on in this three year old on below, return to truth, right? I love her. I love this we're in it's gonna be messy. It's all gonna be okay. Everyone's safe. Everything's working out for us. So when you're feeling lost, confused, unsure, scared, returned to truth. What is true here? So
Christina Edwards 38:00
good. I'm using all of these I have a I have a in person presentation coming up for a national conference. So I'm like, Ah, noted. noted, noted. So good. Where can everyone find you hire you if they've got a big pitch set up? And they're like, We need you. Where are you tell us all the things.
Mike Ganino 38:20
So many so many fun things. If you've just once you figure out how to spell Mike Guardino G A, and I know you are probably gonna find me, I'll probably be the one if you you'll see two of us. And one of them is like a seven year old dude who runs a union in Connecticut. I think we're related somehow. But that's not me the other one, but you'll probably find me I got the SEO advantage of that name. So once you find my Cadena, you can find me on all your socials, your LinkedIn and all that website is Mike canino.com. And if you go to my canino.com/story craft, there is a free guide book workbook be great for teams even do together with the five stories that you need to be able to tell it says entrepreneurs, I promise you it works for nonprofits as well, the five core stories you need to tell and some really cool prompts to get you to think differently about them. And so that's available, Mike canino.com/story craft, and a really great that could be a way to start the storytelling in your organization is to work on that. And then over the website, you'll also see the intensives where we can work together 90 minutes to just polish up that message. We can work together longer. There's courses so I got all of it over there for you. And if you don't see something message me and I probably have it somewhere. Amazing.
Christina Edwards 39:25
Thank you so much for today. You're you're hired for everybody's director of fundraising, Director of storytelling and marketing, all the things I know everybody was like, Oh my gosh, she's so good. And so we really appreciate it. Thanks Yeah,