Storytelling on Stage: Lessons From a Pastor Turned Marketing Pro

Hello everybody and welcome to My First Stage, the podcast where experienced public speakers share how they started getting booked on stages and how they've used them to grow their business. Today I am joined by Dennis D. M. Meador, a lifetime entrepreneur and communicator who helps attorneys find their voices. He believes that the best ideas don't come from selling, they come from conversations. And I couldn't agree more. So DM, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you for having me on the show. Even though I come to you from a dark place, my background is not working correctly. So I appreciate you allowing me to like darken the mood when you got all that bright sparkly stuff going on. So thank you.

I think I've got enough color for the both of us.

Exactly. Exactly.

We can make it work. It's a happy medium. Well, thank you for being on the show. I know you have been on a lot of stages, and you actually have a pretty unique, as far as the speakers I've talked to, pretty unique path to speaking because you were a pastor. So a lot of your speaking is actually on church stages. But tell me about how you got started in speaking.

So it's kind of an interesting story. I grew up in kind of the, what people would now call the alt-right wing sort of church movement, independent fundamental Baptist. We only used a version of the Bible that was written like over 400 years ago, we didn't have TVs in our houses, blah, blah, blah. Like pretty intense stuff. And, you know, I've kind of evolved since that time, and that's a whole nother story. But the summer that I turned 16, I went down to Mississippi and actually stayed with my former youth pastor. He had taken a church, and with this group of churches, if you said, I feel like I'm called to be a pastor, they say, oh, you're called? Well, get up, you're next. So every day during this, you know, youth camp, summer camp, uh, down in Mississippi— I'm not saying there's 500, 700 teenagers at this, this youth camp— they would have this from 2 to 2:15.

They would have 3 young men that would speak 5 minutes, 5 minutes, 5 minutes and, you know, do like a little sermon type thing. And then, you know, that was, that was the end of it. So I think it was like Monday or Tuesday night, I was like, oh, you know, I feel like this is what I need to do with my life. A lot of emotion, a lot of stuff happens in those sort of like environments. And they said, okay, well, you're up tomorrow. You've got a chance. You got 5 minutes tomorrow to bring a, bring a little message to everybody. So I skipped everything the next morning.

I might have eaten breakfast, but other than that, I skipped all the group activities. I was studying. I actually had been given this— it was about this thick, and it was a bright silver Bible. And so I had this big, bright silver Bible that it took two hands to hold like this. And I'd walk around with it as if it was this huge sword that I could chop the devil's head off with, I guess I thought in my brain. Studied and took notes and everything. And so I'm sitting there waiting, and I'm the third person to go up. Now, the first guy gets up, and he's— I want to say 18, 19 years old— and he's been speaking now for 5 or 6 years since he was a young teenager.

So he gets up, and he's got, you know, this nice alliteration and stories, and he's making people laugh. And I'm just like, oh man, like, I've never done this before. There's no way I'm gonna measure up to this guy. The next person gets up and it's like this 12-year-old boy, and he's been speaking now for 4 or 5 years since he was like 7 or 8 years old. So he gets up and he's like, he's got on a suit and tie and he's got on this like perfectly— like he's quoting from this portion of the Bible I didn't even know existed. And I, you know, I'm all like kind of like, man, the longer we get into this, the more scared I am because You know, the Bible says, you know, doing this whole thing that he's doing. And then finally I get up and I'm like, okay. And I remember putting my hands on the, uh, the podium.

I'm kind of shaking, and I open up my Bible and I put up my notes. And then I just kind of take my hands down, I put them to my side, and I start talking. And about 45 minutes later— remember, it's supposed to be 5 minutes, they ring a bell, they ring a little bell when you get done, and the next person comes up. 45 minutes. I don't remember a word I said, don't remember anything hardly that happened. But 45 minutes later, the main guy who was sitting behind me, the, the director of the camp, gets up and says, we don't normally have like a— what's called an altar call. I don't know if you're from church life, but where people come forward at the end of church and they, they like pray and, you know, all this stuff. So we're gonna have an altar call.

We don't normally do this. And like hundreds of teenagers come forward and like they're crying and and all this stuff. And I'm just like, okay, I, I guess I'm supposed to be a speaker. I guess I'm supposed to be a preacher. So like, my first time preaching or speaking in public was in front of 700 of my peers with zero experience, after watching two people that had years of experience go before me. But just in that moment, the, the opportunity to open up my heart and mind and just start pouring out. And that's really what I've always seen speaking as an opportunity to be, is whether you're talking about church stuff, whether you're talking about marketing, which is what I mostly talk about now, whether you're talking about your life, whether you're talking about business concepts, whether you're talking about, well, hopefully not politics and religion, but, you know, whatever it is that you're talking about, you get up and it's, it's such a unique opportunity, at least in my opinion, to just basically lay bare your heart and to just share with people your thoughts, your philosophies, or things that you've learned that you think can be of help to them. So that was my very first experience.

From there, I went back, I moved back up, back up to the Midwest after, at the end of the summer, and spoke in my church. And kind of a very similar situation, it was the youth night where the all the teenagers directed the church, and then I was the speaker. And I got up and I spoke, and it was well received, and people liked it. I had people come from school that knew me. I was, uh, you know, I don't know, maybe a couple of dozen friends that came and were just like, I want to hear you get up and be a preacher, man. You know, they kind of funny but kind of like supporting me as well, sort of thing. And so we got done with that, and the youth director said to me, Hey, I'd like to take you to lunch, like to chat with you. And I was like, okay.

And he said, I'm not going to be teaching the youth group anymore. And I was like, why? He said, because you're here and I just don't think I should be teaching when you're here. So I'll be in charge of the youth group and I'll do the activities and I'll do everything for the youth group, but you actually now are going to be kind of the main speaker or one of the main speakers for the youth group. And I mean, that went on to 18 years old, I pastored my first church. Traveled around in my early 20s around the United States and even across Europe. And in the midst of that, I had business speaking opportunities. But I would say that the ability to, or the opportunity to get up and to share has been something that has propelled my career. It has propelled my ability to formulate thoughts and to communicate in a much different way.

When you sit down in a conversation, you know, there's kind of that give and take where you're waiting and you're listening. If you're having an actual conversation and not just waiting for your turn to talk, right? But you're waiting, you're listening, you're kind of in that moment. But when it's just you on the stage for 20 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever that time is, you have to carry that audience. You have to entertain them. You have to make them think. You have to appeal to their emotions, whatever, whatever the purpose is in that specific thing. And I think it's such a privilege, but it's also such an opportunity to learn how to formulate, you know, just communicate and communicate in a way that outside of speaking in public on a stage, you just, you don't have much of an opportunity to do it.

So many thoughts in my head right now. And one of, so I love what you just said with being the one on stage and it's not really a conversation. That's where actually I, as a speaker, struggle the most is if I don't have someone else I'm talking to, I feel like I just ramble forever and it just never ends. How do you kind of, I guess, handle those like speaking interactions where it is just you? You're— are you bringing the audience in? Are you adding in like interaction? Like, what are you doing?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I've always been of the opinion I'm not teaching if no one's learning, you know. And so for me, a few things I always made sure to do. One is whenever I'm teaching, I always had— and whether, again, whether this is in a marketing, a business capacity, whatever capacity it's in, I always have a central thought, a central theme where if these people walk away and they only get one thing out of this 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever the time frame is, if they only get one thing out of it, I want to make sure that they got that. So when I started doing that and having that thesis thought, then I would build the entire presentation, uh, sermon, whatever word you want to use, around that central core thought. And so I would illustrate it, uh, you know, I'd use different types of illustrations. Storytelling is a huge way to be able to bring the audience in.

As a matter of fact, I had a few sermons that people would asked me to come into their church and speak on because they were narrative sermons that was just like, it was like you were listening to this story and going through. So storytelling was a big one. Being visual, I really loved, especially as throughout my career, like PowerPoint and video became more available where you could illustrate things. So a lot of times I would be speaking. This is why I feel so naked. You'd see me keep turning around because I'm used to having something behind me.. But a lot of times as I was speaking, I would just have very simple, like illustrative, like just a picture or an icon or something very simple that would illustrate what I'm talking about as I talked about it. So that it, again, it would drive home.

Another thing that I would do, and this is not necessarily easy for everybody, but I'm a mover. So I didn't stay behind the, the plat— the, the, the podium. I would get out, I would walk. If it was over 500 people, I would try to stay on the stage. But if it was under 500 people, I would usually come down off the stage, walk around in, sometimes stand up on chairs and talk to people in the room. Like, I was everywhere. I was doing— because again, to me, if you're not learning, I'm not teaching. So for me to just stand there, okay, as we turn to point number 3, we're going to look at this and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, I've wasted my time and I've wasted their time. I want them to walk out of there with something that they can grab onto, that they can feel like they learned something, or they can feel like they've been inspired in some way, or they can feel like they've got a direction forward. But I always come into every speaking opportunity with that. So any way that I can pull in the audience, like sometimes I would just sit down next to one person and I would just have a kind of a, it would, I would pretend it was a two-sided conversation. Sometimes it would be a two-sided conversation. And in the middle of like, you know, 500, 600 people, I'd sit down next to one person and be like, are you enjoying this? He's pretty loud, isn't he? Yeah. Be careful though, too, because when he gets really loud, he spits. So be careful, you know, and I would just start talking to him like, and just, and so the more you can pull the crowd in and make them a part of what's going on versus an observer of what's going on.

The more it's gonna drive home because now they haven't had a sermon, they haven't had a lesson, they've had an experience, they've had a journey. And so that's what I've always tried to do is pull people in to the journey that I wanna take them on to drive home that central theme, that central point that they can walk away with.

I love that. And it makes me think one of the pieces of advice or even homework that I give to, to people, cuz I teach storytelling. Um, and I work with a lot of people that want to be on podcasts, want to be on stages, and need to understand how to tell a story. And I tell them, like, if you want to do something great, you need to watch the great people that do it. So I say to go watch stand-up comedy because there are some of the best storytellers. But the way that you're talking about just being a public speaker, it kind of sounds like the way that comedians are doing crowd work, and they're bringing the crowd in as well.

You know, I originated crowd work. No, I didn't. But I mean, yeah, you could call it crowd work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or, you know, another sort of crowd work that I would do is bring people up on the stage, you know, and I would say like, you know, there's 5 people in this story. And so I would, you know, pick somebody in the crowd that could kind of emulate and make sense in people's minds. And I'd bring them up and I'd say, this is going to be Sharon and this is going to be Steve and this is going to be Sean and this is going to be Jacob and this is going to be Sally., and they're gonna represent. So that's how, you know, and I would just like kind of, and people are just wondering like, man, there's this going on, that going on.

But like, I wasn't that guy that you could just sit there and like draw on your paper, like, you know, sleep. Like, you know, I, I was bad. Like if I found some guy sleeping, I mean, I would just creep my way over and just get louder and louder. I used to love it. Or sometimes I would just stand right over him and I would just look at him. And then they just wake up and they'd be like, well, and they'd— I'd be standing right there in front of hundreds of people and I'd say, oh, don't let me disturb your sleep, I'm sorry. And they're like, oh, I'm sorry, I've been working long. And I'm like, listen, man, I'm just teasing you.

But, you know, and I just kind of razz them a little bit. So doing that kind of crowd work, I didn't see it as crowd work, but I— watching comedian crowd work has become such a thing with comedians now. Like, it used to be comedians were up on the stage telling a story, and if you said a word, it was kind of like they just went at you. Crowd work wasn't crowd work, it was really just like combative, like, shut up so I can talk. Yeah, it was heckling, it wasn't actually crowd work. So, and what's his name, the young guy? Matt Rife. Yep, exactly. He's, he's kind of, in my opinion, brought back sort of that renaissance because now you really see that everywhere.

Yeah. Um, But I think, and here's my opinion on why that's such a popular thing now versus why it wasn't as well received before, is we crave real connection more than we ever have, but we don't know how to connect to the person next to us. So we connect with people digitally. I'm going to guess you're Gen Z, right? No, I'm a millennial. No way. You're a young looking millennial.

I'm a baby millennial, but I'm a millennial. I'm 30.

I think I'm one of the last. Yeah, I think '29 is the Z, '28, '29.

I think I just missed the cutoff.

Okay, so you're a— what do they call them? Xennials?

Xennial, something.

I don't know. Yeah, it's like a cusp, Xennial. But anyway, so the point is, like, we are 2 and a half generations, really 3 and a half because I'm X and we started on the internet in like college, late high school, right? I'm like an ex-almost millennial. And then millennials started on the internet like at 12, 13, 14. And then now Z started at birth with iPads and Alpha starting at birth with iPads. And so I've been telling people like, we crave connection so much. We know more about the 5 influencers that we follow than the 5 neighbors around us now. And so crowd work allows us to, one, see that this is real, actual human interaction.

Because I don't know about you, but have you been noticing some of our AI videos are stand-up comedians? And I'm like, that's not a real per— that's a stand-up com— that's AI stand-up comedy.

I haven't. Maybe I've seen it and didn't notice.

Yeah. Pay attention. If they don't do crowd work and they just tell stories and you don't know who it is, and it's like a new comedian, watch them and listen to the way their punchlines land and listen to the— you'll be able to just— there's a little bit what I call a little bit of soullessness. But I've noticed it in my feed where all of a sudden, you know, you're even seeing like stand-up comedy coming from AI.

Interesting. Now, crowd work and bringing in other people feels like risky a little bit. Have you ever had it go badly, like go wrong? Especially when you said you bring people up on stage with you.

I mean, yeah, but you know, you have to— confidence is the greatest control mechanism that exists. And so when you do things and you're not confident about it and it goes wrong, you tend to lose yourself. Like you just go, oh, whoa, you know, and you just, and then when you lose that, you lose the crowd and it's very hard to get them back. So when I would have somebody be like, you know, I'd be like, all right, so your color, your favorite color is blue because you're Susan. No, I'm Sharon and my favorite color is gray. Yes, I understand Sharon. Your favorite color is gray, but for the sake of the story, could you please just, just do me the honor of being Susan whose favorite color is blue? Okay, fine. Everybody give Susan whose favorite color is blue a round of applause.

What a trooper she is. She can act like her favorite color is blue even though it isn't gray. Good job, Susan, whose favorite color is blue, even though we know you're really Sharon, whose favorite color is gray. Like, so that sort of situation where they want to be just a little, you know, difficult, they want to be a little bit contrarian. Like, okay, fine. You want to play games? Like, let's play some games. Like, you want to, you want to show that you're funny and goofy? I'll give you your moment, but then I'll pull it back and bring it to myself because I'm going to give you what you want, which is that sort of like, okay, you're in charge, you're the contrarian, but then I'm going to pull it back to myself. So Yes, it can be very risky, but if you are confident in who you are, what you're doing, where you're going, the story you're telling, you know, nothing's really going to throw you off.

And again, think about the hecklers and the crowd work. You know, they get thrown off, but the good ones are just like, yeah, good one. Yeah. Your mom, your mom told me that last night, huh? You know, like, you see what I'm saying? Like, it's, it's kind of like they're owning the moment, even if they didn't own that moment.

I think this is a historical moment right now. I just heard a yo mama joke from a pastor. I don't think that's happened before.

I'm not a pastor anymore. I'm not a pastor anymore. Not my vibe.

Close enough, I'm counting it.

Okay.

Um, how, how do you find that confidence? Like, do you do— did you take— I know some people take classes in public speaking or they take classes in improv comedy, things like that, to try to kind of work up that that stage presence, that onstage confidence. Uh, Brianna Dye, who I love, she uses her hair extensions. She calls it her clip-in confidence, and once those are in, she's good to go.

What is your method that you've used to build that confidence? You know, honestly, so I tell people, like, because people be like, the way that you are, is it because of, like— because had a little bit of a rough childhood, things like that. I like to say that I'm natural born and trauma built. And so, at 8 years old, I kind of took on the persona of an adult because of the situation at home, taking care of my sister, a lot of times taking care of my mom, things like that. And so, that made me a leader. And so, I was never afraid of being a leader. I've never afraid of being an outlier. I was never afraid of— I just— I mean, so I never took any classes. I never took, you know, any sort of like, and, and it's funny, like I can get up in front of 5,000 people and speak, but if I have to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb, and I'd been told I'm a pretty decent singer, like I've been in, like I had a band that was in Austin and I sang and, you know, we did, but I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced.

It was just like, like I can't just get up barely and sing unless it's one of my pocket songs. But if I get up and sing, I'm like shake, like I'll literally go to karaoke and I'm just like shaking while I'm singing. But yet I can get up in front of 5,000 people with like no notes, no plan. And they're like, all right, talk about marketing. And I'll be like, all right, let's talk about founder-led marketing and the transition in the marketplace where we're getting away from people coming from behind. Like I can literally just like go into that mode. So I don't know that it's like confidence in the sense of I'm just confident. Or it's confidence in the sense of, if people are gonna listen to me, I should own it enough to where they can hear what I'm gonna have to say.

And I think that's the confidence. It's the confidence that I have the privilege to convey a message. And so I am going to own that message in that moment as much as physically possible, regardless of, you know, like my fear isn't even really a thing once I get up there and get going. Now, sometimes it does take me a little bit to get into it, you know, to get that, you know, especially when I, the first few times I talked, I, I spoke in front of like 500, 700, because around 300 people for me, I lose the room. And what I mean by that is 300 or less, I can, I feel like I know what's going on in every eyeball in that room and I can feel the energy and the whether or not they're plugged in, all across the room. But you get above that 300, especially 500, 700, 2,000, 3,000, those are kind of the biggest numbers I've spoken to, and it's just a sea of people. And there's no reading the energy unless you say one thing that people go, ha ha ha, like that's it. Like you can't really read the energy.

And so those moments were a little bit scary for me because I'm very much a like energy person. Like, you know, even with these podcasts, if I get on a podcast with somebody, it's like, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, I mean, my head just about blows off my shoulders cuz I'm just going, going, going. But when you, when you, when you get in those moments where the confidence isn't there, I just kind of like settle myself and let myself come into the confident place instead of pushing it, instead of pretending, because the worst thing you can do is pretend. You know, it says fake it till you make it. No, you're just faking it until you're done, and then everyone knew you were fake. That's my opinion. So I get up and I let myself settle into the moment, and then I feel it coming, and then I'm like, okay.

And then all of a sudden I'm just— boom, I'm gone, and, and it takes over. That's, that's been my experience.

And now you— so you started speaking in churches, but you do use speaking as well in what you're doing now with the work that you do in in marketing and with lawyers. How are you using speaking now?

Uh, I mean, I did 99 podcasts last year. Um, I, I was guest spots. Um, I have my own that we just launched and I was gonna do 100 and it was December 31st and I had 5 booked to hit my 100 and I told my assistant, go ahead and cancel this one. It wasn't a great fit anyway. And she's like, but then you're gonna only hit 99. And I said, yeah. But imagine the name of my, like, content on being a podcast guest. It's going to be, um, if you're having pod problems, I feel sad for you, son.

I did 99 podcasts, but a pitch ain't one. So, like, you know, exactly. I was like, I'm not doing 100, I'm doing 99. So, like, I speak all the time. And that does a few things. So one thing is in my speaking, everything I do is recorded when I train my team. So I have the Legal Podcast Network. We've been around about 2 years.

We've got a little over 200 clients, law firms that we work with. We do a podcast-centered marketing ecosystem. And so we do like kind of a QA podcast for the attorneys and we turn that into like all, basically all their marketing on all their avenues.. But like, if I'm teaching my sales staff, my setters, my CS, everything I do is recorded and it turns into e-newsletters, content, websites. So like, I'm literally just always on, just being myself, just talking, emoting, being excited. I don't ever have to be like, okay, calm down. You're in a CS meeting. I'm just like, okay guys, you know, I'm fucking sick of this.

We did it. Now I'm not mad at you, but Look at what these clients have done. I do not want clients to treat you that way. Do not let them treat you that way. Stand up for yourself. Set your boundaries. I will back you up 1,000 fucking percent. Like, like, that's how intense I get in those things.

And then like, 2 weeks later, I'll see an email about the importance of setting boundaries with clients. Now, I won't have all the F-bombs and everything throughout it, but I'll be like, oh yeah, that was that meeting I did a couple weeks ago. So in today's day and age, the ability to speak publicly is so transferable in so many ways because you can literally— I literally have a company of 70 people with content. We have 5 internal brands that post 3 to 5 times a day on 10 to 15 different outlets. And all, almost all of that content comes from me just talking all the time because I have the ability to speak publicly. So I naturally speak in a cadence. I naturally speak with alliteration. I naturally speak with stories.

I naturally speak with like little pithy quotes that people can take and pull out. And so because of the amount of speaking that I did, now think about this, from 16 to 36, that's roughly 20 years. I spoke 4 to 6 times a week for 30 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes on average. So I think when you do the numbers, if you take 4 times 50, that's 200 times 10, that's 2,000. And then do it again. So I've spoken well over 3,000, 4,000 times in a public setting. So I've had— I've spoken more in a speaking capacity than probably regular conversations in my life, because most of the time when I speak, it's some sort of teaching, some sort of direction, some sort of guidance. It's on a podcast, it's training my team, it's whatever.

And so that very transferable skill has accelerated my business. It accelerates my relationships. You know, I'm a huge communicator. I know it probably sounds like anybody close to me doesn't get a word in edgewise, but like in a one-on-one situation, I'm listening and I'm absorbing and I'm trying to understand and be understood and, you know, have that dynamic. But the ability to get up and speak without needing the back and forth, it's a leadership thing. It's a teaching thing. It's a content thing. We all talk about how do I get good content? Most of my content comes from little voice notes off of my cell phone that I just go, you know, I was thinking about this and we need to focus on this and doing this and doing this.

And then I just send it off to my EA and then she sends it off to my content department. And they structure it, put it through AI, edit it, make it boom and put it out. And it was just me sitting at the coffee shop for 3 minutes with one little concept. And now we've got a 3-part series that we're doing content on. So yeah, there's a lot of advantages to being a good speaker or a decent speaker.

I typically just use my portion. If I want to use their portion, I'll get permission. It does depend. There are one or two-party states you can kind of get into that, but I mess— I work with lawyers, so it's not really smart of me to be like, well, you're in a one-party state, I didn't need your permission, and I just put it out there, you know. So, um, yes, I asked for permission, but the vast majority of it is just pulling off of me. But every podcast I do, like, we'll take this raw file, we'll chop it up into probably 7 to 10 decent, um, you know, uh, Shorts or Reels, and probably some other content out of it, because now we'll be talking about you know, as a, you know, using, using public speaking as the basis for your content plan. And so the probably that little section of this little podcast will end up becoming some sort of piece of content, whether it be a course, whether it just be a little series or whether it be a podcast that I do off of just that one piece and expand on it.

Well, you have my permission. Oh, well, thank you. I don't know what kind of party state I'm in, but you have it. Um, now what, uh, 'cause we are getting, um, about to time, I just wanna ask you one more question. What advice do you have for people who are trying to get on stages and trying to kind of launch their public speaking?

It's reps. Like, you know, I knew I wasn't a good podcaster a year ago because I was a pastor for, for 20 years. Like, my speaking style is shut up, I'm gonna just talk for 35, 40 minutes.. And so like, and even now I find my, I try to create about a 3, 90-second to 3-minute arc. I think I'm down to like 5 minutes, but it used to be like they'd ask one question and then 20 minutes later they'd be like, all right, well, I think we've got time for one more question. You know? So like I had to get good at it. So get your reps up. Get how, like jump on podcasts, be their first guest.

Like, that's okay. You know, I did probably 10 shows last year that never even got published because 90-something percent of podcasts don't make it past the third episode. Like, you know, so, but just the opportunity to speak. Don't think that you have so much to say before you know how to say it properly. And I think that's the thing that, well, I gotta, you know, I just, I've got such an important message that. I think that podcast only had 4 YouTube views and who knows how many downloads. I just don't have time for that. Well, you're not even a good speaker yet.

Like, don't overvalue yourself when you're trying to build a new skill. Any pro athlete did not start in the pros. They started when they were 4 years old learning how to kick or throw or whatever it was, and they built those skills over time. And it's the same thing with speaking. You know, there's things called like Toastmasters. And the only reason I know about that is my grandpa was in it, but I guess it's still around and it's still a thing. And I think they do it on the, on the internet. So, you know, getting the opportunity to speak, take your reps, get good at it, watch game tape.

My wife's always like, are you listening to your podcast again? And I'm like, no, babe, I'm watching game tape. You know what? If those guys can get paid millions of dollars to watch themselves play football, Why can't I get paid what I get paid to watch myself podcast to get better at it? So like, don't be afraid to watch game tape. I think the biggest mistake that people make when it comes to public speaking is refusing to be, to critique themselves and open themselves to critique of others. Because the only way you're going to get better at what you're doing is know what you're doing wrong. So like one of my shows is from a lady named Carrie Barrett. Carrie's an Emmy-winning, like, uh, broadcaster. She was on like New York City NBC or whatever as an anchor. And I sent her some of my podcasts and, you know, I, it, it was a humbling experience, you know, cuz you like to think, and she's just like, I, I can definitely see the pastor in you.

I could definitely see that preacher side in you, but remember you're podcasting now and you've gotta, you've gotta bring an arc and you gotta take a beginning and an end and You don't have 20 minutes to tell a story. You've got, you know, 90 seconds and you got to have little quotable quotes in there and, uh, you know, like pithy things that people are going to remember and like encapsulating thoughts and like, and I'm just like, oh, so I fucked up. No, no, you did good. You did good. Don't worry. But like, you want to get better. Here's how you get better. So that's what I would say.

Take as many opportunities as you can, even if you quote, think they're beneath you. And two, Don't be afraid to examine yourself. Look at your game tape and/or if you can find somebody that can examine game tape, don't give it to somebody who's never gotten on stage. Don't say, hey, best friend, I know that you're terrified of public speaking. What do you think of this? Because they're going to either be like, oh, you're the worst, you know, give it to somebody who knows what it's all about and what the skill set is and be open to it.

There's 2 things in there that I really love. Um, first is the getting in your reps. That's one of those things that sounds— it's like when you want to get an internship, but even the internship needs experience in order to get the internships. Like, you buy a pack of scissors, but you need scissors to open the pack. And getting in those reps, it does not mean you have to get physically booked on a stage. At an event, at a venue. It can be a podcast, it can be a webinar. If you don't have people booking you on their stage, you can create your own stage.

You can host a webinar, you can do a Facebook Live, a LinkedIn Live, whatever these— the kids are doing these days.

Um, not, not a Gen Z. I don't know what they're doing. Uh, they're not doing Facebook Live. No. Okay. What are the kids doing these days?

I don't know.

Netflix Live?

I don't know. Where, where are we living? I don't know. But you can create your own stage and get those reps in without having outside stages booking you, um, for you. And I think that's really important for people to really understand. But then also what you said about the smaller podcasts and being mad that only 4 people watched it on YouTube, only a handful of people downloaded it. And I hear that a lot from people when I talk about podcast guesting. And why should I go on these smaller shows when nobody's going to see it? But a lot of the times those are the same people that they guess on a podcast and then they don't do anything with it. You're getting this big, like 30, 40 minute piece of content and you're expecting the host and their audience to just do everything on their own.

Are you sharing it? Are you cutting it up into reels? Are you creating graphics from it? Are you creating infographics? Are you writing blogs? Are you sending it out in your newsletter? It's not about how many people organically are seeing it from that person's audience. It's how are you using this content to expand your platform? And people miss that all the time. And I'm guilty of it a lot of the times as well, because like I said, I am terrible at getting my own social media updated. I'm too busy working on my clients. So I've been guilty of not sharing a podcast I've guested on, and I always feel bad when I realize it. But. We're kind of in that point of we see Joe Rogan, we see Call Her Daddy, and we think podcasts all get millions of downloads. And if they're not getting that, then it's pointless.

But it's not. You, you're reaching specific audiences and you're using the content to reach more people if you're doing it right.

Absolutely. The repurpose part as well. But, you know, the practice part. And I've always had this opinion. I am going to perform the same if I have one person in the room or if I have 1,000 people in the room, because touching one person's life is just as important as touching 1,000 people's lives. And like, I was a youth pastor and I remember we had a blizzard one time and literally one girl, she's about 10 years old. Her name's Bonnie. She's still— we're still friends on Facebook.

She's all grown up now, got her own kids and blah, blah, blah. But one little girl sitting there and my then wife sitting there. And I mean, you would have thought there was 55 kids in that room. I mean, I was doing all the games and I was, you know, teaching as if there was just tons of kids. And, you know, still to this day, like, she's commented, I remember that one time there was a blizzard and I went to church and it was like I had you all to myself, but it was like the room was full of people because it was just like every other time. And I think that's the other mistake that people make is they gauge their participation based off of what they gauge to be participating. And it's like you and I don't know if some, some clip pulled from this is going to, you know, go in front of the right people that's going to engage them into our business or into working with us. It's going to be, you know, exponentially greater.

I mean, I did a lot of small podcasts, but some of those podcasts, not a lot of people saw. But then I built a relationship with that person. And now they've referred me 10, 15 clients, you know, so you don't know what every opportunity is going to bring to you.

So treat every opportunity as a real opportunity. I love that. And we are at the end of the show. I could talk to you forever. Uh, but how can people, if they want to learn more about you, what you do, your lawyer network, all of that, how can people find you and get in touch?

So a couple of ways. So we have thelegalpodcastnetwork.com, and we'll soon have a click-through to what we're calling the authoritypodcastnetwork.com. So it's the same essential ecosystem building around a podcast content session, but for, you know, broader, you know, broader out there coaches, consultants, whatever, whoever else out there. So that's the business side. And then LinkedIn is kind of my playground right now. As far as business, personal, you know, professional is what we're called. I've heard people P-E-R-F-O-S-S-I-O-N-A-L, um, professional. Um, and so like, that's where I goof around, put pictures up.

Like, you know, I'm very fortunate. Like, last year I traveled 5 out of— like, I live on an island in Belize right now. Last year, um, we traveled 5 out of the 12 months with the Thailand, Bali, uh, 8 or 9 European states for a couple of months. So Like, you know, I get to talk about that kind of stuff and how it applies to business. I actually built my business that way. Think about this. I have a less than 2-year-old company that is doing 7 figures that I financed myself from scratch. And I spent 5 months on vacation last year.

I think now you're just bragging. No, I'm just, I'm just saying I crafted that life. And so like, I get the opportunity to kind of share like, How can you build a life that, that allows you that much freedom and that much quote unquote success? Like, what does it take to do that? It's— it doesn't just happen. Like, there has to be a— you have to do that on purpose. And so that's what I kind of share with, like, how to build remote teams because I have 70-something people in 15 different countries. So like, you know, how do you build remote cultures? How do you build a remote company? How do you work with a tough crowd and keep them happy? I mean, I don't know if you know this, but lawyers aren't always the easiest people to work with. But you know how, you know, so all of that stuff I share on LinkedIn. So if that is of interest to you or if you just want to hear me brag about how great my life is, you know, join me on LinkedIn.

I love that. Thank you so much for being here. I thank everyone who's listening for listening to the show. If you want to share your My First Stage story, I would love to hear it. Go to myfirststagepodcast.com and we'll talk to you next time.