You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 105.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, my strong friends. Hey, have you ever experienced stage fright when asked to speak? Have you ever hesitated to take a speaking opportunity that you knew would boost your career or grow your business? I have a confession to make. I have too! I get nervous. I know that doesn't seem to a lot of sense. You get to hear me do a podcast every week. And for many of you, you've even seen me stand up in front of large audiences leading workshops and doing group coaching. And you think, oh, Gretchen's never been nervous when it comes to public speaking and that's not true. And trust me, I have held myself back from plenty of opportunities and I kick myself for it. Oh my gosh.

I know that if I'm getting nervous and holding myself back from a big opportunity, most likely other people out in the audience are too, including you.

Opportunities are being presented to you right now. I don't want you to pass on them because your feelings are holding you back. There's always another way to think about circumstances so that it can create a helpful feeling for you. To help you to do that thought shopping, I invited an expert to help you. Okay. And to help me too, because there's something that I'm kind of like a little nervous about. So I invited Lisa Braithwaite. She is a presentation coach. I met Lisa at the Professional BusinessWomen of California conference last year. She was one of the speakers she presented about networking.

You don't really think about networking as a presentation, but really when you're speaking to someone one-on-one, that might just be a regular conversation. But when you have more than one person, it really starts to become a bit of a presentation.

For anyone that doesn't know, the PBWSC conference has an audience size of about 8,000 people. Lisa was up in front of 8,000 people. It takes a lot to get up in front of that many people. But it also takes a lot to get comfortable even just talking with two. Lisa helps corporate employees and entrepreneurs to get comfortable with every type of presentation and with all sizes of audiences, including social media. You don't wanna miss your big break. So sit down, grab a notebook and get ready to learn everything you can from Lisa.

 

Meet Coach Lisa Braithwaite

Gretchen Hernandez:

Hi Lisa, thank you so much for joining me today.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Thank you for inviting me.

Gretchen Hernandez:

So I can't wait for my audience to meet you. I got to meet you last year. You and I really hit it off. So can you please tell people who you are and what you do?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I'm Lisa Braithwaite and I am on a mission to help business professionals and entrepreneurs build visibility, credibility, and awareness for their work through engaging presentations. And I am based in Ojai, California. So it's a little town kind of halfway between Santa Barbara and LA. And I lived there with my husband of 32 years and our two Instagram celebrity cats Benjamin and Ernie.

Gretchen Hernandez:

That's. Right. I remember you and I were sharing pictures of our cats. That was so much fun!

Lisa Braithwaite:

Oh my gosh. I don't know how I ever survived without Instagram cat and dog accounts. It's just, it's just so much fun. It's so brightens my day.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh my gosh. It's so much fun. So you said presentations, can you elaborate? What do you mean by presentations?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yes. That's a good question because there are kind of a wide range of things that fit under presentation. The people I work with are doing everything from conference breakouts, to keynotes, to all hands meetings in the workplace to TEDx talks, to fundraising pitches, to speaking to their board, or their team. It's really a wide range of presentations that I work with people on. And I will say the majority of people I work with are not professional speakers, but rather they're business professionals or entrepreneurs who want to use speaking to grow their business or their company.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, that's fantastic. Do you also help them with workshops? Like being able to lead workshops and create them?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yes. I am actually running a workshop program right now. I don't do a lot of group programs, but this was something that was coming up a lot for my clients. I'm actually in a process right now of leading a group on how to develop workshops. A lot of my clients are also coaches and trainers and people who deliver their message and their expertise through workshops. And for me, because I do corporate training, that's kind of my sweet spot because I love getting in a room or on a zoom with a dozen people and leading a day and a half or two or three day workshop or retreat. I love that. So I work with people on everything from five minute micro presentations to three day retreats and workshops. Really whatever they need.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, retreats. So I have some retreats that are coming up in my future, but I have to learn a few things first. But, I may have to tap on your skills, and ask for your help.

Lisa Braithwaite:

They're a lot of work. And I've led a couple of my own retreats and there are a lot of work and I kind of prefer to do things virtually myself these days.

 

Falling in Love with Speaking

Gretchen Hernandez:

So, when did you first start doing public speaking?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Well, I joined the speech team in 10th grade in high school. So officially, I mean, I probably gave presentations in classrooms and stuff, but I officially started public speaking in 10th grade when I joined the speech team.

Gretchen Hernandez:

What made you want to do that?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I don't even know, honestly, I can't remember. But really since the time I was little, I have loved performing. I've loved dancing, singing, doing plays. And I did all that throughout my childhood. And I think the speech team was just another way for me to... Well, I also liked teaching. I should say I also always liked teaching things. Even from when I was really little, I thought I would be a teacher. And so I think the speech team was a way to grow my performance skills. And also to teach people things, and entertain people while I was teaching them things.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I love that you bring up the entertainment part because one of the things that you mention a lot in your marketing because I love following your marketing too, is about being authentic and fun. And one of the things that drew me to you was that you have fun hair and fun earrings. So I met you at the Professional BusinessWomen of California's conference last year, you were one of the speakers. And when I saw like a screen full of all of the speakers, my eyes went right to you. And I was like, oh, that that's who I wanna go to.

Lisa Braithwaite:

You can't miss me. You can't miss me.

Gretchen Hernandez:

You can't miss you. So what were you presenting on? Just to give an idea. So Professional BusinessWomen's conference, it has like 8,000 people. It was a virtual conference and I think you presented twice there

Lisa Braithwaite:

I presented once.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, was it once?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Okay. Yeah, but see, I have such a big personality. You might feel like you saw me more than once. Well, the other thing too was that it was really cool how they did it. We submitted prerecorded presentations. We sat in our own presentation, watching the comments, and watching our own presentation. Which was really cool because I took notes on all the comments and I got to see what everybody was saying and asking. And then we had a separate Q and A session.

Gretchen Hernandez:

That's probably where I thought there were two because I went to both of those.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Right? So then we got to sit in and take questions on our own presentations, and it was really great that I was able to sit in and watch all the comments because then I could also refer back to the comments that people had asked during the presentation. It was a really cool format. And what I spoke on was business networking. And about how to build relationships to build your business and, and boost your career. Because networking is public speaking. And this is another thing that, to me, anytime you're talking to more than one person, you are public speaking. And a lot of people don't realize that I've had people say, well, what's the difference between public speaking and presentation skills.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And presentation skills is more about learning the actual skills that you need to put together and deliver a formal presentation of some sort. Public speaking is kind of a wider umbrella. And it includes things like going to networking events. How do you introduce yourself to people? How do you build those relationships? How do you talk and listen and connect with people on a human level, whether one-on-one, or in these small groups, or sometimes you're asked to stand up and give a 30 second commercial about your business? So, this is what I talked about at PBWC. How to network coming from a place of serving, giving authenticity, building relationships instead of me, me, me, here's my business card and you're off to the next person.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I think that is such a critical skill. And a lot of my clients they've been struggling with that part. So I'll help them with business processes, designing their setup of their whole business, but them just getting out and talking to potential people, you kind of get out of the habit of doing that as an adult. Like we knew how to do it as kids, we could go and talk to anybody, make friends with anybody. And then as we become adults, we kind of get into this rut. We talk with our friends, maybe a small group of friends, but then if they're strangers, it's like, we don't know how to actually talk with them anymore.

Gretchen Hernandez:

So then I find myself stepping back a little bit from business process and going, well, wait a minute. Okay. Let's start developing your ability to even go out and talk with strangers. But this is something that you do intentionally like mine's just like a little on the side, but you do this intentionally with people, right?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yep. I actually do have clients who come to me specifically to prepare for networking events.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yeah. I know. I mean really anything that people do where they have to go and represent themselves through their voice and they're speaking, I have worked with people on. Some of the people I've worked with on networking are part of networking organizations like BNI or other kinds of leads groups. And so it's something they go to once a month or on a regular schedule and they regularly give these 30 second commercials. And they regularly have an opportunity to stand up and talk about their business. And they just don't know what to say. Or they do it all the time and they need something different. They need to engage in a different way.

Lisa Braithwaite:

So many people who go to these leads groups and networking events, they just stand up and they talk about themselves, right? For 30 seconds or a minute or whatever you're given. And actually it's not about you. It's about how you serve and what you offer and about the people in the room and their needs, what they need, want, and care about. And so it's a shift in how you talk about what you do. It's not I do this, I do that. I've been in business for 20 years, blah, blah, blah. It's about have you ever had this problem? You know, when you try to do X, Y, Z, and it's really frustrating, you know? I mean there's just this and how you talk about what you do. So a lot of people who come to me for networking help are just trying to be more engaging and more connecting.

Gretchen Hernandez:

That is such an important skill. I think it can really make or break a business because if we don't know how to engage with people, no one's gonna come to our business. Like no matter how good our product or service is if we're not engaging they'll just pass us by.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Exactly.

 

30 Years of Professional Speaking

Gretchen Hernandez:

How long have you been doing this kinda work?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Well, I started my business in 2005, so I have been specifically coaching and training on public speaking for 17 years now, but I've been professionally speaking, teaching, and training for 30 years. This is my 30th year speaking, teaching, and training. Although I was not speaking, teaching, and training on public speaking before 17 years ago. But I have been paid to speak, teach, and train for 30 years. It's crazy. How's it possible? I'm that old.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I know, I know.

Gretchen Hernandez:

So when, when you talk about being a professional speaker, what are some of those avenues that you have pursued? So you'd mentioned that you help people get ready for like Ted talks, things like that. So for you as a professional speaker, what are some of the venues that you've used?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I am all over the place. I love all of it! About the only thing that I don't do is keynote. I'm more of an educator and until I figure out how to turn the things that I speak, teach, and train on into a keynote format, it's not really my thing. But I speak at a lot of conferences, both in person and remotely. I did go to my first in-person, real-live conference since the pandemic started in January of this year.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Of that have been an interesting change. Did you have any nervousness of going and doing something in person?

Lisa Braithwaite:

What's funny is I was more nervous about COVID and being around people than I was about speaking in front of a room again. Because I always, I like that. I enjoy it. I'm a kind of a born performer, but I definitely felt a little rusty. Like I don't remember how to do this. So, but really, I mean, the minute I got there I immediately start meeting people. This is part of my whole networking training. I immediately start meeting people, making friends, getting to know people, inviting them to my session. So that by the time I get to my session, there are people in my session who I've already met, you know?

Gretchen Hernandez:

That's a brilliant strategy.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I just try to get to know people as soon as I can immediately, the minute they walk into my session, if I haven't met them, I start asking them questions. I start talking to them and saying, hello. So that, by the time I start, I feel like I'm talking to a room full of friends. I love doing breakouts at conferences, both in person and remote. I provide corporate training really about half of my business is corporate training where I go into companies and I lead workshops for teams on being able to present themselves better on behalf of their company. Like Microsoft or other companies who send their engineers out to speak at conferences. I actually really like working with tech people, and engineer-type people, because a lot of them are so used to just being isolated and they're not used to speaking. And a lot of them are not people, people.

Lisa Braithwaite:

So I love working with those groups. And then I also deliver my own workshops, retreats, and online training from time to time. Like I said, I don't do a lot of groups anymore, but I will from time to time get inspired and lead workshops. These past two years, I got super inspired by teaching about virtual presentations. Because I've been doing it since 2007 or something. I've been, I've been teaching courses online for ages. So zoom wasn't new to me. None of this online remote training was new to me. So I started teaching on that.

 

The One to Five Minute Micro Presentations

Lisa Braithwaite:

And then I also started teaching on micro presentations because I noticed how many people were being asked to give anywhere from one to five minute presentations on their expertise during the pandemic.

Gretchen Hernandez:

That is so hard to whittle something down to one to five minutes.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I know. And what was amazing was how much fun it became for me to start doing my own one to five-minute presentations. I really discovered that I have a gift for this. And I started teaching people how to do it. And I realized how much fun it is and, and how enjoyable it is. And then I started, I started entering micro-fiction contests.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, I saw those recently! I love those!

Lisa Braithwaite:

You have one of four hours to write a 250 word, short story. I realized that I love the microformat. So, you know, I've had a lot of fun over the two years just coming up with new and fun things to teach people that I need to learn and that they need to learn as well.

Becoming A Conference Circuit Speaker

Gretchen Hernandez:

So I was curious, there's two of 'em you mentioned conferences and being a corporate trainer, and I'm curious how you find those opportunities? So let's start with conferences. How do you find out about conferences and that there's an opportunity there for you?

Lisa Braithwaite:

There's a combination of things. I'm part of a Facebook group that is for women speakers who get paid. And I'm gonna put it this way. It's not necessarily for professional speakers. It's for coaches, experts, authorities, book authors, and other people who have areas of expertise and get paid to speak. I'm a member of that group. I will actually give you the information on that and any of your listeners who kind of fit that category can, can reach out and I'm an admin for the group.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, that would be great!

Lisa Braithwaite:

So we have a few questions that we ask people, and then they can join if they fit the description. And so in that group, we just share a lot of information. We share information on speaking opportunities and where we're speaking and what we're learning, and what venues we've enjoyed. I also was a member of the National Speakers Association. And I'm not anymore. For me, it wasn't a good fit, but that's another place for people who are getting paid to speak, to learn about conferences and speaking engagements. Sometimes people reach out to me and I will tell you, get visible if you wanna be sought out for speaking engagements, which is how I came to speak for PBWC. I didn't apply to that conference. They found me and they reached out to me.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Wow.

Lisa Braithwaite:

So get visible, put your expertise out there on social media, because that's where people find you a lot of the time. I also have really good Google juice. So for public speaking coach, I'm usually somewhere on the front page of Google. I haven't checked it in a while. I may be on the second page these days. I'm not sure, but the more visible you are, the more the fresher your website is the more visible you are and people sharing your links and commenting on your posts and all that kind stuff, that gets you good Google juice. So I get found on Google a lot. And then the other thing is I just do research. I research the kinds of conferences I wanna speak at and submit proposals. Personally, I try to speak at conferences where number one, I can get paid. Because I do do this for a living, but not everybody does.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I mean, you may be a finance expert and you want to speak to grow your business, right? This is what a lot of people who I work with are doing. They're a finance person, or they're a tech person, or they're a coach of some sort or they're a medical professional and they wanna grow their business. So in those cases, you don't necessarily need to look for engagements where you're gonna get paid. If the people in the audience are your target client. So number one, I look to get paid because this is what I do for a living. But secondly, I look for conferences that have a really good section of my target client. Who again are business professionals and entrepreneurs who wanna build their businesses through speaking. And I should also mention to your listeners that I have a really great tool on my website. It's a speaker proposal template.

 

Download This Speaking Proposal Template From Lisa's Site

Gretchen Hernandez:

That's fantastic.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Because you know, every time you go to submit a speaking proposal, there's a list of questions they ask. And it's not gonna be the same on every website, but basically there are these same five to 10 questions that they ask. So I created a proposal template for myself where I can plug in the answers to all of those questions and then keep them so that every time I submit a proposal, I can copy and paste right out of this template.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, that makes it so much easier.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Where I keep the answers to all the questions. So that might be useful to your listeners who maybe don't submit proposals frequently, and are kind of coming back and going, oh, okay. What did I write last time? What were the learning outcomes? I can't remember.

Gretchen Hernandez:

For those that are like, I need that right now. What is your website address?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Website is CoachLisaB.com.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Okay, great. So super easy. We're gonna come back to all of your links at the end of the show, but I know people are probably like, oh my gosh, I need this right now.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yeah, I need it.

Gretchen Hernandez:

We're gonna help them.

Lisa Braithwaite:

That's why I created it. I needed it. And it's been so helpful.

Corporate Training Opportunities

Gretchen Hernandez:

Now for the corporate opportunities. How do you find out about those?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I'll be honest. I'm lazy. And I wait for people to find me.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I love that answer.

Lisa Braithwaite:

That's a bad answer.

Gretchen Hernandez:

If it works, then it works

Lisa Braithwaite:

Again, there are a couple of things, but as I mentioned before, I am often found on Google and social media. I'm found on LinkedIn people reach out to me on LinkedIn. People reach out to me from finding me on Google. And so, because I have really good Google juice and because I'm very visible on social media, I don't often have to search for those opportunities. And the other thing is when I have a client that I've worked for before I keep coming back to them with anything new that I've developed.

Lisa Braithwaite:

So another thing is that I'm constantly developing new topics. I'm constantly developing new topics. I don't expect people to keep bringing me back for the exact same training over and over and over again, because oftentimes they just don't have enough new people for that.

Lisa Braithwaite:

So I'm always looking at how I can serve my existing client with new topics. But I do reach out to people on LinkedIn. Okay. That is probably the only place that I actually will reach out to somebody when I have a new topic. It's somebody maybe that I've interacted with somebody that I've kind of developed a relationship with. And I know that they provide training to their people and I'll reach out and say, Hey, I've got this new thing on micro presentations. And, you know, I wonder if this is something that would be useful to your team.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I always wondered when I worked in corporate, if there was a directory that corporations could go to, either their HR or their organizational development that they could just go to and they find all of the people that offer these types of workshops or development. And I haven't heard of one yet.

Lisa Braithwaite:

No, there really isn't. Although there is, for example, National Speakers Association has a directory of professional speakers. But really that is for conferences and meeting planners who are looking for keynoters a lot of the time. So oftentimes you're not gonna get picked up for training for corporate training and things like that from those kinds of directories. But yeah, again, I'm just gonna keep saying this. You have to be visible. You have to put yourself out there. You have to talk about what you do. You have to give value. I always come back to giving value. If you is constantly put putting commercials out on social media, that's not what is gonna draw people to you. What's gonna draw people to you is that you give value. And you give tips and you give away free information. And free resources and tips that people can learn from.

Lisa Braithwaite:

They see what you do and what you teach. They learn about who you are as a person. And I'm sure your people have all heard of the no like and trust factor. They need to get to know you. They need to like you, they need to feel like they can trust you before they're going to reach out to you. And that's what we need to be doing is being visible and putting ourselves out there as human beings who happen to be experts in these particular areas.

Overcoming the Fear of Sharing Your Photos and Videos on Social Media

Gretchen Hernandez:

Have you worked with people that are really, really uncomfortable, even with just putting their own picture out in social media?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yes. Short answer. Yes. I have people say to me, here's a good example is video, right? A lot of people now are shooting videos. I literally joined a reel challenge this month because I don't love putting my own video out on social media. Only because I feel like it's, oh, I have to make sure my hair looks right and make sure this and put on makeup and all these things that I hate to do. So I joined a reel challenge this month to put out reels on Instagram. Just to push myself to do something every day. It's a 21-day challenge. And I have now made a reel every day for 10 days. Wow.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And so I understand this too. I understand the kind of drama around putting yourself out there. And I have had people come to me and say really, really sadly, I don't want to make videos, or I don't wanna submit speaking proposals until I've lost some weight. Or until whatever it is. People have so many things that they're waiting to do. They're waiting to get ready to get ready to get ready.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I can identify with that.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Right. And you know, for example, for the person who says they need to lose weight before they can put themselves out on social media, I say, do you go to the store? Do you go to restaurants? I mean, okay. Maybe during COVID that's not a good question, but you know, do you go out in the world? Do people see you as you look right now? Everybody knows. If you're overweight, everybody knows it. It's no secret. This is what you look like, you know? Yeah. And I have put myself out there as well. We all have issues, right? I mean, I'm 56 now. I'm at a stage in my life where I look at myself and go what happened to my body. But the reality is this is what I look like all the time. So why am I hiding myself from video or social media or speaking in front of audiences until some magical later date when this isn't going to be true of me?

Lisa Braithwaite:

So, yes. I work with a lot of people who try to hide themselves. The other side of this is people who feel like they can't put themselves out there because they won't be taken seriously, or they won't be considered "professional" because they have pink hair or they have tattoos. Or they wear giant earrings. Or they're a black woman with a natural Afro and has always been told, well, you need to straighten your hair to be seen as professional. There are so many things that people have been told old are unprofessional that they don't wanna put themselves out there as they really are. So this is a flip side of that whole concept.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And, you know, I'm super passionate about this campaign: This is what professional looks like. Because we're in a time where we just have to be real. We just have to be real. We have to get on with our lives. We have to get out there. We have to speak up and speak out and get our messages heard by the world. And I'm on a little bit of a rant right now, as you can tell. But it's very frustrating to me how so many of us still feel like we're held back and held down by kind of what society says is acceptable for how we're supposed to look?

Gretchen Hernandez:

One of the things that helped me the most, I'm a larger-sized person. Okay. I might be short, but I'm larger. In other ways was thinking about representation. If we continue to see the same images out in public, then we all assume that the only way that we are allowed to be visible is if we look like that. But when we have courage that we can get up and represent other people that look just like us, then it gives permission for the world to start changing. The more diversity that we put out there and visible. The more that people start to realize this is okay.

Gretchen Hernandez:

In fact, this is celebrated. And I think that's gonna help all of us with our mental health too. Because when we start judging ourselves based on just one image, most of us are not gonna look like that one image. And we're gonna hurt ourselves by doing all of that comparison. And all of the knowledge that we have trapped in our brains, all of those thoughts, the experiences that we've had, these are gifts that we can give to the world. A lot of the solutions are available if we can just get the people up and out and speaking what all of those solutions are. But if we're holding it back, because there's no representation of people that look like them, we're never gonna get to hear all of these great ideas and come up with the perfect solutions.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Oh, thank you so much for that. Yes. You just boiled it all down to that one word representation. That's what it is. If we don't see people who look like us, we think we are wrong. We think we don't belong. And it's just not true.

Gretchen Hernandez:

It's not true.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And we think our message isn't valuable. And that is really untrue. Really untrue.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You got me thinking now it's like, yeah. Message invaluable. Yeah. Because there's so many times we will invalidate ourself ahead of time because we don't want other people to invalidate us based off of our appearance. Right. And it's like, our appearance has nothing to do with our brain. And other people judging or whatever, if we're holding ourselves back, we're judging ourselves ahead of time where other people might not have even been planning on judging us. They might see us and go, yes. That's exactly the person that I wanna come be around.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Yep.

Gretchen Hernandez:

It was interesting. There was a time on an airplane that I was sitting next to a gentleman and we were talking about the different speakers in the world. And he said that he wouldn't want to work with someone like Tony Robbins. He said, he'd rather work with someone that just looks like the normal neighbor next door. And I asked him, well, why is that? And he said, well, because I get intimidated by the people that look perfect. That seem to have the perfect life, the perfect teeth, the perfect hair. I start to feel bad about myself. I can't even concentrate on the thing that I'm trying to learn or develop because I'm too busy shaming myself about how I don't look like that person. So he said, I'd rather work with someone that just looks normal where I compare myself and it's like, okay. Yeah, we're both human. And then we can move on and just focus on the task at hand.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Absolutely. I think this is such a good point. And I really talk about this a lot with my clients because there's an issue. It's actually the subtitle of my book, the book is Presenting for Humans. And the subtitle is insights for speakers on ditching perfection and creating connection. And when you put yourself out there, when you feel like you have to be the most impressive person in the room, the smartest person in the room, the funniest person in the room, when you put all that pressure on yourself to show up as superhuman, people can't relate to you. You're not approachable. You're not accessible. I mean, Tony Robbins can't help how he looks. I mean, some people are just, you know, gorgeous and that's just life, but you have the opportunity as a speaker, no matter what you look like, to connect with your audience and stop trying to be perfect and impressive, and the smartest person in the room.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And when you let go of that need to impress people and you really focus on connecting with them. That's what is gonna bring the audience to you. And yeah, audiences, when they look at somebody who seems perfect in every way, it can be intimidating in a lot of ways. It can be intimidating in that they say to themselves, oh, I couldn't possibly achieve what this person has achieved. I'm nothing like this person look how amazing they are and brilliant, and smart and funny and all these things. And yes, I mean, obviously we want to come across as our best self when we're in front of an audience, but we also have to be a hundred percent willing to also come across as human to our audiences, or they're not gonna connect with us.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And yes, they're gonna feel intimidated or they're gonna feel like it's impossible to achieve what you've achieved. We don't want that. We want our audiences to look at us and go, yes, I can do that. I can learn how to do that. I can be like that. Right. That's the whole goal. We wanna inspire people to change an attitude or belief or behavior. We wanna inspire our audiences to take some sort of action. And this is how we do it.

Lisa's "Recovering from Mishaps" Superpower

Gretchen Hernandez:

Yeah. One of my favorite ways of connecting with people is by sharing some of my vulnerabilities, some of the things where I've really messed up, or it was a point where I got stuck. Because I find that when I do that, I can dissolve the shame for other people to also talk about their stuff. And then all of a sudden they're like right there within minutes, just spilling their guts to me. Have you used that technique at all in any of your speaking or training?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I am. This is my superpower, my friend.

Gretchen Hernandez:

All right.

Lisa Braithwaite:

My superpower is recovering from mishaps. And this is something I try to teach people as well. Something is always gonna go wrong. You really have to just be prepared for something thing to go wrong. Your technology's gonna fail. The lights are gonna go out. So many things have happened to me during presentations. And I remember one in particular when I was, I was training a group of nonprofit leaders and it was a pitch contest. And I was the lead coach helping them develop these pitches, so that they actually could win cash prizes. And it was gonna be this big thing in front of an audience

Gretchen Hernandez:

Cash Prizes

Lisa Braithwaite:

Oh, it was so it was so much fun. There was a day-long training that I had to deliver for them. And I was gonna show them some video of pitches from other nonprofits who had done similar competitions in another city. And we could not get the sound to work on the video. And I mean, luckily we had an AV guy. But you know, everybody's sitting there waiting to watch this video and I'm standing there, trying to fill time. So I just started pretending to tap dance across the stage. And I'm like, all right, well, while we wait for this video to start, how about a little entertainment? And I don't know how to tap dance. I dunno how to do a soft shoot, except from what I've seen in movies.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And, I just acted like a weirdo. And here's the thing. I have no problem being a weirdo or being a goofball or any of those things in front of an audience. Because honestly there's very little anymore that can embarrass me because I've allowed myself. I've allowed myself to be okay with messing up and making mistakes and embarrassing myself. So now I'm kind of like, all right, I'm gonna do what I have to do. And I have had so many people come up to me after presentations. This just gives you an indication of how much I mess up. So many people have come up to me after presentations and said, you know what? Just watching how you handled that whole thing made me realize I don't have to be so scared of messing up. And like you said, when people see you handle things, handle mishaps graciously, and just make fun of the whole thing. I think you said it dissolves or whatever you said...

Gretchen Hernandez:

Yeah, dissolved the shame.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I don't try to mess up on purpose, but I like people seeing things go wrong. I really like people seeing things go wrong in my presentation. So when something does go wrong, I just model, this is how you deal with it. Just keep it real.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Yeah. It's a perfect learning opportunity.

Lisa Braithwaite:

It's a learning opportunity. And I love for people to see that things can go wrong and you will survive. And how you handle it is everything.

Gretchen Hernandez:

It's so interesting how people are so scared of embarrassment. Like, oh my gosh, I totally died from, you know, embarrassment. But really we don't die from embarrassment. Nope. I don't know if there has ever been a death certificate where it says cause of death embarrassment.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Oh, that would be horrible. I mean, that really would be horrible to die of embarrassment, but yeah, it's not gonna happen.

Gretchen Hernandez:

It's not gonna happen.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Not gonna happen.

Gretchen Hernandez:

All feelings are just a vibration in our body. There's a beginning and middle and end. And it always passes through as long as we don't try to resist it. It's like, it's there. Okay. That was embarrassed.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Love that.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I love how we can take any of our obstacles in our life, including embarrassing moments, and repurpose it later on in our life as a diamond. Like we can use those embarrassing stories to now share something with the world.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And you're gonna learn something from it every time, every time. I remember when I was still speaking in high school classrooms for my first job where I got paid to speak. And I remember calling on a student thinking she was a boy and saying, yes, the young man over here. And she looked at me and she said, I'm a girl.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I've had that experience. I've had short hair since I was a junior in high school. And people always thought I was a boy. And I thought to myself, wow. And so I said, oh, you know, and I apologize to her. And I said, I should know better because this happens to me all the time. But you know, everything is a learning experience and you have an opportunity to take something away from that. And next time say, yes, the person over here or whatever, whatever it is.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Person over here in the the yellow top or purple top.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Especially, okay, that was, that was seriously almost 30 years ago. Now we're dealing with audiences who have non-binary people.

Gretchen Hernandez:

My thoughts went to that, exactly.

Lisa Braithwaite:

And Gender nonconforming people in your audience. And you have people who identify in all kinds of ways. People who are transitioning, who wanna be called by certain pronouns, but they may not look like that pronoun to you. So everything we do, every time we have a mistake, it's a learning opportunity. And I relish that even though I may be embarrassed briefly feel bad about something. I learn from it every time.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Our best memories always come from when it's super, emotionally charged. Even in those moments when we're feeling embarrassed, it's a large emotional charge to it, it helps us to remember that. So that next time when we go to do it, we pull that up from our memory really quick. It's like, oh, I don't want that feeling again. I'll know how to do this. Whereas if we didn't experience that embarrassment and there was still a mistake, there's a good chance we'd make that mistake again. So sometimes embarrassment can be our friend.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Working With Coach Lisa B

Gretchen Hernandez:

So Lisa, how do people work with you now?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Mostly one-on-one. I provide one-on-one coaching to people who are either business professionals working in a company who are speaking on behalf of the company and are maybe the face of that company or are going out, and doing conference speaking and that kind of thing. Also, I work with a lot of people who are inside of a company and have a team and have to present to their team or have to present to their superiors. So anybody in that kind of business professional type of environment. And I also work with a lot of entrepreneurs one-on-one who wanna grow their businesses through speaking. My other way that I work with people is through corporate training and coming in and working with teams in companies.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Fantastic. How can people find out more about you?

Lisa Braithwaite:

Well, CoachLisaB.com is my website and I'm in the middle of making it so much better. So hopefully everything is really easy to find. And you can track me down if you want more one-on-one coaching or a corporate training. Or you want to invite me to speak at your conference. I'm also fairly active on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. So I'm pretty much all over social media about the only place I'm not super active anymore is Twitter. I'm trying to even a little more active on TikTok, believe it or not.

Gretchen Hernandez:

What has that been like?

Lisa Braithwaite:

You know, it's actually very similar to doing reels. Now that I'm doing this reels challenge on Instagram, I realize it's very similar. And, the only difference is that when you do reels, you can still write a long post. Like you can write on Instagram. And on TikTok, you have 150 characters. So it's kind of like Twitter mixed with fun videos. But I actually have a lot of colleagues who are in the speaking, and coaching, and training industry who are doing really well on TikTok. So I thought, well, why not try that too? So right now I'm kind of just reposting my reels onto TikTok.

Gretchen Hernandez:

Talk about micro presentations.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Exactly. And I am all about getting out of my comfort zone. I mean, really one of the things I work with, a lot of my clients on is getting out of the comfort zone. Trying new things. You know, this micro fiction contest, I joined two years ago. I've only just started learning how to write these 250 word stories. And I'm in the final of the contest right now. And I didn't know if I would be good at it or bad at it, or if it would be embarrassing or whatever. And I have posted my stories publicly.

Gretchen Hernandez:

And they are so good! I'm gonna encourage everyone listening to go read those posts right now. So find Lisa on Instagram or on Facebook, read these posts on the micro writing challenges, because she would is a master in how she put all of the stuff together. I really enjoyed it. Like both of those stories that I've read so far really stuck with me. I loved it.

Lisa Braithwaite:

I'm pushing myself. I'm really pushing myself. And so I'll say it again. I, I love helping people get out of their comfort zone. And I really love working with people who may be a bit buttoned down and wanna lighten up a bit. Wanna lighten up their presentations, wanna loosen up a little bit, love working with those people.

Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection, A Tip for Entrepreneurs

Gretchen Hernandez:

It is so needed. I can, I can relate to that. Sometimes. I'm a little bit too, uh, too tight. I wanna loose it up a little bit. So Lisa, thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this great wisdom with us, all of the tips and tricks. And so we have entrepreneurs that are also listening to this podcast. What would be one quick tip that you could give them that could help them in regards to building their business with speaking?

Lisa Braithwaite:

I am going to go back to what I said before about ditching perfection, and creating connection. And this really goes for those button downed people I was talking about who feel like they have to be so impressive, you know, and they have to be the funniest and smartest person in the room or else they're not gonna be taken seriously. I just want to encourage you, if that's you listening right now, I wanna encourage you to stop focusing on being impressive, and important, and to start focusing on the audience engagement, and human connection, and service to your audience. 

Lisa Braithwaite:

Because people want to connect with you on a human level. And when you're approachable and accessible, that is what attracts people to you like a magnet. I know it's easier said than done ditch perfection and create connection, but really look at how you can focus on what your audience needs, wants and cares about. And focus on that engagement and human connection. And you are going to do so much better at attracting people to you and your business if you incorporate that.

Gretchen Hernandez:

I completely agree! Lisa, thank you again so much for coming on today.

Lisa Braithwaite:

Thank you.

Gretchen Hernandez:

My friends, I wanna ask you something. Did you feel the connection between me and Lisa? Did you feel a connection between us and you? We just did one type of presentation. We were humans, naturally humans talking on a podcast. We didn't try to be perfect. I'm sure that you heard all sorts of imperfections and that's okay. It's just us being human, trying to be of service to you. What we cared about the most was getting you the information that you need. Your people need the information that you hold. They'll be grateful to learn from you. 

 

In podcast number 80, where to find clients, I shared all sorts of venues where you could do a variety of presentations. Lisa just shared with you many more. I included the links for the National Speakers Association, the Facebook group, she mentioned it's called Power Women Pro, and I also gave you the link for PBWC. You can find all of that on the webpage for this episode.

I hope you noticed that Lisa talked about all of the different products and services that she created and how they were based on what her customers needed right now. In podcast number 73 customer research, I guide you through all of the steps on how to make sure that you are designing your perfect product and service for what your customers need next. Everything Lisa created is exactly what we need to grow our business. And also to take that next step in your career. On her website, CoachLlisaB.com you can find on-demand courses and her book. You can find them on her speaking resources tab. All of the best speakers in the world had their own coach that helped to develop them in getting comfortable being visible. Getting comfortable being on stages, small and large. Wouldn't it be great if you had that opportunity too?

I am so excited that Lisa offers one-on-one training in addition to all of her corporate training. Make sure to go over to her website again, that is CoachLisaB.com, so you can connect with her and find out how you can work together.

All of Lisa's links can be found on the webpage for this episode myfreedomgrove.com/podcast-106. My friends, your opportunity is right there. You know that your feelings are holding you back. You know you could use a little bit of help. I hope that this episode has given you that exact thought that you need so that you can take the step forward, get out there and take that opportunity. It's yours. Have a great week. I'll talk with you soon. Bye-bye.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships, and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out Unshakable Men and Unshakable Women. The unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, coaching, and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to my MyFreedomGrove.com/workwithme. I can't wait to see you there.