Talia Jacqueline, Ditch the Pitch, Captivate People Beyond Your Words, Austin,Texas

Talia Jacqueline, CEO Visceral, Business Psychology and Communication Expert, TEDX Speaker shares her experience and TEDx Talk presentation: Ditch the Pitch: Captivate People Beyond Your Words. https://taliajacqueline.com www.linkedin.com/in/talia-jacqueline

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Talk to Brazil with TomRiok, the business connector to business in
Brazil. Doctor Brazil's, a leadingbusiness podcast talks with business experts throughout the
world. I'm Tom Riock, anAmerican known as the King of network and
connecting people from my studio in Brazil. Today's guest Taddya Jacqueline, CEO of

(00:21):
Visceral, joining us from Austin,Texas. Toddy shares our most valuable lesson
in business. Your value cannot berealized until you learned how to communicate it.
Toddy Jacqueline works with business leaders terpreneurs. They're most valuable team members,
helping companies generate the recognition, tractionand growth that they deserve. She was

(00:45):
also a guest here at Cafe andNetworking Podcasts several months ago. So,
Taddy, your recent TEDx talk ditchthe pitch, captivate people beyond your words
as again inspired me tell our listenersabout your experience and content. Thank you

(01:07):
Tom for having me again. It'salways so good to connect with you.
I was really privileged and honored tobe asked to do a TED talk earlier
this year by a good friend ofmine who organizes them in Wilmington, Delaware,
And you know, the experience issomething that I think almost every single
business owner, entrepreneur, even professionalshould go through for the sole purpose of

(01:34):
getting so specific with the one ideaand the one message that you stand for
that you have to share with others. And it was such an interesting experience
just in that of going from whatI thought was one idea which we're not
to be five or six or seven, to really narrowing it down, and

(01:57):
that process was so so extremely importantfor anyone that's in business. I think
it was just yeah, it reallyit really forced me, and my background
is in communication. It really forcedme to get really precise with what is
the one idea and what is theone message that has to have one thought
line from beginning to the end thatI want people to really take away.

(02:22):
And gosh, I had I hada lot of fun writing it, you
know, for ted X, it'sit's very timed. There's a lot of
guidelines, it's very strict, andI've never really fully written out a talk
before. I lean more on justlike improvising it being a little spontaneous,

(02:42):
as we were just talking about earlier, and this was the first time that
I wrote out one from start tofinish, and the process is very interesting
because, as you know, it'sabout eighteen minutes or less, and you
have to know it in your sleep. You have to become the talk.
And so the way that I didthat was I wrote it out, and

(03:07):
I wrote out every single thing thatI wanted to convey, and then I
script I deleted that and deleted that, and got to know a very tight
talk at the end. And thenI went through the process of going through
it a million times, and thenI went through the process of forcing myself
to forget it summarize it because Ikind of I kind of put the like

(03:31):
a double pressure on myself tom forthis talk. For me, the pressure
of just going out there and givinga talk that's eighteen minutes or so long
was one thing that I'd never donebefore in front of an audience that big
and a platform that big. Butthe second part that was a lot of
pressure I put on myself was theactual title ditch. The pitch is all

(03:55):
about not having anything scripted and nothaving anything to memorize than you being able
to speak from the heart and improvise. And so the other side of it
was actually walking my talk and practicingmy preach, which that was probably the
most stressful part and the part thatI had to learn and the experience of

(04:19):
it all to get even more masterfulat I hope. So that was that
was very interesting for me. Well, you are a communication expert, yes,
and to all of us who feelin our audience, we feel were
experts in anything. There's always achance to learn. Absolutely, And to

(04:41):
the point of what you just mentioned, practice makes perfect, yeah, but
practice and practice and practice and practiceand more practice. Yeah, I perfects
it. But we do have tomentalize whatever our pitch. We've talked about
this before. I talked about pitchin the sense of the content you talked

(05:03):
and the last time I interviewed youtalk and you still do talk about the
pitch as the tone. Yeah,the pitch is the tone. The pitch
is the tone. So it's notreally the what, it's how Yeah,
how are we perceived? How doesthat voice come across? Yeah, like
what I do in a podcast,it's audio, but when you know,

(05:25):
tedex are up in front of people, So it's not the audience, the
body, it's everything. It's everything. It's really everything, And I think
there's something to be said about gettingyour reps in. No matter what you
want to get your reps in.It's like you're going to the gym for
your mind, You're going to thengoing to the gym for your body or
your business or whatever it is.And so for me, choosing to do

(05:45):
the ted X experience was very muchso a learning experience. For me,
there needed to be something I wantedto challenge myself with, something that I've
never done before, and that wasthat was this. And so I agree
with you it's at whatever point ofbusiness or success you are in, there
is always an area for improvement andlearning. And I'm very grateful for the

(06:08):
experience that I had with ted X. It was just it was really an
out of body experience. As manypeople might say, well, yeah,
you brought up a point I wasn'treally aware of. It's ted X Wilmington
that comes TX. You said youwent to Wilmington. Yes, you actually
delivered the delivery was there? Itwas. It was in Wilmington, Delaware.

(06:31):
Doctor Dan Young is the organizer whoalso has an incredible ted X training.
He's one of the greatest teachers andprofessors that I know. And there
were about two hundred I would say, about one fifty to two hundred people
there the day of m so itwas a nice intimate setting. And there
were about twenty four, if I'mnot getting that number wrong, twenty four

(06:55):
other speakers and talks, so twentyfour. It was a full end,
Yeah, from nine to six,and they're all mine increments with small breaks.
I didn't realize it was that waywhen we consume it. Well,
see, you know, an eighteenminute that's way it's consumed. It should

(07:16):
be. It's eighteen minutes wherever.Whatever. No, it's so funny because
I actually when you watch my talk, you'll see that I start out with
Wow, I'm in awe of thatsong, and no one knows what the
heck I'm talking about unless they werethere. But for everyone listening, I'll
give you a little hint. Therewas a gentleman, Donovan Moore, who's
twenty two years old, that wasright before my talk, and we were

(07:40):
both backstage together getting miked up,and he was ready to go on.
And when he went on, hewas talking about the power of using emotions
and using sorry, using music andwriting music to channel through your experiences and
your emotions and to heal them andall these things, and this twenty two
year old Saying brought out his guitarand sang an original song at the end

(08:03):
of his talk. So when Igot up on stage, I could not
help myself to acknowledge that it wasso incredible and so brave, and he
was a very good singer. Sothat is who I was referencing when I
started mine. Well, your wowis a multiple wow. Yeah, it's

(08:24):
wow for having seen or heard someoneelse, but it's also while being there.
It's a deserved wow of your firsttime. Yeah, so that experience,
I think the thing I could guessyou've gone through it, so you
know what that means. Yeah,But the question I want to Wilmington you're
from Austin, Yes, being inanother place, and obviously Wilmingtons stilled in

(08:48):
the United States. But yeah,when you're talking to public, let's say
a public, did you prime yourselfbecause you were in Wilmington or do is
that have anything to do with it? Doesn't matter. I don't think it
mattered. I think in the endof the day, for me, when
I'm in front of a person,I just look at them as a person,
and I really have a lot oflove for people and that's something I

(09:09):
hope really came through when I wastalking the message that I shared around Ditch
the pitch of something that's very,very deep in my heart. But all
of the people there, I mean, I happen to know quite a few
people because I knew a lot ofthe other speakers, and I knew some
people in the audience. Um,my mother, God bless her, cut
down Caribbean, and so it wasa very warm audience and that made it

(09:33):
for a special day. I watched. I didn't hear your mother stand up
and saying that's my kid. She'sa little British woman. But well that's
even more pressure. Yeah, itwas really special. It was very special.
And I watched. As I mentionedbefore we came on here, I've

(09:56):
watched, I've rewatched it. Yeah. Rewatching also brings me more value each
time I watch it. Yeah,because I'm also watching it from the point
of I'm watching and seeing a professionalcommunicator going through this, which now I

(10:16):
can understand if you just shared this, it's probably a high stress moment.
Yeah, stepping on stage. I'ma I'm a speaker, and I've always
known you know, the first timeyou step on stage is an experience,
journaling and everything else and all ofthat what you mentioned. You have a

(10:37):
time constraint, you have a thoughtprocess. And I'm the type of speaker
too. I'm spontaneous. I usedto prepare speeches and then I learned will
throw them away. Throw them away. Why because every time you're in front
of a different audience and you feelthe feedback from people, and that's that's
the point of different places. Anaudience generates. It's an energy that we

(11:01):
capture as a speaker. So you'retalking to your mother's in the audit to
other people. Oh yeah, itwas. That audience was full of love.
The audience really made it very welcomingfor the speakers, including myself.
It was just a very different typeof environment. I didn't expect that part.
I thought, you know, asyou're preparing a lot of the times

(11:24):
you're told for Ted Dux that thelights are very bright because it's a production,
so you can't see any faces.And I was really kind of mentally
preparing myself to feel a little disconnectedfrom the audience. But in fact,
the lighting was perfect and the roomwas just so everyone was so present,
everyone was hanging on every word.There was a real dedication to the speakers
and to learning that day, andit really made for such a beautiful experience.

(11:50):
I think that the audience really contributedto that. We can feel you
can feel the energy. Sometimes youcan see it, yeah, but you
can feel it. You could feelit. Yeah. For me, Tom
I this was the largest platform thatI've spoken on. But leading up to
it, I thought I was goingto I was incredibly nervous a few days
before. What surprised me was theday of, And this is really a

(12:13):
recommendation for anyone that's ever doing publicspeaking. The day of, I didn't
look at anything. I didn't lookat my notes, I didn't look at
the talk. I didn't rehearse,and all that I did was focused on
how grateful I was for the experienceitself. I mean, I was sharing
a big part of my own personalstory and how I came to be an

(12:33):
expert in communications, and it wasreally a moment of it was a wow
moment of how grateful I am tohave been given the opportunity to have someone's
attention for fifteen to eighteen minutes.How many things can I squeeze into that
that was my objective? How manyinsights into this thing so that people walk

(12:54):
away with multiple awarenesses around their pitchand their communication. That's a good tip
for anybody. And from my sidein my Cafe networking podcast, where my
focus is trying to convince people theyneed a pitch in terms of saying something
within a timeframe and the pitch inmodern times, we were talking about virtual

(13:20):
communication. When you're talking about moneythat can come from risk partners, they
want to give you five minutes toconvince them why they should give you a
billion dollars. And what I haveseen I was very recent last month.
I was actually they invited me tojudge a startup situation here at the American

(13:43):
Chamber in Brazil. So it's actuallyvirtually able to see ten pitches and through
and evaluate those. But to yourpoint, what many people, many pitchers
do is really they keep trying tocram more into the five minutes. Yeah,
the time limit. Where your pointis, don't think about it the

(14:07):
day, forget it, rehearse it, and what you said, rehearse,
rehearse for years. So if you'vegotten or or somebody gives you five minutes,
use four, yeah, and ortake something out. Don't everybody tries
to put more in. Yeah,So I have an interesting philosophy on this,
Tom. I think there's a verybig difference between an eighteen minute talk

(14:31):
or a fire minute talk that isa production at the end of the day,
and pitch when you're out networking andyou have a couple of minutes to
captivate someone's attention. So I wantto I want to make a distinction between
that because I think for both,you do have to practice, you do
have to get your reps in.But my whole going back to your question

(14:52):
around the content, and what I'mso passionate about, is when you're out
networking and you're going to ask thatquestion, what do you do and you
have to give your pitch, oryou're on a platform that you're you know,
obviously pitching to investors, or there'ssome type of pitch competition for capital.
That is where I actually don't wantpeople to be practicing and rehearsing and

(15:13):
trying to make it all perfect,because that's where, again the emphasis is
on the words and how they arebeing scripted versus the delivery and the emotion
of the tone. And so ifyou watch the tech X, I go
through a process around how you shouldpresent yourself to mend you present yourself when

(15:35):
you do have the opportunity to tellsomebody what you do. And it's actually
the opposite of rehearsing and practicing andmastering and memorizing your pitch. That's true.
It's the tone, it is,and it's an ending. How we
say what we say, it's actuallynot what we say. And we talked

(15:58):
about that before you see a pick, and that's the first impression. Yeah,
but those words, those first wordsthat come out of our mouths,
are part of that first impression.It is, It definitely is. And
you know, it's interesting because forthe past decade, I would say in
the business world, we've gone fromyou know, don't focus on how you

(16:18):
do what you do, focus onwhat you do, don't focus on what
you do, focus on why youdo it. And I think that's you
know, in large part attribute toSimon Sinek, which has really changed the
game and how people look at theway they present themselves. And I think
there's a lot bubbling right now inthe business world around moving from the why

(16:40):
to them And that was a bigpart of what I discussed too, because
I do believe that that is whereyour tone comes from when you know who
you are and how your experiences havemolded you to be who you are in
business, that changes your delivery andwhen you're focusing on who you're talking to,
which you're a very good at whenyou're interviewing and talking to people,

(17:03):
that also changes the dynamic and theconversation between you and other person. One
of the things I love teaching companiesis something called conversational Intelligence. It's a
training that I have that I'm Ifreaking love because all about how do you
go from pitch so ditch the pitch, and how do you create conversation starters?
How do you create meaningful conversations thatbecome these really really awesome relationships From

(17:30):
that, So anyway we're going now, but that that that's it, and
my success, I think part ofit has come from really to how you
say. I learned that because I'vehere in Brazil, I'd had to learn
another language. I also speak inanother language, speak in Portuguese. Most
of my business life was here inanother language. And that's really what I

(17:53):
learned. What you mentioned about thetone the delivery in Brazil, that's different.
Delivery in Brazil in Portuguese is completelydifferent from the same thing in the
States or in other countries. Soit has to be fine tune. It
should be fine tune talking to aglobal audience. It's really not one thing.

(18:15):
It may be Wilmington, but youknow, it may be Shanghai.
So how and understanding that cultural partthinking about that before because obviously we think
we know how to talk to mom. Yeah, right, but we have

(18:36):
to speak to everybody else and itthinks it received differently from Mom. And
I learned that. So what Icould do or say that out in the
world could be but I had tobe aware here of the tone absolutely away
the presence. That's important, notonly here in Brazil, other places in

(18:56):
the world. Absolutely. So asas businesses go forward back to what you
do actually sign ted X, youhelp teams and you help companies understand all
of that. Yeah, I understandhow to use tone because you know about
the shifting in our business world.Tom is this whole introduction and launching of
AI and how much that's going tocreate this content creation, you know,

(19:21):
expedited content creation and all the otherthings, and it's an amazing tool.
However, if at the end ofthe day, what people experience from you
online is not the same as whatthey experienced from you offline. And you
don't know how to use tone,I think you're going to have a really
hard time in business moving forward,because there's more and more or less of

(19:42):
a humanized component to the way wecommunicate. And I don't think it's going
to cut it if you don't knowhow to use tone, not just in
your messaging but in your actual inperson communication. And I agree. I
couldn't agree more, but even nottoday with technologies. So I'm here in
Brazil, you're in Austin. We'retalking. We can see each other.

(20:03):
Our podcast audience will hear us,they see us. But we do have
to be more aware of that,absolutely, and we have to be again
culturally, it's different everywhere. Absolutely. And it's funny because in a lot
of companies, everyone, a lotof people will use that phrase we've got

(20:25):
a setond tone, We've got asetond tone meeting, and they say that,
but then they focus on agenda,like here it's the opposite. So
it's just think of the things thatI find I pick up on because I
look for them, and it's like, are you setting the tone or are
you thinking death? Are you thinkingpeople tone death really at the end of

(20:48):
the day. So that's just funif you're listening, that's a funny thing
to just kind of think about reflecton. Well, another funny thing they'll
bring up because my name is Thomas, right, Thomas really, and in
the States everybody called me Tom,so it was Tom, t o m,
Tom rioc, Tom Rioc. Herein Brazil, I was always known
as Thomas or Tomays. And whenI came here, if I would use

(21:11):
my word Tom in Portuguese, thepronunciation of Tom t Om is oh interesting,
Tom. But when you go tothe dictionary, t o m in
Portuguese is tone oh interesting. Andthis after before talking to to dagger,
back to the origin. So Tomoutside is one thing. It's t o

(21:34):
m. It's the name in Brazil. Tom is tone hilarious. That's funny,
hilarious. But it's always my thinkingpoint because when I think about Tom
and Tom, I think about youas I and that's it. So it's
told what I was saying, Tom. Why wouldn't people understand me. I'm

(21:56):
telling them my name. I wassaying A word for them was that's so
funny. So I say, we'lltell me their name is what we get
Thomas Tomies and whatever else. Butthat's great. I love that. So
we need to learn every day.We need to practice makes perfect. So
when's the next talk? Yeah,everyone's asking me that. I think I'll

(22:18):
probably do something else next year.This year, I've got a lot going
on with a lot of the programsthat we're launching, and there's going to
be a Ditch the Pitch training andcourse for people that will just be available
on the web. So there's justa lot. I think this year we're
at our at the brink in termsof capacity. But I'll definitely be doing

(22:41):
another one. I've really I reallyenjoyed the process of writing it. I
didn't think I would enjoy it thatmuch. So for me, it's definitely.
Yeah, it'll be in the futurein the near future. Well,
I enjoyed watching it. Think I'velearned and I get and as a continual
learning experience because we've seen those weparticipate. Yeah, and we see that's

(23:04):
on a daily basis. But peoplehave done it. Make you aware that
I've been it. I've been hereand they're fantastic. I think they're inspiring.
I haven't seen one that isn't inspiringand motivational, so inspiring, and
you know what, it gave meeven more respect for people that go through
this process because you know, Iwrote I think I wrote a post about

(23:25):
this leading up to the tech Xexperience because it made me think a lot
about how in life we're really giventhe finished product. You know, somebody
listens to your twenty minute podcast,finished product edited gone through the hole in
nine yard, and somebody watches afifteen minute talk doesn't realize that there's like
six months, if not your wholelife that goes into the making of it.

(23:47):
We watch a movie that's two hoursand takes three years to produce,
it's millions of dollars. Well,it's like, it's so interesting, and
it gave me a deeper respect foryou know, just every thing that we
get, everything, everything we getto experience in life, and what really
goes behind the scenes and the makingof it. So yeah, I highly

(24:08):
recommend if you have the opportunity toever do a ted X talk or give
a keynote or do whatever. Ithink it's it's a really humbling experience.
You learn a heck of a lotabout yourself. Well I've learned a lot,
So how can our audience learn more. Where can they find you?
Yeah, so there's a few ways. Our main website Visceral viscr alco dot

(24:33):
com, my personal website Talia Jacquelinedot com, and we're most active on
LinkedIn. So if you want tohop on on connect with us on LinkedIn,
connect with me personally on LinkedIn.There will be a lot of really
valuable content that we're sharing that maybeyou'll get just as much out of.
Very good. Well, thanks againfor sharing, Thanks again for being congratulations

(24:57):
on your ted xan, Thank youfor having me so good to see you.
Very good And to our listeners again, it's Talia Jacqueline. It's t
A l I A j A cq u E l I n E So
Thalia Jacqueline dot com. Find theTEDx talks, which is ditch the pitch,

(25:18):
captivate people beyond your words. Thanksto our listeners and our sponsor,
Focus on My market Intelligence. Focuson my specialized in the market research for
the Brazilian agricultural market. More aboutthem on their site FOCUSMI dot com.
Remember when you talk to Tom,you talk to the world. Goodbye,
and thanks for listening. Thanks forlistening to Tom Riach on talk to Brazil,

(25:44):
The business connector to Brazil