Executive Speech Coach Helps Professionals Be Captivating Storytellers by Making the Complex Clear, with Ruth Milligan

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
There might be a little grief of loss, of saying I want

(00:02):
to tell them everything. Well,you know, a lot of times when we
were doing TEDx for the betterpart of a dozen years, every
single speaker was like this,Julie, every single one I have
so much to say, and we'd say,you have eight minutes. And so
our coaching and counseling washelping them realize that this
was really getting people to besparked, that I am igniting in

(00:26):
them a connection, as ChrisAnderson, the current curator of
Ted, would say, something I knowsparks with what something you
know not dissimilar from thebridge I talked about, and I
want to go learn more. So thenthe story, in that time is
really meant to start theconversation, not finish it. And
so that's part of reconcilingwhere what is the real purpose

(00:50):
of this? It's to get people towant to come and have dinner
with me and hear me talk aboutit for two hours, not just for
10 minutes.

Julie Berman - Host (01:02):
Hey, everybody. I'm Julie, and
welcome to Women with cool jobs.
Each episode will feature womenwith unique, trailblazing and
innovative careers. We'll talkabout how she got here, what
life is like now, and actionablesteps that you can take to go on
a similar path or one that's allyour own. This podcast is about

(01:23):
empowering you. It's aboutempowering you to dream big and
to be inspired. You'll hear fromincredible women in a wide
variety of fields, and hopefullysome that you've never heard of
before, women who build robotsand roadways, firefighters, C
suite professionals, surroundedby men, social media mavens,

(01:43):
entrepreneurs and more. I'm soglad we get to go on this
journey together. Helloeverybody. This is Julie Berman,
and welcome to another episodeof women with cool jobs. So
today, I am so happy to be hereand sharing this episode with
you because I'm a huge fan ofstorytelling. So anytime I can

(02:04):
have a professional person who'sin the realm of storytelling,
using your voice, all of those,all of those related things, I
love having that woman on thispodcast, because there's
something so incredibly powerfulabout being able to use your
voice to tell your story. Ithelps you in so many ways,
whether it's changing someone'smind, whether it's getting a new

(02:28):
opportunity, and that could beright, like convincing someone
in your life that you want to goon a certain vacation. It could
be in a job situation, it couldbe convincing someone to invest
in your company or invest inyour work or invest in your
research. So there are so manytimes where the ability to tell

(02:51):
a story well is so powerful, andit's something I'm really
interested in learning myselfand so, so, so happy to have
Ruth Milligan on today. She issomeone who helps people find
their voice and tell their storyand have their message be heard.
She works with people. She hasher her own company, and so she

(03:13):
helps people do reallyinteresting things, like
business pitches, keynotes,panels, incubator events, in
defending requests for proposalsin long bid processes. And the
interesting thing about her isthat she helps people translate,
often, really complexinformation, and where, where
they have, like, deep knowledge,where they've done a lot of

(03:35):
research. And a lot of times ithappens to be that that
information has a lot of nuance,a lot of detail, a lot of jargon
and abbreviation and things thatare particular to that industry
and field. And the fascinatingthing about what she does is she
helps people translate it. Shehelps people find a bridge in
her words, from what they aretrying to present to the action

(04:00):
that they want people to take.
So this was such a fascinatingsuch a fascinating conversation.
I love the tips that she sharesbecause they're really, really
important, and they're somethingthat all of us can do, no
matter, really, no matter whatfield we work in or what we're
doing, the purpose like thoseare key fundamental parts of

(04:21):
storytelling, and I think it issuch a beautiful thing to be
able to get better at it,because it will empower you to
have more opportunities in yourlife. And she has fascinating
background, so she's a founderand curator of one of the
longest running TEDx programs inthe country. She was one of the
first like, I think she said, 35people who started out way back

(04:42):
when, and she only stoppedbecause of the pandemic. And
then she's also had some reallycool jobs. She's been speech
writer and national presssecretary. She's been an
embedded consultant to billiondollar contract pitches for
Fortune 10 companies, and soit's been so cool to get to talk
to her. She has a new book. Outcalled Discover Six Principles
of public speaking and presentlike the best TED speakers and

(05:04):
fortune 500 leaders that shewrote with some co authors,
which you can check out and thatwill be linked in the show notes
as well. So this was just such afascinating episode, and I hope
that if you love it, if you knowsomeone who is wanting to get
better at telling their storyand sharing out their
information. Please send this tothem. It is such a beautiful

(05:25):
thing to help people, and thisis a way you can do it totally
for free, and they can get someideas of maybe things that they
want to practice, or some thingsthat they want to do that maybe
they weren't aware of before. Sothank you for being here and
listening to women with cooljobs. Send it to a friend you
know will love it. And here's aconversation between me and
Ruth. All right, helloeverybody, and welcome to

(05:47):
another episode of women withcool jobs. I'm so excited to be
here with an awesome guest withRuth Milligan, and she does
something that's very near anddear to my heart. You are a
storytelling Pro. You're acommunication strategist, a
coach and a trainer, and youhelp people find their voice,
tell their story, and have theirmessage be heard. And that is

(06:08):
why I do this podcast, to behonest. So I am so happy to have
you here. Learn about what youhave been doing over your
career, learn about what you'redoing now. I know you have a new
book, and so I just know that wecan get so much wisdom from you
and all the all the things thatyou've done. So thank you so
much for being on the podcast.

Unknown (06:28):
Well, thank you for having me. That was a great
introduction. I appreciate beinghere.

So just a little bit about your
background, I think is reallyinteresting. So you're the
founder, founder and curator ofone of the longest running TEDx
programs, which is the TEDx inColumbus, Ohio. And you've also
had, like, a lot of reallyinteresting jobs and careers
over the years. So you've donethings in speech writing. You've
been National Press SecretarySecretary. You've been embedded,

(06:55):
consulted to billion dollarcontract pitches for Fortune 10
companies. Sounds

Unknown (06:59):
so fancy, doesn't it?
It does sound it's really hardwork.

It does sound very fancy. And so I like
this is such, it's such aninteresting sort of mish Mosh,
for lack of you know, morebeautiful words of like, what
you've done over the years. So Iwould love for you to tell us,
just to start out, like in yourown words, how do you describe
your cool job? Now? What do youdo?

Unknown (07:25):
I think you the words you said are when I say, I help
people find their voice and telltheir story. Okay, and that can
come through many differentmodalities and channels,
depending upon where people arespeaking, what their goals are
for speaking what they'rethrusted into in their careers,
where they want to take theircareers. And so we meet people

(07:47):
where they are, and help themlevel up to, hopefully, the next
level, maybe two, depending uponyou know what their goals are.
And we do that through onlyexecutive communication,
coaching and training. We arenot executive coaches. We are
not life coaches, although wecan pretend to be them on
occasion. We do use apersonality assessment at work

(08:09):
called the Berkman to help usunderstand where people's
stressors come from. We oftenget calls that are really about
people's symptoms of what'sstressing them out, which might
look like communicationproblems, but they're really
stress related issues, so wedabble a little bit on the edges

(08:29):
of being counselors anddefinitely not a professional
psychologist, but things thatinvolve a lot of mindset
training, a lot of good selftalk and a ton of habit forming.
So we are in, we are in thatspace, and we do it for, I like
to say that the practice we'rein is for the amateur, meaning

(08:52):
we don't work for the paidspeaker. We have a few people we
do work with that are paidspeakers, but it's not this
practice, okay, that makessense. We support them in
different ways. But thispractice is really meant for the
person that has something reallyjuicy to say, a lifelong, or not
lifelong, of research, science,innovation, lots of people in

(09:13):
deep knowledge, places wherethey have so much access to
information and they don't knowhow to organize it so their
audience can follow them, sothey can reach their goal, and
the audience walks away withsomething to do. It's a it's a
tall task for some people thatcarry around the job of solving

(09:34):
some of our greater problems.
Yeah,

I love that, and so tell me if I'm
wrong, but it almost sounds likefor some of the people who are
doing sort of like these, thesedeep dives into different
different topics. But maybethey're not used to translating
it out to people so that theycan sort of understand it in
their own way, because they'relike so deep into it. Is that
accurate? 110%

Unknown (09:57):
Okay, excellent way translation. Thing, or what we
might call is making what youknow accessible to others. We
never want to dummy downsomeone's knowledge or science
or research, because we alwaysknow they have their labs to do
you know, to do the heavylifting. But the minute you step
out of your laboratory, whateverthat lab means to you, you have

(10:20):
to be mindful that your audienceprobably doesn't understand any
of your jargon. Yeah, any of theconcepts that lead you to the
conclusions that you're talkingabout. The question on their
mind might be like, what's fordinner? You're like, No, I want
to tell you how we solve thismolecular mutation thing. Or,

(10:41):
better yet, I want to pitch youthis billion dollar new startup
venture. It can take on manydifferent forms every time it's
what we call recursive. Everytime you do it, you learn
something new, you should atleast, and then that builds on
itself. So hopefully, over time,you become better, and you

(11:01):
become your own best coach.
Yeah, that's our goal. That'sthat's really our goal is for
people to know how to do this ontheir own, without us.

Yeah, I love that. That's so cool. And
actually, I can see how thatwould be so useful just even
doing this podcast, because it'sreally fascinating. I talked to
a lot of women who are used totelling their story, and they
are used to talking about whatthey do and and translating it,
or make it, you know, making ita little bit more understandable

(11:28):
to the general masses. And thenthere are also women who
sometimes because they just aredoing what they're doing, and
they've always done what they'redoing, and they haven't had to
share that story in the sameway. And so it's been really
interesting to hear how they'veshared their story. And some of
them, you can tell it's like,they're nervous, whatever, but
they end up doing such a goodjob, because it's like, I

(11:50):
always, I'm like, Just tellthem. It's like a conversation,
right? And it's like, pretend Iknow nothing, which a lot of
times is true, like I have sucha foundational and very, very
tiny research basedunderstanding, but I don't have
the details and the nuance andand the gray areas to inform me.
So I love that about what you dothat's so cool and so needed. I

(12:12):
could see how that is really,really helpful for a lot of
folks. So I want to ask, like,kind of going back to when you
were younger, now, how did youget started in this area? Did
you get started in this area?
Because it sounds like you youhave jumped around some really
interesting things over theyears. Well,

Unknown (12:30):
I would say that the thread through the last almost
40 years now is always beencommunication. Okay, so you put
it in that ocean, if you will.
And I've been able to sort ofpull out different buckets of
experience from the ocean. Thefirst was really in college. I I
didn't get into business school,which is kind of funny, because
I've now been running a businessfor 24 years, and I had to pick

(12:51):
a major, and speech comm soundedkind of interesting, because it
was like one of my first A's incollege was speech comm 135 and
I thought that was fun, and wedo more of that. And so I ended
up being a speech Comm major. Myfirst job out of college was
working in politics. I did alittle bit in helping to

(13:12):
implement national service inOhio, just because it had to get
done the first year when I wasworking in the governor's
office, and then I became theFirst Lady's Chief of Staff, and
my largest job for her waswriting her speeches. She would
had three causes, and shetraveled a few times a week and
doing events. And I became apress secretary for her too. And

(13:32):
that led me to a nationalcampaign being a press
secretary, where I did rightready for this number 74 cities,
28 states in 10 weeks. Oh mygosh. Which is a common like,
sort of convention to electionschedule. Wow. And I had a
candidate's daughter that wetraveled to all the secondary

(13:53):
cities, Tupelo, Mississippi,Tyler, Texas, Rapid City, South
Dakota. I mean, I hit them all.
I get very comfortable on verysmall planes, up and down. We
had at least one and a halftakeoffs every day. And you
know, we'd go up, come down, goback up, spend the night, go up,
go down, come back down. So thatled me back to doing some

(14:17):
nonprofit fundraising, which isanother bucket in the ocean of
communication, and I reallymissed the core communication
work. So I went and started a PRfirm within a larger marketing
agency. They didn't have any PRpractice, and they went belly up
in the.com bubble burst of 2001okay. And then I was like, I

(14:39):
need to pay my bills and plan mywedding, and so my husband, then
boyfriend, bought me a desk andI had a computer. And I was
like, let's find a project. Andit's really interesting, Julie.
We started the conversation byme telling you this morning, the
first thing I had to do was goto the cable company and get a
new modem. Mm. Well, oddlyenough, for the second project I

(15:02):
had, the first project was verysmall. This the real first
project I had on my own was alittle PR project for the cable
company. And I'll never forgetthat woman who was like, Here,
I'll give you something, youknow, just a little and I
thought it was the biggest dealto get a contract from them.
Didn't do much other work, but Istill remember how thoughtful

(15:23):
and helpful that was early inyour career. And then one more
big turn was in 2009 when I didthe first TEDx Columbus event,
which was the 35th event in theworld. Wow. In context, there's
probably been about 50,000events. And my partner, Nancy
and I saw the opportunity veryearly. They posted a little note

(15:48):
on the TED site. Actually, I sawit while I was watching a TED
talk with my husband one night.
It's a great story. He fallsasleep. I start to pour through
the TED site. It happens to bethe day after they posted this
little, tiny announcement aboutTEDx, and I was like, I want to
do that. Like, I am going totake that on. I no idea what I
was doing. Julie, like, not aclue. And six months later, on
the stage of our contemporaryarts center, I sent you a

(16:13):
picture of me with John Glenn,the Head of the School of
Architecture. Was there ascientist from our research
organization called Battelle. Wehad eight speakers and 350
people in the audience. And Iwas like, well, that that
worked. And we said, Let's do itagain. And we did it for 12
years till COVID, and we were,at the time, one of the longest

(16:33):
running. There's probably a fewthat have caught up with us now.
But we did TEDx women. We didTEDx Youth. I helped six other
tedxes launch neighborhood. TEDxis University. TEDx is Ohio
State's TEDx is the longestserving student run TEDx in the
world. Probably they've beengoing on 15 years. We helped
them launch and train theirtheir team. So I have lots of

(16:56):
different tentacles. However,the most important thing that
came from that was I looked onstage after that 2009 event, and
I was like, Why aren't I doingmore of this work? I love this.
I love people shaping theirstories and helping them speak.
And I went to look for somebodyto teach me how to do it, and I

(17:16):
didn't find anybody. I foundspeech writers who I knew from
my political days. I found mediatrainers, and I found
copywriters, but I didn't findanyone that knew how to coach
storytelling coach to speakers,at least in my neighborhood, at
least in my area. In Columbus,we have 2 million people here.

(17:38):
It's not a small community, andI decided, okay, well, I gave up
my PR practice and I rebirthedthe business called
articulation, and that was 15years ago. Wow, this two months
ago. So that's the long andwinding journey, but it's all
had a thread of being reallysupportive of other humans

(18:00):
standing up their ability tospeak. And the good news is,
even as technology changes andeconomies change, we seem to be
holding steady. Some years arebetter than others for live
events, which is where wesupport a lot of speakers, but
whether it's a new businesspitch or a town hall within your
company, or a keynote. Somebodycalled me this morning a keynote

(18:24):
at an industry conference. Wesupport a lot of new technology
startups, pitching smallincubator events, you name it,
we're kind of across the board.
And then the last thing that Ilove to do most, if I can only
do one thing for the next fiveyears, is to support complex

(18:46):
teams in very large, high stakespitches. And what that means is
you get invited to defend yourRFP at the end of a long bid
process, and you have to show upwith six or 10 or eight of your
colleagues and crush it, becausethe last 10% of your bid comes
from that orals or thatinterview, and those people are

(19:09):
not necessarily prepared to dothat, so I I took myself in as a
team member and support themthrough the process, and I get
to know them as people and asspeakers and his experts, and
then as a team, it's great fun.
Wow, that was a lot. Yeah,

that was such a good overview of
everything. I'm curious now,like, because you are so good at
telling people how to sharetheir story, do you have sort of
wisdom that you live by orthings that you've seen, whether
myths that people think are truebut they actually aren't, or
like tenants that you live by. Ithink this is such an

(19:49):
interesting area, and I lovebeing able to talk to you about,
you know, just storytelling,because essentially, I've come
to believe, in the last fewyears that I've been doing this,
that that the ability to tellyour story is. One of the most
critical parts of being a human,and the ability to do it well is
a gift, but it also has so muchpower to create change for

(20:12):
yourself for others, it's justlike, I think, one of the most
beautiful things that we can doto actually develop for
ourselves. So I'm curious whatyour thoughts are and like,
because you've been doing thisfor so long, because you've been
you've seen so many people, whatare your things that you sort of
live by, or things that you'veseen that maybe not be true,
that everyone thinks are true,and take it in whatever

(20:34):
direction? Yeah,

Unknown (20:36):
I have one very specific thing, which is, there
is always time for a story. Alot of executives or people busy
people say, I don't have time totell a story. And I always say,
how do you not have time? Ourbrain actually works in two
quadrants. The left side islooking for data, truth and

(20:59):
proof and facts. And the rightside is looking for emotion,
resonation, engagement. If Iasked you, Julie, to walk around
a room in five inch heels, butonly using one shoe, how long
would it feel for you to feeluncomfortable?

Yeah, it would not be good.

Ruth Milligan (21:19):
That is the way our brain feels. If I only talk,
if I only if, in my last littlediatribe there of my journey, I
only told you numbers, how longI spent somewhere, what the zip
code was, the address of where Iworked, you'd be like, Oh, it's
really boring. But if I onlytold you how great it was, or
how I felt during it, you'd alsosay, Well, what did you do and

(21:41):
how long were you there? Sosomeone recently, this week,
actually gave me a great mantrathat someone else's mantra,
which was Les Brown, which is,every point has a story, and
every story has a point, which Ireally loved, and I'm pretty
sure I've heard it before, butit was nice to be reminded about
it. And to that end, thequestion becomes, Which story do

(22:03):
you tell? So it's not do youtell a story? It's which one.
And how can you get a story outin a concise way? I argue that a
story could be a metaphor, youknow, an analogy, that that's a
bridge, because a story, really,at its heart is a bridge between
something I know and care aboutand you will hopefully know and

(22:27):
care about. Mm, hmm, right.
Yeah, that bridge is where astory lives that I know and care
about this technology and youknow and care about this disease
and the story between the two,which is the bridge, allows me
to connect the technology withthe disease, because I don't
understand any of thetechnology, the molecular

(22:49):
science, the cellular sciencethat any of the trials that
you've gone through, but Iunderstand what it feels like
Maybe or maybe not to live withthat disease. So a story is
innately human. It is somethinghappening to somebody or
somebody doing something tosomething else, meaning like,

(23:11):
it's an actionable event thattoday the story is Julie and I
had a conversation about womenwith cool jobs on a podcast.
She's in Arizona. I'm inColumbus. We spoke for about an
hour. We had a great time, andyou'll be able to hear the
podcast in a few weeks when it'sposted. That's a story,

(23:33):
character, setting, time, date,location, action, result, all in
those two sentences. So back tomy point. There's a lot of
people over the years have said,I don't have time to tell it. I
I always say, how do you notmake time? Because that is the
way an audience connects.

Yeah, I love that, and I love your use
of the word bridge like that. Itcreates the bridge between
things, to kind of meet in themiddle, almost, and and have
this, like, sharedunderstanding. I think that's a
really wonderful way of lookingat it. And I'm curious, like,
you also mentioned the idea ofthat it is essential to tell the
story, but then how do you tellthe story? And how do you tell

(24:19):
it concisely? So I'm curious,like, if you've come to
conclusions about this, like,how, and I'm imagining,
especially maybe for the moreanalytical or detail oriented
folks that you've worked withwho are deep in research and
whatever that they could justspout off for hours on all their
research and all theirstatistics. And absolutely, that
part is so fascinating to me.
Like, how have you come to theconclusion of like helping

(24:41):
people kind of narrow in ontheir most important parts of
the story for that purpose?

Unknown (24:49):
Well, we start with a very simple premise, okay, which
is that there's two thingsbefore you speak that are true.
One is that there. An audienceand two you have a goal, okay?
And that audience hopefully hasa question that you can also

(25:12):
answer in trying to reach yourgoal. So let's just take an
example. Since you used science,we work a lot with academic
medical researchers, people whoare primary investigators and
very large like curing cancer,kinds of things. And let's say
there was a cancer, an oncologyresearcher who wanted to raise

(25:32):
money. This is pretty, prettytypical, like, how do I
translate my technical side to alay audience, using it for that
reason? So we would say to theoncologist, who are you speaking
to? Oh, I'm speaking to, youknow, million dollar donors or
prospects. Great. What do theyknow about your science? Not
much. What's the question ontheir mind? Well, they might

(25:56):
say, when is, when are we goingto get a cure? Or how is your
research getting us closer to acure, or how can you save my
mother? Right questions thataudiences have are often very
personal, but the researchersays, But I have this like 17
books worth of research that Iwant to share with them, and I

(26:17):
would just invite them all withthe most amount of grace to say
that is exactly what they'reexpecting from you to know and
to have done, but it's notnecessarily what they want to
hear. So the difference betweenwhat you know and what you bring
to them is the messy iterationof what will be most relevant to

(26:41):
them in their questions and tome, and my goal of wanting to
ask them for money. So there isthere lies in the the work that
we largely do with folks istrying to help them, what I
would call sift and iterate onnarrowing down, because guess
what? Then the event plannersays you only have 10 minutes

(27:04):
because attention spans areshort and forgetting curves are
long, and they have to get todinner right. So now we are
thrust in the moment of thegenre of the speech and the
genre of the event. So now wesay, Okay, what's the most
important things in that 10minutes that you have to get out

(27:24):
but they can still understandand still help you get to your
goals? So that's how I believeany presentation or story really
gets developed. And it doesn'thappen overnight. It usually
takes time they have to go away.
Think about it. A lot of peoplehave very connected pride and
ego to their work and what theyknow. And that's not wrong. It

(27:44):
just may not have a place inthis particular event, yeah, and
they have to sort of separatethat a little bit. There might
be a little grief of loss, ofsaying I want to tell them
everything you know. A lot oftimes when we were doing TEDx
for the better part of a dozenyears, every single speaker was
like this, Julie, every singleone I have so much to say, and

(28:06):
we'd say, you have eightminutes. And so our coaching and
counseling was helping themrealize that this was really
getting people to be sparked,that I am igniting in them a
connection, as Chris Anderson,the current curator of Ted,
would say, something I knowsparks with what something you

(28:26):
know, not dissimilar from thebridge I talked about, and I
want to go learn more, so thatin the story in that time is
really meant to start theconversation, not finish it. And
so that's part of reconcilingwhere, what is the real purpose
of this? It's to get people towant to come and have dinner

(28:46):
with me and hear me talk aboutit for two hours, just for 10
minutes. Yeah. So you can seewhere the big my colleague
Acacia that works with me, andas a co author of the book, she
talks a lot about the messinessof storytelling and how there's
no one clear beginning and noone clear ending. And you can

(29:07):
start that I could have startedmy story of me as a two year
old. I started my story todaywith me as a freshman in
college, not getting into thebusiness school. A lot of times
I start my story with the momentI found TEDx. Other times I
might start my story with theorigin about our book, right? So

(29:28):
it has to do with who's on theother side, who wants to listen.
What's the question on yourmind?

I love that. And when you were talking
about almost starting with theidea of sparking people's
curiosity and having it as astarting point versus an ending
point. That's such a cool andinteresting thought. I love
that, and also it made me thinkjust all that you were saying
when I was in I have abackground in adult education

(29:59):
and training. Thing. And one ofthe things that we learned in
this is the concept of how Ithink of it is like this idea of
the idea is, as adults, we learndifferently than kids. Learn. As
adults, we have, like, all thispast experience, and we have
education, and we have all thesethings we can glean from. And so
when we're learning, we want toactually be able to connect the
dots, and we want to be able tosee how our past relates to our

(30:23):
future, and how we what we knowcan connect to what we don't
know. And I've since, you know,thought about it as this, like
ever expanding spider web wherewe're where we're starting, kind
of from the beginning is likelittle, tiny babies and we grow
out, but then we can start tomake our own threads and
connections to different partsof our spider web. And so I, I

(30:46):
love this idea that you justsaid, of the of the concept of
taking the story and using it tospark curiosity and having it as
a starting place, because itcreates, like that connection or
that bridge and connects to whatwe already know, but allows us
to go further. So I think that'ssuch like I love that I'm

(31:07):
definitely going to rememberthat. So there's one

Unknown (31:10):
thing you there's one thing that you'll remember
exactly, and

I'm curious too, like so I know that you
just have a book that came out.
So congrat huge congratulationson that, because it's been a few
weeks. Thank you. And I know youhave some co authors who have
done that, so I can put that inthe show notes too, if you if I
have the link, and then peoplecan go look for it. But for your
book, I think the some of thethings that you talk about in,

(31:34):
in your colleagues talk aboutjust the idea that you guys have
all this beautiful experience inin sharing stories and teaching
people. So I'd love for you tospeak a little bit about like,
what is in your book? What arethe things that you kind of came
together on in this book, toshare with the world? I think
people would really like to hearabout that too. Well,

Unknown (31:57):
as someone who used to be in adult education, and
probably are always in adulteducation. It sounds like we
discovered so this might take,like, I'll warn your listeners,
it might take about 90 secondsfor me to give the sort of the
pretext to them, sure, because Ithink we have a minute, and I
think it's important. So bearwith me and thank you for

(32:19):
humoring me. There's a woman atMiami University, which is in
Ohio, who has really pioneerednaming the threshold concepts
for learning to write. So we'llstart there. Okay, so what's a
threshold concept? It's thatrecursive, liminal, troublesome
space that you have to pushthrough in order to learn
something really well, right? Sothink about like pushing through

(32:44):
a science concept or a mathconcept, or like writing in a
particular way, or maybe thatshort talk, whatever it happens
to be there was it's it's a it'smessy, but when you push through
it on the other side, you can'tunsee it ever again. It is
forever in you. And so you canlearn to do things, but you may

(33:06):
not learn to do them well unlessyou sort of experience the
threshold concepts andunderstand what they are. So
she's written and named them forlearning to write. Writing
scholar across the country.
Actually, she has retrained allof the Maricopa Community
College professors on new waysof teaching writing. Oh, wow.

(33:28):
Speaking of Arizona. So I heardher speak. She spoke right after
me at an event, and I was like,I was blown away. And I thought,
oh my gosh, who has done thiswork on these threshold concepts
for learning to speak, if she'sdone them for learning to write.

(33:49):
Now they're very closelyrelated, but there's still
differences. We begged her totake her us under her wing. So
the three of us went to Miamifor a day, and she helped us to
essentially start to frame themout. We didn't discover them.
Julie, we named them. There's abig difference. They've existed
forever. But this is aroundputting them in a way that says,

(34:09):
Oh, if a client calls us andsays, so and so, isn't doing
well, we normally would say,Okay, well, let us figure out
what's going on. Now we can saythere's probably one of six
things they missed. So if I may,would you like to run through? I
can give you my top two. Sure.

(34:29):
Yeah, I can run through all ofthem really fast. I know how to
do it's,

yeah, it's up to you. Whichever you can run
through all them really fast.
You can go the other way. It'sreally, it's totally up to you.
I'll

Unknown (34:40):
run through them quickly to inspire people to
want to read more. How does thatsounds good? And then I'll click
through on two that I think arethe most salient, if you can. So
they are number one, speaking ishabitual, not natural. Okay,
have you ever said, Oh, thatperson's such a natural speaker.

(35:00):
Her, yes, many times. That's amyth, really. That is so
fascinating. We're not bornspeakers. Wow. Does anyone run
the Boston Marathon? And youjust say that person's a natural
runner? No,

yeah, that that's so interesting that you
have that comparison. Because Idon't know the two in my mind
are very separate, like I thinkI would have always assumed just
some people are natural, butI've come to learn in a just a
complete other tangent, and I'lllet you go back to I come to
learn at the beginning of mypodcast, I interviewed this
woman about confidence, whichwas really beautiful time for me

(35:34):
to interview someone aboutconfidence, when I was just
starting this podcast andlearning to use my voice. And
the ironic thing is, she wastalking about how confidence,
essentially, she thinks of itlike a bank, and you put little
deposits in every day to buildyour confidence bank. And I
always thought confidence waslike an innate skill that you're
born with. You either have it oryou don't. So I love this. Okay,

(35:55):
so tell us more about this. I'mvery fascinated now.

Unknown (35:58):
Well, I will. I will come back to habits in a second.
But it is about habit formingand building good habits. You
can get into bad habits and butyou can get out of them too. So
we talk all about speaking justfluencies and things that get in
the way of us listening to you.
So when you listen back to yourpodcast or listen back to me,
you might find something that'slike, ooh, that's sort of nudgy,

(36:21):
like, I wish she hadn't havedone that. Or, boy, she really
can command pause as wellsomething I work on. I like the
audience to be able to catch upwith what I'm saying. Okay, if
I'm a fire hose all the time,hello. My name is Ruth Milligan.
I'm from Columbus, Ohio. I loveto be a speaker coach, and I

(36:41):
also quilt and play pickleballand have a stupid dog, ooh
versus Hello. My name is RuthMilligan. I live in Columbus,
Ohio. I love to quilt coach,people on speaking and play with
my stupid dog being see thedifference? Like, when I'm using

(37:02):
my breath, and that's part ofthe habit for me. So habits,
okay, not natural. Number two,speaking, is messy. We actually
already touched on that in thestorytelling, lots of beginnings
and ending places, lots ofiterations, lots of recursive
like, ooh, do I really need thatmuch data, or did I really need
that much story? People willcome and say, I have 172 page

(37:24):
deck for my 13 minute talk, andyours that's messy, because the
mess for them will be, let'sstart over. That's a that's a
talk about, like a, oh yeah,yes, all right, speaking is
social number three, there'salways an audience. Have you

(37:44):
ever just talked to yourself forno particular reason? Okay,
fine, before coffee, maybeyou're just mumbling around the
house, but we have a purpose inspeaking right now. Yeah, this
has we're hoping your audienceor is interpreting what we're
saying is picking up somethingthey can do. There's never a
time where you're just talkingout loud, and if you are talking

(38:06):
without your audience andconsideration, you are probably
not being heard. But that'ssocial number four, moving down
list, speaking contains multiplegenres. This genre is an
interview for a podcast. Icoached somebody this morning
for a keynote for a big CIOconference. Yesterday, I was in
a pitch for a $15 millionfirehouse for a construction

(38:31):
company. Wow, every day there'sa different genre. So, and if
we're not ruthlessly, I like tosay pun intended, interrogating
what the genre is and the normsare and the rules, we won't do
well, and we also won'tunderstand how to break them,
which may sound like a littlebit of a shift, but if you

(38:53):
walked into a panel discussion,admittedly my Most unfavorite
genre of speaking, and you seethese tall stools that have no
backs to them or tiny littlebacks, and they're supposed to
be women on the panel anddresses and how uncomfortable
for anyone to sit. You know? Whycan't that panel be in

(39:14):
comfortable chairs? That's oneexample we give. But why does it
have to be a panel at all? Couldit be short talks that then is
facilitated with questionsbetween the panelists? I mean, I
can throw together a lot ofdifferent ways in which to still
get out the general idea of apanel without it being a panel.

(39:35):
Interesting number five,speaking is embodied, so let me
read something to you. So closeyour eyes. Okay, everyone, close
your eyes. And I shouldn't tellyou I'm reading, but I am. And
performance adrenaline.
Adrenaline has its benefits. Itallows you to think on your
feet, making adjustments whenthings go sideways, when

(39:56):
harnessed, it can also give youthe presence and energy it takes
to command. The stage, if youprepare it, talk, open your
eyes. Okay, it is clear. I amreading yes versus so let me
tell you a little aboutperformance and how the
adrenaline around it has somebenefits. First, it allows you

(40:20):
to think on your feet, makingadjustments when it goes
sideways. I am using my hands,using my facial expressions. I'm
working on my breath. I'm givinginflection. I'm trying to keep
you engaged in the content. Sothe point I'm trying to make
here is that speaking isembodied. It is not just about

(40:42):
thoughts in your head, words onthe page. It is about how they
all get translated through yourentire body when you speak,
yeah. And if we don't appreciatethat, we had a speaker once,
Julie who watched himself on avideo. It was during COVID. It
was the recording era, if youwill. And he kind of looked your

(41:02):
audience, can't see this, buthe's got like, one shoulder up
that's a little cockeyed, andthe other one's down like this.
And he kind of has this, like,stern look on his face. And he
calls this, and he says, Why didyou make me look like an
animated corpse? And we did thebest we could to coach him to a
better behavior, but in themoment of that recording, he was

(41:25):
just stiff and frozen and didn'treally know how to embody it in
his bones and in Soma, and hewalked in there just kind of
that way. And it wasn't until hesaw himself, which is threshold
number five, six. Sorry aboutfeedback is essential for great
speaking, including your own. Hehad never watched himself

(41:49):
before, so therefore he neverreally put himself in the shoes
of the audience, which is whythe bookmark that we had made to
go with the book says speaking,public speaking, isn't as scary
as watching yourself speak.

I love that. That is also so true. I
yeah, that is so good. I lovethat. And it's interesting
because I, at the beginning, Iedited all of my podcast
episodes, and so I wasoftentimes, sometimes I was
watching them, and I wasdefinitely always listening to
them. And that was like, I usedto think at the beginning that

(42:25):
my voice sounded like nails on achalkboard, like I literally
could not. I hated listening toit. And luckily, because I did
it over time, it got easier. AndI don't feel quite the same way,
you know, but it's so I couldsee how, and I haven't watched
myself that much, but I couldsee how this is a huge tenant

(42:47):
that you guys have figured outis very key, so very
interesting, that that's inthere. It's

Unknown (42:53):
probably habit forming at the first and feedback at the
last of the six concepts, if youlisten to nothing else, those
are the most important. Andfeedback is tricky, because you
could get good feedback, you canget bad feedback, and you can
get just feedback that isunhelpful, yeah, so knowing how

(43:14):
to ask for the right feedback isas important as getting
feedback. And we've learned thisover time of coaching teams,
where maybe 20 other executivesmight be in the Zoom call,
watching the six people getready for a pitch, and they
might tell them something that'son their mind, but really isn't
helpful for them, developing thebetter way to say something,

(43:37):
simple way, simple way Toexplain it. So we have become
very acutely interested inpsychological safety and
preparing people for success andgiving them constructive
feedback. And the summation ofall this is when people don't
get feedback in those quiet,shaded rooms. I call them shaded

(43:59):
habits. The person that says, uma lot, the person that goes on
way too long. And then when theymove from those quiet, not dark,
but quiet rooms, the laboratory,the staff meeting, and they move
to a keynote, a boardpresentation, a presentation to
executives, that habit goes withthem, because nobody gave them

(44:23):
feedback in those quiet roomsand really didn't do them any
justice or service. I finishedcoaching a executive for a board
presentation. He's a new CEO toa it's an investment company,
essentially, and his board chairthe first year, said, You gotta
go get some help. And he's 55years old, and we worked on his

(44:47):
second year presentation, and hesaid, Ruth, why had no one ever
told me this before? And it wasa very pervasive problem. Wow,
he was getting in the way of himbeing heard. And I. Said,
because we don't have socialcapital with each other. Julie,
if you and I, if you were, ifyou and I were peers, it's not
my monkey, not my circus, totell you how to do better, but

(45:11):
if you and I were peers, in a ina collaborative way that says,
Will you tell me if you hearsomething? And I'll tell you,
then we might have tapped eachother and said, Maybe you should
work on that. Otherwise we justsort of shrug our shoulders and
walk out of the room and say,That's just Julie, or you would
say that's just Ruth, but it'sgoing to hold you back when you

(45:35):
want to move on. And so that'swhat we're aiming for, is for
people to reach their fullpotential, find that full voice,
tell those full stories, andthat's what we're aiming for in
the book. It's called themotivated speaker, for a reason.
It's not about motivationalspeaking, it's about people that
want to do better. Yeah,

I love that. And those are also, I
think, just like very practical,but also not necessarily things
that people would perhaps thinkabout and put together for
themselves and just in practice.
And I think what you said at theend, too, about someone being in
this position, a leadershipposition, but never, never
really being told like this issomething you could work on that

(46:18):
will really help you, like, stepit up. That's, yeah, like,
that's, we all deserve to sortof know those little things so
we can become our best selves.
And so I'm curious, how do youfor people who are listening to
this, like, and maybe, you know,they're managing others, or
maybe, you know, like, even formyself, I have kids, how do

(46:41):
people sort of put themselves inthose positions where they are
able to get feedback and startto develop those relationships,
where they can have reallyhelpful conversations that go
both ways. You know that, thatyou realize someone is coming
with your best interests inmind.

Unknown (46:59):
Well, the first is to set up the conditions. Let's say
you are going to do a draftpresentation, you know,
practicing, and you can say toeverybody, the best thing you
can do is to say, I'm lookingfor your feedback on these three
things. Did I get rid of my ums,how did my opening sound? And

(47:21):
did I make the transition okayin that one story? Come with
specific requests? Okay versushow do you feel about what I
said? There is science, Julie,that we found in doing the
research for the book. There wasa summary of research on
feedback. So there was dozensand dozens of research on

(47:42):
feedback, and someone did asummary post on it, like another
paper. And the thing that welearned that blew us away was,
Julie, if I ask you to givefeedback on yourself, first
we're talking, you give apresentation, and I stop and I
say, before I say anything,Julie, how do you feel? And I

(48:04):
shut up. I am inhibiting what Iwant to tell you. You in the
process of giving feedback, areactually learning about
yourself, hmm, the process ofyou evaluating, what did I do?
What did I want to say? What didI say? You actually are

(48:28):
learning, and you're going tocome pretty close. We find that
you might come like 90% totelling us what's on our mind.
Wow, because you are selfreflecting in a very productive
and learning way. Now, if thetables are turned, and I told
you first when I saw I'm theonly one learning in that

(48:52):
exchange, and you live inchoice, whether or not you want
to believe it, and you can say,now I have seen this over and
over and over again when we giveadvice to clients that don't
believe what we're saying istrue, and they can say, yeah,
that's just Ruth. But if I sayto you, Julie, here's a

(49:15):
recording of yourself, what doyou hear? It could be 30
seconds. It doesn't have to belong. You will hear the things
that I want to tell you, and youwill be far more motivated. This
is kind of Gestalt theory, 101,you will be far more motivated
to want to change them if youhear them and identify them

(49:38):
first. Yeah, nothing is morepowerful about the feedback loop
than what I just shared. So thenthe second part of that is for
you to say, Ruth, I'm lookingfor those three pieces. Did I
nail my opening? Did I get ridof my ums, how was that
transition? Did I go too long?
So those are the two things. Isfirst we want. To listen to

(49:59):
yourself. And second, when youare in a trusted, you know,
environment where somebody isreally carefully listening to
you, ask them for specificfeedback. Don't just say how
they do. You may only get what'son their mind, and they may be
having a bad day, fair enough.
They may say, they may say thatdidn't go so well. And you'll

(50:21):
say why? They're like, I justdon't feel it. And you're like,
Well, it's because you have atoothache, or if you're hungry,
or I had a walk with a friendthe other day, and she was so
cranky, and at the end of thewalk, she's like, Oh, my,
Tylenol just worn off. I have atooth infection. And I was like,
Oh, I thought you were crankyabout work. She was just cranky
because her tooth hurt. Youknow, you just never know what's

(50:42):
going on with people, right?

Yeah, that's so true. Okay, I love
that. That's so that's so good.
Hopefully that was helpful.

Unknown (50:49):
I know it takes a minute, but I yeah, there's one
gift I want to give to people.
It's the willingness to listenback. Because the productivity
is so far, it's so far exceedswhat anyone else can tell you,

yeah, I love that. That's such a good
tip. So I want to ask, you know,just as we kind of wrap up, is
there anything else you know, wedidn't touch on that you feel
like is really important toshare just throughout you know,
whether your career with doingthe TEDx, throughout your
career? Right now, I would loveto kind of hear if you didn't
touch on something, well,

Unknown (51:22):
we haven't talked about one thing that bugs me a lot,
okay, which is, do not read aslide, Ooh, okay. And don't put
words on slides. Like, wordshave to really, really, really
matter. They have to be likesuper important and high value

(51:43):
for a word to earn the right tomake a slide. And the reason
that I say that is I like slidesthat help both the speaker and
the audience guide through andreinforce I do not appreciate or
like slides that make me stoplistening to you and read this
slide, you're now forcing me todo two things at once, and I

(52:05):
want to listen to you. And Ithink if there's something on
the slide that's more importantthan what you're saying, and
then, more importantly, ifyou're reading this slide, I'm
tuned out, because I know thatyou're not embodying that talk.
I want to hear you. I want tohear your perspective, your
point of view, your inflection,your emotion, the storytelling,
and that's not so that's just awe can all do better. And really

(52:28):
that's you just haven't finishedthe talk. If you have too many
words at a slide, or you justneed to give yourself a little
more time to finish.

I love that. Oh, that is good advice. I
feel like that is a challenge toto me and maybe other people
listening to be like, Hmm, whydo I have so many words on a
slide? If I have it well,

Unknown (52:47):
and I would say, I would say the words are fine to
put them in your talking points,yeah, you just haven't finished.
You haven't gotten to, like,what's the image or the one word
or the one phrase that theaudience needs to connect with?
What that's what that one sideis trying to do. Okay, whole
bunch of work behind that. But

yes, I can't imagine. Oh my gosh. All
right. Well, this, this is goingto get me really thinking now
for the next time I love that,um, so many amazing just like
things that you've shared. So Iwant to end with the questions
that I ask. Um, yes, everybody.
And I think, or, you know, Iactually before I get there
really quickly, because Irealized I just forgot this. So
are there any steps that peoplecan take for people who want to

(53:28):
they you have your book out thatpeople can read, for people who
are wanting to become betterstorytellers? Essentially, is
there anything else that theycan do that we haven't touched
on that they can start with toreally start becoming a better
speaker. You mentioned yourbook. You mentioned really like
listening to yourself, justspeaking, okay, there you

Unknown (53:50):
go. As many times as you can speak, record yourself,
listen back. Just find moreopportunities, low stakes
opportunities, the practice ofspeaking, even to at your dinner
table, to friends in class,raising your hand, all of those
are aggregated in yourconfidence. If you will, back to
your friend, put money in yourconfidence bank and and become

(54:15):
more aware of the learningthresholds that will help you
become better. Just become awarethat I will share the first
chapter on habits has a story init about somebody who I told was
an ummer. He didn't believe me,he didn't practice he showed up
a few days later with the samebehavior. He chose a different
pathway. He just said, I'll bemore conversational, which was

(54:39):
positively not anything I toldhim to do or that I knew would
work, and he did not do well.
And so I think pay attention toyour own behavior and just
practice. Just take as manychances as you can. It doesn't
have to be Toastmasters. Itdoesn't have to be NSA. It
could. Just be finding smallstakes, places to to build

(55:01):
skills, habits, confidence. I

love that.
Yeah, so speaking practice isspeaking practice. It's just it
is what it is. Okay? I lovethat. That's right. Um, okay, so
the first

Unknown (55:14):
title of the book was the practice of speaking
Interesting. Okay, you didn'tthink it was very sexy.

I can imagine there's reasons for
naming things, yeah, indifferent

Unknown (55:26):
Yeah, and it's a big word that a lot of people use
practice and speaking. So wethat's how we came up with the
motivated speaker. When we werelike, what can be feel more
forward, energetic. And it doesrepresent, it does represent the
mindset and characteristics ofthe people that we work with.
They are motivated,

yeah, yeah, with good reason. Yeah, awesome.
Okay, so now to our finalquestion to end our conversation
today, will you please share asentence that uses verb as your
jargon from your field, and thentranslate it so it's
understandable to us? So

Unknown (55:58):
this jargon may not feel too jargony, but it does
take a minute to really thinkabout the question the
statement. So one of my favoriteaside from don't make this about
yourself, which is not jargony.
That's how I get people to beless anxious. Make it about the
audience. That's not jargony,but it's one of my favorite
takeaways, is make your audiencethe essential character of your

(56:20):
story. Okay, make your audiencethe central character of your
story. It has a little twist init, yeah. And what that means
is, in lay terms, when you wantthe audience to adopt,
appreciate, engage, make surethey see themselves in what

(56:44):
you're talking about. So thatcould mean that you use the word
you, your, our. I love the shiftof pronouns, not so much gender
pronouns, but the pronouns awayfrom I and me and we. Those are
my story. But when I say, Julie,you have a gift of podcast

(57:10):
hosting, you have a gifts. Youhave lots of gifts. And I also
know that you have a desire tolevel up. And I've got one tip
here to help you. The story Iwant to tell you is about
somebody and I could then revealand we're not in a coaching

(57:31):
situation, so I haven't beenlistening in that way at all.
But you see where I started withyour intention and your goal. If
we start with I'm an executivespeech coach, and I can help
anyone do better. Hmm. Amos,fancy pants, you're the smartest
one in the room, and I don'twant to work with you. But when
I recognize who you are theaudience, you Julie or the

(57:55):
listeners, then I have moreempathy for where you are and
what you want to do, and thenhow I can help you. I know
you've talked about the hero'sjourney before, but it is
similar to the Luke Skywalker islike the audience. He's the
hero. He gets to live in choice.
Obi Wan Kenobi is the guide,whispering missives in the in

(58:18):
his ear and the light. Thelightsaber is the tool that you
use, and the villain is DarthVader, which is that habit, that
bad habit you need to overcome.
But the audience always lives inchoice, whether or not to see
themselves, whether or not tolisten to you. And so if you
walk in there and think you'reLuke Skywalker, you'll never
have an audience. But if youwalk in there and think you are

(58:39):
Obi Wan Kenobi, and I'm herejust to whisper a few ideas to
you about how to use thatlightsaber a little better, and
you live in choice and how touse it, chances are you're going
to be more willing to listen andwilling to engage. Yeah, make
the audience the centralcharacter of your story. I love

that. I love that twist on it that is so
good. Well, thank you so muchfor ending with that. That was
such a fun way to end, and itwas so nice to have you on Ruth
and just learn about how youhave taught people to share
stories and all these tips thatyou have that are so doable, so
approachable, so yeah, such sucha gift to have you on. It's

(59:22):
still hard, still hard. Yes, ofcourse, yes. I mean, the thing
is, right, we can all listen allwe want, but then to do it in in
practice is, is we have topractice, we have to take action

Unknown (59:33):
to build the right habits. Julie, thank you so much
for having me on. This was ablast. It really good.

You are very welcome. So it was such a
pleasure. And then, if peoplewant to find you find your book.
Where can they go and do that?

Unknown (59:47):
The easiest place to start is the motivated
speaker.com you'll link to allthe channels that have the book
for sale. You'll link to all ofour training classes and
coaching offerings. And we alsohave a key. Note that goes along
with the book to for for anybodywho has a conference or a
workshop, and you would like usto bring our shaded habits

(01:00:07):
keynote. It's a very interactiveworkshop that builds on the
concept that we discuss, thatyou have habits in shaded rooms,
and when they get illuminated,they're not going to serve you
well. And we, we sort of do thethe audience gets to decide
which shaded habits to work on,and then we workshop them in the
in the hour, and it's super fun.
Very engaging. People walk awaywith tons of tips and they see

(01:00:30):
themselves in the story. That's

Julie Berman - Host (01:00:34):
awesome.
That sounds great, I bet, yeah,I bet it comes out with so many
interesting things for peoplewho are there and that they
learn about themselves that theynever realized. So super
awesome. Okay, well, thank youso much.

Unknown (01:00:48):
Thank you, Julie. This was a blast.

Julie Berman - Host (01:00:53):
Hey everybody. Thank you so much for
listening to women with cooljobs. I'll be releasing a new
episode every two weeks. So makesure you hit that subscribe
button. And if you loved theshow, please give me a five star
rating. Also, it would mean somuch if you shared this episode

(01:01:13):
with someone you think you wouldlove it or would find it
inspirational. And lastly, doyou have ideas for future shows.
Or do you know any rock starwomen with cool jobs? I would
love to hear from you. You canemail me at
julie@womenwithcooljobs.com, oryou can find me on Instagram at
women cool jobs. Again, that'swomen cool jobs. Thank you so

(01:01:38):
much for listening and have anincredible day. You.

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