#464: The Secret To Captivating Any Audience with Ashley Stahl Top 100 TEDx Speaker Bestselling Author, TEDx Talk Booker & Speechwriter

25:22So first thing first is the title. The second piece, which is what I want to get into with your storytelling is how you open up your story. So if you're giving a speech, there's maybe like three different approaches that we see people open up speeches with quite often, and they all line up with the powerful flashback. So the first one is the cheap shot. I don't mean to insult it by calling it a cheap shot. But what it really is, is the most crazy story of your life, right? So my second TEDx talk opens up with my dad being in the kitchen. It's not even a story about me, by the way. I think that's interesting to point out that I opened up a speech about my speech about somebody else's story.

26:01You can do that. You can open up a speech with a story that's not yours. Permission slip. I gave a story about my dad in the kitchen brewing his coffee and getting a phone call from somebody saying that I was kidnapped. It's a crazy story. People were in right away. That's my second TEDx talk in 2019. My first TEDx talk. The first three words of that talk are spying, the Pentagon, counterterrorism. And then I say, this was my career path at age 22. It's all about grabbing people. And the cheap shot is about grabbing them with the craziest story you could ever think of. So for example, we had a client at Wise Whisper Agency.

26:39We were helping him distill his ideas into a TEDx talk and to a keynote speech. And we went through his life stories. We do this all the time. And one of his life stories was that he got in two, not one, but two fatal car accidents. Nobody survived except for him. And he walked away completely unscathed. So to us, that was a pretty crazy story. Like how could you step away from something like that. So that's a cheap shot story. Cheap shots always work. And I don't mean to call them cheap shots to insult them. They just are. They're a low lift. They tell themselves. They're so wild. Everybody's going to tune in.

27:19The second type of powerful flashback is more about the relatable, heartfelt story. And I think it's really important I talk about this because a lot of people might think, oh, I don't have any crazy stories. My life has been kind of unremarkable. I totally get that. you have just as much potency as somebody with a cheap shot because everyday life can be so relatable and so heartfelt. I think about a client we had who we helped her write her keynote. And we have a very comprehensive intake form that collects people's life stories. And in her intake form, she told the story of her being in high school and she was at a party and it was the popular guy's house.

27:55And she always felt kind of insecure, kind of uncomfortable. She told me she felt like she was pudgy and just like, you know, whatever those things are in high school that feel really bad is what she was going through. And she heard a girl say, hey, so-and-so wants to talk to you. And it was the popular kid that wanted to talk to her. She ran to the bathroom to get her hair all zhuzh. She heard through the crack of the bathroom door, somebody telling him, hey, she wants to talk to you. And he said, ew, that girl, I don't want to talk to her. And that moment really set her on a low self-esteem path, lower than low could get.

28:30But as an opening story, that's not a cheap shot. That's not a crazy story. It's just a sad, hard moment in her life. And that's why the powerful flashback method, it's not just about bringing people into a whole story. It's about looping people into a moment in time. So if she was opening up her keynote with that moment, she would open up by saying, I was at a party and I'll never forget this moment where this person, you know, and then she can back into the whole story. It was early in the morning, but that hook of getting people right into that pain moment. And I think a lot of people think storytelling and speeches are about making people cry.

29:07And that's not the case. This is just a sad story. There's a lot of heartfelt stories, right? I think about a client who we wrote a speech for her about burnout. And when we really looked at the speech, it actually was a speech about having fun. We opened up her talk about her surfing. and it was like the first time she did something fun after years of being so burnt out and being a workaholic. And I think that's what it's really about is taking a simple story, but looking deeper beneath it and saying, what does this story really represent for me? And making that be the thing that you share about in your flashback.

29:44So she could get on stage and say, in 2017, I got on a surfboard and I realized it was the first time I'd had fun in 10 years. So it's like really just opening up and painting a picture for people in a heartfelt way. So you don't have to have a cheap shot. The third type of storytelling is the conversational approach. This is the kind of story that you see all the time. You see it a lot on the TED or the TEDx stage. People get on stage, they'll tell you a shocking statistic. They'll tell you some sort of piece of data. The problem with this one, we try not to use this very much, but I wanted to include it for people to just contextualize how this can exist in a powerful flashback is people might start to have a discussion with the audience and drop a powerful statistic to get to their intentions or to get their attention.

30:31But then they start to converse with the audience and usually the audience will get bored unless the story in the conversation is powerful enough and heartfelt enough. So it's kind of not as effective as giving a heartfelt story and taking people on a journey. Because if you say, did you know that 90 % of the blah, blah, blah, blah, has blah, blah, blah happened in their life, people will get your attention. But then once you start to back up and explain it, you could lose people unless you have powerful storytelling. So just something to consider if you want to open up a speech with like a powerful statistic is make sure you have a story to go with it.

31:05That is a flashback moment, something potent that people can go into with you. Wow. Oh my gosh. This is like a deeper dive than I've ever done into the art storytelling. So thank you for explaining all that. Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished. They're perfect for layering, mixing, and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples covered, from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup, to 100 % silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up, to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear.

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33:09What does it tell you? Yeah, I mean, pretty much like you're going to go viral if you have a cheap shot story and you tell it with enough spirit. So if you have a crazy story and it's the craziest story ever, not only a crazy story, but you can help people feel a range of emotion throughout the crazy story. That's the second piece. then you're in a position for something to go very viral as long as it's followed by good content. Because if you just have a crazy story, but the rest of your content isn't really helpful for people, it's not going to hit. They're just going to be like, wow, that's a crazy story.

33:41I felt so much, but it didn't help me. And they're not going to share it. So you have to pair crazy story with a range of emotion. If you look at my second TEDx talk in 2019 about how to figure out what you really want. My dad gets that phone call in the kitchen. I was kidnapped. And I talk about how we had just lost my big sister. We just took her off of life support and the fear in his body of like his only other daughter left getting a phone call like this. That's a, so I made people feel like his fear, his heartbreak, it ended up being a scam. Spoiler alert, the phone call that he got that I was kidnapped was a scam.

34:19But I ended up going home that night. And it was like, for me, this moment of seeing how fragile he is, like he almost wired his entire life savings to some nobody who scammed him and pretended that they had kidnapped me on the phone. Meanwhile, I was like sitting at coffee with somebody down the street. So this phone call was so real for him. But so it's a cheap shot story. It's a crazy story. And I say that again, without judgment towards myself for using it. But I still showed people the range of emotion on my dad's experience, what he had just been through in his life, why that phone call meant so much.

34:53I made commentary in the speech about that. I brought people into my experience that for me, what came up was realizing my dad's getting older. Like he's too fragile to handle phone calls like this. And then I also started talking about the compassion I had for the kidnappers in the TED Talk. I talked about how, why would anybody make a living this way, scaring the life out of people and taking their life savings? And the only thing I could come up with was like, maybe they didn't think of another option. Maybe they didn't have another option. Maybe they live somewhere that this was like the only real way to make money.

35:25There's a lot of third world countries where people are making money through scams because of survival reasons. And so I just remember looking at these kidnappers in this speech and saying like, wow, and that's the story I'm going to tell myself about them, that they must've thought there was no other option. And so showing people that range of emotion was pretty critical, I think, to being able to not just take a cheap shot story, but to give it texture, to make it memorable. And then from there, you got to give your best content. You got to give your best talking points. and any speech you write, my rule of thumb is 115 words per minute.

36:07So I'm always thinking, okay, around 25 % of any speech I give can be the opener. And so I just kind of do my word count accordingly. When should people be hiring someone to write a speech for them? So for example, I, as I'm sitting here, I'm like, I should have hired you to write my first TEDx talk. I didn't know what I was doing, right? I didn't even, oftentimes you just don't even know that's available to you that that's a thing, right? Like you just think that you're not even allowed to do that. So is it important enough that somebody should be actually hiring to have something written for them?

36:41It's such a chicken or egg thing because on one hand we are pretty high in service. So I would tell people work with us when you've already kind of done the lift to get yourself somewhere, but you want to get further. But then there's the other part of me that's like, no, invest in the best, get the best talk. Cause people can come in and have us write a 10 to 15 minute talk for them. And that's scoped out at a lower price point, right? They don't even need to ask us to book them on stages if they don't want. And they want to do the tedious work of pitching themselves to get booked on stages. But if you have one 15 minute talk, and here's a mistake that I'm sure you've seen a lot of speakers make is they say yes to every talk.

37:16And then they're constantly creating new content. It's one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your speaking career is constantly diluting what you know, and turning it into these, you know, new speeches one after the neck that really turns your speaking career into this graveyard of content that you haven't really mastered. And so I would say to anybody here who has at least, you know, maybe six figures in their business, if you want to take your business to the next level, at least have a 15 minute talk. And by the way, if you invest in a team like ours at Wise Whisper, you can take that 15 minutes, you have a spine of your speech, and you can expand upon it on your own, right?

37:55Like if you don't want to pay us to make it longer, you can put that time in, but now you've got a base, you've got a base talk. And so I would say anybody that has a business that they want to get out there. And I was telling you earlier, Heather, there's two types of speaking in my opinion. Like the first type is speaking for your brand, just getting brand awareness, right? So speaking in front of ideal audiences to get book sales, to put your influence out there, to practice your speeches, to get consulting clients, that's speaking for your brand. In that case, it's beneficial for you to be able to promote yourself.

38:27So usually you're going to want to do unpaid speaking engagements because as soon as they're paying you a high fee, they're your customer, they're your client, and they are demanding of you what they want for their audience. It's not about you promoting yourself. The second type of speaking is that it's having an established speaking career, going on the speaking circuit, being a full-time speaker. And I know, you know, Heather, with all of the work you've done in the speaking arena, that that's a very real thing is there's a lot of people who want to be a full-time paid speaker. Those speakers usually will come to us to help them craft the TEDx talk and get it booked on the TEDx stage or any stage that they want.

39:02But I would say any business owner, you really owe it to yourself to have a powerful talk in your back pocket. If you want our help getting you on stages all over the world, we have an offer where we pitch up to 40 aligned targeted stages per month for you. We have relationships on these stages. It includes podcasts. The amount of people that we are booking every day for speeches in front of ideal customers who want to hear what they have to offer, it just makes me think like, why would we do one conversation after the other when we can just stand in front of an audience of 500 people and just move them so powerfully that they come to find us to work with us?

39:42It's just unlike any other method I've found so far. And I feel like same with you because you've been speaking for so long. No, you just really illustrated the example of it doesn't need to be one-to-one selling when it can be one-to-many and instead attracting that business to you. It's the power of the personal brand and the power of taking stages. You also brought up another really interesting point that I had not thought about previously, which is the importance of storytelling in regards to other arenas, not just on stage, but you just brought it up. As a guest on podcasts, how often do you see people, you're teaching them through talks that you're giving them, but then they're applying that to podcasts?

40:21Right. And if you take a look at the beginning of this conversation, you were like, Ashley, you worked in national security and I did the flashback approach. In this conversation, I was like, oh yeah, I got this award. And there I was in Istanbul and the tear gas was going off. I brought you right into the moment with me. So I do this without even knowing I'm doing anymore. I think it's because we've just written so many speeches and I've overseen so many of them. But the way I see it is good storytelling. And again, there's those eight different ways you can tell stories or write books or make movies.

40:51But these two ways I do where one is about the flashback, the second one, which I can get into, is about proof in the pudding. It's educational storytelling. There's different tactics you can use to just be valuable. And one thing I want to share with everybody is original content cuts through the noise. And what I mean by that is sometimes we look at our stories and we think in conversations like this, how do we be the most powerful storyteller ever? But what I want to tell everybody listening is if you are giving content that people really need, if you break your leg, the most important thing you want to know is how to fix your leg, how to make it not be broken, right?

41:27You don't need a good storytelling doctor to tell you a whole story about how they're going to fix your leg. You just need the steps you need to take from the doctor, okay, first you need to come in, then we need to get a scan, then we need to put you on this plan, and then it's going to be better. When somebody is in deep need of your services, you actually don't need to be that good of a storyteller because at the end of the day, they just need it. You are the scratch to their itch. And so I also want to point out the power of just being an expert and not just being an expert, but covering a topic that an audience, picture an audience like a desert, if they're thirsty for water and your content is the water, you don't even have to put that much pressure on yourself to be a good storyteller.

42:12And I think that that's really important based on what you're booking, based on what you're talking about. I think a lot about clients who come into Wise Whisper Agency. We try not to write books because writing speeches, you know, I could probably have one writer on my team and these are coveted resources for us, our writing team. I could probably have one of them write three speeches or four speeches in a month. It probably takes seven months for them to be stuck in one book. So I've stayed away from books, but now too many clients have come back and been like, please, please, please. And our writers really love them.

42:41And we're like, no, we love them too much. We want to write their books. So we've gotten into book writing. The books that we have really found are the best ones to write are the ones that kind of write themselves, right? It's like the broken leg. It's like, this is very straightforward content and people are going to read it if this is what they need. You really don't have to be that interesting. I think being a good storyteller is a service to make the ride more beautiful. And a lot of my job as a storyteller is I kind of picture my clients, my listeners, I picture myself like the driver of the magic school bus.

43:13And when I go on a podcast, I'm like, all right, everybody get in and let me show you what happened at that protest that morning. And get in and let me show you what happened on the phone. Look at my dad. He's right there. He's on the phone. You bring people into your world with you and you cut the noise and the power of that and getting people's attention cannot be underestimated. That being said, that approach that I talked about, the proof in the pudding, educational storytelling, while we do a lot of flashback storytelling for our openers of speeches, we do a lot of educational storytelling.

43:44And what that looks like is etymology. So for example, etymology is the study of words and how they've evolved throughout history. So you've heard a lot of people talk about the word passion, and it comes from the Latin root patior, which means suffering. Compassion means with suffering, right? People talk about that all the time. We use that. So we're being educational in our speeches. Or we might talk about history. Like maybe there's an approach on this podcast I could have taken where I could have talked about ancient storytelling and how it kept tribes together since X BC, right? I could have gone into the history of storytelling and how it's one of the most important parts of the human experience and how people understand each other.

44:26That wasn't the approach I took on this podcast. But having an educational, historical approach to how you talk about something. Let's say that you are a midwife. Can you talk about the history of midwifing babies? Where does this come from in society? That's very educational. People love to be stimulated to learn something new and to understand the relevance of what you're doing and then contextualize it in the experience of life that we're all in. Another educational tool is obviously data. Really, really powerful. So there's many things you can do with storytelling, but hopefully this gives everybody listening some starting points on how to craft a speech that really can move people.

45:20Ashley, I mean, obviously you're so gifted at this, but so for someone, because I'm even thinking of myself now, because I've never thought at this level in depth in regards to strategic, you know, being this strategic about an approach. So is there something to be said about the audience that you're addressing and which approach is best for them? That's a great question. I mean, every audience is different. And I think it kind of goes back to what I said with like the doctor and the leg being broken. There are some service providers where they really are fixing a broken leg and their speech writes itself.

45:52You don't have to put the frills on. It just makes it for a better school bus ride if you put the magical storytelling on it. But your tips alone, you're in a desert and they need water and water is going to taste better than it's ever tasted if they need it that bad. so I would say some audiences they just need your information and you're the subject matter expert and you don't have to put the pressure on yourself and I tell clients this all the time because in our offer it's called the speaker skyrocket program we have pitched so many clients on stages some of them it's a panel and they'll be like how do I prepare and I'm like honestly this is like a scratch and itch panel like you are such an expert this is a panel about the topic you know you don't need to zhuzh it up with stories.

46:34Just know what they need to know. And you already know what that is. You don't even need to have it written down. You don't need to put more work in. Then there's other audiences where maybe it's a more general audience and they're there to inspire. That's when the storytelling becomes pretty crucial. Okay. You brought up panels and this is something that maybe this is just me, but I find panels so boring. What is the deal with that? Is it because people aren't given enough time or autonomy to tell stories and they're just answering like a bulleted direct question, but I can't be the only person that feels that way.

47:06You know what? I do find that a lot of panels have been super boring. I personally think I'm better on a panel than I am as a keynote because I'm somebody that has a lot to say. I have a lot of content. And when people can meet me where they are, I can hit that exact need so much more than I would if I did a keynote speech in front of everybody. And it's more of a blanket topic, right? But I do think that panels are a really good place because they are so boring for people to shine. So one thing that a lot of speakers have is called bits and bobs. Like, I don't know if you've ever used that language in your speaking, Heather, but like, I hear a lot of high paid speakers on the circuit use it.

47:45There's this exercise I like to give clients at Wise Whisper Agency, where I tell them to make a lifetime line, write down every significant event of your life, inflection points, decisions, impasses from when you were a little kid to now. And there's probably like 15 events that you're like, oh, like graduating college was a big moment for me. Or that girl that like I tripped, fell and broke my arm. I don't know, it's all these bones broken in this episode, but anyway, like big moments. And then write down what you learned from that moment. What was the lesson from that moment? What was significant about that moment?

48:18The amount of clients who come in and fill out our intake form and say, oh my God, that pulled so many stories out of me I didn't even know existed. And now those stories are in their repertoire of stories that they can tell. We call those bits and bobs. It's like you can pull a bit or a bob off the shelf and throw it in to a panel, right? So maybe somebody asked you a question from the audience. It's like they're grabbing on a bit or a bob that you have from your life stories. And because you've taken the time to excavate those, you are able to share those in a powerful way. One of the things I want to share with you is, you know, a number of my clients have hired you in the agency to craft talks for them, land TEDx stages for them, land big stages for them.

48:54And one of the consistent feedback that I hear from everybody is when they're working with you or the team initially, the actual questionnaire that you guys put together, the work that they need to go through, right, which you were just touching on a little bit of it, is so cathartic, healing, shocking, like, and they all say the same thing. Why is that? I love that you're saying that. I didn't even realize how mystical this agency could be for me because I'm such a results person. Take me out of the Pentagon and national security. Take me out of the military, but I still was in it long enough.

49:31Even if I have good intentions in life, I really look at the net outcomes of things. That's how I think in business. I'm like, if somebody pays you, even if your intention was to give them the service, they didn't get the service, they better get the damn service. That's how I think. I wasn't thinking enough when I started this company about the journey the clients were actually going through emotionally. I was so caught up in how do we write the best talk ever and they have it in their hand? How do we get them on the TEDx stage? How do we get them at South by Southwest? How do we get them their spots?

49:59But you are correct that so many people have said, wow, this has been like therapy for me. And I think this comes from a quote that I love by Martin Scorsese. He says, what's most personal is most creative. And what we are really doing in our intake form is we are taking a look at what is most personal so that we can be creative. And our intake form has questions. There's a couple of questions. One question is, you know, name 10 of the most significant life events in your entire lifetime. Why were they significant? What did you learn from it? How are you different because of it? Another question we have in there is what do you want the world to really know something that you intimately understand that the world just doesn't get yet?

50:46And how would the world be different if they got it? So yeah, we are excavating into people's psyches, into people's souls, and people are coming out. And it's really fun to hear that you've sent us all these clients that are telling you that, that they've gotten like a therapeutic experience through going through this with us. Yeah, I think it's so much bigger than a talk, but it's a talent understanding yourself. It's about self-awareness. It's about seeing value in yourself. It's a confidence building exercise. It's like they said, a healing exercise in your life and seeing the value of yourself.

51:19And you're teaching them these tools and skills that they can use. And it goes beyond just telling a talk. It's like you said, the power of storytelling and captivating storytelling is something that can be done one-on-one in a conversation with somebody that you can use this tool everywhere in your life. And just like you're using right now on the podcast. Yeah, exactly. And that's my hope for everybody listening. I'm hoping that because of this episode, they become better storytellers and they make conversations that turn into results for them. All because they could bring people on the magic school bus with them.

51:54All right, well, tell everybody how they can work with you. How do they find you? And how can you unlock that magic in them? Okay, well, first of all, like I am not me if I don't give this audience a promo because I just love you and your audience. So anyone who contacts us within 90 days of this episode coming out, please let us know you came from Heather and we'll give you a thousand dollars off whatever you do with us. But we have pretty formal offerings. Number one is crafting your signature talk. A lot of clients like that to be a TEDx talk and getting you booked on a big stage. A lot of clients like that to be the TEDx stage.

52:28We also craft all sorts of keynotes. We ghostwrite books, and we have an offer, the Speaker Skyrocket program on our website. That's all about just getting you booked on stages so that you can give the best talk of your life over and over and get all the business, more business than what you know what to do with. And that's all at wisewhisperagency.com. Guys, check it out. I mean, Ashley has done the most incredible work for so many of my clients. all I hear five-star reviews on her. And I personally know her. She's an incredible human, incredible person, stands behind her work. If you're looking to become a better storyteller, if you're looking to have a keynote or a speech, a signature speech, this is the one place to go.

53:10WiseWhisperAgency.com. Thank you so much. Ashley, thank you so much for being here. Guys, get ahold of her. She's the best. I'll link it all for you in the show notes. Keep creating your confidence. You just found a new way to do it now. I'll see you next week. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. I'm on this journey with me.