Live An Adventurous Life with Mark Lovett and Dr. Jeff Salz
Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments
Episode Summary
Today, I have two guests on the podcast. They are Mark Lovett and Jeff Salz, who have a business called Speaker Adventure. They help people craft a story so that they can become compelling no matter what their pitching for. They have great expertise with the TEDx and TED Events and really becoming an adventurer in your life because when you have a story of why you’re doing something or why someone should hire you, that gets people engaged with the storytelling, our brain works very differently when we tell stories. They say when you do a deep dive into yourself and you start your pitch with the end in mind and work backgrounds, that’s really the key to having a great pitch. Enjoy the episode.
Listen To The Episode Here
Live An Adventurous Life with Mark Lovett and Dr. Jeff Salz
John Livesay: Hi and welcome to “The Successful Pitch” podcast. Today, I have not one, but two amazing guests that are actually in business together at the Speaker Adventure. Dr. Jeff Salz is a professional speaker coach. He’s a 30 year veteran of expedition leadership and Global Exploration turned Hall of Fame Speaker. His passion is helping speakers express their hero’s journey and he’s actually gonna on several himself. Then he’s partnered with this amazing guy named Mark Lovett, who is also a professional speaker coach, who’s been the organizer and chief architect for the San Diego X’d San Diego since 2014. He’s got some really amazing tips having watched over a thousand speakers give their talks. These guys are experts on what it takes to have a great pitch. Gentleman, welcome to the show.
Dr. Jeff Salz: Hello, John.
Mark Lovett: Hello, John. Great to be here.
Glad to have you. Our mutual friend, Mark Golsten, introduced us and, of course, that’s what I’m always talking to everybody about is everything is about your network is your net worth. I always like to ask my guest to take us on the story of origin, of how did you get to where you are? We’ll start with Jeff. If you don’t mind, Mark. We’ll let him go first because he’s got this way of taking adventure and spirit and turning it into a way of life and a career.
And your question is?
How did you get to where you did? How did you decide that this is what you wanted to do with yourself? Did you know in college? Did you ever have a regular quote job or did you just say I’m gonna become an adventurous anthropologist? What? What made you figure out how to get to where you are?
I think it was because I was born and raised in a cultural deprivation zone called New Jersey. I mean no offense, but actually offending each other is how we show our affection in New Jersey. I think growing up on the East Coast and seeing the world around me in fairly mundane, in a mundane world, I just said this is not for me. I want more. I expect more. I demand more.
At a early age, by the time I was 16, I was already attending a crazy college in Arizona called Prescott College, very experiential. By the time I was 17, I dropped out of college, was traveling the world by myself. It’s been a non-stop pursuit of physical heights like the mountains and cultural distances, like the remote areas of Patagonia, Siberia, you name it.
But, ultimately, it took me to a desire and this is the hero’s journey stuff to give back. About 25 years ago, 30 years ago now, I decided to see if I could share the stories, do some writing of books, raising some small children, making a family. My life had become an adventure and now it became an adventure of creativity. That’s how I launched into the world of speaking, which I’ve done now for 30 something years. Most recently, I’ve again taken the next step is to say, the real adventure now is not me doing the thing so much as helping others have the experiences and succeed at. Along with Mark, it got our program.
We were just saying before we spoke to you how it’s an enormous adventure. Every time we sit down with a client and we wonder how the story will unfold and how they’ll express themselves and find more truth about themselves. It’s a real adventure. Maybe my life hasn’t changed that much after all.
Well, and you turned it into a book called “The Way of Adventure: Transforming Your Life and Work with Spirit and Vision.” We’ll get back to how you define what an adventure is because I always love that topic.
Mark, you have an equally interesting life to tell us about because before you became involved with TEDx, you were doing all kinds of things with Global Patriot. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Well, Global Patriot came out of a novel that I was writing and the hero in that book basically transformed himself from being an American Patriot to a Global Patriot, which means that he was dedicated to the health and well-being of the entire planet.
That’s where I started blogging and getting into social media on that and meeting a lot of fascinating people along way. Raised money for Doctors Without Borders by putting on three concerts in 18 days in three different countries, which was rather insane, but that got me into event planning in a very strange way. When the TEDx opportunity came up, I saw that ability to bring ideas up onto the stage and create events that impact people.
You’re also involved, for those people who may not know what a TED Talk is or a TEDx Talk is it’s this amazing opportunity for people to be inspired and informed and have an idea that’s worth sharing, but you’ve taken this into something that I have not been aware of before which is taking it into correctional facilities. How did that come about?
Well, each year, I’ve had a new project in tandem with TEDxSanDiego. That’s the main program that I run each fall and in 2015, that different story was that we did the world’s first cross-border TEDx, where we built a stage in the United States and a stage in Mexico and had speakers alternate between the two countries.
The next year, I produced a kid’s event where the speakers ranged from 13-years-old down to 6-years-old. Now this year is TEDx Donovan Correctional, where a friend of mine started volunteering in the prison. She knew I did TEDx. We started talking. We went to the prison administration. They loved the idea. We applied for a license from TED in New York. When we got the license, we started organizing this event that’s happening on May 21. It will involve five inmate speakers and five speakers from the outside.
I once heard Dr. Jerry Jampolsky talking about working with prisoners. He’s the author of books like “Say Goodbye To Guilt.” He said to the prisoners, “Just because your body’s in prison doesn’t mean your mind is.” I’m assuming and guessing that that’s a big part of what you’re trying to help them realize. Would that be accurate?
What I would say is that they have realized that themselves. Most of the men we’re working with have been in for 20 years or more.
Wow. Okay.
They’ve completely transformed themselves. The talks are gonna center around finding purpose, the power of love and the magic of self-forgiveness. If they hear these talks and I’m coaching them inside prison every Tuesday and Sunday and to hear their talks unfold as Jeff mentioned, it’s this magical process. At one point, one of ’em leaned forward to me and said, “You know what? I’ve never told this story to anyone in my entire life.”
Well, that’ll grab somebody’s attention. Jeff, how do you define adventure since that’s your area of expertise?
Good question, John. No, adventure, it isn’t so much about the physical risk that somebody might get hurt or die. It is about more risking assumptions, risking ease and complacency. Adventure is what happens when everything you plan ceases.
Ah.
Adventure is life. Adventure is the realization and the act of undertaking and experiencing of the unexpected, the untoward, the unplanned. Whether we like it or not, life’s an adventure, but adventure’s attitude. It means a willingness to go along and accept whatever comes to you as a gift and an opportunity. I’m just making that up as I go along here.
No, I like it.
Current definition.
Well, a lot of people, I think, whether they’re in prison or not feel “trapped by their life,” right? They don’t feel like they have the time or the money to “go have an adventure” even if they’re not in prison so I think that is really valuable to give people the sense of you don’t go looking for an adventure so much as you bring the adventure to whatever your experience is. That’s my take on it from what your said. Do you have anything else you want to add to that?
No, very well said. Very well said. One of my very favorite quotes is an old Chinese quote: “That we use a finger to point at the moon, but we shouldn’t confuse the finger with the moon.” Adventure is like the finger, but the adventure is not the thing. The adventure is that thing, which points to a greater awareness and appreciation of life or of nature or of a relationship or a discovery of a principal wouldn’t have found had we stayed at home. The adventure is the vehicle toward a greater unfolding of the mysterious nature of life itself.
Yes. That’s great. Well, whether I’m working with big companies and helping them craft a pitch to get new clients or helping startups craft a pitch to get funded, one of the key areas is always the story of origin. Let’s hear the story of origin of how you two met and decided to start Speaker Adventure.
Well, I guess that’ll start with me. Let’s see. Speaker Adventure came out of a program that my sweetheart and I began called Courageous Speaking. Just I don’t wanna get too loquacious here, but I’ve always felt that speaking isn’t just a series of techniques. It isn’t like you stand on stage. You wave your hands. It’s an adventure.
That to really be a great speaker is to dive deep into yourself and to step into what could be and so from the weekends that we ran called Courageous Speaking, we realized we wanted to do more. We wanted to help people take it deeper and go further so when I learned about Mark, I’ll be very honest. His celebrity factor overwhelmed me and then when I met that man, I said, “You think he would really consider working with us?” It turned out that he’s as passionate and as driven about speakers and coaching and storytelling as I am.
Together, we formed a program that is three weeks that begins with coaching with Mark or myself via phone or in person. It culminates in a weekend, where people are on stage in a theater and we work with them there. We film them, but it ends with sort of then a integration into how can they find themselves on a large and powerful platform that could be a TED Talk or TEDx Talk or elsewhere? Or even become a professional speakers by learning more about the business.
It really, I think, Mark and I coalescing around the powerful love that we have and the belief that a story well told can save the world and will certainly save your soul.
Wow. That’s fantastic. I love that. That’s some lofty goals. It really makes people think twice about why they’re speaking in the first place.
Mark, what’s your memory of how you connected with Jeff?
We were introduced by way of a mutual friend.
There it is again. Yep.
Yeah. It was all about the network.
Yeah.
When I first sat down with Jeff and I came to know his background, there was this magic that developed between his many years on the keynote stage and my many years watching over 50 TED and TEDx events. As you alluded to at the beginning of the show, I’ve seen well over a thousand speakers live. My format is really that 15 to 20 minutes in Jeff’s format is more of the 22 to 40 and beyond so we were able to combine our skill sets. One of the things we work with people on is to say take your idea and think about a 15, a 30 and a 45 minute version because you might be on a TEDx stage, you might be at a conference and you might be asked to do a keynote.
We help them develop that idea in a fashion where it can be smaller or bigger and so that’s unique that I’ve seen in the coaching world that our two skill sets came together to be able to do that.
Yes, indeed. What do you think makes a good TEDx Talk versus a keynote? Is there a difference?
The difference for me is that the story is more concise and leading to one specific point. The tagline for TED is ideas worth spreading so they try to focus on what’s this idea and I can expand that to beyond being an idea. It could be a perception. It could be a concept. It could be something that you feel needs to change in society and if you can craft that story in that 15 to 20 minute time range, you really take people on that journey from here’s what I’ve discovered and here’s how this can affect your life.
That’s the journey. That’s part of the storytelling. Jeff, let’s jump back to you and have you describe what you feel is a good story.
Yeah. The first time I heard about TEDx – I’ve never told you this, Mark – but I thought I’m a Keynote Speaker, I need 45 minutes to develop my theme. It’s like saying we wanna see a movie, but can you take your 90 minutes and give us… Yeah. It’s like, okay, character develop. People started asking me can you do an 18 minute talk? I would say, “I would not ding.”
“We’ll pay you twice as much.” I’m not going to do it, you know. I actually refused an opportunity to earn good money giving short talks, but then working with Mark, I came to realize that it’s like anything else. When there’s a certain limitation, that limited structure, it necessitates a greater appreciation and a wiser economy of words and architecture.
To me what constitutes a great story, and to do this in 18 minutes takes true mastery. There has to be an emotional component. Unless there’s an emotional component, it’s just words and we get bored. For there to be an emotional component, there has to be an evolving story. There has to be a story.
Source: Pexels
[Tweet “Stories That Are Emotional and Involving Work Best”]
I was just drawing a diagram for Mark. It’s kind of like a very simple way to look at this is I just came about this coaching yesterday. Imagine an hour or a timer or an hourglass with a wide top and a narrow center and a wide bottom. It’s as if the story … The ideas on top and that becomes the story and that’s the top of your hourglass. Where the hourglass comes together that has to be what it all means. What’s the moral of this? What’s the lesson learned? Then it expands again at the bottom into the implications and the applications.
To me, a good story has topography, contrast, pathos. You distill it into a meaning for your audience. Then you help them see why this meaning is essential and how it could change their lives and affect the world around them.
I love that. I love that visual image that goes with it in particular. We get them emotionally involved. We zoom in and then I think, where most people forget, is to zoom back out and give implications, learn from that so I would love that you covered all of that.
Let’s say someone’s listening and they’re like, “I don’t really have any goals of doing a TEDx Talk, but I would love to learn how to be a better storyteller or pitch person,” or however you wanted to describe it, to get new clients. So many people are invited to come in if you work for a small company, a big company. Okay, we’re gonna see all the architects today from wherever and you each get an hour to come in and quote pitch or show us your ideas. What would you recommend somebody do that brings the elements of storytelling into a pitch to get someone to hire them that makes it so much more interesting than just talking about what they do?
One of the similarities that I see because I not only coach people who are gonna be on the TEDx stage, but I also do work with entrepreneurs and startup companies who wanna learn how to tell their story and it’s really about adding value to the audience.
When you get out of your ego and you completely put yourself in this mode of service. I’m here to improve the life of the people in the audience.
From the standpoint of a TEDx Talk, it would be that ideal worth spreading that people can take and they can pull into their own life. If you’re trying to pitch a product or get yourself hired or you’re a start-up company, you really have to think of what is the value I’m adding to the person on the other side of the table? Stop talking about yourself and bragging about this is what I do and it’s the greatest product on Earth.
It’s really about how will lives be changed if you hire me or if you buy my product.
I love that. Let me just hit the pause button on that because I wanna underline what you said. Circle it. Put it on a tweet. Stop talking about yourself for the first 10 minutes of a presentation and so many companies feel that they have to go into this here’s why were so great and the client’s just sitting there going, okay, this has … You’re just trying to impress me and I’m trying to figure out whether we’re a fit or not. I’m not gonna hire you based on how long you’ve been in business or how many other people you’ve helped. It’s what about me, right, is what I’m I hearing you saying.
Source: Marcos Luiz Photograph on Unsplash
[Tweet “Stop talking about yourself.”]
It is. It is really about understanding the value you can give to somebody else, understanding their pain point, understanding their problem. Why would they develop this product? Why would they hire somebody? Why would they start a company? If you can enhance their world or solve a problem then you become valuable to them and that’s why they want you.
When I work with people, I’d say your team slide. When you’re going in to present for funding or going in to pitch to get hired is the most important slide because people are hiring people they trust and like and wanna work with more than even what you’re selling. That’s how you separate yourself from being a commodity so do you have any tips on how people can sell themselves through storytelling?
Well, again, I think selling yourself is really understanding how you can benefit somebody else rather than just saying hey, I have a PhD and I’ve got all these accolades. Talk about real life examples where you were able to do something creative, you were able to solve a problem, you were able to fix something that was going in the wrong direction. That means that you have to do your homework and understand who the person is on the other side of the table.
Let me jump in here real quick.
Please.
All of the science shows that we really do learn best from stories. That the different parts of the brain and I’m no neuroscientist, but are affected by information and storytelling. One is more affective and the other is more conative. The conative part; the facts come in, they go out, but a story, not only does it create an emotion, actually the listener feels like they’re having the experience themselves. To create a lasting value, a powerful connection, you’ve gotta access that storytelling side of the brain so I encourage people, even if the time is short, make sure you tell a story, a story that will connect and you’ll be memorable and you’ll reach people deeply.
I love that. That really is the way. People remember our stories way more than our numbers if you’re talking about statistics and you know. For example, back to the architect example again. If they start talking about a square footage and stuff like that, you’re putting people to sleep versus if you can tell a story about somebody else you helped.
Jeff, let me ask you about this adventure element in a story and how important it is. Typically, I see a lot of people in businesses giving quote, well, they call them case studies. Even that name sounds boring to me. As opposed to telling an exciting story of someone you helped as Mark was referencing. That you’re showing your skills and your experience as a tool to help somebody else. If you can paint that picture of taking somebody on that journey, that adventure, then they say, “Oh, that’s for me.” That’s what they’re hiring more than you or your credentials.
I guess my question would be do you have any tips on how to include adventure into a story? In other words, that there’s gotta be some conflict and some challenge that people are overcoming. It’s not just this boring we were hired to do this. We built it and we’re done.
Yeah. No, that’s a very good question. A couple things. One is in telling a story, especially if you’re pitching, you don’t wanna be the hero of your own story. That really looks your intent is self-aggrandizing and it’s not becoming.
It’s much better to tell a story where your client is the hero or someone you empowered or enabled wound up becoming heroic and accomplishing something. It’s really about them, which is essential so it’s important that you are the protagonist ’cause you’re there. That’s what you wanna tell, something that you were there for. It gives you credibility, but that you are not trying to make yourself look good.
The other thing about the adventure story. Everybody has heard the phrase the hero’s journey. Some folks know what it is and it’s a beautiful concept where Joseph Campbell looked at all the stories from Mesopotamia to modern times. He said, “There’s basically one schematic for the human experience and it’s in the stories that we tell.” I’m not gonna get into that except to say I recommend highly Joseph Campbell’s work on the hero’s journey. There are tapes. There’s books.
But what the hero’s journey basically is, very simply, in 20 seconds, is an individual sets out in an ordinary world. Something happens. There’s a really deep pit that winds up with this kind of sense of profound adversity and almost surrendering, but then we gain a sense of positivity as we defeat a dragon, as we gain a skill, as we meet an ally. Then we actually vanquish our foe after a moment of complete dissolution. Then we return to a point where things are okay. We learned the lesson. Then after we’ve learned the lesson, we return to share the lesson with others.
Every time we do that, that’s the completed sense of story that then belongs to us. You could tell that story in just a couple of phrases. When you do that, the person listening feels like they just saw a mini-movie. Kinda makes sense.
Basically, things are good. Things get really, really bad. How will our hero survive? There’s a couple of victories that make the hero feel stronger and successful. Then, the hero returns. You could be protagonist so things were great. Things got really bad. Somebody saved me. Fortune’s aided me and now I’ve learned these lessons, and I wanna share with you this view I got from the pit of despair from the mountaintop, from complete disaster.
We listen ’cause we’re happy to hear because we don’t want to ever have to whet it there ourselves. I think that so quickly and no one even knows, but in your mind if that had, that what Mark and I teach are strategies, architecture. If you have architecture in your mind, no one has to know that you got a map, but it will get you to where you wanna go every time.
I love that. When you have a map, you know where you’re going and then so does your audience if you do it right. Now let me ask you, Mark. People say well, at TED Talks, sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes less, a little bit more, but how much preparation do I really need to do it if I’m just speaking for 10 minutes? It’s actually one of my huge pet peeves when people say I don’t wanna practice my pitch. I’m like, “What’s your opening?”
“Ah, I don’t know. I’m just gonna wing it in the moment.” It drives me crazy and I think people have a fear of sounding robotic. Any advice, wisdom after hearing all of this sage? All these talks you’ve heard, you must have some insights into what really the difference between somebody being prepared and not prepared?
The person who’s prepared is someone who is truly embodied their entire talk. In the case of TEDxSanDiego, we have a team of speaker coaches. In fact, I just had a meeting last night with five of them to talk about this year’s event and every single speaker on our stage is assigned a speaker coach. They work with this coach over a four to five month period to craft that narrative, to come up with that idea to wordsmith it down to every single sentence of what are you saying and why? How is the audience gonna react to this? So that you truly do have a journey that you’re taking people on.
There are many techniques for how to open a talk and so you can discuss, which one works best in their case. How are you laying out your personal experience? There might be scientific data in there. How are you presenting that idea based on that journey? Then that closing.
One of the techniques I actually use is to tell speakers start at the end. Tell me what you’re gonna close with. Tell me that one line that the person’s gonna go out and tweet, that they’re gonna put on Facebook, that they’re gonna tell their mother, father, sister, brother. What is that kernel, that pearl of wisdom that you’re gonna give them?
Source: Pexels
[Tweet “Start With The End When You Work On Your Pitch.”]
Then as you construct your story, you constantly ask yourself are we going to that destination. Just like Jeff said with the map. When you have that map, you’re constantly saying, am I going off course here? Am I telling another story that’s not even relevant to this main theme? Those who are best prepared and really rehearse enough, they get beyond the robotic days of reciting and it moves through their head down to their heart.
Ah, nice. Well, that’s the tweet right there. How to move from your head into your heart ’cause I know what you teach is all heart centric based. The other big benefit of that is, guess what? All that preparation causes your confidence to soar, doesn’t it?
Source: Pexels
[Tweet “Move From Your Head To Your Heart”]
Well, absolutely. I’ve seen people who are very nervous and didn’t think they could do this and over a four month period, they come out on stage and they’re a rockstar.
What’s also interesting is when we do Speaker Adventure, which is a much shorter program, we also take people from an initial idea to coaching. We get ’em on stage and they’re actually presenting their talk three times over the weekend. By that third time on stage with cameras facing on them, we have seen these miraculous transformations of confidence because people really dug in. They did they work and they really brought their heart to the stage. And it’s visible.
Well, having two experts on the 30 minutes flies by much faster than it would have if I’d been able to just talk to you one on one, but you’re such a great team and we learn so much from each of you I’m thrilled that you both were willing to schedule a time that it all worked. Now are there any last minute thoughts that each of you wanna leave us with?
I would just say that when you become a storyteller, whatever happens to you in your life becomes grist for the mill. For a speaker, the worse it gets – my God – this is gonna be a great story.
I think part of the beauty of being a speaker and committing your life to any kind of art form is that we’re always on the search for the tastiest fruits, the most profound learnings that there’s nothing like creating a good story out of your life and if you don’t, you really haven’t lived.
Wow. That’s a great line. If you don’t have a good story, you haven’t lived. I love that. You’re playing it too safe.
Yeah.
How about you, Mark?
Yeah. I would probably answer that by saying that the most powerful storytelling is when your story becomes part of someone else’s story. That’s when you’ve imparted something wise and something powerful that they can take and weave into the fabric of their own life. That’s what we try to do in every turn when we’re working with somebody on developing their story. We want to find the piece of them that can affect someone else’s life.
Lastly, I would add is the reason that both Mark and I do this, if I may speak for the two us, is it because we’re enamored with speaking or storytelling? We’re enamored of the human experience. Helping people become better speakers is really helping them become better human beings. We get the real benefit. We get to see things happen. We get to be the mid-wives to magic every single time we work with a group.
Well, there’s a great line. The mid-wives to magic. That’s your new tag line from “The Pitch Whisper.” That’s great.
We’ll put the link in, but if anybody is listening and wants to just go right to it. It’s www.speakeradventure.com and why don’t you just share with us your Twitter handles real quick.
My Twitter handle is @GlobalPatriot.
There we are. Alright, well, we can find you on LinkedIn and other places I’m sure. Of course, your book “The Way of Adventure:” is on Amazon. Gentleman, thank you so much. You’ve been great guests.
Links Mentioned
- Book: “The Way of Adventure:”
- Website: www.speakeradventure.com
- Twitter: @GlobalPatriot
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