Realize Your Public Speaking Potential: Expert Insights with Steve Shenbaum

my background in acting involved also background and improvisation and a lot of role playing and I found it to be a really good learning tool I was a theater major at Northwestern I went back to LA after having an acting career in Chicago and got into that but I really found that improvisation was a great way to teach and keep things engaging because two things happened people cared about the message when you were engaging with them authentically and then they remembered the lessons that was the two things we wanted to achieve care and remember so if you can get the audience to care authentically which kind of goes back to your first question too how do you earn their trust you you get them to care without shocking them and then usually when you get them to care authentically they have a better chance of remembering the message [Music] welcome to Super entrepreneurs podcast I'm your host Shahid durani today we have with us Steve shenbaum Steve is the founder of game on Nation a nationally recognized communication firm that employs game Dynamics and improvisation to teach high performance teamwork as well as communication storytelling public speaking and presentation skills Welcome to our show Steve thanks ahead appreciate you very much it's my pleasure my friend it looks like we work with Professionals in various Industries and groups can you share some kind of challenges that are very common that you found working with these people oh getting right into the challenges I love it Chad for our style of teaching we use like you mentioned improvisation role-playing I think one of the challenges is in the land of interactivity game Dynamics using experiential learning sometimes there's a little apprehension at first no matter what audience we have three audiences we focus on we've got college and pro sports teams that's an audience an area we have government and Military audiences and we also have corporate audiences and people ask me what's a common challenge with all of those audiences doesn't matter if they're 18 years old or 65 years old 70 80 years old there's a little bit of apprehension when you come in and they know there's going to be a bit of interactivity there's going to be a bit of Engagement so it's our job to earn their trust as soon as possible we don't force it we don't try to win them over right away we just earn their trust and earn the right to speak and share Concepts so that's probably the one common challenge we see but once you get through that challenge and you earn that trust my goodness man it is a total switch and then they're all about the interactivity that's awesome Steve so can you share how you develop that trust in such an environment yeah one of the things I was sharing actually my 11 year old daughter she said Dad how do you win over the audience right away because you know the kids will ask good questions yeah and I said you know what Blake I think the answer is not to try to win them over right away you got to get out of that mindset so a lot of what we do it's not just myself we have a team of Consultants we try to prepare in advance so I think a few things just to be really practical we do our best to try to get it ahead of it and learn as much about the client as we can so the other thing that's really not exciting but I share it and you may be able to share this with me when you present is we put a lot of focus on the room set up and try to keep things simple like we want to know where the chairs are going to be set up and we want to know like the air conditioning and we want to make sure our HDMI cables are all set up I know this doesn't sound very exciting and no one's going to Tweet like my HDMI cable was good right that's not a very viral tweet but to get to a place where people feel comfortable we try to make as much of a connection between the speaker and the audience for example when there's a stage that's five feet high but there's a space where we could stand in front of that stage and be on the same level as the audience without affecting their eye line we try to do that get on their level get to know their names separate the chairs and make sure the air conditioning is good so that's number one oh that was like one ABC indeed so you're coming from an acting background you were in American Pie 2 I believe and some other amazing movies before you got into acting were you involved with public speaking and communication is there a story behind how you got into acting or was it a transition because of acting you got into this type of work the second part because of acting I got into the just desire to create curriculum so my background in acting involved also a background and improvisation and a lot of role playing and I found it to be a really good learning tool that's this that second part of that question was because of my acting background I was a theater major at Northwestern I went back to LA after having an acting career in Chicago and got into that but I really found that improvisation was a great way to teach and keep things engaging because two things happen people cared about the message when you were engaging with them authentically and then they remembered the lessons that was the two things we wanted to achieve care and remember so if you can get the audience to care authentically which kind of goes back to your first question too how do you earn their trust you you get them to care without shocking them and then usually when you get them to care authentically they have a better chance of remembering the message but that's how I transitioned was loving theater but actually loving teaching more than I loved theater and acting were you working with a corporation I assume there will be more inclined to hire your system or get you to come in rather than just a public speaker for example nothing wrong with that but the Improv adds a different dimension into what you're doing and what you're teaching you're just getting everyone really involved not just looking at their phone you're good at this my friend I mean it I appreciate where you just went there you know what I pulled from that statement shahad is there's nothing against Dynamic public speakers I I don't want to in any way be disparaging I I love your Dynamic people you are I have so many good quality speakers out there we try not to position ourselves as the sparkle speaker we we know there's an impact you can make by having this well-known Dynamic big personality up on stage for an hour sharing information there's nothing wrong with that we're trying to come at it with a different approach that's all we're not trying to say it's a better approach we're trying to bridge the gap between the stage and the audience and we're trying to be a little bit more a facilitation and a little bit more of a connect in the theater World they call it breaking the fourth wall they have four walls you have the back wall the two side walls and then there's this imaginary fourth wall and sometimes you don't cross that fourth wall and you stay up on stage and you present with a dynamic personality we try to earn the right to break through that fourth wall so we're trying to position ourselves less as motivational speakers and inspirational speakers nothing wrong with that and really thinking of ourselves as facility yeah go ahead that's okay so this facilitation that you do do you have any kind of stats on comparing the two types yeah that we've done that a lot better recently for many years we've been around 27 years we didn't do a great job at pre and post survey results now we're trying to gauge certain metrics one of the metrics we're trying to gauge is not did you like the presentation or not but in six months for the concepts that we shared still in play so we have statistics on what we call like universal language is the language that we shared being used six months from now with a client another thing we try to use as a barometer is retention but not retention of the information but like especially in the corporate world that world well retention of the of the employees are we if we're brought in for cultural morale and for cultural development are we seeing a massive turnover obviously there's going to be turnover naturally if people promote out and as people come in but can we create some good to do some Concepts the company can latch on to behaviors that they can Implement that improves the retention of their employees improves their morale surveys and improves the language that they use and the behaviors that they use on a regular basis so we're trying to grab that information with post post survey and we're Gathering that on the daily but it's a really good question I think how do we score this versus hey that was fun we're trying to we don't want to be that that was exciting that was Dynamic you can go to an improv show you can go to a stand-up comedian you can go watch a hypnotist and that would be fun we're trying to get to where there's a return on the investment yeah it's like you basically bridge the gap from entertainment into the corporate world to educate yeah you said it I mean there's in those terms they use like edutainment and those types of things but yeah I've been thinking a lot and I'd love your take on this too like how do we go from performer to presenter like that's the goal and even go further how I'm my staff they're Dynamic there's some wonderful talented people out there but how do we go from just putting on a performance to actually sharing a presentation and then even further empowering the audience to then run it on their own and I don't mean yeah wouldn't you integrate the two the presentation and the performance absolutely I don't think you go one or the other but I think what happens is we 10 I'm only speaking from my experience just as a human being with feelings and dopamine and serotonin it feels good to perform you get high surveys you do man like you I've seen you you know I've seen you on on the internet I've seen you share messaging it feels good to perform so yes there's a nice balance I feel as human beings we tend to default to the performance because you get Applause instead of presenting tangible practical information that the audience can use on the day they listen shahead there's not a standing ovation when you tell an audience hey we got to get rest we have to create space for other people we must try our best to drink as much water as we can like you don't get a standing ovation for sharing that you don't get information for sharing practical advice but you do get Applause when you share share some sparkles so I think the way I'd like to explain it is there needs to be some sparkle but there must be substance there has to be substance yeah because or else you're performing which is fine but then you're putting on a show yeah you put it on your show you're not getting what they need to get from it yeah I'm sure you experienced this too I used to my pride would be filled when years ago people would say oh that that session was so fun that was so funny but unless we were brought in to bring fun and funny to the room I would rather hear I remember the message or you gave me some practical techniques that I can apply on like a Tuesday when things are tough or a Thursday when I have a lot on my plate or I got a bad email or I had a difficult discussion with a staff member that's I'd rather hear I was able to apply one of your Concepts versus I had a lot of fun and that was funny there's something about that Steve there's some kind of deep meaning from your soul or something when you hear another human being say something like that it touches you way more than any money could I agree man yeah it's talk about like impact and we're not youngsters in that we're not at the tail end of our career she had you know I'm not a 25 year old intern where back in those times I did want the Applause I'll be real with you but no it feels good a year later right someone comes up to you at the Atlanta airport I would say the Atlanta airport because I always feel like I run into people at the Atlanta airport and yeah like hey I just wanted to tell you my name is Owens and I I just remembered my coin we have a concept called coins really simple basic right you have concept basic like coins are things that you value that have nothing to do with what you do for a living or nothing to do with your sport that you play or nothing to do with your military ranks coins are your values the things that make you smile that make you shine it could be people that have impacted you places that are significant to you food that you love and I love running to someone three years later and they say hey I have my coins man I have my coins oh that's awesome that's money and I don't mean that in a play on words way but that's funny yeah do just work with corporations or do you work with individuals as well we do less individual work we will do some like presentation skills training for executives who are preparing for a big keynote speech or a board meeting or even like a TED talk but for the business model we like to work in teams we like to work in Grooms we find that the interactivity the role playing and the exercises we've developed are just more conducive in a small group or in a large group but yeah the one-on-one training is not a core part of our business but we'll refer those out and every now and then I'll take that on as like just a passion project like an executive right now who's preparing to do a big keynote for a franchisees owners of McDonald's and she's working through her speech and I'm supporting that but it's mostly teams mostly groups okay in your curriculum mile you emphasize the power of honesty humility positive humor can you share some examples that entrepreneurs can learn from that they can apply yeah I'll start with that reference thank you for mile the acronym is Mystery incentive laughter and empowerment so that's the acronym m-i-l-e so one thing we'll do early let's say you and I were working together and you had a meeting a board meeting let's say just you were meeting with your staff whatever maybe 20 people I'd encourage you look at your presentation and see if you can score it simple and what do you mean Steve what do you mean score it like is there a four is there do you have a one on the mystery is Mystery involved in your presence I don't mean like a scavenger hunt is there an element of intrigue and mystery as you share with your staff like it could be an email that says hey I'm looking forward to meeting with everyone and we're gonna have an exciting day that's mystery have do you have a little bit of incentive in that conversation in that meeting yeah is there a little bit of laughter I don't mean laughter like trying to be the funniest person in the room so sorry Steve so basically what you do is when you have your presentation ready you just do this checklist that you kind of share right now that they can go in through that presentation if they don't they can try to incorporate some of that and see and skill the difference between not doing it or doing it in your presentation perfectly said perfectly said yeah if the mile scores out as a Ford beautiful you have a little mystery a little incentive a little laughter and a little empower government for the audience if it scores out of a three let's take a look at it maybe you need a little bit more laughter we can add a little just a little bit of levity it could be like just the way you open the meeting if it's a two like you score a two I would as a as a colleague I would say let's take a look what's going on if you have no mystery no incentive no laughter empowerment we might be in a position where we have a really flat presentation and like you said it perfectly put it through the mile lens if you put your presentations your meetings to the mile lens it's a checklist it could takes about five minutes you're putting yourself in a place to go back to our original conversation where your audience may be in a better place to care about your message and they may be able to then remember the message so you don't tell the same message over and over again because as Leaders it's an entrepreneur it's hard to build a business if we're doing the same speech over and over again we have to have growth and you have to so the whole entire purpose is gross yeah that's great now when it comes to public speaking yeah can you share some tips that entrepreneurs can Implement immediately to Jazz up their presentation yeah I love this question I'm going to answer it two ways cool no 100 yeah so one is before the presentation this is the part that's not exciting I tell every presenter you've got to rest well fuel well and move well you must and I don't mean run emrette try to get some rest because it's very important because sleep deprivation is real yeah so yeah rest fuel I don't mean just mean eat well but what are you listening to before your presentation what are you consuming yeah who are you talking to who's your lifeline on the phone what music prepares you to be in the right mindset what are you watching on the internet and then the last one is move not just do some exercise I think it's important to move I don't mean go out and run a marathon I can't my body's not geared to do 26 miles but do some movement but also think about what impacts you so my my big note would be for all public speakers make sure you're resting fueling and moving well and then on a really practical note my theory is if you can get in the space that you're public speaking an hour early I know this sounds so simple walk through that space you know get to see what the audience is seeing sit in the chairs of the audience look at your presentation from a different literally a different Viewpoint so that would be my other just by many but one note is just sit in the like literally sit and get it like walk in their shoes sit in the audience's seat look at it from the front row the back row the middle row and you'll have some empathy when you get on stage because you sat where they're sitting that would be a simple yeah like simple technique how I refer to it you go into the energy of the person so if you want to shift your perception you go into the energy of that person what are they perceiving similarly what you're referring to is the audience going to that audience energetically and see that they're experiencing yeah I think Productions are set up sometimes I had like the big ones to almost where there's a division between the presenter and the audience and I'm talking big presentations and I'm not talking like board meetings and small company meetings when you go to these events you've been to them you've spoken they're set up to where it's hard to connect to the audience the lights are big there's backlighting there's a big production so even more so when you go to those spaces come off the stage and sit like you said sit in that chair and feel the energy and the spirit in the room so when you actually are on stage going back to what we talked about you're still performing but you're also able to present and you're still having some sparkle but you're also like able to bring some substance and I think a lot of that comes from the pre the preparation it's not like you're adjusting on golfers yeah it's a pre-work you don't go to a golf tournament and just change your swing in the middle of the tournament all those tweaks are done on the practice round on the putting green I'm just using a golf metaphor but it's drier yeah get into a flow State when you're on stage yeah same with entrepreneurship for example we always see that do the pre-work meaning get the foundation right get your mindset right yes poor entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship just looks glamorous from the outside but it's a tough journey and you have to have that right State of Mind to embrace this journey it's similar that you want to do the pre-work the pre-work sometimes has way more power to what you're going to accomplish still said and it reminds me she had like when things go wrong in entrepreneurship which is better than anyone like it's not an overnight success there's no overnight success man I know you've heard that I've heard if you have a foundation whether public speaking or you have a foundation for your business when things go wrong you can go back to that core Foundation I'll give you an example yeah I'm not going to do the core Foundation of our company but as a we're going into public speaking presentations which I appreciate you diving into as part of our core competency but we have three rules of engagement when we present and I encourage all entrepreneurs to have their company pillars their Foundation but also if you're getting into public speaking and presentations what are your rules of the game so we have three one is laugh with not at that's a big rule laugh with not at yeah laugh with not at so when we're using humor yeah when we're using humor we're not trying to make fun of people we're not trying to shame people we laugh because we're using a lot of interactivity second pillar and they're not in order there's three is to have each other's back and what that means is to honor people's names to honor their culture to give people the physical space and then the last one is to celebrate small wins so if you think about those are three basic rules of the game that we teach all of our Consultants so when something goes wrong like you were saying with entrepreneurship you're not chasing scenarios you're not like preparing for what if someone gets upset what if this word upsets if you follow these three rules if you follow these three rules you know what chances are common sense and critical thinking and come they'll come to the surface and you'll be able to navigate that's what I really want the listener the viewer to take away is when you're presenting what are your rules of your what are the rules of your presentation that you can go back to when there's a tricky moment or you lose your train of thought or there's a challenging question or the air conditioning goes out or whatever yeah yeah also is the attention that we tend to divert towards our own self meaning how do I look how am I performing how am I walking how am I sounding are you gonna like me are they not gonna like me is am I going to do a good job that is like the horror of speaking because from there you lose that concentration of adding value to the people that you're speaking to and I just want to confirm I've never spoke in public speaking on the stage it is one of my goals one of my desires and put it out there if there's any opportunity anywhere I'll love to go and take it on but it is something that I desire to do I haven't done it except for the show I do it every day so that's what I was saying earlier when I said I've seen you like you've done this is yeah but if this you bring up two really interesting first of all two interesting points but first of all I have your back and I will support you if you want to do that my friend you got it we call it a sounding board you've got a sounding board right here okay a sound chat oh I love it I love it but you are presenting Shahid and that's important that I do want to drive home and then I want to remember another point you reminded me of as well about wanting to be liked on stage so don't forget that but I really encourage everyone that thinks about public speaking and presentation you're all presenters in some form or fashion you are absolutely a public speaker you do a podcast you do it every day right or five days a week every day yeah dude you're presenting you might be presenting when you volunteer coach your child's volleyball team you're presenting when you walk in the supermarket and there's a mother with her children and she needs a smile and a nod everyone has to stop thinking about presentation as a big Ted talk or the arena presentation or I do believe we default to what corporate presentation you immediately picture like the stage the back lights the blue lights with the black curtain and the PowerPoint that's a form of presentation you know what else is a presentation if you are meeting with three colleagues and you're talking about the week ahead you are presenting and if we think of it that way it's accessible and it's not as dog simplifies it yes if you think of presentation as like an arena show you know let me use a metaphor if you think of running as a marathon no one's going to run except for marathon runners because it's just so daunting like 26 miles save it I can't do that but if you make it accessible and say no running could also be you just taking a nice jog I can do that and that's what I like to do for presentation is make it accessible and say don't make it something that's so lofty that you can't reach it so you are a public speaker my girlfriend you are presented you're doing it every day in a podcast yeah thank you Mom I'm not yeah I know that's wonderful great way to point that out I want to frame it complicated yeah things unnecessarily we put things on a pedestal especially when we're in entrepreneurship and we compare comparison syndrome that we're always comparing with others we're basically putting other people on a pedestal and the most valuable the most beautiful the most amazing person is within is that person themselves come on and they lose that Focus to the others so we do a lot of harm to ourselves yeah you said it and it's a phrase I hear I think it's Teddy Roosevelt I don't know it's your comparison is the thief of Joy it's not my phrase but it's true you brought up something it is you look at others and you see it on social media and everyone's humbled and blessed and everyone's dominating the day and everyone's winning them now and they're doing great and they and then it's like you said there's the growth is in the preparation and the hard work and the failure but you've got something yes I'm sorry to interrupt you that connects back to what you said it's much harder to be consistent if it's complex but you mentioned Simplicity allows for consistency and high skills right simple skill that's actually perfectly said simple skills and I've been guilty of complication I have we have a tricky curriculum it's interactive and sometimes I'm like oh let's make it even more advanced no one has ever given us feedback which I had no one's ever said I wish it was more interactive to us to Game On no one like gives us feedback and says I wish it was more engaging but we have to be careful that we don't complicate things because it'll work once but it's hard to scale true said Steve can you share what you feel your innermost superpowers that got you to this point in life uh I think of a question off of that question I will answer it there's a question that a coach shared with me years ago that said what is something that you're really gifted at doing that's not really common with other people and I thought that question is similar to what you just said I was ready to answer and I realized it's harder than I thought because if it's if I'm gifted at it it I don't know if it's uncommon to others I just assume so yeah and also it's hard to answer this question because you don't want to sound arrogant but with all that said I have a lot of blind spots or areas I want to improve but the one area where I've always found consistency is in being able to use interactivity and improvisation to see the giftings in other people and expose those giftings so I have a ability thing of gifts through aircraft yes you're doing something that's slightly unnatural for other people if you took me ice skating you would get a great personality assessment of me I'm not an ice skater I have never been I've been on the ice twice so if you pulled me on the ice I'd become you'd see all the stuff you need to see like you'd see my ability to work through stuff you'd see my way to masking my insecurity with humor like you it'd be a personality assessment improvisation is somewhat similar in that it's fairly unfamiliar with people for people so when you put people safely through improvisation I can start to see are they someone who speaks three languages are they more analytical than they are abstract are they are they good listeners do they have high empathy and I'm able to be present in those interactions and then I have an ability to see those people and expose and I said that word exposed because it's a tricky word expose those giftings allow them to be surfaced let the audience Point them out like even for you you are extremely confident in being methodical with your pace like you have a great ability in this interview to not rush things to not try to fill the space you have a really nice ability to just be present and not worry that every moment is not going to be filled and that's something I picked up in this conversation it relaxes me but that's one of your gifts so you've done a good job present moment awareness I've been doing it for quite a while but it calmed everything down yeah so that would be my answer to that I think a beautiful question I think it's a question everyone should answer and it's not arrogant you're allowed to say what your gifting's on you're allowed to ask your friends hey what do you think I'm good at like I tell my friends if you're always the person that people come to solve problems you might be a good Problem Solver yeah no worries these are gifts we have these special gifts every human being and that's what I try to do here I'm just trying to pull that out so people can see that there's some hidden gems and everyone so the person who's watching and hearing that they can also sense that hey wait a minute what is my super what is my gift within what is my superpower within what if they find something that completely changes their future just based on that thought because sometimes we don't like you said it might seem arrogant but sometimes we don't look within or we don't look at ourselves so it's a way to get people to become self-aware if that makes sense and then give them practical tangible techniques to run the play like we go back to our conversation it's nice to hear that was fun you know what's really nice hey shahad hey Steve or any one of our Consultants thank you for putting me in a place where I could find my voice and because of that I am doing a TED talk next year like that yes is the kind of feat and it's happened and I don't take full credit in fact I just say hey I was just there to expose it you did it but to go and find someone who's been labeled quote unquote as an introvert whatever and then you do an improv scene and you show them that they've got it and they do it and they're like wow I can do this I just never have been given the microphone before I've never felt safe in front of a room and I've been told I'm more of math science I'm told I'm more behind the scenes I'm told I'm more introverted I'm more analytical next single person's running sound instead of being on stage and then when you get them on stage hold on a second you have just as much to share as the sparkle speaker maybe even more yeah yeah when I work with people on mindset say it's not me doing I'm just the pointer so you can look at it like being the pointer you're pointing them in the direction I like that but they are producing the results at the end of the day yeah thank you yeah no go ahead no go ahead please I was just it reminds me what you share that when we are moving off of being uh High energy performer and adding some substance you can get to that point you know what I mean what you just said you could be a pointer if you're only standing on stage just presenting information I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but it's a one-way street it's presenter sharing information audience consuming that information and there's time and place for that but if you want to get to that point and I don't mean to have a play on words but you are pointing out other people that'd be a good title for a book my friend yeah then you've the only way to get there is to create some intimacy and break the fourth wall and go from like I said performer to facilitator yeah and connect Heart to Heart yeah yeah no it's good improv can do that for sure especially if it's the rules are honored that's the other thing yeah you can't do interactivity without a purpose that's a big one for me man if you're gonna make you know don't Google don't Google team building on the internet and just grab some hula hoops man it'll it could jack people up there I'm not saying it has to have the deepest meaning but I just encourage everyone who does interactivity and engagement to really think about what's the purpose of this interactivity yeah what do you so if you have purpose you'll have a reason to do it and it's beyond oh let's just have some fun and be goofy that's when it starts to get weird and people start to rub each other's shoulders and everyone feels awkward and everyone's giggling but the laughter's not coming from safety the laughter's coming from just a sense of uncomfortableness you know yeah purpose coming from the why it makes a huge difference yeah in the performance and what you're doing and the information you're trying to convey Steve I want to say thank you for joining us today and investing your precious time to serve the community and help them become better public speakers or wherever we could have added value today but definitely your time is appreciated and thank you so much for coming on our show tonight I appreciate you like I said your heart your pace your tone and I can tell you're doing this on the daily you've got a nice Rhythm I appreciate it and I'm gonna shift for a second if folks want to be a part of our community and I'm going to support your community Shahid we're at gameonation.com you've been so good about allowing us to like share this podcast once it gets rendered and we're our Focus right now is just to create a community and they can do that by subscribing to our newsletter and our blog which I'll share through your channels and that's it there's no there's no sell right now it's just let's be a community and let's share good resources and that share videos and blogs and content so we can all see ourselves as presenters that's going to be our mission with the game on so yeah gameonation.com thank you and all I believe you provided your assistant provided information into booking survey and they should have all the links okay we'll grab all that and add it in the show notes so if you guys are watching or listening just check out the show notes below for that information I appreciate you guys for joining us for another episode with Steve and yeah let's make public speaking uh very simple and easy thing to do like second nature as we need to do it all the time for the people that are around us we don't have to be an actual paid speaker but we're doing it all the times especially if you're selling or if you're dealing with your family it doesn't matter you're public speaking I appreciate you bringing that awareness and thank you so much once again and definitely keep in touch I will I enjoyed this conversation thank you my friend [Music] super super