Speakipedia Podcast #17: Bill Stainton

Transcript

?Dave Bricker (00:01)

Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakepedia Media brought to you by speakepedia .com. I'm your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk, smart strategies, and amazing stories from visionary speakers and thought leaders. For 15 years, my guests produced the longest running, highest rated, and most award winning regional comedy TV show in the United States.

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Now, as a Hall of Fame keynote speaker and innovation consultant, he helps leaders future -proof their businesses and become one of the cool kids in their industry. Please welcome 29 -time Emmy Award winner Bill Staunton.

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Bill Stainton (00:44)

Hey Dave, how are you doing?

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Dave Bricker (00:45)

Excellent, Bill. Thanks for being here today. So, Bill, you speak about creativity and innovation. And why is it that some people just don't think of themselves as creative? And what can they do about it?

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Bill Stainton (00:47)

You bet, good to see you again.

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Yeah, this drives me crazy, Dave. And you know, people like this, I'm sure I'm just not creative. Right. And you say, come on, just use your imagination. I don't have one of those. Yeah. I think it comes down to one simple thing. I mean, there's, there are a multitude of things, but I'm, I'm, I like simplifying things. Basically. I think so many people think of creativity slash innovation and here I'm lumping them all over there.

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they're not the same thing, but I'm going to lump them for the purposes of this conversation, of this part of the conversation. They think of creativity slash innovation as a private club. And it's only open to people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and you know, the visionaries, the geniuses, the people who invent the spaceships and, and, and the iPhone and you know, those kinds of people, but you know, it's, it's so it's, it's for them. It's not for us. It's a, it's a.

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private club to which we are not invited. It's like there's this velvet rope, there's the bouncer outside the door saying, you can come in, you can come in. Whoa, whoa, not you, not you, you're not one of us. And the truth is creativity, innovation, it's not a private club. It's an open playground and everybody's ready. But just that idea that it's a private club.

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You've got to be a genius. You've got to have an IQ way over 200 to be a member. You've got to, you know, again, you've got to be Steve jobs. You've got to be an expert in AI or electrical engineering. You've got to be an inventor. You've got to know how to code in Python and C plus plus and all those. None of that is true, but that persistent misconception keeps some people, maybe even most people from even trying, you know, they see in their mind, they see that.

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private club sign and so they don't even try. They just walk past and go like, that's not for us, that's for the other people. No, no, no, it's for us. So I think that's the first big barrier is letting people know that no, you're a member, we all are. We're all welcome into this.

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Dave Bricker (03:13)

Yeah, so we're all allowed to think of ourselves as creative. But don't all kids start out loving their crayons and their watercolors? What is happening to people that causes them to lose that creative spark? It's sad.

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Bill Stainton (03:17)

Yeah.

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Well, you know, Ken Robinson, I don't know if you've seen his Ted Talks or Ken Robinson. It's the most watched Ted. I think it's still the most watched Ted Talk of all time. And for good reason, it's just amazing. It's phenomenally good. He says that basically we have creativity taught out of us in the school system. And, he's the, the basic, we're taught to conform. We're taught to come up with the right answer. We're not taught to ask questions. We're taught to come up with the right answer.

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That's what gets rewarded. There's a lot of truth to that. I think that tends to vilify the educational system. And again, there's some validity to that, but to give credit to the educational system or actually to take them out of it, what happens, I think Dave, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this too, that look, when we're young,

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from birth through whatever, five, six, seven years old, we're learning everything because everything's new to us. And we don't know what's important and what's not. We've got this part of our brain called the reticular act, the reticular activating system, the RAS, reticular activating system, which basically its primary job is to filter out distractions, to filter out the things that aren't important because there's so much stuff coming in.

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You know, we can't, we can't possibly take it all in. So that part filters everything out when we're very, very young. It doesn't know what's important yet, which is why kids are like, you know, three year olds and four year olds can learn. I mean, they could learn 10 languages fluently if they were exposed to them. I mean, they it's learning is easy for them. And so they're naturally curious because their brain that that's its job. Its job is to be curious about the world.

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which drives parents crazy sometimes when their two year old is getting into everything. That's the job though. They're trying to learn everything. As we get older, we start to figure out certain things. So our reticular activating system says, okay, that's been figured out. We no longer need to explore that area. Which is why it's harder to learn languages as an adult. Because literally that part of the brain that's designed to learn languages has sealed off. It seals off around the age of.

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12 or 13, because it kind of figures, okay, by now you've gotten your language. So when adults try and learn languages, it's more difficult because of neuroplasticity. We're actually learning languages in parts of the brain that were never designed to learn languages. That's one of the great things that our brain can do, but it's harder. So what happens is that as we grow, like imagine if you, I've been driving for quite a few years now, I'm sure you have too. Imagine if every time you got behind the wheel of a car, Dave,

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your brain had to figure out, okay, where's the brake pedal again? Where's this? what does this button do? what does this lever do? You know, there's a certain point where we stop being curious and creative about how to drive a car because we've got it figured out. So the older we get, the more stuff we've kind of figured out. And so we're no longer in the practice of being curious and looking at things. We still have the ability for out of practice because

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We haven't really had to since we were kids. Part of that's the education system. Part of that's just the way the brain works and the way the species evolves.

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Dave Bricker (06:59)

Well, I have to say that living in Miami, I think there are a lot of people on the road who do experience that every time they get in the car because the driving is pretty scary. But, but you, but you do talk about the education system and it's interesting because take that classic science question. How do you tell the height of a building with a barometer? Now, of course, the quote unquote right answer is, well, you.

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Bill Stainton (07:07)

That's a fair point, Dave. That's a fair point.

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Dave Bricker (07:26)

measure the barometric pressure at the bottom and you go to the top of the building and so on and so forth. And then there's that kid who says, go to the top of the building, tie a rope around the barometer, lower it to the bottom, measure the rope. There's a kid there who should get two A's for creativity. He probably knows the quote unquote right answer, but he's either doing that or he's measuring the building shadow and the barometer shadow.

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Bill Stainton (07:29)

Right?

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And we know there's a standard.

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As you're the rope.

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Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (07:55)

that kid gets an F. These are not the kids who are getting rewarded.

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Bill Stainton (07:57)

Right. Because this is not the correct answer. It's not the answer we were looking for. Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (08:04)

Right. And the answer that we're looking for is usually not the answer that it's going to move us forward as a society or an industry or whatever. So you have a s -

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Bill Stainton (08:14)

Right. I mean, as, as, as, as Ken Robinson, I think this is part of his Ted talk. I haven't seen it for, for quite a while. I should watch it again. It's always cause it's fun to watch. I think he says that the education suite system we have now was basically designed to create workers for the industrial age. People who knew how to follow instructions, who could learn a skill and do it the right way. And that's no longer the world we live in.

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Dave Bricker (08:44)

Well, we could go down a big rabbit hole there because I mean, I taught at a university. I was a design instructor for 15 years. I taught graphic and web design at the art institutes. But now, especially we've got kids who come into universities to train for jobs that are obsolete. And then by the time they graduate.

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Bill Stainton (08:56)

yeah.

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Dave Bricker (09:11)

and learn skills that will be obsolete by the time they graduate. And then you've got some other kid sitting at home in his underwear watching YouTube videos all day, who is just miles ahead of what they're doing in that university program. And those are the people who are being creative about their own education rather than just buying into the traditional model.

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Bill Stainton (09:26)

Right.

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You're right. Now that's not to say that everybody should just quit college, quit school and just watch YouTube videos. Cause for every multimillionaire YouTube influencer, there are a million that want to be, but aren't. They want to be MrBeast, but they're not. You know, MrBeast is MrBeast. So I think that what the education system really should be teaching is how to think, how to think differently, how to think creatively. Because that...

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Dave Bricker (09:49)

True.

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Bill Stainton (10:04)

That's your insurance policy. That's your master key. As I say in my keynotes, innovation is the master key because we don't know what the future is going to look like. I mean, we know in broad terms somewhat, but in more specific terms, we don't know what things are going to look like one year from now, much less five or 10 years from now. So we can't train for that. We can't train for a future that we can't know.

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What we can train for is to teach our brains how to be innovative, how to see situations differently so that no matter what comes down the pike in the future, our brain can handle it. We can see the opportunity where everybody else just sees challenge and problems and headaches. That's what innovation does. That's why innovation is the master key and that's what should be taught. And again, we all have that ability. We just have to...

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Dave Bricker (10:51)

Love that.

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Bill Stainton (11:02)

Remember or be taught how to reuse it, which is what I do in my keynotes and in my consulting, in my writing, all that sort of thing. I try to tell people, look, here's how you do it. And it's not that hard. It's easier than people think.

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Dave Bricker (11:18)

Well, I agree, it's always been compulsory for me. I mean, I can't help it. I've got ideas just fly. Right, right. And that's the fun. Now on your website, you say creativity is worthless, but innovation is priceless. And that seems like that ties right into what we've been talking about.

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Bill Stainton (11:25)

your lifelong learner.

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Yeah, and I've gotten some flack for that. I've gotten some criticism for that, but I think it's because here I am a quote unquote creativity expert saying creativity is worthless. Here's what I mean by that. And this is where we differentiate between creativity and innovation. Earlier, I kind of lumped them together for convenience sake, but now they are different. They're not synonymous. They're not the same thing. Creativity is a

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part of innovation, but it's only a part of innovation because innovation also involves evaluation and implementation. Creativity is just coming up with the ideas. Creativity, I mean, and that's important. It's vital. Creativity is the seeing things differently. It's the connecting the dots, which is one of the main things I talk about. That's what creativity is. But it's basically coming up with ideas and ideas in and of themselves are worthless.

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How many times have you had or know somebody who had an idea that they think, I should have, you know what, I had the idea for the pet rock. I had the idea for the, by the way, I wonder when we're going to stop using the pet rock as an example, but you know, I had the idea for the iPhone. I had the idea for whatever. Doesn't matter. Look, that's Harry Potter. I had the idea for those books. Well, yeah, but you didn't write them down. J .K. Rowling did. You know, it's the taking the creativity, which is just the ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

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Ideas are easy to come up with and there are techniques and I teach that, those techniques, because that is the starting point. Actually, it's not quite the starting point. It's one or two steps in, but first define the problem, whatever. So coming up with all the ideas is one thing, but at the end of that process, what do you have? You got a sheet of paper with a whole bunch of ideas on it. If that's all you ever have, then you've got a sheet of paper with a bunch of ideas on it. It's only, that's why I,

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sometimes say innovation, my definition of innovation is turning creativity into money, which means taking those ideas, the creativity and turning it, turning them into something of value. Now that might be actual money in terms of a product or a service. It could be a savings in money. It could be making somebody's life better, but something of value. That's what innovation is taking a create, solving a problem creatively to create something of value. So turning creativity.

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into money. So creativity in and of itself, if you just stop there, worthless innovation, priceless.

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Dave Bricker (14:12)

Love that. And it's interesting, let's move into this creativity and innovation theme when it comes to the art of speaking, because where I see that mirrored is somebody has written this great speech, Forsg?rd seven years ago, our fathers, right? And then they memorize it.

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Bill Stainton (14:30)

brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition of all men to create equal, now we are engaged in a great civil war.

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Dave Bricker (14:35)

We've got it, but...

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Right, but that's how they present it because they've got the words memorized, but they don't have the implementation down. And that's where the creativity happens because that particular speech, I've done workshops on that speech where you break it down and teach people to deliver it and go through the way the words are emphasized. So when it comes to this art of speaking, which you've got to write a great speech, you've got to deliver a great speech and you have this.

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Bill Stainton (14:46)

Now.

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Yeah, two different skill sets. They're related, but two different skills. By the way, just quickly, have you read Gary Will's book, Lincoln at Gettysburg? As soon as we're done with this, go to Amazon, buy it right away, you will love it. It's fabulous. Anyway, yeah, sure.

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Dave Bricker (15:11)

Right.

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I have not, but now that I know it exists, I will.

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Super, thank you for that. Thank you for that. We could go, that's another rabbit hole. That particular speech has so many nuances in it, it's brilliant. But when it comes to this approach, you have this three tiered concept where speakers should approach a presentation as a writer, as a producer, and as a performer. So let's talk about these in order because the first one, when you're a stage actor,

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Bill Stainton (15:31)

Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (15:55)

Your job is to interpret the script. That's somebody else's writing. You don't change Shakespeare or Lincoln for that matter. You interpret it. But as speakers...

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Bill Stainton (16:01)

Yeah. Right. Right. Plus you also have a director. If it's a stage play, you've got a director doing the blocking. Like stand here and then cross over here and move here. You've got somebody doing the lighting. You've got somebody doing the sound. You've got, I mean, your sole job is to deliver the lines in a great way. It's to perform. That's it. Keynoters don't have that luxury.

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Dave Bricker (16:11)

Mm -hmm.

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And acting is right because we write our own material most of the time or we have somebody write our own material. But talk about this creative speech writing process. What are some tips and maybe some pitfalls that you see?

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Bill Stainton (16:43)

Well, so we talked about the three lenses through which I look at it as a producer, writer and performer. And I do that because I've won Emmy's. There's some right there.

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Dave Bricker (16:54)

Hey, what do you know? I didn't notice those, Bill. Thanks for pointing those out.

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Bill Stainton (16:57)

Yeah, sure. And there's a whole bunch more downstairs and then a bag of broken ones in the garage. But you think about a keynote speech or just a speaker in general. I mean, I'm primarily a keynoter, so that's kind of my context, where I come from. But we are, first and foremost, we are the producer of our keynote. And the producer, and...

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That has two sides to it. There's the producer part of us that looks at the room we're going to be speaking in and going like, Ooh, what are the sight lines like? What's the audience experience going to be? Is the stage clean? Is it, you know, do I have room to move around? You know, that, that sort of thing, but also as a producer.

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Dave Bricker (17:39)

What am I gonna do with this stupid lectern?

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Bill Stainton (17:42)

Right, right, what are we gonna do with the lectern? great, I've got audience way over here and audience way over here and a huge aisle in the middle. So, all those things go into being a producer. But then there's also the producing part where you figure out, and this is what I did when I produced my TV show. I produced a comedy TV show for 15 years. And part of my job was to figure out, okay, well first off, how do we format the show? Like how many commercial breaks are we gonna have?

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How long is the show going to be? How are we going to typically start and end each show? And how are we going to start this specific show? How are we going to end this specific show? What goes here? What goes there? What goes in the show? What doesn't go in the show? You know, the writers and I pitched a lot of ideas. I had to decide, okay, what's going to make it in? What's not going to make it in? That's your job as a keynote speaker or as a speaker of whatever kind you do. If I say keynote speaker and you're not a keynote or those of you watching this or listening to this, please just...

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you know, do the translation on your own if you don't mind. But part of our job is to figure out, okay, what goes in, what doesn't go in? And that's driven by where our expertise intersects with the audience's need. And so often I see speakers, they just talk about all kinds of things because they like talking about it, but the audience is like, this doesn't relate to us. So it's figuring out what makes it in, what doesn't make it in.

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And then how do you, what we used to call routine it, like what comes first, what comes second, what comes third? How do you open? How do you close? Cause those are the two most important parts of any speech. So, you know, you don't want to just open with, how is everybody? come on. You can do better than that. How is everyone? Yeah, good morning. Right. And you don't want to end with Q and A because Q and A is giving you the control of the ending, which is.

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Dave Bricker (19:31)

Good morning! I can't hear you!

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Bill Stainton (19:40)

the most important part to the audience. You know, you want to keep that control yourself, but then in the middle, how do you routine it? How do you decide what goes here, what goes there, what goes there? Most speakers just kind of do a chronology of their idea, whatever they're gonna talk about. Well, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. They don't think about the emotional ride that they want to take the audience on. Like, it's been kind of flat for the last five minutes. I, I,

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I probably need to throw some humor in or something, maybe a video, maybe an audience exercise, maybe, you know, something. You know, when I was producing my TV show, I always had to think, okay, like what's, what's going to be the highlight of this act? And what about this act? Cause we had four acts, three internal commercial breaks. That's inside baseball. But, you know, so I had to think, okay, what's, what's going to keep this fresh for them and keep it changing. I didn't see that coming. Ooh, that's cool. Didn't see that coming. Most speakers don't go.

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just don't think about that because they don't think of themselves as a producer. We talked about producer, writer, performer. Well, they certainly see themselves as a performer because you get up on stage, it's kind of hard not to see yourself as a performer. And we see ourselves as writers because we're coming up with material. But most speakers I talk with, the whole idea about being a producer is kind of new to them. They don't look at their speech, their presentation, whatever it is, where there's a...

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one hour keynote or a three day training as a journey that they're taking the audience on and the audience has to have these, these peaks and valleys. that's, that's all part of being the producer. It's a vitally important job because everything else flows from that. If you've got a really boring flat structure, I don't care how good a performer you are. I mean, if you're a great performer, you might be able to entertain them for an hour, but

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It's gonna be like one of those popcorn movies that you forget about as soon as you leave the theater or turn off Netflix.

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Dave Bricker (21:44)

And we've both seen content free speakers who managed to keep the audience on their feet for an hour and everybody's cheering. And then the next day it's like, that was great. Do you remember anything about it? No, I just had a good time.

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Bill Stainton (21:56)

Right. And look, there are places where a speaker like that might be what a meeting planner wants. Maybe after lunch, just to get the energy. Now you probably don't want to give them an hour, but somebody just to get the energy back up. Okay, now onto the content again. But if you're an openings keynote or if you want to charge higher fees, you've got to deliver more than just a good time.

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Dave Bricker (22:21)

And it's interesting because I remember at our NSA chapter, we had a speaker come in one time and address us and say, you are not a speaker. You are a subject matter expert. And I just thought, I reject that with every fiber of my being, because if you're a subject matter expert, yeah, you're going to lecture from A to B to plenty of Z's because it's just.

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Bill Stainton (22:37)

Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (22:47)

data, it's just information. Being a subject matter expert is cost of entry. But then there is that production and of course the ability to deliver it, but to take that audience on a journey rather than just educate them.

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Bill Stainton (22:54)

Right.

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Yeah, you've got to remember that you're, you're putting on a show. I mean, even if you're a content speaker, if you get up there on stage with a microphone, with an audience, it's a show. The audience is sitting back as if, and they're about to watch the show. And the only thing they want to know right off the very top is, is this going to be a good show or a bad show? Yeah. And so even if you're like a heavy duty content speaker, this is not a college lecture where they have to be there necessarily. Now.

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If you're speaking for a corporation and like, okay, this is a mandatory employee in service thing. Okay, that's fine. They have to be there, but you can still give them a show. You can still make it engaging. If not entertaining, at least engaging. I mean, that's, that's kind of our job, especially if we're a professional speaker. If we're going to call ourselves a professional speaker,

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We better have something to show for it.

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Dave Bricker (24:05)

I completely agree with you. And I was, it's interesting because we're talking about a keynote is a show and I was talking with Kelly Swanson not long ago about this. Yeah. Well, how this idea that it's the whole industry is kind of inverted because the big money is in that 50 minute keynote. The big takeaway for the audience is in that workshop, whether it's 90 minutes or half day or whatever, because they're actually getting.

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Bill Stainton (24:13)

yeah, talk about a show, yeah.

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Dave Bricker (24:34)

getting to work on stuff rather than watch a show. So if you think about it, the workshops should get those big keynote fees versus the other, but we won't, we won't.

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Bill Stainton (24:45)

Well, I'll push back on that just a little bit because, because I'm a keynote. the level of expectation and the pressure and the responsibility is so much higher on the keynote. Cause you're, you're, you're the general session. especially if you're the opener, which is where I tend to, to, to be the meeting plan. I mean, to a very large extent, the success or failure of the entire event.

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rests on the shoulders of that opening keynoter. And the successor failure of the memory of that event rests very much on the shoulders of the closing keynoter. That's what, you know, the closing keynote is great. People are gonna go like, my goodness, this is a great convention. If the opening keynote is great, they're gonna go like, my goodness, I'm so glad I came to this. And everything else, it's that first impression, first impression, last impression. First impression, the opening keynoter.

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hits it out of the park, they're gonna go like, my gosh, this is such a great convention. So now they already have that mindset of this is a great convention. So everything else becomes easier. I mean, you're basically making it easier for all the other presenters, because you've already set the expectation that this is a great convention. And that's a lot of responsibility. The breakout speakers don't have that responsibility. They don't have to be as entertaining. Their stories don't have to be as good. They're not being entrusted.

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You go to a convention and you and I have both been to multiple conventions. The opening keynote is great. That's one of, if one of the breakouts that you go to isn't so good, it's like, well that, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (26:27)

Fair enough, you make a good point there. And certainly not putting down keynoting, I like to do my share of it.

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Bill Stainton (26:33)

Sorry, I'm just trying to defend my ridiculously high fees.

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Dave Bricker (26:39)

So coming into that, we're talking about subject matter experts, and there really aren't enough true performers in the speaking business. So what is it about Jason Hewlett, Kelly Swanson, and Mark Schoenbrock? And I'm going to put you in that category because... And I...

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Bill Stainton (26:56)

Wow, okay, at best I'm a junior member of that category. That's...

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Dave Bricker (27:01)

Well, you can declaim it all you want, but, disclaim it all you want, but, I've watched you speak and, and, I know the difference. So accept the compliment, but what is it that gives us an edge when it comes to audience engagement?

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Bill Stainton (27:19)

Well, there's a couple things. First of all, you mentioned Jason Hewlett and I don't know how specific we're gonna get. Jason Hewlett just has unique gifts that other people can't do. He's got a face that can do anything and he's got voice, you know, he can sing and you know, does voices and so that's just kind of a unique talent. He's like, you know, that's like a Jim Carrey kind of talent. Kelly and Mark and to some degree myself, we're storytellers a lot, I mean, and we work on our stories.

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I mean, we craft our stories. Our stories have an arc, just like our speeches have an arc. I mean, you look at Mark, well, any story Mark Sharonbrock tells, he's worked on it. He's got punchlines. He'll take you down emotionally. He's got a story about his father at the Vietnam War Memorial, and it's heart -wrenching.

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And just when you're like, he'll drop in a punchline to relieve the tension. I mean, cause he, he understands that you need to do that. I talk about this sometimes when I'm talking to NSA chapters, national speakers association chapters, that if you're, if you're going to take your audience into the abyss, that's fair, but you've got to let them back up again. Kelly Swanson, she's created this whole, universe for herself, pride's hollow. and which is, you know,

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fictional, but she can tell universal truths through these characters that she's created. Even outside of Pride's Hollow though, she's just a gifted storyteller and a gifted story coach. I mean, she's a phenomenal story coach for other professional speakers who want to take their stories up to a much, much, much higher level and make a much, much, much higher impact. She's great at that. So it does come.

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the stories, but the story isn't just about the writing. We talked about producer, writer, performer. It is about the writing in terms of, okay, what comes here, what comes there, what do I leave out? Again, that's part of being a producer. A story isn't just a chronology. Here's what happened. We've all heard, you know, been around the, let's, the archetypal Thanksgiving table where, you know, great uncle Fred is telling a story and,

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So my neighbor, he had this dachshund and he was a... Yeah, it wasn't a dachshund. What was it? It was a... It turns out that the dog has nothing to do with the story, but he's just a... It was a... It was a... It was a... No, the dog... I'll tell you who had the dachshund. The... The... You know, it's like... What's the story? You know, just tell us what we need to know to get the story, craft the story. So part of that, I mean, so a lot of that's the writing, but then, then, then there is the performing.

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Simple things like, instead of just telling what happens, see if he can make a character say it like using dialogue. And one of the things that, Sharon Brock is brilliant as he, he creates these characters. So it's not just, you know, I said this and my mom said, you shouldn't do that. And I said this, I mean, no, he becomes the mother, he becomes the, the coach. He becomes that. So, I mean, he just, you know, he, he, he, he becomes these.

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these characters. So one, just from a craftsmanship point of view, there's no question in the audience's mind about who's saying what, because they're very distinct, distinct voices, distinct looks, that sort of thing. That's all craftsmanship. That's all, that's all working on the craft as a, as a performer. And then humor is a huge part. There's an old adage around NSA that, you know, do you have to be funny?

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only if you want to make money. And it's true, not universally true, but true enough that if everything else is equal, the funnier speaker is going to get the gig and they're going to get the gig at the higher fee. Because again, it's a show. The audience is going to go, my goodness, that was great. I had a meeting planner say to me once, because let's face it,

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Unless they've actually seen you in front of an audience, which is doesn't happen all that often. They've heard about you from somebody they trust or they've seen your demo reel or something, but you know, but they're taking a chance. I mean, when they give you the microphone, they're giving you their trust. They are trusting you with their audience. And in some cases, their reputation, you know, my, my job is that I want audience members to go up to the meeting planner and say, my goodness, where'd you find this guy? He was great. I want to make the meeting planner a hero.

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for having found me and brought me in. So I had a meeting planner after I was done with the keynote and it went extremely well. So now we're friends, now we're buddies. I said, so yeah, I don't like being in your shoes because I've been there and you're in the back hoping it works. She says, I'll tell you what, she said, I don't relax until I hear the first laugh. And that wasn't just for me.

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because I'm a humorous speaker. My 29 Emmys were for comedy, for producing a comedy show for Crying Out Loud. But that's just for anybody, because as soon as she hears the audience laughs, like, okay, this is gonna be all right. That's how important humor is as far as being a performer. And Mark Sharon Brock has got that. He's laugh out loud, funny, Tim Gard, Kelly Swanson, Jason Hewlett, all the greats, all the Connie Podesta.

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The people you mentioned, boy, they've all got that.

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Dave Bricker (33:15)

Yeah, it's critical, no argument for me there. So Bill, let's talk about the journey because you grew up on a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in Amish country and what led you...

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Bill Stainton (33:29)

Technically I didn't grow up on the farm. The farm was the backyard. That was my backyard neighbors. It was an Amish dairy farm, yeah.

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Dave Bricker (33:34)

Okay, but you came from these rural beginnings into a career in television, 29 Emmy Awards, running a comedy show, and ultimately becoming a National Speakers Association Hall of Fame presenter. How did that happen to somebody with that background? What led you on that journey?

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Bill Stainton (33:54)

I don't know, it's, well, I do have some idea, of course, but it's interesting when Mark Twain turned 70, and back then when Mark Twain turned 70, 70 was really, really old. They threw a party, and at this party he was expected to say a few words. And I can't put it as well as he did, but basically he said, you get to a certain age, 70, which I am not there for.

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And he can't say anybody's wondering, but, you know, you get to a certain age. He says, as you're getting there, it's like, basically you're walking up a hill and every step looks pretty much like the step before. And every step looks pretty much like the next step is going to look like they like, okay. We're just taking a step. And you don't really see things changing until all of a sudden you get to a certain point and you turn around and you look back and go like, my gosh, look at, look at what.

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I did look at what happened look at where I've been. I think that's true for most of us for me it's like I just kind of I don't know I just kind of got there. Obviously there were things that that I did but I didn't have my sights set on I'm going to be a Hall of Fame speaker when I started out I don't think that was a thing. I didn't think I'm going to produce a multiple Emmy award winning comedy TV show in Seattle Washington there was no such thing.

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I will tell you the things that have gotten me the farthest are one, I've always had a sense of humor. I've always been a funny person. Now I'm not, you know, a standup comedian type of person, but I've always had that humor. But just like we were talking about with you, Dave earlier, I've always been a lifelong learner. I've always been curious. I've always wanted to have a, both a depth and a breadth of knowledge.

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the kind of the bar I always set for myself is I want to know enough about everything that I could ask a question that would be of interest to an expert. Like I don't have to be the expert, but if I'm introduced at a party to a person who like this is a person who's an expert on Russian history, I don't want to just say like is Putin bad? What do you think about Ukraine? Anybody would ask that. I want to say, okay, so Nicholas the second good husband, bad husband, you know, things like that.

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Like, that's, didn't see that coming. You know, and I found, I'm sure you have too, the best way to be interesting is to be interested. And if you're talking with an expert and you ask them something that intrigues them, it's like, okay, that's an interesting question. They'll go on for 20 minutes and you just nod and smile. And at the end they'll go, my gosh, you are such a great conversationalist. But part of it is,

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not just, you know, I talk about collecting dots, that innovation is all about collecting and connecting dots. But I make a big point that you want different color dots. If all your dots, I don't have an, it's just out of reach there. I can't get it, but I usually use a sheet of like ivory little, you know, adhesive dots. If all your dots are a three quarter inch Navy blue and say there's 32 of them on a sheet.

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You don't have 32 different ideas. You've got one idea 32 times. If you only ever listen to the same kinds of podcasts, even one as good as this, you know, you're getting one point of view. If you only ever listen to the same newscast, if you only ever talk to the same people about the same kinds of things, if all your dots are three quarter inch Navy blue, then all your connections are going to be three quarter inch Navy blue. But if you start collecting,

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red dots and green dots and ooh, there's a yellow dot over there. Will a yellow dot and a blue dot make a green idea? Now you're making connections that nobody else would make because they don't have that yellow dot. I talked about Steve Jobs when he was in college. He took a course in calligraphy. Calligraphy, he was a computer guy. Calligraphy had nothing to do with computers. No other computer guys were taking a course in calligraphy. They were taking courses in computers. They were reading about computers. They were talking to computer people about computers.

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They were collecting lots and lots and lots of navy blue dots. And those navy blue dots were all about computers. Steve Jobs took a calligraphy course from a monk named Robert Palladino. And he took the course just because he was interested in it. And then when he and Steve Wozniak decided to make their own computer, Steve Jobs connected those dots, which he would not be able to do if he didn't have the dot to begin with.

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He connected the yellow dot, calligraphy, and the blue dot, computers, and said, hey, could we make a computer that does calligraphy? And they came up with the Macintosh, which created the company Apple, which became the first trillion dollar company and led to the invention of this thing, the iPhone, which we all have. Who would have thought that this little ubiquitous device owes its very existence in part to the computer?

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to a Trappist monk at Reed College outside of Portland, Oregon, who taught a course in calligraphy. That's what happens when you collect those different colored dots, when you've got these outside interests, you can start making those connections and coming up with the ideas that nobody else would, it'll give you the competitive advantage because you'll come up with ideas that nobody else in your field could because they don't have those dots. They don't have that experience. They don't have that idea. They didn't read that article.

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on sheep herding in the 17th century. They don't have those dots. Does that make sense?

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Dave Bricker (39:43)

And it completely, and perhaps there's the key there to innovation in speaking, the key to humor is this idea that everything is connected to everything else. And when you can find those connections at.

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Bill Stainton (39:57)

That's what humor is. That's what jokes are. It's connecting two things that don't normally belong together. In comedy, we call it the punchline. In innovation, we call it the iPhone. It's the same thing. Taking ideas that don't belong together and putting them together and finding a connection, a surprising connection. You're exactly right, Dave. That's exactly what you're doing.

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Dave Bricker (40:10)

Mm -hmm.

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Yeah, sometimes one that's been right in front of your face the whole time. And you see, it's like the arrow in the FedEx logo. If for the people who have never seen that, it's between the E and the X. If you haven't seen it, look at the FedEx logo and you go, wow, I've been looking at that arrow all my life. I never knew it was there. When you see it,

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Bill Stainton (40:23)

Yeah. Yeah.

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Right. Right. Right.

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It's right there on a lesser level, the bear in the Toblerone logo. You look at the mountain, it's a bear. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, those kinds of things. Mm -hmm.

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Dave Bricker (40:42)

Mm -hmm.

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Right. And it's just connecting. And when you can get somebody else to connect the dots, that's where an education happens and inspiration happens. Because if I tell you A is connected to B, it's like, OK, you got half the Pythagorean theorem there. So what? I'm going to sleep. But if I can show you that A is connected to B, and if I can.

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Bill Stainton (41:07)

Only if it's the right angle.

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Dave Bricker (41:17)

leads you to conclude that A must be connected to B. Now you never forget it.

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Bill Stainton (41:21)

That's it. If you could lead them to, and that's, I mean, I spent 15 years leading a very creative, innovative team and it's a different kind of leadership. I, I, I talked to a lot of leaders who want to create a culture of innovation. That's, that's most of my consulting work. And I talk about how do you lead a creative team? Because, and by the way, if you are a leader, you are leading a creative team, whether you know it or not, because we're all creative. I mean, you could be leading a, a, a

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creative team. So here's how you do it. And this is where leaders make the mistake. let me go back a little bit to, let's say you're a parent of a one year old who is playing with blocks and your one year old is trying to stack the blocks, but they keep falling over. Some parents will just go and say, no, no, no, no, honey, look, no, do it this way. And they show the kid how to do it.

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And the kid immediately gets bored, doesn't want to play with the blocks anymore because they want to, because they've got that creativity, you know, it hasn't been, you know, educated or learned out of them or whatever. For them, the process, the solving the puzzle is the intriguing part. Creative people, which is why engineers tend to be very creative. Most people don't think that, but engineers love solving a problem. So.

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Here's my advice to leaders who lead a creative team. As the leaders, your job to decide on the destination, the goal, the outcome, the target, you know, what are we trying to achieve? Now you can do that in conjunction with your team or maybe that gets passed on from senior leader, you know, whatever, but somehow you say, here's where we want to go. So you give them the what, here's what we want to achieve. Let them surprise you with the how.

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Let them surprise you with the how. Too many leaders try and give their teams both the what and the how, and they wonder why their teams get bored because you've shown them how to stack the blocks. And you've also done yourself a disservice. You're assuming that your how is the best how, and in some places, sometimes the only how, and that ain't true. If you let them surprise you, like, here's where we wanna go. Now.

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how might we get there and let them surprise you? Man, if you've got smart people there, they love solving those problems. They'll come up with things that you never would have thought of. Some of them will be outlandish, too expensive, too time consuming, just impossible, stupid, whatever. And by the way, and there's value even in some of those, because they could be what I call the idea that leads to the idea. That's stupid, we can't do that, but wait a minute, that happened with my TV show all the time.

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when we would have our pitch meetings, a writer would pitch something that we can't put on television. Because the job of the writer's table is like, there's no self -censorship. Pitch all the ideas. Well, we can't do that. That would be illegal. but wait a minute. What if we turn it this way? What if we apply it to, what if? And all of a sudden we get a great Emmy award -winning idea from an idea that was unfeasible. So, but anyhow.

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As a leader, give them the what, let them surprise you with the how.

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Dave Bricker (44:48)

Love that. And look, as we approach the runway here, I think that this also applies to speakers because a speaker in front of an audience is a leader. And this ties right back into what we were saying about leading the audience to the conclusions rather than lecturing to them. Now, many of our viewers and listeners are new to the speaking game. And so many people these days, I think more than ever, aspire to become speakers. They're

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Bill Stainton (45:01)

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Dave Bricker (45:17)

crowds of people moving into the s -

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Bill Stainton (45:18)

partly because it looks easy when it's done well.

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Dave Bricker (45:21)

It looks effortless, right? Because you don't see the rehearsal, you see the person on the stage. But look, we all continue to work on and craft and grow these skills. Can you talk about being nervous when speaking in front of an audience? And how have you dealt with nerves, imposter syndrome, bombing, all of that stuff that nobody would believe happens to an experienced speaker? They don't see that on the stage, but.

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Bill Stainton (45:37)

yeah.

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Yeah.

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Sure, yeah, and

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I hate to preface by saying at my level, but at my level, I don't really bomb anymore. I mean, there are gigs that I think that went really well. There are gigs where I go like, eh, it wasn't one of my best. Hopefully the audience doesn't notice, because I'm good enough that my C work is as good as somebody else's A work. But as far as nerves and imposter syndrome, that doesn't go away.

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Dave Bricker (46:08)

And I would expect that.

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Bill Stainton (46:22)

look, there are some speakers who don't get nervous or say they don't get nervous. and nervous is kind of a loaded word. I don't tend to use that word nervous. I just think of it. I've got an energy and, you know, you might think it's butterflies. but it is, it's let's just call it a nervous energy. And it happens almost every time, sometimes more than more than others. But, you know, as I'm being,

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More often than not, as I'm sitting there and they're reading my introduction, they're introducing me, more often than not, I wish they were introducing somebody else and I could just watch the show. But I've already been paid, so I've got to get up there and do it. But.

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The key is to use that energy. What we call, what people call nerves and nervousness, just think of it as, okay, you've got an energy. And to channel, okay, how are you gonna channel that energy? One way to channel it, and I discovered this far later in my speaking career than I should, a lot of times when we're nervous, we're thinking about,

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us. I hope they like me. I hope I don't bomb. I hope they laugh at my jokes. You know, so it's all about, I, it basically is I hope they like me. Instead of thinking that before, before you're going on, think of, I can't wait to share this with them. This is, this is good. Now you've got to believe in your, in your content, but the, and, and your delivery and that sort of thing.

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This is good. They need to hear this. They want to hear this. I want them to really get what I have to say, whether they like me or not. It's amazing how that will shift your energy. Now your energy, instead of being directed inwards towards you, now the energy is still there, but you're directing it towards them like, my gosh, I want this to be a great experience.

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for them. I want them to get what I'm saying because it can really help them. What I'm about to say can really help them. So.

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Dave Bricker (48:41)

And I have a little aphorism for that. I always, when I work with nervous speakers, I always say turn nervous into service. Just...

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Bill Stainton (48:50)

That's beautiful. That's exactly. Wow. Wow. Turn nervous into, well, you just said in four words what it took me five minutes to say. Very nice.

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Dave Bricker (48:58)

Well...

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You know, what can I say? So.

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Bill Stainton (49:06)

That's why you're the host. That's why this is your talk.

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Dave Bricker (49:08)

But you know, it only worked because you explained it beforehand. Otherwise, I'd have to say, here's what it is and expostulate on it. So you made my job easy. You made me look good. So thank you for that, Bill. So look, what kind of programs you offer? And if one of our readers or viewers wants to discover more about Bill Staten, where can they find out more about you?

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Bill Stainton (49:33)

Well, if they want to find out about my speaking, then it would be my website, BillStanton .com. And if they...

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Yeah, I do a few times a year, I do very, very limited coaching for other speakers who want to kick their keynotes into high gear or emerging keynoters who want to develop a keynote speech. I say that hesitantly because I don't have time. I'm usually on the road. I don't have time to do too much of this. I do some though.

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So if anyone wants to just contact me, send me an email, bill at billstainton .com. If that's something that might, that sounds intriguing and you want to talk about and see if it's a match, see if it's a good fit, then sure, let's have that conversation.

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Dave Bricker (50:23)

Bill Staten, thank you so much for being my guest today.

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Bill Stainton (50:27)

Dave Bricker, thank you for asking me! This has been A Real Treat.

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Dave Bricker (50:31)

I agree. So I'm Dave Bricker inviting you to explore the world's most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at speakeepedia .com. If you're watching this on social media video, please love, subscribe and share your comments. And if you're listening to the podcast, keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I'll see you on the next episode of Speakeepedia Media.

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