Kris Ward Unpacks Storytelling Struggles with Susanna Lahteela!

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanna-lahteela/

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Susanna Lahteela Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today we have Susanna Lahteela in the house and she is a public speaking coach and we are going to just dive right into it. We’re all about that here, Susanna. We just get in. So let’s just start. Let’s talk about what you think most people get wrong. Most entrepreneurs get wrong when it comes to public speaking or telling their story or any aspect of that. Where should we start?F

[00:00:31] Susanna Lahteela: Kris, I love this question and thank you so much for having me. Let’s get right into it. That’s my favorite thing to do. Absolutely. So I’ve noticed so many entrepreneurs when it comes to public speaking, first of all, when they get the opportunity, they think it’s just credibility.

[00:00:44] It needs to be all on their titles or all of their credentials and everything. People don’t really care about your title. Unfortunately, it’s true. People care about your story. And this is why, when we get this opportunity as an entrepreneur, if you do get an opportunity to speak on a conference or on a networking occasion or anything, and you get a little bit of stage time, we use that opportunity.

[00:01:08] Too much time off spending off. How have we what have we gained or what are the credentials we have? What are the titles we have rather than sharing more about our authentic story of how have we got there? What have we the hardness that we’ve gone through and all of this kind of stuff.

[00:01:22] That is out of doubt the number one thing I see for entrepreneurs in public speaking, making a huge mistake.

[00:01:28] Kris Ward: Okay, so right off the back, I have two, maybe three conflicting thoughts. Okay. And here they are. For some of us, when you hear about story, the first thing I hear is, this, I think sometimes we overdramatize the story.

[00:01:44] And one of my pet peeves is listen, when you hear people talk about, I slept on a mattress for four years and did all this stuff. And then I say, you know what, they’re highlighting the part of the story that makes them the hero because really for the nature of the work I do, when their journey took a turn, when they made progress was when they put team in place, they put systems in place.

[00:02:03] So they’re glorifying. And I think for some of us, we become really uncomfortable with the idea of sharing anything because there’s so many people over there that exploit it and make it so sensationalized. That then someone like myself, I’m like, I’m not telling a story or I’m not telling it as often.

[00:02:21] Susanna Lahteela: Yup.

[00:02:23] Kris Ward: So do we go back and forth? I don’t know.

[00:02:25] Susanna Lahteela: Oh, I love that point of view for viewers. I, what I actually teach a lot of people at this point, and I’m very brutally straightforward person. So let me be that here as well and stay on my brand is self reflection. We quite often realize that we haven’t really self reflected on our own story or there’s something more holding us back of sharing the story if we don’t feel like authentic enough going on a stage and sharing it.

[00:02:49] Now when you do say like people share oh I slept on a mattress or I was homeless or whatever like there’s a lot of people who uses that and then builds up to their credibility from there. But there’s a big difference between egoistic people sharing their stories and authentic people sharing their stories in the right way.

[00:03:05] And this is where I see such a big improvement for a lot of people of just not being so afraid of being vulnerable and really just sharing what they have gone through in their own words. Because okay. Yeah. Unfortunately, too many people go to chat GPT and tell their stories and say, Hey, can you make a post about this?

[00:03:24] Or can you write a speech about this? This is, unfortunately, many people do this today, but it is such a crucial thing to understand. If you do self reflect about your own life and where have you got with your journey and with everything that has happened in your life, that’s the only way how you can really be able to share your stories on a stage as well.

[00:03:41] So hence why I’m saying off the personal story. So crucial.

[00:03:46] Kris Ward: And okay, so here’s the problem. I agree with you in theory. And I do know when I listen to other people’s stories, you’re right. It makes it more relatable. And we all go through the same stuff. And then I don’t know what happens. I can just feel my back stiffened when somebody asked me to sharing my story.

[00:04:02] And listen, I, when I told you, when I explain my backstory about my business, I will explain that a big part of my backstory is my husband passed away. And I do talk about the fact that for those of you don’t know, I’ll give a condensed version, just that when I started out in business, I worked insane hours.

[00:04:19] And my husband was saying I was always stealing from sleep, getting up earlier and staying later and later. And so I realized something had to change. And I went from working 16 hours a day down to six and it didn’t happen overnight, but luckily it did. Cause a couple of years after that, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was pulled from the business for about two years.

[00:04:37] And that’s when people started to approach me saying, cause I was focused on market messaging at the time. They’re like how did you do that? How could you have been away? We not know. And so that’s when all this, Win The Hour Win The Day unfolded, cause they kept saying could you help us in that capacity?

[00:04:51] And here’s my problem, Susanna, first of all, when I was going through this and I came back to work. Okay. I think I navigated it in a way that was healthy for me because when people would try to bestow sympathy upon me, I would say, listen, everybody has something. This is my something right now. And I would say life has interruption.

[00:05:10] So you better have a business that supports your life instead of consuming it. But I also was very guarded about the fact that. I don’t want this to define him or me. And so I tell that story when I have to, but I don’t write posts about it. It’s not in blogs. It’s, it’s when I have to tell that story, but I think you’re right.

[00:05:31] I guess I should be telling it more, but then I just feel like, I don’t know. I feel like I’m waving the sympathy flag or I’m minimizing his experience by only telling that story.

[00:05:41] Susanna Lahteela: See, I love that. But Kris, you just said. Oh, I don’t, I hate telling my story, but you just told your story. So

[00:05:47] Kris Ward: yeah, I do when I have to.

[00:05:49] Susanna Lahteela: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But when we think about it, and that’s just such a small part of your story. And that’s where we get into the, Oh, but okay. Something brutal and dramatic and huge has happened in a lot of people’s life. And even though it has happened in my life, unfortunately, multiple locations, thankfully I have not lost a loved one yet, but multiple different brutal things has happened.

[00:06:10] That’s not what I let define me. That’s not my stories. I share it’s about the subject of what you’re talking about is where we need to add the personal stories into it. So even though that was a huge thing that happened in your life, that’s not Your story. There’s so much more in Kris. And this is what entrepreneurs do wrong because they think, okay, I need to share my story.

[00:06:29] And it’s always just this one big thing that they think about. But there’s so much more into storytelling. Like your morning could be a story. Your last week could be a story by itself. And all of this could be just bringing more authenticity into your life. Yeah.

[00:06:43] Kris Ward: Okay. That’s a good point. And I think I am getting a little bit better cause I think when it’s your day to day life, we look at each other and say I’m not doing anything interesting.

[00:06:51] And so you’re thinking like but that the non interesting is what helps. And my team is on me about this all the time. And I know I was having a conversation with someone on my team and I said, the reality is. Even I, after all this time, like I, somebody said to me, Kris, you don’t sell the dream and then live the nightmare.

[00:07:09] You practice what you preach. You have evenings and weekends off. You’re very focused on family. You do all these things and I’m into sports and kayaking, rock climbing. Like I’m, I know, and not because I’ve set up my business to scale and it works all that stuff, but I also have learned really painfully several times that you know, you just deplete your efficiency, the more hours you work, that’s just that.

[00:07:29] So even though if I’m away visiting family or take some time off or anything, I still have a twinge of guilt when I come back, like somehow I’ve abandoned my work or, the people that are paying me, I was away for a week. How do I take their money when I’m collecting, I’ve been away.

[00:07:46] So I’ve been on my team said you need to write a post about that because. They all go through that like this. You can’t keep, if you step away from, adding flames to the fire will go out. So I’m getting a little bit better of going, look, I know I learned the lesson. I get it. I don’t look back in time with my husband, my buddy, my best friend say, Oh, I wish I’d worked more when he was here.

[00:08:06] And yet I still have guilt sometimes when I take time off to spend it with family or travel with my family. So I’m learning that’s a story. So I guess where does the story begin and end? How many do we tell? How deep would do we go? W that’s the parameters.

[00:08:22] Susanna Lahteela: Oh first of all, I love what you said, because that’s actually something that I get a lot of people telling me like, Oh, Susanna, you post often, you do these personal posts.

[00:08:31] Like, where do you find these ideas for the posts? Everyone takes pictures nowadays. So just going through your pictures of your phone, just going through them and remembering those feelings that you had. That’s a post right there. But if we go more away towards the posts itself and we go into like public speaking and the aspects that if you do get those opportunities to be on a stage, those are the moments where the story ends and where does it begin?

[00:08:56] That’s the question it ends or it starts where it’s concrete relatable for the meat of your story. So let’s say I would be on a stage talking about three steps how to get better with confidence. Just an idea that I could be talking about. If I have gone through, for example, abusive relationships in my past, that would be the story I would be sharing.

[00:09:17] Or, I have gone through depression in my life, that would be a story I could be sharing. I could choose what is the most relatable subject to share. About this topic that I’m going to talk about because this way I’m not going to go off. I’m not going to talk about my soccer career. I’m not going to talk about anything other than those.

[00:09:34] Those things that really are related for my subject. What I’m talking about. When we think about it, where does the story start and where does it end? It really is. It starts from the beginning of where did the subject start being relatable for you? When did you become the expert of the subject?

[00:09:50] And then how did that story build up? But obviously that could be a two week story to tell or, as long as you could be so condensing the story into the right way is obviously very crucial, but that is in a very nutshell of an answer. Where does it start? And where does it end is to just build up towards the subject that you’re talking about?

[00:10:08] Yeah.

[00:10:09] Kris Ward: Okay. And that’s where it gets confusing. Cause I do know my husband, when I started my business many years ago, he said, cause one of the things I used to say all the time is I guess I was described as a private person. Cause he, I see somebody would say something I’d say, that’s not their business.

[00:10:22] They don’t need to know that. So he said, when I was starting my business, you do know if you’re starting your business, people have to know your business. Like you understand this, right? This is a problem. He’s I’m really worried about this, but I guess too. If I was, this is a horrible thing I’m about to say is if I was an abusive relationship, that’s the last thing I’d want to talk about, which again, please don’t write me.

[00:10:44] I’m, I know that’s shaming the victim and all this stuff. It’s just not who I am. I tend to move forward. I would learn my lessons and move forward. So I think I really still struggle with the fact that obviously it’s something I have to work on is what is the story and why it matters. And then.

[00:11:00] I know recently last like a month ago, we were, me and my friend were kayaking. We fell upon a situation, long story short, where we had to rescue this couple that found themselves in a thing. I said to her, my friend were kayaking and we’re like, we were organized and we did this rescue. I said to her, for the love of God, take a picture because I’m going to have to write a story about this on LinkedIn.

[00:11:18] If I have a story, this, please, I need, we, I need to, I don’t even care. I just want, I need, I Content for LinkedIn, right? So I guess then if you, let’s say you were talking about courage and you’re talking about being in a bad relationship or things like that, I guess at what point does that story does not get overtold?

[00:11:41] Like how do you not over tell the story? How does that meaning or how does it not define you? I just get lost in the mess of the story.

[00:11:50] Susanna Lahteela: I love that. So first of all, as I said, I’m very brutal and straightforward person. That story of you guys rescuing someone is more of a story for the people who went through it and you guys rescued them, you were part of their story.

[00:12:02] So it’s not really your story. And this is why I mean of like the authenticity of our story. So when we think about it, and what you said, and I will tell everybody Not a single blame taken. I don’t feel like you’re belittling my story of a victim from an abusive relationship. So no worries at all.

[00:12:20] But that right there is, if we feel like, oh, I don’t want that to define me. I don’t want that to be there. That’s in here. It’s, nobody will hear it. So me sharing that I’ve been in an abusive relationship will not take any credibility away from me. It’s just, I will share it because people will sometimes come to me saying, I’m so happy.

[00:12:37] I listened to one podcast where you talked about this because I’ve gone through that and I can see you’re a thriving entrepreneur now and go, going on and about because they can see hope and it didn’t take anything away from me. I just shared a little bit more about myself to make that connection to them.

[00:12:52] And people buy from people. So you want to share as many personal stories as you want. Especially as an entrepreneur. So the more hardships you’ve gone through in your life, technically you’re in a better position because if you have the guts to share your stories, you are going to be more relatable with people. And and that’s just, yeah, my perspective.

[00:13:11] Kris Ward: I think you made a really powerful point. I just want to tap into that. You were right. That was not my story to tell. I was part of their story. So I think that’s really profound I don’t know. I didn’t know if you came back. Okay, we’ll click. Yeah. Okay. Hold on 25 okay.

[00:13:32] I think you made a really powerful point that wasn’t my story I was part of their story because they went through whatever they went through and we were the hero of that story So what was the point? There was no learning for me. We just I mean we learned that we were organized We did good, but Okay.

[00:13:46] And then, yes, it wasn’t minimizing. Or disregarding your journey or sharing, your difficulties in an abusive relationship because you’re right. Again, I see this. If I listened to that, I would have got a lot out of that story. I guess I just have work to go on because I just always feel I don’t know.

[00:14:02] I don’t, I, I feel I’m still compartmentalizing. I still feel like I’ll share that over here, but over here we’re talking work, which is not what people want. People have to relate, like I get it. I see it. I relate to people who share and yet it’s still a really big struggle for me.

[00:14:17] Yeah, exactly. And even though it’s a horrible thing to say, following and everything in LinkedIn, obviously is great for an entrepreneurial. And if I look at all of my posts, every personal post does. Three, four times better than any public speaking post I’ve ever done. So it’s really just personalizing everything is making a huge difference.

[00:14:36] Okay, so then let’s look at someone like me and say, all right, I suck at this. I’m not very good at it. I find it uncomfortable and painful and I will share what I have to when I have to. So under those guides, how do we start off and say, okay, do I try to write one personable post a week? And what defines it as personal?

[00:14:56] Cause Hey, I thought that damn frigging kayaking story, I would thought that was something it’s not. So where would I get my reps in and build up my story sharing muscle to follow a formula that would lead me to success?

[00:15:09] Susanna Lahteela: I love that question. Number one thing as mentioned before is self reflection and I’m going to give you a very concrete example or an exercise that you can do or the following or do anybody who’s listening.

[00:15:20] This can do is write down on a piece of paper. Just your name, just your full name in the middle of the paper. And after that. Maybe take a good bottle of wine or a good beer, whichever you enjoy when you do this exercise. Put some headphones on so that you’re really just you with your, whatever music you like to listen to.

[00:15:38] And just write your whole life into that paper. It’s very hard. Oh yeah, exactly. It is a very difficult exercise to do. But when you really choose a big paper, so I, for example, have an A3 paper and I’ve been taping more papers into it because I keep building it. So I call this mind mapping. So you really put your whole persona on a paper.

[00:16:00] And when you put these into categories of like family, life, myself, my friendships, my business, my work past, my my childhood, everything on the piece of paper. And you really put the time and effort into doing this. I know it takes a lot of time. But afterwards, you can look from a third perspective your whole life.

[00:16:19] And that is mind blowing. Because I really, to this day, go back to my mind map looking, okay, I need a speech for two months from now. I have a speaking engagement and someone asked me to talk about confidence or whatever. I go to my mind map and I look, okay, where is my story? What connects to this subject?

[00:16:37] So exactly like that, we can look into our mind map and looking into okay, where is that one thing that I want to talk about in my next week’s LinkedIn post or anything in sub shorts or if we think about okay, I’m a public speaking coach what in my story can be relatable for my audience for my story, but it’s really important to tap into our own minds because we tend to put everything in the back of my mind.

[00:17:01] And then just lock it in there and never look back. But when we go brutally into self reflection, and this is what I do with my clients, as well as guided self reflection throughout the public speaking coaching, because we need to understand what are your stories and what is the authenticity? How do you speak?

[00:17:17] Why do you speak the way do you speak? But that’s only possible to unlock when we unlock those boxes from the back of our head. So yeah, that would be a long answer and a long exercise, but the right thing to do.

[00:17:30] Kris Ward: Okay. That makes sense. And I think too, I’m always focused driven. I’ve had people, I moved from one end of Canada to the other, after everything unfolded with my husband and, whatever people had said to me that I did this or that, that was courageous.

[00:17:42] And I was like, I don’t see this as courageous. I see this as, I didn’t have an option. It was just what I did. for like to do the best. I knew I had to do the best that I could with my life to honor him. I couldn’t have this fall to shambles. So sometimes too, I think as entrepreneurs or people, we’re just always focused on the next thing.

[00:18:00] Am I self aware? Yes. Do I do a lot of self reflection? No, because it’s always okay, what? Cause I’m always looking at what can I improve next? What can I do better? Like I’m always focused about that. So I’m not sitting back there. So you’re right. Yeah. If you had to do a little mind map of different stories, then you’d be looking at your inventory.

[00:18:18] Susanna Lahteela: Exactly. Exactly. And it’s really careful and really crucial, especially for public speakers, especially for people who want to put their word out there, is to take a step back before you can take the next massive step forward. Because if you’re always just trying to step forward, you’re going to get stuck.

[00:18:34] There is, there’s nothing more to go to. And you don’t really see, okay, I need to look back to see how do I get the next step and that’s what this exercise does brilliantly. Obviously, it’s just the one tiny thing you can do. There’s a lot of things on top of it, but that’s the first step towards taking a step back and then going drastically forward afterwards.

[00:18:55] Kris Ward: Okay, so then if I was working with you and then I do have my story about my husband. It’s, it’s somewhere on my website and it’s somewhere on LinkedIn and I, it will be introduced. If I’m a guest on a podcast, they’ll ask me how I came to be and I will tell them that. So I tell people frankly, when I have to tell people but I don’t write posts about it.

[00:19:17] I don’t ever talk about it. Talk about it or anything like that. Would that be something where you say, I think you should be writing a post about that journey or that rebuild or whatever you did in your life. Once every three months, you should be talking about that more. It is, what would you be looking for?

[00:19:35] Susanna Lahteela: So if I would be working with you, Kris, we would create a story. We would create a speech about that. We would create a very concrete speech about that. And you would be speaking it to mass audiences that you have an insanely amazing background story. So how I work with a lot of people, when I work individually, one to one is we really create a speech that you can now go and share to an audience afterwards, but it’s up to you. What is your story? Because like you said, when you say I have to share these, I share it when I have to do that.

[00:20:04] Kris Ward: Yes.

[00:20:05] Susanna Lahteela: That’s still in, if that’s still in your mind of I share this only when I have to, there definitely is more self reflection to do. But on top of that, it’s not going to come authentic out of your mouth.

[00:20:15] Then we switch, we change, we take another story. Because like I said, even though that was the major thing in your life, that’s not just who you are. Your life didn’t end there, nor did your life start there. So that’s why there’s always more from both directions, back and forward. And this is why it’s always finding the story that you want to share to your audience.

[00:20:35] And then going from there, but that’s what I would maybe challenge you about that because a lot of people could relate with your story.

[00:20:41] Kris Ward: I do think, I think the outcome of my story matters because I do think here’s something that I do think matters. I say to people, your business better support your life, not consume it because life does have interruptions.

[00:20:53] That was my interruption. Your parents could get sick. Anything can happen. And what I do say is if I had come back, I got to spend, he had all my attention, right? We went on a couple of trips. I, he, I have no regrets how that journey was navigated. He had 1000 percent of my attention. Now at the time I wasn’t fat.

[00:21:12] I wasn’t a whole lot of weight. 100 percent sure when I came back, what was going to be there, but I was pretty sure I was okay. And he saw how hard I worked. So if he had thought for a minute that this was crumbling and he had enough to feel guilty about, like he felt bad about putting me through this.

[00:21:26] So here’s the thing. On top of all that, if you take that emotion out of the story, I lost an income. So this was not the time for me to go back and then try to look for a job and be charming an interview and learn a new position. So the outcome of my story, I passionately believe that your business should support your life, not consume it.

[00:21:48] And I also think business should be fun. But I think where I get stuck where I have to tell the story, I tell the story when I have to is he was such a big human being and he was just so funny with all these wonderful things. And we got a lot. We were just such a great team. And so I feel sometimes bad.

[00:22:04] Just telling that one part of the story where he passes away is so I’m sensitive about that. But once I get through that part, I think there are many lessons here because I think people need to understand that, listen, anything can happen. You can, any, you could slip and break your arm and you can’t have your business fall to bits and pieces because you couldn’t type for six weeks.

[00:22:27] So I think the outcome of my story I’m passionate about, I guess it’s just still sensitive about. Yeah. You know it not being the only thing he did. That’s where I get stuck.

[00:22:36] Susanna Lahteela: Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna say something that I have said to people who have gone through some similar things that you have gone through when it comes to storytelling is again, just like the kayak with the kayaking.

[00:22:46] That’s his story. So even though he’s not here to share it, he is somewhere sharing his story for sure. But that’s still part of your story. So that’s just a part of your story. And that’s why I wouldn’t think about it on a way of I’m taking away from him. No, if you’re having a speech just about his story, that’s different.

[00:23:05] But you’re having a speech about your story or you’re sharing your story. And this is why it’s just a breaking point in our life. And when it’s something crucial like that, and very big and huge and very sensitive, it’s obviously hard to understand on the spot. But when we realized that was like a chapter in a book, I’m sorry to put it that way, but that’s how it is.

[00:23:25] Kris Ward: No, I’m not offended. I’m good. Yeah

[00:23:28] Susanna Lahteela: then when we go from there and we realize, okay, the book keeps going, there was just a one breaking point. And now we go, what did we get out about it? And that’s exactly how speaking is as well when we need to realize, okay, there was a lot in here, but how do I put it into words so that it still, gives the same credibility for the story and everything.

[00:23:45] Yeah.

[00:23:46] Kris Ward: Yeah, and you can, listen, I think the kindest thing you can give anybody is the truth, so you can always speak directly to me, and I think you are right, I, and I made those choices right afterwards, I’m like, I, this has to mean something, I have to make his life mean something, I cannot, this has to only be a chapter in a book, you’re right, because I Do bigger, better, bolder because of all that he put into me this better be a even bigger story.

[00:24:11] So I, that makes sense that it’s only a chapter in a book and the book goes on. I respect that, but no, you can’t, we’re talking logistics here. You can’t dance around it. You can’t be, we’re fine. We’re good with that. Okay. Yeah. And that is a good point. You’re right. That was his story. And that’s a big, small part of mine.

[00:24:26] Okay. Is everybody listening? While I get business and speech public speaking therapy here, I’m getting

[00:24:33] Susanna Lahteela: I always tell people, I always tell people public speaking coaching can be therapeutic, but I’m definitely not a therapist.

[00:24:41] Kris Ward: Yeah. I call it sometimes I’m helping with my clients and all this type of stuff.

[00:24:44] And I say, I call it business therapy. Okay. All right. Okay. So understanding what you’re, so I was getting stuck on what happened to him and there is a lot more story there and so I would need to be flushing that out. So I don’t, I think to be fair, and I’m sure you see this Susannah, I think there are so many people who do this poorly and over sensationalize stuff.

[00:25:11] Like I was sitting there one time and it, Oh my gosh, we were at some business event thing. And it was a bunch of people coming up with stage one after another, giving inspirational speeches. But each inspiration got more and more dramatic. Like the first person, like it was just like, at the end of it, Her village had been burned down and I think her mother was raped and but she too, like it was all this rising from the ashes, but it was like one after another.

[00:25:39] And I thought that’s where I think people like me get back off. It’s Oh, I just I don’t want to be out there. Competing with the drama for the sake of the most what was the last most painful, dramatic, horrific story you told.

[00:25:54] Susanna Lahteela: Yeah, but this is where we, pardon my language, but fuck up. When we are in events.

[00:25:59] Bleep, bleep. Okay. We bleeping that out. Okay. We mess up. This is where we mess up. Okay. Okay.

[00:26:06] We mess up. Okay. I can redo. I swear a lot normally, so sorry about that. That’s okay. Just cut that out. Okay. Bye. We are besties. No, but this is where we normally mess up as as speakers in events because we think we need to be these heroes.

[00:26:18] Okay? We think we need to be the knight and shiny armor and everyone on the stage. And it’s, that’s the messy part because when we are on the stage, we should be talking to the audience. We should be talking to the listeners because otherwise they will feel like you did. It’s not inspirational.

[00:26:36] It’s. Oh, I feel a little that I am little more little than you are. It’s really taking away from your audience rather than giving them something. So when we are really sharing about our stories or anything that needs to always be built up from what are you giving to your audience and only after that, what is the story?

[00:26:56] So this is why when I’m asked to be a speaker on events and they are asking me something tailor made and they say, this is what our audience is expecting to get out of this event. I go to my mind map. I say, okay, I need to give this out. I have that. I can give that out. But what is the story? I will connect with this.

[00:27:12] And this is where there is a lot of speakers that mess it up because they just think I need to share my hero story. I need to share my hero story. I need to share my hero story. And they don’t think about the call to action or about what is here for the audience. They just think about themselves. And here again, where we get into the authenticity of connecting with your audience rather than just sharing your story.

[00:27:33] Kris Ward: Kind of like my clients, I’ll say that I’m really good with analogies and I can simplify things or I will tell a short story to drive home a point. And they think that I’m really good at that because now I’m like, okay, this little story has a purpose here. And then Oh, okay. And they always say, Oh my gosh, I forever remembered that little story you told me about blah, blah, blah.

[00:27:52] And they could be minute stories about me in the grocery store or whatever. So I am trying to make that point salient to them and I will give a story and I think what your point is, we, so many times entrepreneurs or public speakers, you’re like, I’ve written my speech and this speech is going to fit in whether you need to have somebody talk about finding the perfect college for your child or starting your own business or retirement.

[00:28:16] Here’s my damn story, and I’ll just change the last two sentences. So then therefore, it’s a one trick pony, and it doesn’t fit. It’s like having spaghetti for breakfast. It may be great spaghetti, but you shouldn’t have it for breakfast.

[00:28:27] Susanna Lahteela: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But Kris, just by you saying that, I am like, how are you not a public speaker? How are you not sharing your stories on a stage? It sounds like even your clients are telling you, you should be on stage.

[00:28:40] Kris Ward: I’m on stages. I do Sims public speaking, but it was never built this way, right? It was about other things, more business oriented, but okay. Oh my gosh. I have to say, this was not where I thought we’d go with this, but it was fantastically interesting.

[00:28:55] And I think. When we first started talking, you’re talking about being authentic. And, I pushed back on that because I think the word authentic is overused because I also find it insulting. Nobody’s going to try to be inauthentic. So why are we saying be authentic?

[00:29:08] Cause you don’t mean to be inauthentic, right? Guarded, perhaps I’m guarded, but I think your angle on it. really gives me a lot more clarity on not just what I do, but the rest of the world. So I think that this for me has been hugely enlightening. If I’m enlightened, somebody else has got to be enlightening.

[00:29:26] There’s a lot of people doing what you do, but I really do think you come at it from a refreshingly different perspective. Very different.

[00:29:32] Susanna Lahteela: Yeah.

[00:29:33] Kris Ward: Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[00:29:34] Susanna Lahteela: It’s unfortunately the authenticity part, even though it is I totally get what you’re saying of I normally hate the word and it’s like something that.

[00:29:41] People don’t naturally want to do or plan to do. But unfortunately we live in an age where it’s so easy to be inauthentic. So it’s so easy to go to chat, Hey, write my story, or it’s so easy to have AI doing a video for you. God, what is going on? It’s just there can be a, there can be someone who looks like you and sounds like you, but it’s not you never said those words.

[00:30:04] That’s all it’s easy. I get it. But it’s not authentic. And that’s something people just think, okay, I’m going to be more productive, but being more productive in these ways, you are cutting away from your authenticity. And this is where people don’t necessarily say, Hey, I want to be inauthentic. Let me use AI.

[00:30:21] And I’m not, I had nothing against AI. I use it daily. It is my best friend to brainstorm. But when we really use it too much and we go above and beyond, and we get Into that hamster wheel of using. And this is where we realized later on or too late that we were inauthentic. And hence didn’t, for example, get any. We didn’t get any, that all happens on a, everything goes, everything happens for a reason.

[00:30:47] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Okay. Susanna, where can people find more of your brilliance?

[00:30:52] Susanna Lahteela: Love that so much. From LinkedIn and they’re the most active. There’s literally one Susanna Lahteela in this whole world.

[00:30:58] Me being from Finland, that’s a really brilliancy of my last name being so complicated. So you cannot find any other Susanna Lahteela from LinkedIn. So if you just go in there and pop there pop there the name, you will find me and that’s out of doubt the best way to find me.

[00:31:13] Kris Ward: Okay, we will make sure to have this in the show notes for sure. Please share this with a business buddy. This was hugely enlightening. I think we all need some clarity in that. I know I’ve been banging around confused for quite some time. So don’t let your business buddy suffer on their own. Share it and we will see you in the next episode. Thank you again, Susanna.

[00:31:32] Susanna Lahteela: Thank you, Kris, so much.