Emma-Louise:

Welcome to the Ambitious Introvert Podcast, created especially for introverts, empaths, and highly sensitive entrepreneurs to help you build, grow, and scale a successful, sustainable business. I'm your host, Emma Louise Parks business and mindset coach for ambitious introverts. After 17 years working as an air traffic controller, the ultimate fast-paced high stimulus extrovert-friendly role. My mission now is to show introverts that they too can create big results and success because of who they are, not in spite of it. I focus on introvert friendly business and marketing strategy to help you switch overwhelm for clarity, confidence, and clients.

Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Ambitious Introvert Podcast. I'm Emma Louise. There are so many myths about being an introvert and about being quieter and gentler, and maybe on the shyer side and all of the things that maybe we think we can't do in business and life, but we're gonna be throwing those out today.

And I also have the living proof with me of what is possible when you decide that you want something. So I'm gonna hand over to today's guest to introduce herself. Laurie Ann, thank you so much for being here..

Laurie-Ann:

Oh, I am so excited to be here and share with your audience. So I, I, I will just share a little bit about me, about my backstory, and I am a reformed, painfully shy girl who accidentally became a professional speaker.

And when I say, you know, like my very first speech was not very good, it was not very good. And if we have time, I'll even share that funny story, but. I quickly learned when I left my corporate job and kind of fell into this, I'm just regular, like not being a professional speaker, just speaking at meetings.

I instantly started to attract clients and that's kind of like, I was like, Wow, there's something to this. And I wasn't even that good at the time, and it's really a muscle that I strengthened over time. And Emma, I don't know about. I, I even remember my very first podcast. I was like, I came out of, cuz I have a walk-in closet that I recorded my podcast in.

And I was like, Oh my God, why can't I do this? Like, I'm a professional speaker, why can't I speak into a microphone and, and talk to my sweaters? And I was like, Lorianne, your podcast recording muscle is not strong enough yet. That keyword being yet. So that's what I wanna share with everybody, is that we get to decide who we wanna step into.

I've had so many guests in the US record in their closet, Kim Aga, because she lives in New York City and there's. Siren's going off. One of my clients as well, she was, was a guest and she was like, I'm just gonna go in the closet to dampen the, the noise. We didn't have closets big enough here, and not many of us right.

Emma-Louise:

It would be like, like the line, the witch and the wardrobe, but, but I love that. And it's so true. When I first started to record it, I've never had an issue really, with speaking publicly. I didn't have a job where I had meetings, so I've never really had to stand in front of people. I did do facilitation days, and you know, I spoke for a 11.

I was their traffic controller, so I basically sat and talked all day. Although the pilots couldn't see me, they could only hear me and yeah, record my first podcast episode. The solo one was terrifying. Interviewing guests, never been an issue. Solo episodes, ugh. Mm-hmm. . For about a year. For about a year, and I used to think these are awful, and I, I just hated doing it.

I would procrastinate on it and then I barely put any out. I would have like four guest episodes and then one solo, and my coach was like, Think you need some more. Solo episodes. And then someone reached out to me and said how much they enjoyed them. And I was like, , you enjoyed that, But that's, that's where we got and now, like it's 50 50 and I, I just record them.

Laurie-Ann:

I like you say, it's the muscle. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. I think on a previous episode that I was listening to yours where you had said, You're talking about the behind the scenes stuff and you thinking like, Well, no one's gonna find this interesting. But it's funny how we do, like we gravitate, like I want to know more about you as a person and learning about your business behind the scenes and what you do.

Emma-Louise:

People do really find very interesting. So, Obviously you've alluded to the fact that there's a funny story, so we need to hear the funny story. Okay. But how first did you accidentally become a speaker?

Laurie-Ann:

Okay. I had left my corporate job and was working with a. It was three other women and we were putting together an event because women just naturally network differently. So we wanted to combine both networking and also education in the same meeting. So we've got it all figured out. They all, several of them like pointed to me and said, You do the speaking. My head went, said yes, and inside I was like, What are you doing? You don't speak in public work. . Self integrity is one of my highest values.

So if I say I'm going to do something, then I'm going to do, It's amazing. That's, that's what made me do, so I don't even think I thought about. What if I fail? It was just, I said that I would do this, so I'm going to do this, and so I got up there and I started speaking. There was no beginning. Nobody introduced me as a speaker.

I just started teaching. I literally became like the college professor, which is one of the types of speakers that I talk about. I went to being the college professor. I was just sharing information and this is how it ended. Okay, now I'm done. That's what I said. I said, Now I'm done . There was no doubt, there was no doubt in that, that you can, So there was no summary.

There's like nothing that, that I do now or that I teach my private clients. I just said, I'm done now, and if you wanna talk to me, because I, all I wanna do is get away from people and get to the back of the room. If you wanna talk to me, I'll be in the back of the room. And people came up to me and asked me, So do you work with people?

Like is there like a website I can go to? And I was thinking like, Did you not just witness the train Wreck ? But I share that story because that's where I started. And then to move into like, then I wrote a book and then I was literally like on the professional speaking circuit, hopping on airplanes and all that good stuff.

Emma-Louise:

And when you say you were, you say by your own admission, you were painfully shy previously. How, how did that present? How did that affect you just in life in general?

Laurie-Ann:

Well, I just didn't look at people like when they were talking to me. I was, I considered myself to be an expert on tile floors and sneakers. There was somewhere, and so this goes back to like my late teen years. I somehow, I literally remember having this epiphany, This is not going to serve me in the long run. That I have got to figure this out, and so I look like, just let me look at somebody for just a few seconds while they're talking to me.

Look, look away. And I realized nothing bad happened. Like the earth didn't open up the person I was speaking to didn't punch me in the face or like walk away saying, Hey, what? Like, you're not worthy of my time. Like nothing happened. It's called a conversation . And so then I was like, I can do it a few more seconds and a few more seconds.

And that's literally how I got over that hump of not being able to look at people when they were speaking with me. So small steps. Again, I think it's so easy to look at people that have succeeded in something that we want to do and think, Oh, they were just born that way. Or, you know, they just day one that that's how they appeared.

And I know people will be listening now and they'll be thinking, That's all right for you, Laurie-Ann. Because you know, you are very articulate and you're very funny. And actually, if, if I try and do a speech, I'm, I'm not gonna be very articulate and funny. And, you know, I even I, to this day, I record the podcast and I.

Emma-Louise:

No, that was like, meh. And then I hear the audio clip back on social media and I go, Hmm, I sounded good. But when we're in it, it's never the same. You, we never feel like we're doing an amazing job when we're under pressure. Right, right, right. And I will say that I've, I mean, I've had clients that have said to me, I can only wish to be as articulate as you.

And I'm like, You will get there. Cause speaking's also. It's verbal art and we all know that like an artist, like whether it's a sculpture or whether it's a painting, I bet you if you really ask the artist like, Are you done? They were just like, No, no, never. It's never done. I'm gonna do my next best work on my next piece.

I'm just gonna keep moving on , fine tuning my craft. And so it's, and it's speaking is also a lot of improv. You just like, you never know what question, like, I don't know what questions you're gonna ask me. Like, it's just life is improv. I think once you, once we embrace that, It's like, Hmm, okay, maybe I can speak on my feet.

Maybe if I did a little preparation, I would feel confident in what I was going to say. That preparation, I know what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna feel confident delivering and sharing my expertise with other people. I also think that it's one of those skills that sensitive introverts have that they can very easily switch in a conversation and they can read the tone of people's voice and they can anticipate what's coming next because we are very emotionally intelligent.

Emma-Louise:

So whereas quite often extroverts, they might come with, you know, a set of questions and they're ready to fire those answers off. I think that the nuances in the conversation can be a lot richer, even though introvert think I'm, you know, I'm not good at speaking. You are very good at having a conversation with other people picking up on their body language, picking up on their intonation.

I mean, we've never spoken before. We're having a great conversation. . We are. Cause we, both us, we so haven't, we've never spoken, but I, I just think that there are, It's not just the ability to stand up and speak, there are so many other soft skills around it that that bolster how successful you'll be. And there's so many different forms of speaking.

Laurie-Ann:

I mean, the past couple of years I've been saying speaking needs to be redefined. Stages need to be redefined. Speaking doesn't have to be in front of this huge audience. It can be like four or five people start small. But you know, to your point that, that you mentioned about like, you know how introverts can really just sense the tone of the room, can see where somebody is like, that's a question on their face.

Emma-Louise:

Let me dive into that a little bit deeper. Or maybe you even just ask them a heartfelt question. I mean, that's the beauty of being an introvert and be like, I, I just think you need. Tap into where your strong points are and just excel there. Stop trying to be you. And we all hear this like, stop trying to be everything to everybody. So what are your skills? Like, what are your gifts that you bring to the world? You know, one of mine is speaking. I enjoy it. I've learned how to do this and like making eye contact with people. , you've learned how to do that too? Yes. There is a book, I'm gonna butcher this now because I obviously didn't preplan it.

You've just reminded me of it. It's called Presence, and I think the author is Pat Rose Rodenburg, or Patsy Rode. Berg and she was an acting coach. And the the premise of it is that you are communicating in three different ways. So you are like in a circle on your own or you are, your circle overlaps with someone else and there's an energy exchange in the communication, or you are just almost like, I guess transmitting out to people and you're not taking any feedback. I think it's first circle, second circle, third circle. She calls it. I'll, I'll find the link for the show notes, but it, you reminded me of that when you said like the ability to read the room or look at someone's face or, Or pivot slightly or change the tone because we pick up on the energetics of other people and isn't that like also what coaching is all about? Mm-hmm. , if you're a coach, I'm a coach. There's a lot of coaches who are listening to this. It's exactly what you're doing one on one, but you're just doing it on a little bit bigger scale. So your clients that you work with privately, what types of businesses do they have that benefit from them learning how to speak?

Laurie-Ann:

Let's see. I have clients who are coaches, consultants, but I also have people who work for corporations because speaking's just the fastest way to grow your brand. It's not just for marketing your business, you know, you may be in a company. It's like, well, how do I authentically market this company? Our services?

So I've had a lot of people from, from companies who have worked with me privately. I've actually had like one gentleman he was using, speaking to really grow in his career. But I do have a lot of coaches who are also building their business and it's just, it's a fabulous way to market your business and your services.

Because here's, here's what I really want your audience to underst. When you are the speaker, you're the expert in the room and everybody who raised their hand to be there to listen to you has said this topic sound interesting, even if they don't know you. This topic sounds interesting. I bought a ticket to this event.

I bought a ticket for this membership. I'm paying money. I am paying also my time. So you have an audience filled of people who are interested in your topic. That also make some ideal clients. You know, when the majority of the marketing for the podcast is done on social media, but now we've been going for almost two years and one of my clients in fact filled out my market research that I did early this year.

And one of the questions was, How did you find me? Cos  I was curious to see what avenues people came through. She search. Introvert podcast on Spotify. Wow. So, like you said, that's the topic she wants, that she knew exactly what she wanted. She's like, I wanna listen to someone talking about being an introvert.

And mine came up and here we am. She's a client. So yeah, that investment already is someone's, you know, soon as I start speaking, she's like, Yep, I've kind of, yeah, she hasn't paid, but I've signed up for this. I've energetically decided that I wanna listen. Exactly. Exactly. And so that's what I want people to understand, that when you are putting content out there on social media, there's a whole bunch of people.

Emma-Louise:

I mean, you were at the mercy of the algorithm and you don't know who's actually reading your content. Because I don't know about you, like I, I mean I heard you like mention on, on a previous podcast of yours that us introverts aren't always commenting on other people's. And I always look at it like, just because nobody commented on my post does not mean that they didn't see it does not mean that they didn't read it.

They're just like, that's just the way that we are. But again, like the algorithm is kind of like set up for the opposite. So we don't know when we're putting content out there on social media if the right people are seeing it, as opposed to when you are speaking, when you are the booked speaker, that you are speaking to an audience that is filled with your ideal clients or they can refer you to other people.

But either way, they are interested in your topic, in what you are sharing with people your. It's so true, and I think social media is a gift and it's a great way for us to reach people. But I have Matt Johnson on the podcast a while ago, and we were discussing this about how it's made by introverts, sorry by extroverts.

For extroverts, because the whole algorithm is based on how many likes, how many comments, how many shares, and. We don't do those things. We look and, and we read it. And, you know, before we hit record today, we were chatting, We think we've been posting in the same kind of Facebook groups and been in each other's circles for about three years, but this is the first time we've actually connected.

But I've seen your posts and I've read them, but just because I'm not, you know, putting hearts on everything and, and commenting. Doesn't mean that I, I haven't still taken that information in. Exactly, Exactly. And I really enjoyed that, that episode with Matt because it really like shed some light on Oh yeah, exactly.

The algorithm really is set up for extroverts and there are ways to trick the algorithm, which a lot of people do in Facebook groups and things like that. But it's remembering that, you know, the, the posts that I have posted. People have booked calls and said, you know, I read that post and I knew I needed to work with you.

Were, didn't get any likes because yeah, I always say like the nice posts get likes, like self-care posts and you know, motivational things. But actually when someone says, Mm, you're doing this and it's affecting your business growth, no one's liking it. And that's me . People are just kind of reading it going, Oh yes, that's.

That's right because they are reading it and I'm like, Ooh, I gotta go and think about this. Yeah. I gotta come process it internally. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Let me process this. And that's exactly what happens, like when you're speaking, is that, you know, people are gonna take stuff away to go and process. But it's also a fabulous way just to build relationships, you know?

Because as the space, what were you gonna say? Which is just so underrated. I was gonna say in, in online business, everyone thinks it's the, the likes and you know how big your audience is. But relationships are just relationship. And as the speaker, when you are using some form of speaking, you are building relationships because you get to.

Get a feel for that person's energy. They get to just a little bit about your personality, you know, like how you talk about things, how you feel about things, you know? So you get to pick what platform matches your personality. So I'm not telling everybody you have to go and speak on stages because there's lots of stages to actually choose from.

You get to decide. Decide on your own. I mean, you have a podcast. I have a podcast. To me, we have built our own stage. This is our state. This is one of our stages that we speak from. Absolutely. And I, I love my podcast. I love to create it. It was very easy for me to sit on my own in front of a microphone and speak because that's what I'd done for 17 years as an air traffic controller.

So it came very naturally to me, but also, From a marketing point of view, introverts like to consume podcasts. So it made so much sense because do they like to go to big crowded rooms and listen to things? Not so much. Do they like to listen on their own terms, in their own time, you know, and remain energized?

Yes, and I was a big consumer of podcasts. I still am not as much as I was, but it sounds like, well, if I would, To a podcast about online business for introverts. Then of course my ideal clients will. And how long did it take you to actually, like once you thought of that to actually doing your podcast? Oh, it was very fast.

It was very fast. Once like, so I knew I wanted to do a podcast and I even bought the microphone, but I hadn't really nailed my. Down, and I was working with a brand strategist, and then during that group program I was like, Oh, it's introverts. And you know, this all makes sense. And I started working with my one-on-one coach, like the next month, literally our first call.

She was like, So what do you do? And I was like, I'm a coach for ambitious introverts. And she was like, Oh, I love it. Do you have a podcast? And I said, No, but I want one. I've got a microphone. And she was like, Oh, you should have a podcast. And I was like, Okay. And she said, What are you gonna call it? And. The ambitious introvert.

She was like, Great. That was the first two minutes of our coaching. And then I probably went off that call and like started doing something towards it. So it was pretty quick. I think that was the July and we launched in the October. I, I, I do things pretty quick also, like my human design is, I'm a manifesting generator, and when I come up with an idea, it's just like, Oh, this sounds like a great idea.

Let me just like run with it. I decided sometime in the beginning of July that I wanted to have a podcast and it was live I think five weeks later. I love it, . But again, just like you, everything just fell into place and it makes sense. It's easy. Right, and you just followed the ng. I love that you brought up human design.

I was kind of hoping you would, cuz I wanted to ask you about that. So I have an undefined throat, I have an open. Throw, which to me meet, some people see it as a negative. You can look at anything in human design as you know, positive or negative. But to me it means that I just don't work well with scripts.

I'm not someone to script, I'm someone to go with the flow, which, but I have got defined head in Asna, so that's probably why I've got that consistent energy. Do you find this shows up with your clients in any way as to whether they're, I'm presuming you're defined if you're a manifesting generator. I, My throat is actually closed.

Which is interesting, which I know, like the woman who did my reading, she was like, And you're a speaker? I go, Yep, speaker with a closed throat. So it's something that I did have to work on. So I share that with people because again, I want you to know like there's no speaker dna. And I certainly didn't have the speaker dna.

It was something that I just learned to do. But what else was your question about my ? About my human design? Well, basically, do you find that, Do you work well with prompts or script or lots of preparation because you're closed? Whereas I will literally just adlib and go with the flow. I'm more of an ad libber, except I do have a structure.

For speeches, I have a structure that I teach my clients. I always do know what I'm gonna talk about. I don't, I'm not one of those people that scripts my entire presentation word for word, my beginning, and I even tell all my clients this. My beginning is scripted and there's a reason for that and my in the ending is scripted.

And so here's why. Everybody gets butterflies in the beginning. Even I, after all these years, yes, I get butterflies. If I didn't get butterflies, I would get concerned. But to get over those butterflies in the beginning, if you know exactly what you're going to say through like that opening, and then when you start talking about yourself and then you can kind of like go with the flow.

I know what stories I'm talking about in the meat of my presentation, the value center of my presentation. I know what stories and what lessons that I'm going to be sharing, but it's not scripted. It's very, it's very fluid. I, Another question that I get from people, and this is, I'll tie this into what we're talking about here, is my slides.

I do use slides. And the reason why I use slides is because a picture is worth a thousand words. And when I see a particular image, I know exactly what story I'm telling, but it's not scripted in the middle. And then, so back to where I mentioned that like the ending is scripted because I wanna make sure that I have time, I know exactly how long my clothes takes.

And so that I get my call to action in for the audience because that's the next step for them so that they can deepen and continue the learning. And what's great about this is you've just broken down that you have a process and that there are different parts of the process that require more attention than others because you're covering for certain factors like nerves or you know, making sure that you are telling the audience how you can serve them.

And I think that's really beneficial to people that just think, Oh, I should just be. To do it, or I should just stand up and be able to naturally speak and to know that actually no, you can have a process. Like it's totally fine to be following. I, It's the same with sales calls. I think there's this expectation that, you know, people are gonna get on a sales call and you're just gonna talk.

But I always, always encourage my clients to have a process for their own preparation so that they feel confident going into it and they can lead the conversation in an empowered way. Oh yes, I completely agree. Having. Process also gives you that confidence, like, you know what? You need to get out of this, you know, what your goals are.

You know, on a, on a sales call, you wanna determine if this is the right person that you wanna work with, you know, And I do the exact same thing along with like, here, you know, here are the options. Here's how I work with people. Now it's up to the, the potential client, the prospect to decide. Does this work for me?

And what other questions do they have? But yeah, process is fabulous. It also takes a process, takes the emotion out of things like crafting a presentation, a process makes it very easy to come up with a presentation or to just maybe make minor tweaks to a presentation that you used like the month before.

So that you can use it. Again, I'm a big fan of, you know, repurposing, recycling, and why recreate a presentation every single time you have to speak if you don't need to, because I don't think you do need to. And after a while, my clients finally realized like, Oh, there's beauty in. Telling the same stories, telling the same present, you know, like sharing the same presentation.

You get really good at sharing those stories. You get really good at delivering that presentation. When I have Matthew Pollard on, he is big into storytelling and he's a, you know, very successful as a speaker. And he said he has his set stories that, you know, if anyone reads his book, they're in there and he actually says, like the Wendy story made me rich.

And yeah. Anyone that's read the book or knows him is Oh yeah. The we, the Wendy story. And then he was like, Should I tell the Wendy story? I was like, No. People can read your book if they wanna know, but I'm gonna have to go read that. You have read the Wendy story. It's a great story, but he literally said it, that I've told that story.

I've had that same keynote speech for four years, telling that story to different people because the power in that story doesn't, I don't need to keep changing it. It's just that different people need to hear it. Right. And he's, I'm sure he's really good at delivering that story now. And I've, and the exact same thing with myself.

There's a, a story that I tell and I have walked into conference halls where people have heard the story before and just said, Lorina, you telling that Jacknife story ? And it's like, Yes, I am. So that's, And now everyone wants to hire you as a speaker so they can find out what is so, But I, I, the intentional reason why I just slipped that in there is because a lot of people think they have to keep coming up with new stories.

Yeah. But I always ask people, What's your favorite movie, Emma? What's one of your favorite movies? Lost in Translation? How many times have you watched it? Oh, at least 10. At least. At least 10. At least. At least 10. So understand that you, you know exactly how it ends and you still continue to watch it. We like that.

So I, I shared that, that sort of an example because I want people to understand that you can tell the same story again and again and again and people will listen to it again and again and, Oh, I love it. Permission given and process. Maybe we'll have to call the episode that. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and obviously beautiful speaking voice with us.

I'm gonna pop all of your links in the show notes so everyone can connect with you and try and find out about your jackknife story. But in the meantime, please could you share with us your book recommendation for the ambitious introverts looking to grow and scale their online business? Yes, and I think you're gonna like this one.

Have you, has somebody mentioned, and it's a new book that's out, John acus soundtracks? No. So soundtracks is basically his word, four. Mindset. Oh. And the stuff that we say to ourselves on repeat. Now, there's a second reason why I am recommending this book because this is something that I tell people to do all the time.

He did his own. Nothing fancy, but he started his own research, ran his own experiment, and then wrote a book on it. There's a lot of people who are listening to this right now where you've got something interesting that you could actually run your own research and then you could write your own book based on that research.

This is a beautiful example and he talks about it. If you read the book or if you listen to the audio, he's actually very funny and so if you, he talks about. The research and how he did this and how he came up with this. So I hope your audience really enjoys soundtracks. Perfect. I'm definitely gonna add it to my list, especially anything with research in it.

You, you had me,  and his daughters actually really liked it, but they said, But dad, you know, like teenagers aren't gonna like listen to this. So his daughters actually wrote the, uh, the teenage version, which is called Playlist. Of course it is. It's so interesting. Playlists and soundtracks. I love it.

Multi-generational. Well, I'm gonna pop. The link to that in the show notes as well. Laurie Ann, thank you so much for being such a beautiful guest and chatting with me today. Thank you. It was really wonderful for me. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ambitious Introvert podcast.

With me, Emma Louise Parks, if you enjoy the show, please, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review on iTunes. As a thank you one liquor reviewer, each month, we'll win a 60 minute one-on-one coaching session with me. Where you'll get the clarity and confidence to attract your ideal clients. And if you know someone who could benefit from listening to the show, then please do share and help me reach as many fellow ambitious introverts as possible.