Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

S07 Brand Masters Episode 16: Mastering the Art of Storytelling Jennifer Samuel-Chance with Transformative Communication Secrets!

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 7 • Episode 16

Share episode

Send us a text

Are you looking to unlock the power of storytelling or transform your public speaking skills? Tune in to our latest episode of Follow the Brand, where we sit down with Jennifer Samuel Chance, a seasoned communication strategist, a celebrated public speaker, and the founder of Your Endless Possibilities, Incorporated. Known affectionately as Ms. Jen Jen, Jennifer highlights her unique approach to developing compelling speeches and shares her top tips to conquer stage fright.

As we delve into the intriguing world of verbal communication, Jennifer’s journey unfolds. Jennifer paints a vivid picture of her remarkable career, from honing her innate flair for storytelling to transforming it into art. She also shares insider tips on effectively delivering lousy news, mastering public speaking, and crafting authentic presentations. Jennifer’s insights will leave you inspired and equipped with tools to communicate more effectively, authentically, and powerfully. 

Toward the end, we discuss Jennifer’s impressive Executive Stage Presence Program and how it can propel your career forward. Whether you are a corporate leader looking to up your game or a curious novice keen to understand the dynamic world of public speaking, this episode is a gold mine of knowledge and inspiration. So why wait? Tune in to uncover the secrets to storytelling and public speaking with Jennifer Samuel Chance.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Follow the Brand. I am your host, grant McGaw, ceo of 5-Star BDM, a 5-Star Personal Branding and Business Development Company. I want to take you on a journey that takes another deep dive into the world of personal branding and business development, using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips to improve your personal brand. By listening to the Follow the Brand podcast series, you will be able to differentiate yourself from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make it one that will set you apart, build trust and reflect who you are. Developing. Your 5-Star Personal Brand is a great way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge. If you have any questions for me or my guests, please email me at grantmcgugh at 5-Star BDM. Be for brand, be for development and for masterscom. Now let's begin with our next 5-Star episode on Follow the Brand. Welcome dynamic visionaries and transformative leaders to another impactful episode on the Follow Brand podcast, where we uncover the magnetic forces and unspoken strategies of the luminaries shaped in today's business world. I am your host, grant McGall, ceo of 5-Star BDM, where we help you to build a 5-Star brand that people will follow. Are you ready to dive deep into the ocean of possibilities and innovations? Today we have the privilege to host a woman of boundless influence and staggering accomplishments the founder of your endless possibilities, incorporated Jennifer Samuel Chan.

Speaker 1:

Jennifer is a revered communication strategist specializing in the metamorphosis of businesses, turning them into powerhouses of influence and revenue. Often hailed as the speech fixer, jennifer grasped bespoke systems, transforming verbal communication from the mundane to the unforgettable. Jennifer's 24 years of her big passion in speaking and storytelling has taken her across the globe, conducting an incredible 1792 workshops and counties on powerful communications, still From universities to professional speaking organizations, from business conferences to retreats. Her phenomenal skill of resonating with the hearts of thousands, including those of professional athletes For Altered Eagle, ms Jan Jan, has been weaving stories that captivate the souls of audiences both young and old since 1998, showcasing her personal stories, telling flowers, diving deeper. Jennifer's credentials are nothing short of impressive. Holding an MBA from the University of Tampa and acclaiming titles from the National Speakers Association and Postmaster's International Incorporated, jennifer's illustrious journey optimizes for a relentless pursuit of excellence.

Speaker 1:

Our enigmatic guest has shared her extensive knowledge through numerous articles, co-authoring the pivotal 12 Strategies for Success, and her words and echoes through TV commercials and promotional videos, making her voice a beacon of inspiration and empowerment. With her extraordinary Ms Jan Jan executive stage presence methodology, jennifer has been the guiding star for executives, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, helping them unveil their authentic selves and deliver presentations with unparalleled credibility and confidence. And, as a fun fact about our guest today, she harbors a deep love for singing and, yes, french fries. So be aware she does not share. So, whether you're a corporate leader yearning for impactful speech delivery or a curious mind expiring to explore the dynamic world of public speaking and storytelling, you are in for an intellectual dream.

Speaker 1:

Today, let's unravel the secret behind powerful, authentic presentations and dwell into Jennifer's unique approach to shaping speeches that resonate and reverberate, leaving audiences hanging on everywhere. With the powerhouse of communication herself, jennifer Samuel, let's welcome her to the follow brand podcast, where we are building a five star brand that you can follow. Hello everybody and welcome to the follow brand podcast. I am your host, grant McGall, and I get an opportunity to talk to someone with so much energy, so much happiness, so much joy. We are going to have a good time. Today. We're going to talk about storytelling, we're going to talk about presentations. We're going to talk about some things that normal people. They said public speaking is that we got you know it kind of a scary kind of thing. We're going to talk to a 20 year batter. Somebody's been doing this for a while. That I take you from pain to glory.

Speaker 1:

They would say so you're going to come on this feeling so much, much better. I want to first get you introduced to Jennifer, because she some people call her Jen Jen. I like that. Jen Jen sounds cool. Jen Jen, you like to introduce yourself?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so my name is Jennifer Samuel Chance. When I was a child I wouldn't eat food properly, so my mother would pour me Jen Jen to get me to try and eat, and it's the name that kind of stuck throughout my life. And, like I say, my original name is pretty long so people have sometimes a hard time remembering it, but they remember Jen Jen, so that's what I call now Ms Jen Jen.

Speaker 1:

I remember it. Well, you know how are you going to forget something like that? Well, talk to us, we're going to jump right in. Okay, you help people tell their stories and before you can tell us more about that, I want you to tell us why. Why is this the big problem, why is this the thing that you chose to do and why would gravitate you to this type of work?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it actually chose me. I will tell you that if you'd have told me, probably 26 years ago, that I'd be doing this for a little while, I would have said you are out of your mind. Hope me, no. You may listen to my other way I speak and hear that I have a little bit of an accent, and that's because I'm originally from London, england, and spent the first 18 years of my life there. My parents were from a wonderful Caribbean set of islands called Trinidad and Tobago, so my entire life I heard storytelling and they were the most prolific storytellers I think I've ever known. And I may be a little biased, but there you go Anywho.

Speaker 2:

That's how I need to communicate. That's how I heard things so fast forward when the whole family moved to the United States and it was time then to put like child's things away and then go to college and get the good job and get the house on the hill 2.5 kids and then you know your life is happy ever after. So I did that. I followed that program for a while. I was a very successful manager with a US 14,500 company. I had a blast great people, great money, but it was also a round peg in a square hole, which means it didn't suit me and I was extremely good at my job. But I was just so unhappy so I had a moment of burnout where I kind of asked the universe help me, I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 2:

Long story short, went kind of soul searching for a couple of years and then came upon a person who said you've got an unusually deep voice, which I love to hear, and I think that people might like to hear that too.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever thought of public speaking for a living? So she had affirmed what I'd actually heard since I was a teenager, because I've had this voice since I was a teenager. I'm also an introvert at heart, so I didn't want to do anything that brought attention to me which was speaking. However, over the years, again, people would hear it Are you a speaker, are you in television, are you in radio? I would spend years saying no, no, no, no, no. And so after that day with her and then I said I surrender, I surrender. How many times can you keep getting messages?

Speaker 2:

So one month after that conversation, I started speaking and storytelling was the way I knew to communicate the best. So I've always infused storytelling in what I did, speaking wise. And then also, too, I learned to become a professional storyteller and I would travel some parts of the country telling stories from the Bible, telling business stories. So I understand how it connects people, understand how it takes people on a journey and how it's way beyond just entertainment. It is actually a connective glue that people can use to get together, to relate to each other, to trust. And then, over the years, I've learned more and more stuff. And then I learned to tell people, teach people how to tell stories. So that's kind of how I started doing what I was doing. Didn't wake up one morning and said I'm going to be a storyteller.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I see that you did not. It's a journey, though, right, life is a story. It's your particular story, your particular journey. There's chapters in that journey and you just never know, kind of, what the next page is going to be. Right, right, and now you're bringing that story, that opportunity, to others, because you said I'm doing this as a business and you had a successful business helping people, because we all know we were a lot of us are public speaking.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, I'd rather be dead. That's a heck of a choice to have to be. You know, you just feel like that. I know what I felt. I mean, that position was like, hey, I'm not very comfortable doing that, but I became a leader of our organization. I had to get out in front of people and I had to get some coaching and I had initially I went to postmaster or not just the mechanics, just the fundamentals of how to tell you know creative and to do presentations accurately that actually draw people, and how to control your voice, talk about tonal quality and things like that. This is all important. Talk to us about your business and how you got that started and what you're really doing for people.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so my business kind of morphed. I originally started off as a professional speaker, just speaking, and I had a couple of clients that actually sent me around the US, the Caribbean, europe to do business workshops. So I would oftentimes have to do business workshops five days a week, six hours a day to tell the strangers. So I learned techniques. I really honed my storytelling because I had to find ways of keeping people engaged and captivated six hours at a time. So after mastering that, for a good couple of years I was also when I would come up with the weekends performing as a storyteller. I don't do this, jen Jen and Ms Jen Jen is basically a Caribbean woman that you know fun, joy, laughter. It was an entertainment piece that I put together to entertain audiences.

Speaker 2:

So a particular person came to one of my performances and three years later she had actually kept my business card and put it on her fridge and she called me out of the blue and she says Ms Jen, jen, I've got to give this speech and I was captivated by when I saw you storytelling you. One day I would need this card, and he is. So she wanted to tell stories about her son. She didn't know how and she hired me to actually teach her how to tell stories and put them in a speech, and I hadn't even considered doing that.

Speaker 2:

While I was speaking, I always thought performing is one thing, speaking is another that one day, fusing those things together, you recall, everything opened up. She was happy. I was happy as I could do this forever. So that was in 2004. And over the years my business has more often changed and more often changed, and now I would say probably most of my time now is spent coaching executives, successful business owners, celebrities, sports figures, on how to actually just be comfortable in front of an audience, and the best way to do that is storytelling. So part of what I do is, of course, we work on the story, but there's a larger framework that the story goes into and I do all of that too, because, again, I've spent 20 years doing that for a living as well. So that's essentially my business.

Speaker 1:

Well, that is a great business because we all probably a lot of people, it's a great percentage of people get tapped and have to get in front of an audience of people, whether it's just a group of five or less or 50,000 people or more that you're going to have to tell the story. You're going to have to convey some information, some knowledge, some insight, some to the people that take us through the process where you've got Applying from an airline Jen, jen, I'm scared, I'm petrified. I'm letting you know, I'm petrified, right, how do you help them to realize?

Speaker 2:

Okay. So the first thing to realize is, though, there are some people that naturally have the gift of gap, and I will honestly say that I think I have that and I got that from my parents. However, it is not enough to sustain and captivate an audience long term, so you actually have to put in place a system or methodology or framework. So, as you're at there speaking, it is not wild, you know, you're just grabbing for stuff. I meet people all the time. They're scared, they've got stage fright, or they don't necessarily feel the nerves, but they have no plan as to what they're going to say. It's usually from the heart and it's a stream of consciousness which is not necessarily a.

Speaker 2:

Thing if you're in a good place, but if you have to speak from that place and it's not good, then your speech could be choppy. So what I do is, over the years, what I found was if people have an issue with stage fright, fear, confusion, not quite sure what to say, it's usually not a function of them being able to speak. It is not a physical act of speaking. It's what's in here, what's in the brain, what belief systems they have, what they can and can't do Something. And my work always kind of shows them that that blockage usually has nothing to do with them speaking Nothing at all.

Speaker 2:

So I developed a five step program that takes people through a series of steps that enable you to kind of really get comfortable in your own skin. And I don't care if you are the most confident person that people look at you and wish they want to be you, or somebody that's really, really nervous and you know you're extremely scared and don't even want to be out there. First step is clarity. So that's usually where we tackle the stage fright thing, because there's blockages inside. So I have techniques, I have a methodology that I use that works extremely fast. That's why I like I ain't got time we ain't got time to waste extremely fast, where you usually feel results pretty immediately, and then that allows you to start opening up as a person and not feeding into those beliefs that are keeping you scared. So we do all that and some other stuff. Then the second step is actually certainty, which means you're now stepping forward to okay, what am I speaking about? What are my stories about? Does it fit me?

Speaker 1:

Is it?

Speaker 2:

authentic, because that's the biggest thing that I think leaders really need to consider when they lead a team, whether it's a large, you know conglomeration, or if it's a team of two. Will my staff trust me? Am I credible? Will I get the respect that I deserve? And some do believe, and rightfully so, that by their title they should get that, however they may have found, depending on what they're putting out there, that's not the case. So if you learn to present yourself in such a way that is authentic, real, but at times that are appropriate, you're vulnerable, you are person that's relatable then all of a sudden, the people that you lead and guide will follow you through a wall because they know that they can relate to you. So after we have clarity, we have certainty, then we construct, and the construct the speech. Take a look at everything that needs to go about. You analyze the audience. There are tons of different steps, but we then put a framework together to say, okay, this is what you're going to speak about, here's how we're going to engage the audience with activities. Here are the stories you're going to use. Here are the visuals you're going to use. Here's the stats you're going to use. We put it all together in a nice framework, then got the framework. Now we work on actually delivering confidently.

Speaker 2:

So that is the thing you actually talked about earlier, where you actually physically give the speech, practice wording, and I am extremely particular about that. I warn all of my clients that we will pick through site tips by sentence, word for word, because what happens is whatever you say your audience is hanging on to and you don't want to throw out stuff, you don't want to say something that doesn't mean anything, you want it to be purposeful. So we really do go through it with a fine tooth comb so that you can find those emotions, find those feelings that really connect to audiences, even if you're giving just a simple informational talk. Then you do all that. You give the speech and then afterwards we do confirmation, which means usually the speech is recorded and we take a look at what worked, what we could do differently next time and how to improve it. And then the cycle continues and continues and continues. So that's the essence of the whole five-step programs for the executive stage presence methodology.

Speaker 1:

I feel better already. I mean, you took me through just listening to you and I'm like wow, because I remember those times. I was really nervous and I don't know what I was going to say. I couldn't say anything. Tell everybody make sure you don't eat or drink anything before you get on stage, before you go out. Those kind of things can clog your passports and you have to be again in the nancy. That's the last thing that you do is estimates right, mm-hmm?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a whole bunch of those into that.

Speaker 1:

Whole bunch of those into that. You just articulated a process that could take anyone, no matter where they are in their journey, to be better at delivering their message. I wanted to ask you this yes, I did. When I'm listening to you right now, you're very entertaining. I want to say that is that you come across. You got a lot of levels that are happening there. There's that knowledge level, there's information right, that mental aspect. Then there's a lot of enthusiasm and I feel a hit of humor on there, kind of like your personality is kind of closed, do you? Is that natural for you? Is that something you hold in on, or is that something you teach as well?

Speaker 1:

This episode is brought to you by 5-Star BDM. 5-star BDM is a professional consulting and advisory group keenly focused on business development services for small to mid-sized businesses and entrepreneurs. Although every business is unique, they often share challenges that can be addressed through smart branding. Services include process improvement in operations, digital strategy and transformation, business intelligence, digital marketing and personal branding. Our 5-Star Business and Personal Branding Company has helped a number of professionals and organizations to optimize and grow. The result is more business, more opportunities, better reach, positive outcomes. Please visit www.5-StarBDMcom to learn more and view all the episodes of Follow the Brand.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes and yes Meaning because I spent many years doing things I didn't like to do. When I finally discovered the world of speaking, storytelling and coaching and it fit and felt really good, I decided, okay, I'm going to stay here in this space so you can tell I actually love what I do and I think that it's so important, for it may be the situation where you have to give a speech or presentation and you don't love what you're to speak about?

Speaker 2:

you don't, but we're going to work on it. So there's going to be some aspect of that presentation or speech that you fall in love with, and usually it's actually the story part. I'll tell you that right now, because I always believe, if you're going to share a story, share something personal, that you can be there, take your audience on a journey while you're telling it, and then that way you're comfortable, therefore, they're comfortable. My motto is life is so short and if it ain't, fine, I ain't doing it, because I don't know about you, but every year seems to go faster and faster and faster. We've got all this stuff going on in the world. There's, yes, a lot of negativity. So I think, wherever possible, try and find yourself in a space, or if you're going to share a message, not that you have to be a comedian.

Speaker 1:

that's not necessarily it, but sometimes we need to lighten up and not take ourselves so seriously.

Speaker 2:

So I, yes, learned. I still continue to learn. I stay in school all the time. When it comes to my speaking, I up level. I have a speech coach. I have a business coach because I want to make sure that my skills are up so that as I coach my clients, I'm giving them the best of what I have to offer. I'm not one of those coaches that learned to system in like five years ago and they're still working it. No, mine pretty much gets to it every week as I work with different people, because different people have different needs. It's not a cookie cutter thing to work with people.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, it's fun. If you don't like having fun, I'm not the person for you.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry, I'm just not good, change the tone just a little bit, and I'm gonna. I want you to take us into, like, the mind of an executive. You know CEO of a company and he's gotta now deliver bad news. Sometimes you're not presenting all you company news. He's gotta do more. It's like a press release or something that happened or whatever it might be right. He's gotta deliver this information. You gotta deliver the morbid news. Now we see it on the nightly news. I mean, I don't know how they do it. What a straight face and a smile. You know they tell this horrible information. You know like, and then like, and now you're like, wow, that was pretty bad. You know, but they, you know there's a way of doing it. But not to digress. If you're an executive and I have seen this happen a lot and now you gotta go, maybe you've got to announce a layover, having, you know, difficulties in our business and it's gonna affect lives. This is not a humorous situation, it's a serious situation. How do you coach people through that?

Speaker 2:

Bottom line is you've got to understand that the negative reaction you're getting is not usually crusely at you, even though they're going to hurl whatever they hurl at you like it's your fault. It's their reaction to negativity. You're the target right now, so you're going to get it, but you cannot take it personally, because your job as leader is to be transparent, be authentic, be real and share the truth, whatever that is. I've found that in most cases, story is probably the best way. Story, maybe in conjunction with statistics, depending on the situation, is the best way to deliver news, which means, whatever the news is, you have to lay off employees. There's got to be a background story that goes with it for reasoning and, again, it may not be that it's going to be satisfying the audience, because they don't want to get the word lay off anyway.

Speaker 2:

But if you give context to why the lay off is happening, maybe you speak also to some of the emotions you imagine they're feeling and you've got to be really careful with that.

Speaker 2:

Of course, be sensitive, but be real and if you have a situation that's happened in your career, your life, we felt all the way you were laid off. Let me say that even better, and you know that when you were laid off and you came in, they basically told you okay, pack up your bags. Today's your last day. You're like what? So you've got fear, you've got shock, you've got panic because you don't know what you're going to do next and then, depending on what the organization plans to do for you after that, because some organizations do the best they can to help people outsource to another job, some don't. So, whatever the negativity is that swirling around, you cannot take it personally. You're going to get it, but understand, you are the bearer of news and you do the best you can to put it in context so that people get it. That's about as much as you can do.

Speaker 1:

No, you framed that very well, because there's no probably good way to deliver bad news. No, but I think you just gave us some very good tips on how to do that. I think that that's wonderful, and you've also given us some good information on how to just deliver a presentation. Help us understand this. I've heard people ask me this a lot of times what are the differences of doing a presentation in front of a, let's say, a boardroom? There's five, six people there. What is the difference? Do you change up when there's more of a room of 50 people? And then what does that look like when you're on an auditorium of thousands of people? Help us understand.

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot of it is I very much come from the school that people give and commit and omit energy, okay. So if you're in a small boardroom where you've got less than 10 people, you are right there with them and they're right there with you. So you have to, of course, allow for that. I'm very much as possible as direct eye contact with everybody. So if you're in a room full of a small room, that's real easy. You don't stare people down and talk, you know, stare them and then, no, you talk, I'm talking to you right now, okay, and then I go to the next person and you make sure that you make contact with everybody. And again, depending on the situation, then your presentation will be tailored to six or 10 people. You're not going to do activities for 1000 because it's only six.

Speaker 2:

So boardroom and most boardroom meetings tend to be around a boardroom table, which is an interesting dynamic. We don't have time to go into it now, but the layout of the room, the type of tables, that makes a huge difference. If you have a room of 50 to 100, that's again, you can't necessarily do eye to eye contact with everybody because you'd be there all day. But what you do want to do is kind of sweep the room. So there's a very specific pattern that you place your eyes in. It's not really a secret but most people that are professionals because know it that you can look over there. And I'm going to just do this for. So you can say look over there and cover the back and room, then look down front and talk, talk, talk, talk. Then I look in the middle of the room, talk, talk, talk, talk, and then I look at the back. So by the time I sweep the room I've pretty much covered just about everybody, not necessarily eye to eye, but at least general direction.

Speaker 2:

You want to make sure you do that because you don't want to leave people out. Yeah, don't want to leave people out. Auditorium quite different, because oftentimes you can't see anybody, it's usually dark, but in most cases, especially today, there's a camera on you. So in some instances, depending on the makeup of the room, there's times when you kind of have the body language like you're speaking to the small room executive situation. However, if you're on a large stage, then you need to move along the stage because you need to cover this side, you need to cover this side, cover this side, but watch what's happening with your face because the camera is going to pick up everything. So there's lots of different dynamics. Yeah, that's one of the things. When we first start working together, I say, okay, who are you speaking for? Where are you speaking? And I'm very, very particular and give insights to give to the speaker to make sure the room is set up the best way possible.

Speaker 2:

If they can change that, I've gone into speaking situations and changed seating patterns, changed a whole bunch of stuff, because I know how people's attention spans are real short, so you want to make sure as much as possible all eyes are on you. There's no, you know, incomborances anywhere. Never speak where there's a door behind you and people are coming in and out of. I've seen that many, many times in my hotel situations. I've had them swap the room to the side and move seats. They haven't been happy. But in the end it's so much better because if somebody comes in they're not disturbing everybody, they're not spoiling the flow and you can go do what you need to do.

Speaker 1:

Tell you to say something that first of all made me just like man. It's so great I could be in an auditorium. 15,000 people there, nobody can. I can't see anybody. I love that.

Speaker 2:

But you have to act like you do.

Speaker 1:

You think about all those eyes of you, but you can't say, oh, this is easy, yeah, but it won't be again.

Speaker 2:

You work in your clarity session. That won't be an issue anymore. See, I guess you're looking at me. Hey, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you kind of get over that, you know, but that happens. But I think that for me, what you just described, I think that might be easy to talk in front of a whole thousand people, that just 50 of your peers that know you and worded out.

Speaker 1:

You know sometimes those can be difficult, but you've done a lot of different scenarios and I like that. You've been able to work through rooms. You've done a lot of work through them and none of them said how to do something. I hear this a lot. It came out a lot during COVID and now we're in more or less a whole post-COVID world. But the difference between doing a virtual presentation as to one that's in person Talk to us a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Everything's in the screen right here, so all right. So I'm going to pretend this is how it used to be before I got coaching on it. So if I was giving a presentation and I was on the screen, I was basically just looking at the camera and making sure that I was looking at the camera because I was nervous of the camera, because I knew there were people in there somewhere, but I wasn't quite sure. Versus understand, the camera is the portal to the audience, so I'm pretending right now that this camera right here is a person. Now I'm looking. I'm not telling you. The way my camera is set up is a little above the screen. So if I was to look at you now, you can see why eyes are versus looking at the camera.

Speaker 1:

That's the biggest thing I see with most people.

Speaker 2:

I remember I asked you where are my eyes. You're very careful about that, so right now I'm looking at you and that's great, you look wonderful, that's fine, but it's off, so you have to make adjustments. Number one, for screen. Things have changed a little bit, and now, because so many people are online, you need to make sure that you're memorable, and so I have no idea. I don't have any problem with you being kind of wild and out there and sending your energy through that screen Not too much now, because they get too much and people just take too much. Bring your personality through and understand it's your best friend talking right there and I gotta tell you some and let the energy come forward.

Speaker 1:

No, I like those are great, great tips. Now we're getting toward the end of our session here and I want you to take over. I want you to like talk to my audience. I got an audience of healthcare professionals, information technology professionals, students, early careers. People are just like, at some point in time, I'm gonna be in this position. I like what she's talking about. Give us something. What part does it about? About that in your business?

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, we got about 30 minutes so I can wait for a minute. Let me share with you a piece of advice that was given to me by a manager that was interviewing me for my first major job, and he basically said this take care and make sure you really master those communication skills. Now he had heard my voice, said what everybody said, but I didn't understand what he meant until I got into this profession. Meaning I'm sure there are some of you watching right now listening to this podcast that you know people that have gotten promotions that you know darn well. They were not qualified for, but they talked a good game or they were likable or they did whatever, and that's not necessarily a good or bad or a judgment thing, it just is. So what that manager told me and what he meant was the best way of being visible, the best way of raising your profile, is to be an extremely good communicator, and the best way to connect with people and going to be biased is story but all the other stuff that goes with it too. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be on a stage. We're talking a simple meeting. I tend to work mainly with executives and business owners, just because that's. Those are my people. However, you don't have to be in leadership to do the skills I talked about today at all. If you wanna get to leadership fast, do them.

Speaker 2:

I'm just saying so you'll get to the point where I had a client one time. He was a professional, ex-professional athlete, football player, and he then went to work for another finance firm. So very short version of the story is I worked with him on some speeches he was doing locally here in the Santa Bay area. So we worked on some stuff, then we finished and then I didn't hear from him for a couple of months. Then he calls me out of the blue and says GN, like what he says, okay, so whatever we did together for the speaking, it's translated in the way I show up at work, so much so that his boss came to him one day and said I don't know what you're doing, but you just seem more confident, you seem more trustworthy. I know what they're, so you know what. I'd like you to help me run some of my meetings coming up, because what it does is you show up more confident, because you are comfortable in your own skin and others around you are paying attention to that. And then, if the opportunity arises, they want to bring you up, they want you on board and they want bragging rights, because now you help them or they helped you, rather, be more successful.

Speaker 2:

So, if it's one of those things you've been thinking about, okay, I'm going to work on the speaking thing. Yeah, just do it. Whatever that looks like for you, just do it. It translates number one professionally, yes, for sure, but also in your personal life too, and especially about families, because I don't know if you've seen what's out there in the media right now. Yeah, yeah, so, as much as possible that we can continue to be role models speak well, speak clearly, confidently, show up comfortable in our own skin. That's what you're teaching other generations. So it's a much bigger picture than just a speech or a story, but it will take you so far you wouldn't even imagine. So that's my story and I'm going to stick to it.

Speaker 1:

That's all. No, I'm sticking to that story. The art of communication, understanding the human voice, is so powerful, and how you use that instrument can control your destiny. There you go, there you go. So tell us how to contact you. How do we can touch your business? Are we signed up?

Speaker 2:

That's not signed up. Probably the quickest way would be for short LinkedIn, so just look up Jennifer Samuel.

Speaker 1:

Chansell LinkedIn. I'm there.

Speaker 2:

If you want to find out more about the executive stage presence program, my website is wwwmissjengenmsjenjn. E as an egg, s as a snake, p as in Paul, so Miss Jengen, espnet, and that will kind of give you a little bit of a portal as into some of the stuff I talked about, the five steps, etc. Or you can just shoot me a message on LinkedIn. Tell me that you came from this wonderful podcast, so I know. And then also too, if you have any questions, feel free please to reach out to me, having more than having to help.

Speaker 1:

This has been a wonderful, wonderful session. I learned a lot. I know the audience has learned a lot as well, so we're going to continue to engage with you and understand what you're doing, because I think it's so, so important. Thank you for being a guest on the follow brand show and let your audience know they can tune in all my episodes I've got probably over 150, I think, or so. Now they're there as a library of knowledge of people as yourself. They have shared their particular story on business intelligence, on career development, on financial empowerment, on executive presence, on brand mastery. All of these things are important, and I cannot forget technology innovation. So if you're looking for information, knowledge, that, an insight that you're not getting, this is a great way, and I definitely encourage everybody to tune in to Miss Jengen. Thank you for being on the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me as your guest. I appreciate it. It was an honor.