Unfiltered Sessions

Enhance Technical Sales with Authentic Storytelling with Doug Thompson

• Philip Sessions • Episode 221

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Unlock the power of storytelling with Doug Thompson, a tech communicator who turns complex jargon into engaging narratives. Doug shares his transformation from an anxious extroverted introvert to a dynamic speaker, revealing how personal anecdotes can make technical topics accessible and memorable. Learn the secrets of "techsplaining" and how Doug's storytelling bridges the gap between technical information and audience understanding.

Discover how storytelling enhances technical sales and communication skills through Doug's rich experiences, including a unique hiring experience at Microsoft. He emphasizes starting where your listener is, using familiar analogies, and the importance of authenticity. Doug also shares strategies for leveraging your strengths, improving job performance, and communicating effectively with managers. Join us for a conversation filled with insights, inspiration, and practical tips to elevate your communication skills and make technical concepts come to life.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"The brain's wired to not only listen and learn from stories but also tell stories." – Doug
"You have skills that you don't know. You have a lot more knowledge than what you do." – Doug
"Learn how to un-chunk [your expertise] if we're going to teach it, or if we're going to explain it to somebody else." – Doug
"I know I'm not the smartest person in the room. If I am, I'm in the wrong room or I'm by myself." – Doug
"[I] put a little bit of [my] soul into the people that I work with and people that I… talk to, so that they can then learn to go do that as well." – Doug
"That's the thing with stories—you want to do that because you can create some polarization." – Philip
“If you're not making at least one person that disagrees with you…, then you're not being to yourself, which comes across. You're trying to be fake." – Doug
"A lot of people just want to think that they understand enough about technology and make intelligent decisions." – Doug
"Start the story where the listener is. Use words that they're familiar with." – Doug
"Repetition is the best thing for us to be able to learn and grow in any aspect of life." – Philip
"If you can't tell your own story, you know that's the easiest place to start because you know that story so well, right? And then you build confidence." – Doug
"Not everybody has [the] same energy that I have. And that's fine, you don't have to." – Doug
"Get in touch with what you're good at, what gives you life, what takes it away, [and] what takes energy." – Doug
"Most people are not going to get the technical jargon and so you really need to come in with those stories." – Philip

RESOURCES
Doug
Website: https://thedougthompsontx.com/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedougthompson/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedougthompson/ 
Twitter: https://x.com/thedougthompson 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedougthompson 

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions


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Philip Sessions:

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. You may have heard of mansplaining, but have you heard of techsplaining? Well, today, doug Thompson, your friendly neighborhood sales nerd, storytelling aficionado and retired triathlete based in sunny Austin, texas, is going to-splain to us about tech-splaining. Can you believe that we're going to be tech-splaining like crazy? So much like mansplaining, but tech-splaining. But, doug, with over more than 20 years of experience, he has dedicated himself to making complex tech topics feel like a breeze with the magic of storytelling. He's captivated audiences worldwide for over two decades as an edutainer on stage. His TEDx talk the Most Important Story you Will Ever Tell and over 400 presentations showcase his master storytelling abilities, turning technical jargon into engaging narratives. But before we get into the show, before we get into the show, before we get into all this text explaining everything, doug, welcome to the show thanks for having me, philip, so I'm happy, but I won't be text explaining to explain text explaining, because that just gives everybody a headache.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah, yeah, that's like those vicious loops. You just go get in this loop and everything and you never get out of it. So I'm glad we're not gonna get in this loop and everything and you never get out of it. So I'm glad we're not going to get in that loop or that black hole, vortex, whatever you want to call it, and everything. But I'm excited for us to get in talk about storytelling, talk about text explaining. So we're not going to explain or text explain, text explain, but I'm excited to get into it. But let's back up. So you said about 22 decades, 20 years of experience in storytelling and doing presentations. That is a long time. But I imagine that the Doug of 20 years ago probably was shy, had anxiety, was nervous you name it all these things that probably held you back from presenting. So what kind of got you over that first hurdle to even present in the first place?

Doug Thompson:

Yeah, I wasn't that shy. Well, I take that back. So I'm an extroverted introvert, because if I were in a networking event, I'm the guy over by the bar just hoping somebody comes up and talks to them. We're going to talk for a long time, but I'm not going to go out and start a conversation. So I'm a little bit introverted from that standpoint, but it's.

Doug Thompson:

You know, some of it goes back to the TED Talk that I did and we all have this inner bully, I call it that's telling us lies all the time that we're not good enough. We're not. You know, you don't belong up there to talk. And it's really learning to recognize that voice, that thing that we all have call it imposter syndrome or what have you that plays 24-7, 365. It plays when we're asleep. It plays these other things.

Doug Thompson:

It's that subconscious that's there to protect us. You know, back in the day when you cavemen around you had to run from dinosaurs and bears Well, there's not a lot of those anymore. So now the subconscious makes up stuff to be scared of. Well, there's not a lot of those anymore. So now the subconscious makes up stuff to be scared of and once you get a couple under your belt, you realize that nobody's going to. You know I've not been shot at, I know no fruit's been thrown at me on a stage or anything and they're actually pretty forgiving A lot of cases to get out there and do that. So it's a repetition. Getting out there and do that, realizing that you know you do have a story to tell.

Doug Thompson:

Getting out there and doing that, realizing that you know you do have a story to tell, but I've always, you know, even back, if I look back, I went to a high school reunion I won't tell how many decades ago that was, but we didn't have computers and typewriters. But I went back and they had some memorabilia from you know, back in the day and there was this excuse slip. So this is again, again back, paper based stuff, um, and it said, you know, and I looked at the handwriting and I looked that looks like me and I looked at the bottom, I'd signed it. It said you know, my reason for being tardy was the coke truck had spilled all its cokes on the freeway and I was late. So you know they didn't have twitter and everything else that's going on. You couldn't check that up, but I realized I was telling the stories way back then and it was approved. So I was a good storyteller at that.

Doug Thompson:

So it's something that I've always liked reading, I like these other things. So it's a skill I didn't develop consciously. We all can, we all have the ability to do that. The brain's wired to not only listen and learn from stories but also tell stories. But it's something with the phone and you text and you do these other things that we've lost that ability. So that's a long way of saying just repetitions, getting out there and doing that.

Doug Thompson:

It was part of my job but I loved. You know, I always, and still to this day, I look out in the audience and if I've, if I got that one person that I can sort of connect with, I've made, you know, done that, and I can see they're nodding along and you recognize the body language. I'm there, I'm good. All I need is that one person to have that. In reality you've got a lot more, but it's that inner voice telling you you know, you're, you stink, you know. So you just gotta. You gotta realize that it never goes away.

Doug Thompson:

I still, to this day, I get on and I'll go. You know one of the last thoughts that's going before I have to punch the inner bully in the face. You know it's like you know you. Why are you doing it? You're not good enough to go on stage. And now I just ask and prove it, show me the receipts. And so so far today does not show me receipts. That says I can't do this. So it's all a bit of an attitude to do that man so many things.

Philip Sessions:

I feel like those are questions I could have asked you and you just like went ahead and answered it. It's almost like you're a great speaker. But you mentioned about being an extroverted, introvert and a lot of times I think we all have some kind of introverted tendency and I think we also kind of put that little I'll put a say asterisk to our life on that, especially our speaking career to say, oh, I'm kind of introverted, almost that and I'm not saying that you necessarily said this, I'm just saying more in general that this is kind of a an excuse. I think that we all tend to make it one point or another to say, oh, I'm introverted, people won't want to listen to me. Point or another to say, oh, I'm introverted, people won't want to listen to me.

Philip Sessions:

But the big thing you mentioned in there was about telling stories and how we all have a story. I would love to unpack that a little bit because I know for me personally that's how I felt, especially when I first started just posting on social media in general what am I going to talk about? Who am I? I'm this kid that at the time when I was really posting I was probably like 25. And of course, at that time I mean it's still kind of ongoing. Now you got the life coaches that are like 18 years old what life have they lived? And so you have all this negativity that's telling you you shouldn't be doing that. But I would love for you to unpack that a little bit of the story that we have, not only the story that we're kind of telling ourselves, but what story can we share? How do we find that story that's valuable enough to the audience or to the market for them to listen to us and take us as credible for that story?

Doug Thompson:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of rationalization that goes on in that and the problem that most of us get where we don't think we have a story is because we live with ourselves 24-7, 365. And I'll use this as an example. I was at work back at Microsoft and we were trying to hire somebody for a role like mine. We were hiring a peer on the team and it was technical sales and we went through probably eight people that day in the interview loop. They were good Technically, they were very good, but my boss just said look, they're not quite right. She put her finger and said none of them can tell a story like you do.

Doug Thompson:

I thought what tell a story? I mean the way that I talk and deliver things and she explains you can relate to. When you walk into a room, there's a presence about it and you can sort of walk in with a cop. I'm a big, big fella too, but you know you walk in and as you're talking and you're having a conversation with people, you can relate to people because you tell stories that they can relate to. You put in a little bit of information you know, like, for example, like in your area there I talk about driving cars. That might be the basis of where I start a story, because of where you work and the things that you do. You've got a frame of reference, you've got these other things. So that's what I use as a tool, and we'll get to this in a minute, but that's what I used to tell these stories.

Doug Thompson:

So, anyway, she said nobody. And I didn't realize to that point that I had a special skill. I thought everybody could do it because I just sort of naturally it wasn't something I sought out to do, I just sort of fell into it because I liked reading books and I liked stories and I found out that it worked to relate technical information to other people. Even this was back when I was working on copiers. That was my first job out of college, was a copier technician and sometimes you'd have to go explain to these people you know that why they weren't making copies or something, and that was far less technical than what I do today. But again, you had to sort of explain it to them because they were paying you money to either fix it or go do these other things. So how do you get them to understand that? One, maybe it is something they're doing, or two is environmental or something like that. Right, so you had to learn to be able to communicate with people that way, and that was something that I um, that may have come naturally about sort of being able to communicate with people, and I just sort of fell into the story piece. So that's the piece piece there is you know you have skills that you don't know. You have a lot more knowledge than what you do.

Doug Thompson:

I saw this Venn diagram once of. It's like two circles here's the stuff that you know, that you, that you I forget what it was exactly but here's the things that you think everybody else knows. You know. Here's the reality. It's a very smaller circle. To do that, so we make things a lot worse than they are.

Doug Thompson:

And again it's that inner bully saying you're not smart enough, you're not good enough. I still will go into meetings today with people that are much deeper experienced with some of the technology that we sell. That I do today. I don't try to come in and say, look, I'm smarter than you are, I do. Credibility, the credit is I'm relating to things that I know in their life that they would like to change, challenges that they have or different things like that. So you're looking for that need and stuff to do that. So I just simply, I know I'm not the smartest person in the room. If I am, I'm in the wrong room or I'm by myself, but you know, being comfortable in that, being comfortable in that, knowing that you're not, but still having something to share because you've got something to share.

Doug Thompson:

When I did my TED Talk, I wasn't real happy with it because I played this. I had this movie in my head. It was well edited, it was very professional and it came across well and I didn't deliver it. That way Life kicks in, different things come on and I wasn't real happy with it and you know, I was sort of like down on myself again, the inner bully coming and beating you up because because you didn't execute like you, like the, uh, like the like you had planned.

Doug Thompson:

But a guy came up to me, had a, he had a notebook and he'd written several pages drawing things and all that that. I could tell he was listening. I said can you, can you answer a couple of questions for me? So I knew again my goal one person I'd connected with that, one person. Right, and think about it like a ripple in the water. So you get in, you carry one wave, but my goal is to and I'm a Harry Potter fan, so I'll nerd out a little bit on that.

Doug Thompson:

The analogy that I use is you know, voldemort created all these horcruxes so he could live forever. My goal is to create living horcruxes and other people so they can then carry that message and horcruxes and other people and sort of go from that way, sort of build that out, put a little bit of your soul into the people that I work with and people that I, that I talk to, so that they can then learn to go do that as well. So somewhat of a servant you attitude about it. But that's sort of the way I focus. And we went on and on. That's a long story. We should have done the fifth note version. No, you're good.

Philip Sessions:

I love how you put Horcrux in there. So, right then, and there, if you're a Harry Potter fan, you know what Horcrux is. If you're not, then you don't. But yeah, hopefully, based on your explanation as well of leaving a little personal side of you in there, you were able to explain that enough as well and I don't think that was necessarily intended, that was just natural you. But, right there, great example of how to tell a story, how to change something up a little bit, because you kind of explain like, hey, leaving a little portion of yourself or putting a little bit of yourself in that story like a horcrux, using an analogy, an example. And so I mean, if those that don't know that basically that was a harry potter thing where lord voldemort, the most evil guy, he left a little portion of his soul essentially in each of these things. Every time he got killed he still had a way to be able to come back whole side story there to explain that. For no, no apparent reason, I don't know.

Philip Sessions:

I just so I want to explain it but there again I connected with that because I'm a harry potter fan. I I like the movies and I read all the books when I was growing up, which tells my age right there, but still you were able to and I wasn't growing up, so it's not age specific yeah, yeah, exactly.

Philip Sessions:

But uh, but you said earlier about before the internet and all that stuff you know telling your age. So now I'm telling my age. I was growing up with harry potter, but anyways. So you were right there, you shared a story you related with some of the audience and you didn't worry about. Maybe there's star wars fans out there, which that seems to be kind of the clash your star wars fan or, I guess, star trek or harry potter, you're like kind of one of the three, you're not.

Doug Thompson:

I like all three.

Philip Sessions:

There you go, not not typically, you're the unicorn out there. Okay, you, mr extroverted, introvert that just presents and tells stories right from the get-go. But you connected with certain people because that and other people are like eh, you know, whatever, who cares about Doug? He likes Harry Potter, so, but that's the thing with stories. You want to do that because you can create some polarization and everything. But for those, that is I can just imagine, in the technical space especially, it seems like it'd be really easy.

Philip Sessions:

I think fitness is one that a lot of us can come up with a story or an analogy based on fitness, based on our physical body, things like that. But when it comes to technical stuff, how do you find stories and maybe you've already kind of explained this, but I would love to kind of double down on this how do you find stories that relate with the technical things but then you also are able to explain that technical stuff, but not so bogged down like a computer programmer or engineer would do, where they're loving the ones and the zeros and they want to talk all in the details, the nuts and bolts? How are you able to keep it at a higher level with those stories but still get the point across of the technical capabilities of whatever system. Perhaps you're selling.

Doug Thompson:

Yeah, you hit upon several things there. One of it was the polarization piece of that. Another thing that sort of holds people back is I may make somebody mad. Well, yeah, if you're not making at least one person that disagrees with you or something like that, then you're not being to yourself, which comes across. You're trying to be fake. You're trying to be like a politician pandering to everybody, right? So so we and we know how we feel about politicians. They're slimy. We don't. We don't trust anything that comes out of their mouth, because of that.

Philip Sessions:

So, and they're the ones that they're in a room full of people and they think they're the smartest one, no matter what?

Doug Thompson:

and I? I couldn't help.

Philip Sessions:

I've been thinking about content creation here lately. And then you talking about being in the room by yourself to be the smartest person. I'm like that's like to me, that would be something kind of funny. Like hey, I'm the smartest person in the room and you like pan around and it's just you in there. That would be kind of funny.

Doug Thompson:

I keep Mr Biddle's here with me to keep me person in the room anymore, so that's a whole other. That's a whole other thing that comes up, but so, anyway, so hand me that. So explaining technology and all that. So what what I found is that a lot of people just want to think that they understand enough about technology and make intelligent decisions. For example, if I'm talking to a chief marketing officer or something like that, they've got a problem they need to market, they've got these other things that's going on right, and we know that technology is going to solve it. So my discussions there get to be focusing on one industry. So it takes a lot of ancillary knowledge about things, right? So you understand sort of a big picture, a bigger picture of things. You know a little bit about a lot, okay, and that way it also allows me to have a conversation with a bunch of different people, right? So again, you don't get so honed in that. You know, learn, just breeze through the TVLRs, or you know all these different things that come up where you can breeze through in the morning. Learn a few things about industry or whatever you're going on, right? So just get a little high level things going on. And so in the marketing person, let me say, look, we need to scale our messaging out, get out blah, blah, blah. That goes on and I don't understand all the marketing stuff, but I understand some of the challenges they've got. And then my role is to say, okay, let me, we can solve that problem and use an analogy. So maybe they play golf right. If you look in golf, every other ad on Instagram, whatever some golf swing coach or swing aid or what haven't those been around for like a thousand years, and I go down those dark rat holes on occasion. Maybe this will really fix my so I get caught up. I get caught up in it too. But if, say, if they got golf and ask about you, know you? Or look around the room, see what they've got on there that you may be able to sort of tie into. If you look behind me, I've got Ironman posters and you'll be amazed at how many people that I talked to that have been into triathlon, are curious about it. What does that mean? So it's a way to sort of cue off this conversation and talk about something again.

Doug Thompson:

Once you and this is the number one thing of storytelling that I have, this is like number one start the story where the listener is okay, use words that they're familiar with, don't you know? If they're marketing, I'm gonna use marketing words. I'm not going to use diodes and all you know. Any electronic or engineering words like that I'm going to use that. I'm going to use business things about their business. If they're in education, then specific student outcomes is always a big thing, or how's your enrollment, how's these other things that's going on. And then what you know from other people not you know. And if you don't know, you know, do some LinkedIn stalking, do some research and stuff on who you're meeting with or what's going to go on, and then say, ok, here's the basis of where I think I'm going to go.

Doug Thompson:

The sad truth is my story framework. There's probably only about five or six of them that I use, but I tell them in a thousand different ways based off the person that I'm talking to, the person that I'm talking to. So, starting that conversation there, where we have a common language, they're more than willing to sort of come along with you and ask you questions. They'll open up, they make that connection. Again, we're making that connection and they go in and do that and then from there.

Doug Thompson:

It's just simply, again, not getting into the ones and zeros. That's not what they care about. They want to hear can you solve my problem in this case? Or if I'm on a stage and I'm talking about organizations, so, like, ai is a big thing, that's up now I don't talk about as much about AI as I. Look, if your organization wants to get it, you're going to have to rethink how your culture works, because the way that your culture works today, with what you're using, is not going to allow you to adopt that. You're going to sort of say it's just a new tool that's not going to. You know, you're not going to realize the benefits from. So make an awareness. So raise some questions in their mind that when you're leaving they're saying like, yeah, what do you said makes sense? I'm going to go research something else. Right, just find out about or talk to my people.

Doug Thompson:

I'm really trying to do is get to talk to the people that understand the ones and zeros and, again, talk to them enough that, hey, look, you can be a hero by solving these business. So it's knowing about what's important to the person or the audience that you're talking to. What are their day-to-day life, what are these other things? And then sort of spinning your story to fit that need and use the language that they use and things like that, and sometimes you have to hit upon a couple of things. Like I said, I talked in the example I was at. Harry Potter was one of the analogies that I used, but there was another one in there I used as well, so you can sprinkle a couple of them in there so everybody, or as many people as you can, can feel included and part of the conversation.

Philip Sessions:

And I, like you mentioned that and you downplayed this a little bit about how you have, like he said like five to six minutes, but you try and say that story or share that story in different ways, share that same information using different stories, different analogies, things like that. And that's an important thing. And I think about reading a book and one of the books that I read. A lot of people that are kind of the same circles as me that I follow on social media they talk about think and grow rich. Now I think I've only read it three times in total, but I know every time I've read it I've gotten something different out of it. And that's the same thing with other people. And that has to do with a multifaceted of things. Like you're in a different point in your life, you've've learned more, you've got a new struggle going on in life right now, a new problem to solve, whatever that may be. But it's the same book. The text hasn't changed. The meaning overall, if you will, hasn't changed, but you interpret it differently, and so that's the real power behind what you're. What you're saying is you don't sit here and try and have like one story that's supposed to capture all the information and you don't sit here and spit out let's call it 20 different facts about the system. You're trying to help somebody understand how it works for the company. You're basically sharing maybe a couple of things and we didn't talk about how many specifically but then you're sharing a lot of stories and analogies to really drive that point home, so that people can understand, but then also they can start to ask the questions, to get that clarity, which I think is the big key right there, that you're using the stories to get them to be able to understand but also get them to actually start to ask questions.

Philip Sessions:

Because, like we talked about at the beginning, most people want the information, they want to be able to know enough that they feel like they're credible and when they don't know, they don't want to ask a stupid question.

Philip Sessions:

So once they finally start feeling comfortable that they get a grasp of the idea, the concept, the technical stuff that you're trying to talk to them about now, they'll open up and ask questions. So I think it's actually really genius what you're doing of trying to share those analogies, or multiple analogies that will hit in different ways and because one, maybe they don't get the first one, two, six analogies, but eventually they do get it, or two they started kind of getting it but every time you kind of repeated it. Now it's kind of sunk in and then through repetition we know that repetition is the best thing for us to be able to learn and grow in any aspect of life. So that also helps with them to be able to retain that information to actually go make a decision later, especially if they give you the well, I got to go talk to my boss or I've got to talk to somebody else to get the approval on this. Now they are armed with that information and several analogies to go with it to explain it without you having to be there.

Doug Thompson:

Whoever's above them usually knows less about technology than what they know. So you go up the food chain again. It's a bigger picture and it's up to them. You've armed them again with information which they can share to help get buy-in and stuff. You talk about the smart people like engineers we talked about before we got on is. I've been in those rooms where I'm having, so I'll use this as an example. This is a great story.

Doug Thompson:

I used to be a mentor out at the University of Texas on their master's program for ITSM, so IT management basically and they also had data scientists and they had other things than their students as well. And before I went on, they gave me sort of the resumes of everybody that was sort of in this cohort and I'm looking at the resume and I'm like you'reling every third word Cause I've got no idea what it is. And I said, well, I can't teach him anything from a technology because they're way smarter than I am about this stuff that they've got going on. But as I've listened to, I caught on, says look, if I'm listening to them talk to each other. It is like almost watching somebody speak a foreign language. They're very fluent in it, but they go on. Maybe it's Spanish or something like that.

Doug Thompson:

Um, and it's going back and forth and it's like okay, but I get them in a mock interview and I say, well, well, tell me, why should I hire you? I can hire anybody here and not get fired Cause you're all brilliant. Why should I hire you? And they start reading me the resume. Maybe not, but basically all the information they're telling me is that I said no, no, no, no, don't. You know? There's no story here, right? I want to know why, what, what, what makes you stand out amongst all the others to go then, so they can't tell their own story? If you can't tell your own story, you know that's the easiest place to start because you know that story so well, right? And then you build confidence.

Philip Sessions:

Because I know for myself personally and other people I've talked to and coached through this, as I overcame this myself talking about ourselves is often one of the harder things to do because it feels like it's a self-centered thing. So I want you to kind of unpack that as well. I know I interrupted you during the story, but I would love for you to kind of unpack that how we can actually talk about ourselves and why we should, and how it's not a self-centered thing.

Doug Thompson:

Yeah, it's a lot. Some of it I learned in corporate when you'd have to do the annual reviews and you'd have to. You know, I always thought that you know my activity should sort of show what I did. But you'd have to go to sort of go in and tell your story, but that seemed like you're bragging. You know, that was always the thing that I had is. I don't like to brag about things that go on, but here's the things that I did, here's the impact that it had. So that was a skill that I had to sort of learn. Still don't like it, but I had to learn.

Doug Thompson:

But if somebody tells me about yourself so there's a couple of different ways you can do that, it's like okay one, do you want to know about more work life or more personal life? I'm happy to talk about either. Right, at least a bad conversation. But in the end you're saying give that context of my work life here. Look, I've always worked best when I'm in front of customers because I can relate to them. I want to be on that front line telling our story, telling what we've got to do. More importantly, they've got problems that need to solve and I want to be the person that solves it. And I think we can do that.

Doug Thompson:

Every role that I've had, where I've been in that thing, I've come to life. That is my area. I realize that I've had other roles where I was sort of behind the scenes, I didn't get to talk and I was miserable and I performed poorly. So again, knowing enough about yourself or where you, what gives you energy, what brings you strength, again, doing some self-analysis, what I really like doing, right, what? What gives me when I'm in a meeting and I'm explaining these other things and I can see, does that, how does that make me feel? Or is it simply draining, right? So understand where that lies, because not everybody has that same energy that I have. And that's fine, you don't have to. I don't have the energy that tony robbins has, you know. It's just like, okay, I, I need to calm down a little bit.

Doug Thompson:

So you, how do you do? How do you sort of judge where you're at, feel what, and focus on those. Don't focus on your weaknesses. Understand what they are. And there's a, there's clifton strengths, or or use your strength or go.

Doug Thompson:

There's another book that went on that I've got a character on the count. I obviously need to read again but know what they are. But really you're better off working on your strengths and leverage them to do really great things. And that's when you're talking about yourself. That's what you're telling, what you're good at, what you're passionate about, the things that are working, things that you're working on now, and then that's where you because the energy inside comes out right To me. I'm not remarkable Again.

Doug Thompson:

That's that inner bully pulling you down where when you tell your story, you sound like Eeyore off Winnie the Pooh right, rather than Tigger, who's bouncing around doing these other things as well. I got that energy. He really loves life and he goes on. Eeyore, just okay, you know that energy comes through, and so that's the very first thing you got to do Get in touch with what you're good at, what gives you life, what takes it away, what takes energy. I may be good at writing reports, but, man, it's draining. I hate to do it. But give me something where I get to go talk to a customer about something. Man, I'm on there, I'm ready to go, so understanding that that really helps you. Where you would tell your story. Don't tell it from a place of weakness, tell it from a place of strength.

Philip Sessions:

Along those lines. I appreciate that explanation, but along those lines, I couldn't help but think about a former manager that I had, and there was a multitude of projects that I was working on, all at the same time, and, of course, naturally, like any human, there's some that you really like and some that you don't like so much, but you're still doing them all, especially if you're working in a corporate world or even on your own. There's things you got to do. You just got to do them. You don't like them, but you do them anyways.

Philip Sessions:

While this particular manager decided to tell me and I'd be curious to your, your, uh, maybe, feedback in a way to make this improve this situation, for, for, for me I'm not worried about at this point, but if I was given this feedback or somebody was given this, but he told me, the projects that you really like, you can tell you like, and the projects that you don't, you can tell you don't. And so his feedback was you know, the passion's great for the ones you like, but it was almost the way he put. It was almost like I had to disdain for it and it was like I was putting that out there like, oh, I got to do this, like, oh, I got to do emails, like who likes to do emails? Or I got to follow up or cold call. How do we kind of present ourselves, without being fake, to show, I guess, some kind of enthusiasm or not a disdain for the things that we don't necessarily like, and then also make sure it's not such a contrasting thing to the things that we do like?

Doug Thompson:

Yeah, we all have that. You know, like a great job is one that you like going to nine times out of 10. Because there's always that 10 percent at least. This sucks, sucks.

Doug Thompson:

Oh, you just got to do, you got to go do, right, um, so there's two different ways you can approach this, and the first one being, you know, having a discussion with your manager and then you'll get different again, get some more information about why he thinks that you're not doing. Give some examples of stuff like that. Is this something that I could put a little bit more energy to, to go ahead and improve that right to meet what his minimum, his or her minimum bar is, or what their expectation is? The other thing is well, there's two more things Along those same lines. Why is this particular thing important? Right, and maybe that's you don't understand. You know, to you it's simply tedious, but maybe that thing, that report, is information that he or she needs to report back up to their boss. So you're feeding in, so it's an input for you, but the output to them is something that's important to you know, so that they can do their job. So maybe you're making their job harder by not really I mean realizing you again, you have to do it so. So find if they're what, what, what particular value does that task or project add? Right, what's the long time frame of this one? And then one either say, hey, look, I realize that you need this and all this. How can I do this better? What are the minimum things that I need to do to get you, you know, for the way that you need it, and get clarification, because I found that, because they probably I in through my corporate life I've done myers-briggs, have done all these different things to get into the psyche.

Doug Thompson:

One of them was energy, it was color. It was like there was four different colors. I was sort of the orange down here that liked to make things happen, but I've had bosses that were very red or very blue. The very red ones are be brief and be gone right, be brief and be gone. And then the blue ones need a lot of data to make a decision. Like, for example, I had a boss that needed that and I was struggling. I said look, and I could tell the project he put me on was going to be a dead end, but it was something he'd invested in. He said we could go do it, and so I had to go through these, these mechanisms. Give him enough data to show that, yeah, this is going to be a dead end, all the work we're this is going to be a dead end, all the work we're putting in this is going to have negligible results before he would accept it and then go on Again.

Doug Thompson:

So some of us, giving them the data they need to feel comfortable with the decision, but getting clarity on what value is that thing that you don't like to do?

Doug Thompson:

And sometimes you just have to say, look, you know, you'd probably just ask well, where's the next role I can do, where I don't have to do this, because sometimes you have those things. Well, if you stay in corporate life, bad enough, you've got a manager that's going to be a problem and you're doing things that you don't like. When I was internal and it wasn't until they got the performance I said what happened? I said, look, I've got no passion for this because I'm not out doing again knowing where your strengths are. I'm not out doing again knowing where your strengths are. I'm not out in front of the customer, I don't get to see them every day, I'm not on that front line and I just you know that's not me, that's not what lights me up. So, again, understanding that in yourself so that you can focus on and doing that sort of analysis of why that is important and seeing what you can address.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah, definitely doing that analysis, asking about the other person, because I know for myself again, personally, when I found out it was important for somebody else, it helped me to realize, okay, this is more important. Or even that situation. Talking with the manager, I'm like, why are we doing this? This is stupid. Like you mentioned with the manager that needed all the information. Now, if he realized it was more of a personal thing perhaps for him and he was really invested into it, like, okay, they really care about it. So let me try and care more about it. Or, okay, let me not just kind of throw it off to the side, let me actually explain why we need to move on. And again, I've been guilty of this where I'm like I don't see that it doesn't make sense and that engineering mind very logical, like all right.

Doug Thompson:

Well, what about?

Philip Sessions:

the next thing and okay, cool, like it's totally written all over my face and everything no-transcript, like, but if you give them that, are you crazy. Look, that's not going to go well. So you got to kind of put up that front a little bit.

Doug Thompson:

Well, but even in that, asking them why is this important to you? Up that front, a little bit well, but even in that, asking them why is this important to you? And again, you have to come across as wanting to learn, not just being condescending about it. Okay, this is great. I'm having a little trouble understanding why this is important. You can you help me understand, explain, you, explain. So this is actually some text so they can explain it to you from a reason that you understand. Again, telling you a story of why this is important to them. Then that gives you insight in what you can do. Right, and sometimes it's maybe you can share something they haven't thought of. I hadn't thought of it like that. I could do that. Or you understand, okay, let me see what I can do right, can, I can or can't do something from that? I guess all about clarity and and making sure that we're all sort of on the same page about where we're at and what we're asking and what needs to be done.

Philip Sessions:

Exactly, Clarity. That's the perfect thing right there Asking those questions, really getting to know the person, know the importance for them, and everything which then builds up to the stories that we can start to share and really sell from there and everything. And I like to say all the time and I'm sure I didn't come up with this but facts tell and stories sell, and that's really the power behind telling those stories, especially, I would say, even more so when it comes to a technical perspective, because most people are not going to get the technical jargon and so you really need to come in with those stories.

Doug Thompson:

And amplify that. It's, you know, logic sort of analyzes, but it's always emotion that buys. We always buy off emotion, you know there's always that it makes the final decision right. The logic will help narrow it down, but that emotional type thing will help make the final decision and that's why stories are so impactful is because they are directly attached and impact that emotion that goes along with it.

Doug Thompson:

If I'm just doing data and logic, then the stories don't necessarily mean anything. So, like when I talked to some data analysts, they have a unique ability to tell a story with data, but they're not telling it from one instance Okay, this is what this means is the bottom line, and we didn't and we did up from one. Is this okay, this is what this means is the bottom line and we didn't and we did so they're taking raw data and still telling a story, using sort of some different tools to do that, but it's, you know, it's always touching that emotional thing where, oh, I got to agree with yeah, I can buy into that. Or now I understand better what this is coming from and let me see how, if what, I can do about it.

Philip Sessions:

So again, that aids to that clarity, man I think that's the place where we just need to end right on that. You know, really getting that clarity, getting that emotion from people is done through storytelling. Doug, I appreciate the time, appreciate you text explaining to us instead of mansplaining today.

Philip Sessions:

But if people want to follow you, I didn't text blame, so there that's, yeah, yeah well, we went through and did storytelling, which is, which is how, the best way, I think, for really any kind of explanation, but you do it through text explanation. But anyways, doug, if people want to follow you, where's the best place for them to follow you? They'll see more of what you got going on because you've got some great content out there, so where can they follow you at?

Doug Thompson:

Well, thanks, I'm the Doug Thompson just about everywhere. Anybody could be a Doug Thompson. There's a lot of them out there. There's like a politician and a and a and a comedian and stuff like that. So I'm the Doug Thompson on most of the platforms in. But I have my own podcast. It's on spotify and I'm also on youtube as well instagram, uh, those things as well. So I've tried tiktok a little bit. I'm still trying to figure that out, but no one knows that, they just post stuff yeah, so anyway, I'm working on the cat videos for that.

Doug Thompson:

So doug thompson just reached out to me and, uh, you know, if you got somebody I can talk to, if you have a stage that needs to be on, I'm happy to in and entertain, edutain you without textplaning.

Philip Sessions:

There we go, I like it. I like it Well, Doug. Once again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate your time and sharing with us how we can be better storytellers and the power and the reason behind telling stories Excellent Thanks.

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