The Speaking Formula That Builds Connection and Influence

Summary
In this episode, Dr. Danny Brassell shares his journey from journalism to becoming a renowned speaker and coach. He discusses the importance of storytelling, clarity in communication, and practical strategies for retreat leaders and speakers to enhance their impact and grow their audience.




Takeaways
The five Cs framework for effective speaking
The role of storytelling in connecting with audiences
Strategies for clarity and simplicity in communication
How to craft a compelling call to action
The importance of emotional closing in presentations



Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Danny Brassell 
02:26 Danny's Journey: From Journalism to Education 
03:39 Building a Speaking Business 
06:14 The Five Cs Framework for Effective Speaking 
08:44 Gaining Clarity in Communication 
10:07 Connecting with Your Audience 
16:25 The Power of Storytelling in Speaking 
19:43 Rapid Fire Questions and Final Thoughts 
22:35 RNR Outro Final.mp4 
23:13 RR.Gift.RetreatRnR.com.mp4




🔗 Connect with Danny Brassell
📧 Email: danny@dannybrassell.com
📩 Personal Email: dannybrassell@gmail.com
🌐 Website: DannyBrassell.com
🔗 LinkedIn: Danny Brassell
📸 Instagram: @realDannyBrassell
📘 Facebook: Danny Brassell
🌐 Story Resources: STORYguide.com | wellcraftedstoryworkshop.com




🔗 Connect with Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
📧 Email: holly@hollyporter.com 
🔗 LinkedIn: Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
🎵 TikTok: @retreatrnr 
▶️ YouTube: @retreatrnr 
📸 Instagram: @retreatrnr | @hollyporterinternational 
📘 Facebook: HollyAnnPorter

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast. I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R. With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats. I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences. Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here. Enjoy the ride. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, welcome to the show today, Back to All Things Retreat Podcast. And we'll be doing an interview with a highly sought-after speaker today. He's a trainer and a coach known as the Jim Carrey with PhD. Dr. Danny Brussels, did I say that right? Has spoken to over 3,500 audiences worldwide. He's authored 21 books, including Leadership, Begins with Motivation, and Misfits and Crackpot. The co-founder of Wellcrafted Story, Danny helps entrepreneurs, individuals, and organizations leverage speaking on stages as a major client lead source that converts. So welcome to the show, Danny.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Thanks so much for having me, Holly. More importantly, thanks for spreading some joy around the world. We need a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Oh, thank you. I know. My mom's name was Joy. She passed away from Parkinson's, and I thought, how cool of a name when I didn't even think how cool it was until after she had passed away. And I thought, wow, what a name. So yeah, thanks. That's even more of a compliment than you even knew. Well, let's have a little chat about a few things here. Um, most of our listeners are retreat leaders in that industry, and we have been talking about the new International Retreat Association that by the time this show comes out, we'll have launched. And so all those details, of course, will be in our show notes for the listeners. They can go check it out. So if this is your first time hearing about it, um, you'll probably be hearing a lot more. But that will be a great place for retreat leaders to grow and learn more about the industry. And of course, venues, service providers are all welcome as well to that, but it's coming. So um, international retreatassociation.org, you can go there and grab a free gift. Um, and international retreatassociation.com will be the place where you can check out even more and sign up. So let's get into it. Um, let's talk about your journey for a minute. All right. And the question I have for you is what moment in your journey where everything started to click for you?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I don't know if anything's ever clicked for me, Holly, but I can uh I'll tell you about my journey, I guess. Uh if I was gonna write an autobiography, I would probably call it Pivots because I feel like I've already lived nine lives. Thirty years ago, I was a journalist covering President Bush Sr. in the 1992 presidential election. I loved my job. I got to meet every editor of every major daily, and one editor offered me the Citi Beat for $16,500 a year. Meanwhile, a friend told me they were hiring teachers in South Central Los Angeles for $25,000 a year. So I became an educator for the noblest of reasons, Holly, for the high pay. And I actually uh I fell in love with teaching. I've taught all age levels from preschoolers all the way up to rocket scientists. I can make that claim because I used to teach English as a second language to engineering students at the University of Southern California. And in 2005, my wife and I attended a real estate seminar, which turned out to be a scam, and we lost everything financially. And I could give you the woe is me story, but I'm a positive person. I learned a lot from that experience. First of all, I learned that my wife is my soulmate. I put her through the ringer and she stood right by me. She's a pretty incredible human being. Second of all, I learned money's not everything because you can lose money just like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

We're nice.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Third, I try not to judge other people, Holly, because if I was somebody who saw what I had done, I would have said, Well, you deserve that. But now I realize unless you know everything about a person, really don't know anything about a person. Fourth, I became a Christian, which I'm always embarrassed to confess, it took a catastrophe. But the more I read the Bible, I realize I'm not the first screw up to find Jesus. And fifth, I uh didn't want to file bankruptcy, and my accountant said, Well, you have to earn this much more money this year. So I started speaking on the side and I hit that number right on the number. Well, the next year, Holly, he gave me a much higher number. And I hit that number right on the number. So in year three, I thought, well, maybe I should set a higher number. And basically, during one of the worst economic downturns in American history, I was able to build up a highly lucrative speaking business, which eventually attracted the attention of some pretty famous people and companies who were asking me to coach them. And I have to admit, I resisted coaching for a long time, Holly, because you need to know this about me. I'm obsessive compulsive. I will not let you fail. I will be on your back holding you accountable until you succeed. Well, now that I work primarily with entrepreneurs and business owners and executives who pay me a lot of money, I find that they're highly motivated. They do the work, and it's been some of the most rewarding uh work that I've ever done. So you can take me down whichever path you choose, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, I love that. Wow, that's amazing. Well, and and retreat leaders listening, I mean, at some point you're leading a retreat. Okay, it says it all. And you are speaking. Why not become a better speaker and and teacher? And if you're if you're honing in and putting those tools in your two toolbox, I mean, to me, I'm I'm a I will always learn. Like I I have an honorary doctorate, but I didn't earn a doctorate degree. But I can tell you, I've had enough classes and courses and certifications and everything else. I definitely could have. I put in the time, let's put it that way, because that's what was important to me. The paper on the wall didn't matter to me personally, because I I want to take what I wanted to take, not what they told me to take. And I'm just a little bit of a rebel that way. So I'm, I don't, I respect that for people, but it's like always be an avid learner. And so speaking is such a huge piece of that and being a leader, and you you hit both those marks with what you teach and what you show people how to do. So working with you, let's how what does that look like? For let's let's paint a picture for someone listening. Retreat leader, I know is very broad because any business can be a retreat leader doing what they're doing. But let's let's just say we're speaking to someone who's looking at maybe getting more speaking opportunities, not just at the retreats. What would you say would be some steps that they could take to go to that next step?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Well, one of the companies we're working with right now is one of the largest experiential retreat companies on the planet. And uh they hired uh I have a company called Wellcrafted Story that I co-founded with Coach Jimmy Hayes Nelson and Dave Ward. I call us the professor, the performer, and the producer because my background's academia. Coach Jimmy was a Broadway actor, and Dave's an attorney. And uh what they had asked us to do was to help them on their capital raising on their pitches. And uh so really we have a uh a process. Uh, you have to forgive me, I'm a former teacher. So everything I do either rhymes or it's alliterative. And so we call it the five Cs framework. So before you put together your presentation, the first C is clarity. There's two questions we ask people when we start working with them. If you can answer both of these questions, you're in pretty good shape. And if you cannot, you're gonna have a struggle wherever you speak. Those two questions are who is your audience and what is the problem that you solve? And you'd be amazed, Holly. 95% of the people we work with at first cannot answer one or both of those questions in a succinct manner. Once you're very clear about your audience and the the uh service that you're providing for them, then we go into the other four C's, which are connecting with your audience, teaching meaningful content that serves your audience, having one clear call to action for your audience, and finally ending with an emotional close that's going to get people jumping up and running to work with you. And so with retreat leaders, uh the way that they're speaking either is to raise capital, uh, how do I get customers? How do I take the people at my retreats and convert them for you know other offers and things like that? I mean, we have clients that'll come up to us and say, I got a standing ovation. I'm like, that's great. And some will say, People think I'm a wonderful speaker. I'm like, good for you. But there's only one measure that I measure your effectiveness as a speaker is how many people in your audience decide to take the next step with you. Now it can be an unpaid next step, like subscribe to my podcast or vote for me. Most of our clients, it's usually a paid offer, like buy my coaching program, invest in in invest in our retreat. Uh, we're only going to measure your, I mean, we want you to move hearts in your audience, but we also, more importantly, want you to move the needle.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's great. Um, you were talking about some being clear on things, and that's one of my questions was what's a simple shift that someone can make today to gain more clarity in their work or their life?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

I think the biggest mistake a lot of people make is they try to sound really intelligent and uh impress people, and that's not the way people think. People need things to be very simple, and so I mean, when I was a reporter, we were told to write at a fourth grade level. Right. You know, uh it's it's uh, I mean, how do you keep things simple? Uh whenever people are throwing out all this jargon and uh fancy speak, you're actually disconnecting yourself from the audience. I mean um I I tell the people I work with, I'm like, stop bragging. You know, it doesn't help you. Start sharing, stop sharing your fail your successes, start sharing your failures because not everybody in your audience has succeeded, but they've all failed. Yeah. And the more you have your own failures, the more they're gonna see themselves new. I mean, right now I'm working with a gentleman from successful businessmen in Saudi Arabia. The guy's climbed the highest peak on all seven continents. He swam with sharks in Madagascar, he did the Iditarod in Alaska, and I look at him like nobody can relate to you. Nobody in your audience can climb Mount Everest, but I guarantee you, everybody in your audience peed their pants when they were six years old. That's a more effective way to connect with your audience, is sharing stories like that. And uh I think that's where you're gonna be uh more effective uh in converting that audience into clients.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah, I would agree for sure. Um can you break down your oh let's see, we did your five C's. You gave those to me, didn't you? Yeah, that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Um well, I can break each one down. So when you're connecting, again, former teacher, uh I say in the first five minutes of your presentation, you need to rap. Rap stands for you need to show that you're relatable, you have to demonstrate your authority, and you have to share your purpose. So relatable. Man, I'm just like you. I've had that exact same problem. Authority, and I solved that problem, purpose. And now I'm on a mission to help people just like you so you don't have to suffer the way I suffered. If you can do that in the first five minutes of your presentation, you're gonna have a higher conversion rate. And then we get into the content of your talk, which is what most people focus on. But I'm a former educator. I look at the research, the research shows it's actually the least important part of your presentation. The bun's more important than the burger. People remember the beginning of your talk, they remember the end of your talk, they don't remember anything in between. But this is what's really interesting. What they do remember is, are you helpful? And so when I first started speaking, I was speaking primarily to education audiences. And one of my mentors was a guy by the name of Jim Treleese. Jim used to teach parents how to read aloud with their kids. And in the middle of his presentation, he's like, oh, oh, this is gonna save your life someday. If you ever lock yourself out of your car, if you have your cell phone, call your significant other, have your significant other put the car key next to the cell phone. You put your cell phone next to the car door, it'll unlock the car door. Ollie, I've tried this from 3,000 miles away and it works. It wouldn't work with a newer car. This is 30 years ago, but my Toyota Corolla, I tried it and it worked. And here's the point of that story. This has nothing to do with what he's talking about. And I'd watch people run up to him after his presentation, say, Oh my gosh, I saw you a couple years ago, Jim speak. You teach that trick. Oh, it totally saved my life. I was able to unlock my door and stuff. Ever since then, I've been telling everybody to book you as a speaker.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Whoa. Whoa, this had nothing to do with his talk, but he demonstrated trustworthiness. Here, here's something that you can use that'll help you. So that's what you want to do. I when I have clients that say I don't want to sound salesy during my presentation, Danny, I'm like, well, here's my strategy. Stop selling, start serving. Yes. I want you to look at your audience. You're you're the guide, they're the hero. They're all starving to death. You have food. If they don't get your food, they are going to die. It's a different mindset when you're on stage. And then the final two parts of your presentation are a clear call to action and an emotional close. So we're working with a woman right now. By the way, I always believe in discretion. So I never actually give you the names of my actual clients. All you have to do is talk to Coach Jimmy. He'll name drop 20 people in one sentence. It drives me crazy. Um, but we're working with a woman right now, she's probably the top nutrition expert on the planet. So her presentation, she was ending with uh uh join my 90-day coaching program for $1,997. And she ended her presentation there. I'm like, whoa, big mistake. She's like, What do you mean? I'm like, well, this is what we'll we'll get we'll double your conversion rate just right now because you have to understand there's two types of people in your audience. And I'm gonna be stereotypical and say it's the husband and the wife. And so the husband, he's Joe Friday. He's sitting there during your presentation with his arms crossed, looking skeptically at you, like, who is this person? What are these trying to sell me? What do I got to do? How much is this gonna cost? In a very well-crafted presentation, make sure to address all of those questions to satisfy Joe Friday, which is where Dr. Kathy was ending her presentation. Like, Dr. Kathy, you can't end there because you're forgetting the wife. The wife is Julia Roberts. She doesn't care what it costs, she just wants to feel good. I mean, I listen to Holly's podcast because she's like my long-lost sister. I feel so connected with her. She makes me feel good. And so we needed to create connection with that portion of her audience. And she's like, Well, how do you do that? I'm like, well, what do you what do you want your audience to do? She says, I want them to buy my coaching program. I'm like, Yes, I know you want them to buy your coach. It was like this for five minutes, going back and forth. I'm like, You're an educated woman, Dr. Kathy. Then she finally she finally let it slip. She said, Well, I want I want my audience to know they can't do it on their own.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Ah, you need to hire an expert story. She's like, A what? I'm like, I'll give you a demonstration. I'll leave you all today with this. Many years ago, my wife and I, we had theater tickets. We were dressed to the nines, driving to the theater, and we got a flat tire. My wife said, Well, I'll call triple A and get a tow truck here. And I looked at her, I'm like, you don't have to call triple A. I'm a man. I can fix a flat tire. So I got out of the car and I opened up the trunk and I got the spare tire, and then I got the pumper thing, and I got the big jack thing, and tried to start taking off the nuts off of the tire. And basically, 27 minutes later, I had grease all over my hands. I hadn't fixed the flat tire. I look up. My wife is standing beside the car, shaking her head, holding her arms with her arms crossed, looking at me like I could have done so much better than this guy. Well, unbeknownst to me, she had called AAA 27 minutes later. This tow truck shows up, and this 17-year-old punk hops out of the tow truck and proceeds to fix my flat tire in three minutes flat. You know, folks, I think there are times in life when all of us think we can do it on our own, but if you want to save time, you want to save money, you want to save a whole lot of headache and embarrassment, yeah, you hire an expert. So now what I've done, Holly, is I've demonstrated to Dr. Kathy this is a metaphorical story. So your audience is leaving thinking, you know, I've tried lots of diet programs in the past that didn't work. Dr. Kathy really knows her stuff. Maybe I should hire Dr. Kathy. That's what we're trying to do. Yeah. It's that's the difference between a good speaker and a great speaker. Good speakers tell stories.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Great speakers tell stories with intention. How do I get the audience to take that next step?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, I love that. That's great. And I'm in the middle of creating um a presentation right now, and so I'm thinking of different stories, and which one do you want to use and pull from? And I love that. So that helps me. Thank you. There you go. What do you think for you when you're telling these stories? Like, what is it played in your own success? And how come someone start using it even if they don't feel like they're a natural storyteller?

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I love it when people say I'm not a natural storyteller. I can't give speeches. I'm like, so you've never had dinner with a friend? Because you're telling stories during dinner. That's what you're doing all the time. I mean, uh uh, of all people, it was Joseph Stalin who said a million dead is a statistic, one person dead is a tragedy. Facts tell, but stories sell. Facts inform, stories transform. And so uh here's a strategy. I'll give a strategy for all your listeners right now, Holly. Sit down later in a comfortable chair with a pen and paper, libation of choice beside you. And for an hour, I want you to write down every story that's ever happened to you. And I don't mean the entire story, I just mean triggers. The time I locked myself out of the car in front of Costco, the time dad spilt mustard on his tie when we went to that fancy restaurant. You'll find in an hour you can literally come up with hundreds of stories like that. That's the first part of the exercise. The second part of the exercise is then I want you to figure out what's this story really about. Oh, this is a story about never giving up. Well, this is a story of empathy. Oh, this is a story of priorities. On my computer, I have hundreds of files with literally tens of thousands of stories. So when I'm putting together a presentation and I want my audience to have a certain emotion, I know exactly where I can pull stories from. And you know, and I prefer, I'm a little bit different than a lot of coaches out there. A lot of coaches say the way you're going to connect with your audience is to talk about the most tragic and horrible time of your life. And there's three reasons why I refuse to do that. First of all, the world just survived a global pandemic. Everybody's had a lot of bad stuff happen to them. I don't think we need more sad stories. I think we need more uplifting stories of hope. Second of all, what we are coaching our clients to do is create what we call a well-crafted story. Politicians would call it a stump speech. I've heard people call it a signature talk. You can call it peanut butter and jelly. It doesn't matter what you call it. This is a presentation that you're going to deliver again and again to introduce yourself to new audiences. It's going to become so ingrained in your head, it's like the Pledge of Allegiance or the Lord's Prayer. Well, do you really want to relive the worst experience of your life again and again? I mean, I have a friend, and his daughter was killed in a school shooting. He's delivered that speech over a thousand times. I mean, you gotta be stronger than me to talk about the worst day of your life. Most of my clients are terrified to go on stage to begin with. I'm trying to make them comfortable. And third, and this is where people get angry with me, I have one basic objective when I'm on stage, Holly. I want you to leave here feeling better than when you came in. I want you smiling, laughing, happy. I think there's something admirable about that as a basic objective. I believe the people that tell the same sad story again and again, by the 20th time they're telling it, now those are crocodile tears, and now they're being manipulative. And I'm not saying it's not an effective sales strategy. It's actually a very effective sales strategy. But I personally don't want to have to take a shower once I got off stage because I just manipulated my audience. There are ethical ways to get people to want to do business with you. And uh that that's what I'm I'm trying to get people comfortable on stage and uh enjoying themselves because most people, you know, that's the statistics always reveal that Americans' number one fear is public speaking, number two is death. And so Jerry Seinfeld's line is so if you ever go to a funeral, more people would rather be in the coffin than delivering the eulogy. And he's right about that.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah, this is true. I've experienced both. Well, there you go. Well, um, you're gonna do a little bit of rapid fire here for some questions, no right or wrong answer. Just answer to share the audience a little bit more about you. All right, you ready? I'm ready. Coffee or tea?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Coffee.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

First thing you do before going on stage.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Pray.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Biggest speaking fear that you've ever had.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Um, not having a big enough life. Not enough, not enough people. I like, I've never met a microphone I don't like.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Well, what's one word that describes your speaking style?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Funny.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Favorite place that you've ever spoken?

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Um oh, that's a that's a tricky one. Um, I got to speak at the Hollywood Bowl once. I thought that was fun. I uh there it's always the exotic places, but I've also spoken, uh I spoke at a movie theater to a group, and at towards the end of my presentation, theater patrons were coming in like this isn't this isn't the new Mel Gibson movie. Who is this guy? So that was fun too. But Hollywood Bowl, that was a pretty cool place to speak.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

That would be. What's one? This is a final, what's one sentence that you want every listener to remember from you?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

I'll I'll give the same sentence. It's it's actually a paragraph. You give me a paragraph. Whether I was teaching my little ones or my older ones as they left my class for the day, they always had to hear the same refrain. I said, remember kids, education is valuable, but execution is priceless. Knowledge is not power. Only applied knowledge is power. Knowing what the right thing to do and doing the right thing are two very different things. So let's go out, do the right thing, and make this world a better place.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Oh, I love that. That's a great, great place to end. Um, thank you. That was some great nuggets. Um, we're gonna put all your information in our show notes so that they can come and find you and chat with you and um maybe hire you. You never know. Uh, this would be great. So um any other last words of wisdom?

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah, well, as a thank you to you and your audience for having to listen to me, Holly. Uh, I want to give everybody a freebie. So if you go to freestoreguide.com, guide like a tour guide, freestoreguide.com, I'm gonna give everybody their own well crafted story blueprint. What this is, is the actual process that we take our clients through to help you create your well crafted story. What it does for you is it takes the guesswork out of What story should I use and where should I put it in my presentation? And what this means is you have a tool, an actual system, to convert audiences into actual clients. You can get that at freestoryguide.com. And Holly, again, I'm so grateful that you had me today. And I I appreciate all that you do to spread that joy around the world, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Well, thank you. And yeah, thank you for coming. Go grab his gift. I'm sure that is a great gift. I'm going to, so there you go. It's right up my alley. Alrighty. Well, thanks everyone. We will see you next time on the show. Until then, bye for now. Thank you for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat. We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you. And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infoweretreatrnr.com. Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates. Until next time. Remember, great retreats start with great intentions. Let's make them extraordinary one step at a time. Thinking about hosting a retreat? Before you dive in, let's make sure you're really ready. Grab your free Are You Retreat Ready checklist and find out if you've got everything in place from your purpose and pricing to your audience and agenda. Don't guess. Get clear. This quick checklist will show you exactly where you stand and what you need to make your retreat a success. Click the link below in the show notes to grab your gift and take the first step toward hosting with confidence.