It’s last Monday at 8am. I step out of the elevator and, as my feet hit the carpet, my heart is suddenly pounding and my breathing is short.
As I notice what’s happening in my body, I think, INTERESTING.
Photo credit: Keiran Ramos
This week, I got to do one of my FAVOURITE things:
GOING ON THE RADIO. In this case, CBC Radio 1 (for non-Canadians: this is our National Public Radio’s speech station, and the one I listen to every morning of my life). I was a guest on the breakfast show, Metro Morning with David Common. Going on the radio is one of my favourite things for two reasons:
1) my first career was in radio, so stepping into a studio kicks up warm, familiar feelings
and
2) i *LOVE* playing at being famous.
Like, I think being ACTUAL famous would be a kind of hell — right now, I’m sitting in a cafe wearing a dress that has a big rip in the bottom that my mum helped me sew up with a bit of lace, but it still looks pretty janky. I’m not wearing make up. I’m chewing gum because it’s a gross habit that helps me work. While my hair is looking cute, I would not want to be papped right now.
But playing at being famous is REALLY fun! Speaking on stage at conferences and having people come up to me after. Getting real letters from members of the Yes Yes Family who I’ve never met (see: the very bottom of this email). Having a social media presence which once led to a stranger recognising me in the tampon aisle…
…And going on the radio. Having said that, I’ve been on the CBC here in Toronto a bunch of times, so I was surprised by the adrenaline rush I felt when I got out of the elevator on Monday. I put it down to the fact that I was not going to be talking about my usual topic, and I had an agenda to sneak some other messages in to what I’m saying.
I was there to talk about Parachute Club — an event I was running for Toronto Games Week, where I invited grown ups to come and play on one of those giant kid parachutes. But because CBC is a big platform, I wanted to make sure I snuck a few other points in. I’m going to tell you what they were, how I snuck them in, and then give you advice for how to do the same in your talks, socials, newsletters and anywhere else you’re speaking one-to-many. There’s also a recording of the interview if you scroll down, so you can hear this all in action!
HOW I DID IT AND HOW YOU CAN TOO.
Two steps:
1) Get SUPER-CLEAR on what you definitely want to include.
When I work with speaker clients, I always ask them:
“What do you want them to do differently as a result of your talk? In terms of
a) ‘good in the world’ and
b) ‘somehow doing something that gets money or glory to you'”
I’m going to tell you a secret:
I DO NOT CARE about the answer to a). But the kind of clients I work with are Good People who don’t want to be seen as money-grabbing and in it for themselves, they won’t tell me the answer to b) until they’ve told me the answer to a).
The reason I ask b) is so that we can find ways to get that money or glory to them using their talk script. For example, if the goal is “Get people to hire me for XYZ service”, then I might get them to tell a story where they did that work for someone else. Or to say, “when I work with people to help them solve [such and such pain point], I always tell them [teaching point].” I actually did it here! You now know that I work with speaker clients. See!
Here are the four things I was clear on wanting to sneak in to my CBC interview:
– Plugs for the whole Toronto Games Week festival (I knew CBC mostly ONLY wanted to talk about the Parachute Club event, but I also know that increasing the reputation of the Mothership (i.e. the festival) exponentially increases my own event’s reputation. Also I think it’s a cool and fun event and it’s run by my friends!)
– What I do for work (in case anyone listening might want to hire me)
– The name of Sherwin Tija, the artist that was responsible for me co-owning this parachute in the first place (because they are SO BRILLIANT that I want everyone to join their EXCELLENT Patreon)
– Some activism (because it’s good to use your platform to try and move the needle for someone other than you and your friends!)
So, now you’re clear on what to sneak in, you need to do step two for the how (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP):
2) Plan your script, learn your lines and REHEARSE, REHEARSE, REHEARSE
People often worry that learning a script will deaden their presentations. In fact, most of the time the opposite it true: if you can get your script into your bones, it gives you the brain space to be able to adlib and pivot when you need to (which I did — as you’re about to see).
My writing process tends to happen as I’m biking around town. For me, learning and rehearsing looked like having conversations in my head with David Common, the host of the radio show. While there was no way to know for sure what he’d ask me, I was able to make some educated guesses based on having both conducted and (more crucially!) listened to a lot of radio interviews. So I guessed that he’d likely ask me why I have this parachute, why I’m doing this event, and why I’m inviting grown ups to it. I was 2/3rds right.
In the actual interview, he didn’t ask me the first question; but mentioning Sherwin was important to me, so I found a way to shoehorn it in. Because I had learned my script into my bones, it opened up my capacity to figure out how I was going to link from his question to what I was going to say. Here’s how that looked:
David Common led with “Why bring this back for adults?” Because it was my first answer, I figured it could make sense to give some context. So this is where I first mentioned and described Toronto Games Week (as the first thing I said) and that one of the founders has asked me to run this,
“because I am — I don’t wanna brag — a co-owner of one of those parachutes”
This was there because I knew that adding a lil joke in would balance the fact that I was giving a very long answer to a short question. In addition, I knew that if I could tell a story, it would be exciting for the listeners’ (and interviewer’s) brains. So I went on:
“this incredible artist called Sherwin Tija was wondering how much they cost and foudn out that they were $400, so they asked a bunch of us to pitch in”.
At this point, I knew I had to bring it back to making sure I answered his ACTUAL question, so I went on:
“I’ve run them a few times with kids but I just thought grown ups need to play with these. It’s so joyful! I think it’s physiologically impossible to stand and wave a parachute and not just laugh and laugh and laugh”
Here I used another storytelling tactic: VISUAL IMAGES! An action scene listeners can picture in their head, so they feel engaged.
Next was the pitch for my business. Helping people wave a parachute has NOTHING to do with coaching speakers or running workshops on Storytelling or Writing Captivating Presentations, so I knew I had to shoehorn. I also am most interested right now in getting corporate workshops, so I had to try and find a way to mention that specifically. This is how I did it:
David Common mentions that we usually play sports with an end goal of winning; I agree, then say, of Parachute Play:
“It’s just joy and whimsy for the sake of it, and we don’t do it in our day to day lives! My day job is that I teach storytelling, so I try and insert whimsy into corporate culture, but it’s still for the end goal of making your talk more memorable… so doing play just for the sake of play with no end goal…it’s just for the sake of having fun.”
✅ Said what I do
✅ Mentioned the word “corporate”
✅ Snuck in a desired outcome my workshops deliver (and implicit pain point they solve)
Finally, the one I knew would be the trickiest: the activism. This interview was all about FUN and WHIMSY and calling your local representative usually doesn’t involve these*. So that was the part I most planned a script for. I guessed that at some point, we’d discuss why it’s important for adults to play, but because David didn’t ask anything that could lead into this, I pivoted from a different point. When he said, “There’s a bit of antidote of ‘get off your screen’ as well…” I countered,
“Get of your screen, yeah, but also I just think that, like, the news is so hard right now… and there’s so many of us that are trying to do something about it, we’re calling our representatives about Gaza, about Sudan, and then we have to go to work, and then we have to go home and decide out what to have for dinner AGAIN, and it just drains you. But when you play, it FILLS YOU UP….”
Honestly, I would have liked to talk about more topics (ICE raids in the US! Bombing in Iran and Israel! Standing up against all needless death and suffering!), but I knew that, in order to say anything activisty, I had to keep it tight, and squeeze it in between light, jokey fare.
Finally, at the end of the interview, David tried to wrap up by giving details for ONLY Parachute Club, but I made sure to jump in with the url for Toronto Games Week!
I was honestly stoked with how well it went. Was it perfect? The way I start the whole interview with “UMMMMM” will tell you: no. But, as my coach Lara Wellman often reminds me: I am a human and not a robot. And the proof that CBC liked it?
They played the interview out again the next morning!
Even though the event was long over! Wanna listen to the interview? HERE:
@yesyesmarshaTorontoGamesWeek.com/schedule — if you’re seeing this on Monday, come to Christie Pitts tonight for parachute club! From tomorrow, I’ll go back to teaching you about Storytelling and how to write captivating presentations! But you can find loads on that at YesYesMarsha.com♬ original sound – Marsha Shandur (yym.ca)
Thanks so much for reading! And maybe listening! So, do you think I pulled it off?? Any questions? Let me know in the comments below!
You rule!
xx (Yes Yes) Marsha
*there are, of course, exceptions!
PS want my free guide to the magic bullet for captivating storytelling, along with free coaching via email on storytelling and writing captivating presentations? Join the Yes Yes Family — it’s FREE! Just pop your details in below and I’ll ship the guide over*:
*you can unsubscribe whenever you like because, clearly, I am not the boss of you
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