/QEE/ Engaging Through Improv: Milo Shapiro's Epic Adventure

RJ Redden:
Greetings, grasshoppers. Are those goggles firmly upon your head right now? Is that cape clasped around your neck? Because we are going on an adventure today. We are gonna go on an adventure with mister Milo Shapiro. And, oh my god. I can't even wait, Milo. We're gonna talk all about what drives him to be a coach, what what inspires what he does, and some some interesting ways that, that our Milo gets engagement. So, you know, Milo, you and I met a while ago, probably in a networking capacity. Yep.

RJ Redden:
And I was immediately driven to ask you to be on this show because you're a compelling human being. I love your work in the world, and I want to shout it out to everybody. So could you tell the people who you are and what you do?

Milo Shapiro:
Sure. I wanna add a compelling human being to my testimonials, though, because only you would come up with that one. So I'm Milo Shapiro. I'm San Diego based, although nowadays, that means so little, because I never step outside anyway these days. And, what I mostly do is I'm primarily these days a public speaking coach, helping people who need to give presentations. The 3 main buckets are help. I have a speech to give on August 7th, and I don't know what I'm doing, or I've got a presentation that I have to give a lot, and and I don't feel like I'm really connecting with my audience, or every week I give a different presentation. It's never the same twice.

Milo Shapiro:
I'm not trying to get it down perfectly. I just don't wanna suck every time I do this, and I don't know how to put this together in a reasonable amount of time that doesn't eat up my life. I find myself kicking myself afterwards that once again, it didn't go well. So those are my 3 main buckets of coaching. Although all kinds of odd things do come up as well.

RJ Redden:
Nice. And what you know, public speaking is a huge deal by the way. It is. It's not not many people realize that, what we are doing right now, it's public speaking.

Milo Shapiro:
Yeah. And every time you have to have a conversation with more than one person or even a one way conversation with one person, if you're trying to convey a message and it's not reaching your intended audience in a way that's clear, interesting, moving, potentially repeatable to others, you are not achieving your goals, and you're not using that person's time or your own well. And what a shame, because our time is probably more precious than our money.

RJ Redden:
It really is. Because time, you cannot get back. Money, I know I know sometimes it it runs a little little dry for people, but you can always make more.

Milo Shapiro:
If you have the dog's butt.

RJ Redden:
Time passes by, is what it does. And so, you know, making sure that that message is not only clear, but memorable, through speaking. And as you said, speaking can be 1 to 1 as well. A lot of us when we become entrepreneurs, you know, it feels like we're speaking into the void that we're writing into the void that nobody's really grasping the stuff that we're putting out there. And you're the guy who helps people put that all together.

Milo Shapiro:
Yeah. That void is a tough one. And and and YouTube and videos can feel that way. But even in a 1 on 1 conversation, the void stops. There's someone listening. Ideally, more than one person because then your message is magnified. But if we can get that point to the point where we know someone's listening and make use of that, and that's at a networking meeting. And that's at a, that's at a conference when you're in the hallway chatting with someone.

Milo Shapiro:
Even those 32nd intros and networking events. There was a woman. We used to get 1 minute in this particular group, and we would go around the room. This was back when Zoom was meant to go fast. We didn't know what we didn't know what this world was gonna be yet. And we each got one minute exactly, and she would stand up, and everyone would brace themselves for the fact that she would ramble for the full minute and never quite say what she wanted to and then be told time's up. And you just saw the disappointment in her face when she sat down again and and knew that she hadn't gotten it. And people kept saying to me, Milo, can't you help her? I said, yeah.

Milo Shapiro:
I know I can, but she has to ask. So someone got the guts up to say to her, why don't you book an appointment with Milo? I think he and she did, thankfully. And in one appointment I'm not saying this always happens in 1, but in 1, I just helped her get a structure for how she could do it and not even repeat herself because you've we've all seen that person that you could lip sync it along with them. They haven't varied a word in 5 years. It was a format, not the words, that gave her a structure. And the next week, she showed up, and she stood up, and I saw everyone brace themselves. They didn't know she had met with me. And boom.

Milo Shapiro:
She grabbed their attention. Boom. She hit her most important point. She summarized why she does what she does and where she's going and had a tagline and sat down in about 50 seconds, and everyone burst into applause. And she said, I know Milo taught me how to do that. And everyone looked at me. I'm like, I wasn't gonna say anything because I'm I can't tell someone's a client unless they admit it first. But just how quickly she felt empowered and confident because she knew what to do.

Milo Shapiro:
There's this horrible belief that if you know English and you know your topic, you should be able to speak in public. And there's, like, 15 to 20 other things to know. And some people intuit those things. The so called talented speakers are just people who intuited those things. The rest of us need to learn them, but they're learnable. If you come in with the right attitude and you're willing to try, I have just seen people really turn it around at 3 to 5 sessions.

RJ Redden:
Oh, man. And that's that's the thing is that when someone just gets it, it's impossible for them to teach. And it's impossible, baby. I had a coding teacher, long time ago, but I had to take a coding class as part of my degree. It was it was my least favorite class. And this guy, I would ask him questions continually, and he'd be like, I don't know. I just I just get it. And, I asked him what was gonna be on the he was TA ing this class and I said, Hey, what's gonna be on the what's gonna be on the midterm? And he's like, I don't know.

RJ Redden:
I just grab the sheets, and I run them through the thing.

Milo Shapiro:
Luckily, it's not entirely true that everyone who does something well can't teach it. And even though I I'd like to believe I'm better than I was when I started doing stuff related to this in 1980, that now I do seem to have a knack for looking at people and going, what is it she needs to get to her next step? What does he need to do to take one step forward to be somewhat better? Then we reassess and build on that. And it's what I love about coaching. I mean, I think I teach a good class. I'll I'll teach a class if they insist. But the bottom line is there's no way that that one size fits all format. If you've got 20 people in a class, let's just say that for example, the most attention you can get is 5%, and then it goes down from there while the person is lecturing. But in coaching, every hour is devoted to how do I get Dave to be the best Dave he could be right now? What does Dave need to hear next? So just to choose two random examples.

Milo Shapiro:
If if Rick is bland and boring and nobody wants to listen to his presentations, and then down the hall in the same company, Tina is lively and exciting and fun and never makes a point. They don't belong in the same class, but their boss is likely to sign them up for the class that HR has on the list. But if I'm working with Dave, I'm gonna show him how to make it the Dave show every time he's speaking and still within a style that he's comfortable. Only push his comfort zone as much as we have to. For Tina, it's gonna be about, you've got the energy. How do we create a through line that carries your point where you're trying to go? How do we balance your stories and data so that everything is sinking in for everyone and keep you on track? Maybe teach you how to rehearse and how to memorize so you don't go off, because she's probably not rehearsing if that's what's happening. And people don't know how to practice. They I've learned that all the time.

Milo Shapiro:
Either they don't or they do it wrong. And we can cut down that time so they're more effective.

RJ Redden:
You're you're you're doing some awesome work out there, because people are so afraid.

Milo Shapiro:
Yeah. It feels great to see people go, I got it. Or, oh, oh my god. They they applauded at the end. I didn't expect to get applause. Or people I I did an oddity. I had a father of the bride, 250 guests. And he was determined that this was gonna be a big moment for him and his daughter.

Milo Shapiro:
He was gonna get it right. We worked together a bunch of times, and he said more than half the guests came up to him. That's, like, over a 100 people said, I've never seen a father of the bride speech like that. You had me in in tears. It was like a

RJ Redden:
performance, and

Milo Shapiro:
he was just so proud of himself. And his daughter was so touched because she saw how much work he had clearly put into it, and it paid off.

RJ Redden:
There you go. I mean, just minor mic drop, for everybody out there. That's where it's at. That's where it's at. It's not I mean, you know, speaking coach, obviously. But, really, the speaking is the mechanism and you can mess with that mechanism and make it into kind of an awesome thing for that person, but it's really it's about that connection. It's about touching somebody's heart and and mind and inspiring them to do something, something, or feel something.

Milo Shapiro:
And a lot of people think that can't work because my message is too serious, or my dead message is too data driven, or I'm just explaining how to do something. But if you open in such a way that you make them want to do it, to want to hear it, if they can follow you and go, oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I could do that. It's all the difference in the world even if it's really just the how to do something. To make them want it and get excited about it and know that they could go tell someone else based on what you said, because now they have clarity. Clarity is very empowering because people don't like feeling unsure about what they're doing.

RJ Redden:
Well and so so many so many wanna reign stuff upon you. You know, like, all of the stuff all of the stuff that they've ever you know? Yeah. They wanna tell you step by step their 27 step system, in 15 minutes. And and, you know, it's like, oh, I I feel for you standing up there, but holy moly. If somebody could get a hold of somebody like you first, because adults actually remember very little, very little.

Milo Shapiro:
And they will remember more of it if you can back it with stories that help put it in place so they get it. So one of my big challenges, and it takes a while, but almost everybody gets it, is share a little bit less, but do it better. You don't like you said, the 27 steps, there's this sense of I will prove my worth by how much data I can throw at them. And if they've stopped absorbing it, you're not proving anything except that you didn't know how to connect with your audience. But if you shared 8 of those points in a really profound way to the point where they go, we have to have her back. Okay? Then you get

RJ Redden:
to do the next 7 next time. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. I mean, I I think I learned that I think I learned that, you know, from a networking this was when we all did face to face networking every all the time. I was in a networking here in Omaha, and a guy was, he was giving us a 9 point system. And what he did was used baseball. Because you've got home plate, 3 bases, 4 outfielders, a catcher, and a pitcher.

RJ Redden:
You know? 9 9 positions on a baseball team, and so he kind of related it to each one. And I found myself thinking back to his presentation and going, oh, yeah. The pitcher does this. You know what I mean? So, like, sometimes, you know and that's that's just an odd example, but, you know, it's it's about it's not about I have to appear like I'm an authority because most people have that imposter syndrome. How do you get around to that that imposter syndrome with people?

Milo Shapiro:
You you can there's a few different aspects to that that cause that, so it's not a simple answer. One is, as much as possible, stick to the things that you really are comfortable with so that way you're not going to feel like an imposter. You can actually qualify by saying, this is an area that I'm not as familiar with, but I wanna share with you what x person says about this because it really resonated with me when I read this. So now you're explaining it in the context of I'm sharing information I found. I'm being a conduit rather than telling you I know that much. A little self deprecation can can help in terms of I don't have to look like I'm so perfect up here, so you can laugh along with me that we're all doing our best. You can include the audience sometimes to get great feedback. Like, that's something I wouldn't have thought to share.

Milo Shapiro:
I'm so glad Dale said that. Those kind of those are a few ideas that come to mind as far as the imposter syndrome. So

RJ Redden:
Yeah. I know that that's a real that's a real stumbling block for people sometimes. I kind of deal with it sometimes minorly when, you know, sometimes clients are setting up a podcast or whatever. And, but but, yeah, I mean imposter syndrome and just in general fear just just people fear it more than death. You know? And that's absolutely true. It's crazy.

Milo Shapiro:
When you mentioned impostor syndrome, there's 2 parts. 1 is, who am I to be talking on this? And the other part is, who am I to be talking at all? I'm not a speaker, which is different than a subject expert. So let's go back to the question of the fear. The analogy I like to use is this. If you were a diver and you were on that high board and afraid to dive off, I could come up along the side of the board as your coach and talk to you about breathing techniques, relaxation techniques, visualizing success. But if there's no water in the pool, chances are nothing I'm saying is gonna make you any less scared to dive into blue concrete because you're not set up for success. So I explained to you, we're not gonna start with the fear. The way we deal with the fear is by dealing with the problem.

Milo Shapiro:
So my first step is to get you off the board and teach you how the hose works and help you hold it and help you turn the nozzle. And, eventually, we fill the pool with the water. And then when you get back up on the board, you might have a little bit of butterflies in the tummy, but not much can go wrong. You're about to hit some soft water. The worst that can happen is you might, you know, get a little up your nose, but we've been through that. That's not the worst end of the world. So what's putting the water in the pool of public speaking? It's showing you how to have that right balance of stories and data, how to tell a story well, how to use your face, body, and voice more effectively so so that you're likely to pull the audience in, where and how to use humor so that the program has a lighter element in places when it could be getting heavy, and all these different things that apply again differently to different people and having good structure. I teach something called the 4 steps to successful speech structure.

Milo Shapiro:
It's a fundamental of everything I teach. And people say, I'm not gonna stare at that blank Microsoft Word screen wondering how to start. I'm just gonna work the 4 steps. Like, yep. You got that for life now. So as people get good and get more confident and they hear a coach say that was good because I'll tell you when it wasn't. So if I say that was good, people know they can believe it. And as they feel better, the fear goes away on its own.

Milo Shapiro:
So we don't need to start there. I've heard of hypnotists hypnotizing people to be less scared. I'm like, you're you're showing people you're making people feel less scared to give bad presentations? That doesn't sound like the right way to approach it. You should feel less scared because you know you've gotten good, and that's what we do together.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. I mean, people people getting that attaboy or attagirl or, you know, whatever might be in between. I can't think of it right now. But, you know, the people getting that that sense of even one thing that they do right starts to build that sense of self efficacy. And that's that's that water in the pool that you've been talking about. I love that water in the pool analogy, by the way.

Milo Shapiro:
Oh my goodness.

RJ Redden:
That is amazing, and, and and just something that is so it's just it makes it real. Do you teach people how to come up with analogies

Milo Shapiro:
they start to come back. And I'm like, where did you come up with that thing about bowling? Oh, it was kind of like the thing we did with us with the, the diving board last week. I'm like, yeah. But this time it came from you. So for a while, there tends to be a little bit of Milo comes up with the ideas more, and they go, oh, I see how you did that. And then eventually, they're able to do it themselves. And sometimes it's not right off the bat. I got a call from someone about a year after I taught something, and he said, I just finally did that thing you taught me today.

Milo Shapiro:
He needed to work on other skill sets before he felt ready to try that one. And when he did, he goes, you're right. It totally worked, but I needed to get the guts up to try that one. He was a little bit out of his comfort zone. He needed time, and that's okay. Nice.

RJ Redden:
Well, I, seriously out there, if you're within the sound of my voice and and you're thinking about upping some skills, some speaking skills, you do not have to be flying around the country giving keynotes to wanna to be effective, on working on your your skills. I mean, those skills can be effective tomorrow on the next sales call, on the next group meeting, in your next workshop. People, you know, as as AI, you know, does its thing, and, y'all know I'm a fan of AI. I'm not a fan of how some people are using it as the easy escape button. And as as some of that generated content comes out, the more people hunger for connection with an actual human being. And, if you can be the person that is actually delivering that message that hits them right where they need to be hit right now, If you can deliver a message that is clear, concise, and leaves a maybe even leaves a little image in their mind like, the Milo's analogy of filling up the pool. Your whole business will benefit from that. Your whole business will benefit from that.

RJ Redden:
So get a hold of Milo people. That's that's reading between the lines for you. Now what what do you I always ask this because my people wanna know. What do you do for engagement?

Milo Shapiro:
The big question. My my business is a little different than others because I am implanting skill sets that a lot of people, once they've got those foundations, it's kind of like I'm the mama bird and I have to let them fly. And I will run into people years later saying I'm still doing all of your stuff, and I'm doing great now. And what can I say? I have to be happy for them. But I do have some people who I will touch base with and will go, oh, yeah. I do have a big sales meeting coming up. Maybe I should run just book 2 or 3 sessions with you and and really work on that one. So because people plateau, and they don't realize they've plateaued because they think they've gotten where they wanna be.

Milo Shapiro:
And all of a sudden, I can take them up another level. So I try and stay in touch. I keep people on my newsletters, and as they comment, I touch base with them, things like that. But for the for the most part, it's more about so how is it? Oh, I'm doing great, and and do you have any referrals for me? Oh, you know my new social and such, my new virtual assistant. She's not so maybe I should point her your way. So I have a I have a hotelier who's just recently pointed 2 more people my way. I worked with a, with a woman who was doing a book tour. Amazing book.

Milo Shapiro:
Jennifer Coburn's book, Cradle I'm sorry, Cradles of the Reich, about an amazing piece of of of Nazi history that most of us don't know. Horrible, but an amazing story she wrote. And she got so much better with her book tour stuff that someone said to her, you're just so good. I hate following you on stage. And she said, well, I didn't start out this way. I got a coach, so now I have this next author. So, it's it's that for me more than continuing to keep the same client in my life, although love when it happens.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. Well and and that's, you know, that may be to some of the coaches listening, that may may be a a bit of a new thing to a new coaching pattern. It doesn't always it's not always about keeping somebody, for years. It's not always about that. Sometimes it's about, Let's start at the beginning. I'm gonna teach you a few things, send you out there to fly, and when you're ready to fly back and start and and, you know, do more, I'm here. That is so powerful.

Milo Shapiro:
Another variation also is what else do they need that I can be a conduit to? So if we got as far as we can, but I say there's something we touched on earlier on and I wanna mention now is that your your accent is so thick that it's distracting. I mean, I love accents. They can be charming. But if it's a little hard to make out what the person is saying, now it's a distraction. Can I refer you to Laura for that? Or, I'm I'm what what's another one of the examples? There's something where someone is wanting to go out and out and write the book, to go with what they're saying. Oh, have you thought about writing the book? Because I know someone that I'd love to send you to who helps people organize their books, whatever it is. And in some cases, if I've developed a a business rapport with people, sometimes there's referral fees involved. And and I think that's appropriate if I'm working to create business for them and and vice versa.

Milo Shapiro:
I get people who send people, you know, that they've got a they're a coach in leadership. They're a coach in executive, whatever. And then the person has a speech. Well, that's not something they should just step out of their box and say, I'll help you work on that speech. That's not their area. Send them to me. And will I steal that client? No. This is all I do.

Milo Shapiro:
So I send them back when they're done.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. That's it it takes time. It takes time to develop a network like that. Yes. But once 20 years. Yeah. I mean,

Milo Shapiro:
at this 20 years, next month or the month after that, 20 years of the coaching and the business before that for another 4 years.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It it it does it does take time to find the find the people who, are, you know, are really, you know, rising tide lifts all boats type people, you know, who will partner with you in that way. But, like, once you've got that, it's just magical. And

Milo Shapiro:
trust me, the skill set. You have to do your homework. You can't just say, oh, found another person to check that box that I can refer to get my 10%. It's gotta be I like, I have no question referring people to Laura because I've had so many clients come back to me and say, what a difference it made. I'm like, yeah, I know your accent's lower. Oh my gosh. You just said I I I barely hear it now. She knows what she's doing, so I'm comfortable giving her those referrals.

Milo Shapiro:
Or people sometimes it's not even someone's gonna work with me. Someone will call me and say they wanna work on accent reduction, and I'll say, you've called the wrong person, but I know just who you should call. This isn't all supposed to be about Laura. But it's a good example of how those those partnerships really matter. And I know that if she found someone who wanted to take that to a speech, she'd be sending them to me.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. Well and and, you know, thank you for reminding us. Thank you for reminding us that it's more it's much more than just about us. That if I have a client and I know that they would be served better at this point by someone else, It's okay to hand that off and it's okay to accept those things in return because it's, you know, it isn't about me. It's about them. It's about them and so many so many businesses. A lot of people out there singing the Me Me Me song. But that's never been my song, Milo.

RJ Redden:
That ain't your song either.

Milo Shapiro:
Well, I've grown up. I'd say 20 years ago, there were times I was doing things I shouldn't have. I tried to help someone with articulation at one point, and I can help with breathing and projection. Articulation, what happens between the tongue and the teeth, and no. I should not be dealing with that, so I should have somebody for that. Another one was, job interviews. Now I will say, if you know the right answers, I can help you say them well, organize your skills, say them with confidence. But if you wanna know what the right answers to the question are, mm-mm, I'm sending you to Colby because he knows job interviewing.

Milo Shapiro:
And and I've never regretted having sent someone away because, yeah, it may have cost myself a little bit of cash, but it was the wrong cash. And, you know, it was the wrong cash. Something else will fill in that gap that I'm not spending doing the wrong thing.

RJ Redden:
That's right. Well, Milo, you have been, an absolutely fabulous guest. And I know that my audience has learned a lot, you know, shed new light on on public speaking, but also, you know, engagement and and partnerships. And thank you so much. Time is something you will never get back. You have just spent some time with us and I wanna say thank you. I want to appreciate you. Thank you.

RJ Redden:
And, where can people get a hold of you?

Milo Shapiro:
The best way is to start with the website, and it's just the way it sounds, no funny spellings, publicdynamics.com. And if you forget that, you can get there through milo shapiro.com. But public dynamics.com will get you the right part about coaching, and then there's a form there to fill out. And I I like it that way because then I know a little bit about you before I'm actually calling, so I'm ready for the call.

RJ Redden:
Yeah. Absolutely. Good stuff. Any final pearls of wisdom before we sign off here today?

Milo Shapiro:
Yeah. I'm gonna go back to, something that I hear when people say a lot, which is, remember, it's not about you. It's about them. And in coaching, you can do that a little bit more. But with audiences, we are not responsible for how audiences came into the room. We don't know what they're dealing with at home. We don't know what they're dealing with at work. We don't know what stresses they have.

Milo Shapiro:
So don't make it about them because that's too much for anyone to take on. So it's not about you. It's not about them. It's about the message. And if you have served the message to the best of your ability, that's all anyone can ask, and that's what you've got to go out there and do.

RJ Redden:
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, thank you again, Milo. We are gonna sign off, for this episode of the quest for epic engagements, grasshoppers. It's been a great week here in the Bat Cave. I've been doing a whole lot. Been writing a little book, coming out real soon, And, it's gonna be amazing and fabulous, about world building and brand building. And, we will see you next week.

RJ Redden:
Next week, we will have, hopefully, been been through the whole publishing business, and I'll talk about it more then. But, thank you again, and, we'll see you next week, everybody.

Milo Shapiro:
Bye bye.