In this video I'm talking with Laura Stone of purposestonecom about her keynote speeches what they're about and some of the past experiences she's had so keynote speeches I understand it wasn't always joy and love no not at all tell me about your kind of potted history real quick and when you come to today so I used to hate doing them not because I was afraid of being in front of a group but I always felt like I had to sell yeah and when I finally realized what an awful feeling that was for myself as well as the people in lists in the audience something shifted and I'm not it I can't tell you there was a lightning bolt but I think it happened when I finally realized the purpose of a keynote is to add value period it's like if someone is not learning gaining growing getting insight being questioned then I'm not doing my job and all of a sudden it took away all the pressure and it was more like having a dialogue but there might be 900 of you in the room it's an intimate dialogue then an intimate dialogue right so I'd like to hear more in a moment about some of the amazing stories places you've gone and so forth but just give me a sense of what these keynotes are about are there three or four sort of core topics yes so a core one is about the first book a pocket guide to purpose and it's an overview and very quickly we go through a kind of a mini workshop in you know 40 50 minutes where it's very interactive no slide whipping just a few slides that really help to tell the story but then puts people right away into starting to think about their own purpose why are they here their uniqueness so they might be actually doing things within the keynote yes one thing that you spoken to me about is people breaking out texting what's that about yes so this is a really amazing gift that people have come up to me afterwards and said this has been trans-formative we asked you actually to actually text in the keynote now that's opposite to what you would think that's right the route is better yeah right we want you to tax ten people who are in your personal board of directors it can include your mother but we really want to expand it because we want people who will tell you the truth who will expand on not just thinking you're wonderful because you are but to also help you understand why so we ask two questions what's the value I've brought to you and what makes me unique and we ask everyone to ask those two questions send it out and if they want to give more information about it like give me three key words to answer those in one minute this is a very powerful questions it is I imagine your moving yeah it moved just recently last week as a matter of fact the woman who introduced me was partaking in it reached out sent it to people she came back up in tears and tears of joy about just how and I really mean is the the key note guaranteed to make everyone cry right that's not the intention it's moving in terms of people really seeing themselves and seeing what others see in them that we may not value in ourselves and that's key it's a business context this work as well yes so there's one this is a pocket guide to purpose which is sort of for a broader audience talk to me about the other keynotes and some that have more of a business focus yes so the second major keynote is one for leaders who are trying to help others figure out their purpose and it puts them in the seat both thinking about it for themselves but just how to role play doing it with others and be able to get more comfortable and confident very quickly with what could they be saying doing and how do they follow up so that by the time they're done with that that keynote speech they'll have two or three quick things that they can do pick out a couple of people they want to do it with and they're rolling because these things actually do make a bottom-line difference to companies yes the research shows this yes the research shows that when people are hiring and they have higher engagement and they feel like they're being seen and heard and understood they're willing to contribute spend more hours at work Gallup has a very interesting body of research that 70% of people are not engaged at work I I have heard this yes so this begins to turn that around hugely other keynotes real quick other keynotes on change in transition and looking at our inner critic and this is from some other work and research that I've been able to part of William Bridges work that is quite profound and helping us think about the emotional context and the difference between change in transition and then second is a body of work and research based from Harvard School of social relations and understanding the role of thoughts and our thoughts and what we think about when we're being kind to ourselves and we're not being kind to ourselves and how critical we can be and the impact on ourselves and others around us now you've been doing these keynotes for quite some time yes you probably have some killer stories around some interesting scenarios and you do these for some quite large global organizations can you just give me a couple of quick examples of some of those highlights yeah so not so long ago 900 women in Dallas this was for an organization that wanted to basically help out the lowest levels for people who are working in an hourly basis all the way up to the executives and it was very profound and the way I love to start out is as I'm coming in an hour too early I talk with participants as they come in someone said to me it's like a reception line already where I actually ask them why are you here what is it you want from this conversation or from from coming to this particular keynote yes sometimes it's they were sent there but more often than not they're intrigued and they want to have something answered and they get frustrated about something continuously and they're hoping they'll be answered here and what I do is weave in the comments so that it really brings a 900 group down to a conversation between you and me where I can then talk to that particular instance and then ask the group anyone else here have that and usually there's handfuls of people who can relate with the topic so it really is an intimate conversation is it's very important as that thank you so much I appreciate your insight for those of you who'd like to find out more please visit us online at purposestone
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