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The WebWell Podcast, Episode 14 - "Speaking of Marketers with Cathey Armillas"
23 Plays11 months ago
In this enlightening episode of the Web Well Podcast, we have the privilege of talking with Cathey Armillas.
Join us as we explore Cathey's fascinating journey from a high school psychology class to becoming a powerhouse in marketing and a renowned speaking coach. Cathey shares her unique insights on how a fundamental interest in human psychology led her to a career in marketing and eventually to coaching people in the art of impactful speaking. We also get a peek into her personal life, from her early days in sports to her current passion for pickleball.
Cathey's story is a testament to the unexpected twists and turns life can take and how embracing these changes can lead to a fulfilling career and life. You can tune in for an episode filled with inspiring stories, practical advice, and a fresh perspective on speaking and marketing.
Learn more about Cathey at www.catheyarmillas.com or search for her on Social Media.... she's the only Cathey Armillas (with an "e")!
Follow us wherever you listen to podcasts!! We'd also love to hear what you think... please share your questions and comments with [email protected]
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the web well podcast brought to you by cascade web development. All right. Welcome everyone to the web well podcast. I don't even know what episode number technically this will be, but it's another one. Uh, I'm joined by my co-host Ben McKinley and our special guest Kathy. Kathy, welcome. Hi, thank you both for having me here. So great to be here.
00:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, very excited to have you join us today, Kathy. I think we originally met because we were both guests on a mutual friends podcast, Cause and Effect by our friend, Ryan Buchanan. And he has since then gathered a lot of us together over the last couple of years. And we've had a lot of really fun conversations and experiences together. So I'm really excited to expand upon that and learn a little bit more about you.
00:01:00
Speaker
and share that with our
Kathy's Journey to Speaking Coach
00:01:02
Speaker
audience. And as Simon mentioned, you're a professional speaker, speaking coach, a marketer, and so you do this a lot. And so we're excited to maybe hear some things that are a little bit off script from your normal sharing and just learn more about your journey, what you're working on now and what the future holds. So really excited to spend the next bit of time with you here on the podcast.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, me too. Yes, we met because of a podcast and now we're on a podcast. I love it. Unbelievable. It's full circle. Full circle. Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, good. Well, we usually kick things off just trying to allow our guests to share a little bit more about their background, their journey to where they're at. And this isn't highly scripted. So feel free just to share with us some of the points that you like sharing about your story and what you think kind of the foundation was and stacked up to where you find yourself today.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, thanks. You know, I have various interesting points of my story, but I feel like part of my story is also part of everybody's story, which is usually that you end up somewhere and that is not actually where you intended to start. And for me, it goes back to, it probably goes back to my childhood days when I was really,
00:02:28
Speaker
I was really done with all of the electives I could ever do. I didn't want to take any more art classes. I did not want to do another ceramics class. And I had another option and it was psychology. I took the psychology class and I was like, wow, this is really, really interesting. Like learning why people do what they do and breaking it down. And many times the things that we would think that we do, we don't do it that way. We do it another way. And so very fascinating stuff.
00:02:57
Speaker
And it really kind of, you know, if I fast forward really far, it really got me interested in marketing because marketing is all about the psychology of why people buy things, why people are interested in things, what
00:03:07
Speaker
makes people think things are cool or not cool. And then it really fled into this space of coaching people to speak and what things could, what's the psychology of how we communicate to other people and what do people listen to and how do we impact people with our words or influence or inspire.
00:03:33
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's kind of the short version, but it really all started from a psychology class in high school. Wonderful. Wonderful. And one thing I really enjoyed hearing about with your story, too, is just a very rigorous background in sports that continues today and has morphed for sure. But maybe you could tell us a little bit about that journey and how that contributed.
Passions and Personal Life
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, being a coach now, it's kind of funny. I don't actually, the coach word I'm not actually a fan of because there's all kinds of coaches, right? There's life coaches and life coach sometimes equals unemployed or, you know, looking for my next gig kind of thing. But of course we all know that there's...
00:04:17
Speaker
Of course, we all know that there's other coaches as well that are very important. And if anybody out there listening has ever participated at any level in any kind of organized sports, you understand that the coach is critical. The coach is critical for not only your learning journey, your understanding of whatever game it is you're playing, the mindset that you use, how you improve, how you get better, how you can actually show up in a game situation,
00:04:44
Speaker
And when I was really young, I found out via my friend who was like my best friend in school, her dad was the coach of a softball team. And I found out I could do something really fun and I could hang out with her more if I just would join the softball team.
00:05:01
Speaker
Well, I was terrible. I was sitting in right field and I was like dragging my feet, like looking around. If anybody ever hit the ball to me, like for sure, I wasn't gonna catch it kind of thing, you know. But there's something inside of my personality that's like, I don't know, if you're gonna do something, it just, I can't do something and just be the one sitting in right field not doing it, even at a young age. So I told my dad, I was like,
00:05:29
Speaker
I want to be the pitcher. I want to be the one that has the ball all the time. And, you know, he was like, oh, that's really cute. Like, that's super cute. Do you understand how much time, you know, do you understand how much time, you know, these pitchers are putting into and I'm like, well,
00:05:47
Speaker
I could do it. So he gave me a bunch of socks and he wrapped it up in duct tape. He's like, well, if you want to get better, throw this against the house a couple hundred times a day. Because I'm not paying for you to go to some expensive pitching clinic because you have the idea that you want to be a pitcher. So I did, you're right, Ben, from an early age, I learned a lot through sports. I ended up playing softball at the national level. I was a fast pitch pitcher.
00:06:16
Speaker
So I moved my way up and then when I became an adult, whatever that means or whenever that was, I started playing competitive soccer. And so yeah, that's, and I have played very competitively in any sport I have tried. And what's got you fired up these days in the, in moving your body, Kathy? The audience wants to know.
00:06:40
Speaker
I feel embarrassed to say it. It feels cliche. It feels cliche. Embrace, embrace. I'm gonna embrace it. I'm embrace it. I am full into pickleball. And I'm not just like in a little bit. I am like full blown doing tournaments. I'm getting coached. I'm fighting with my husband because we're both playing and we both wanna go for the ball. Like I'm in.
00:07:05
Speaker
That's awesome. That's awesome. And you also love being outdoors as well, which I think is a really cool sort of juxtaposition there between the highly structured team environment. Every pickleball court is supposed to be the same as far as I know. I'm real new at pickleball. And then just being outside and being there in a less controlled environment where it's a very different connection to movement and space and others.
00:07:33
Speaker
Now, if I remember correctly, your honeymoon was quite an odyssey, was it not? Yes. Not the honeymoon, the wedding, right? Are you talking about the wedding? Yes, yes. Yes. So the wedding, we had our wedding because we're both very outdoorsy people. We are on the hunt to go to every single national park before we die.
00:07:55
Speaker
You know, some of them are easy, some of them aren't easy to get to, just FYI. But we both decided that we would really love to get married at one of my favorite places at a waterfall, and at one of my favorite times at midnight. I just love the ambiance of night. And, you know, as marketers, you all know this, that you could take the same exact place
00:08:20
Speaker
and you change the ambiance of it and it becomes a totally new, different, magical place. Well, we got married at Lateral Falls in the Columbia River Gorge at midnight with over 600 candles, flameless candles, all along the way that led all the way to the waterfall. It was a little bit less than quarter of a mile to get there. So all these candles. And we got married there with about, I don't know, 80, 100 of our,
00:08:48
Speaker
Closest friends and family and we made it onto the news because it was so weird. I guess Sounds amazing. Sounds amazing. I was just out in the gorgeous last weekend for the first time in a long time Eagle Creek actually where someone wasn't using flameless things not so long ago, unfortunately, but so beautiful and and to your point, you know
00:09:10
Speaker
experiencing at different times of day and certainly illuminating in ways like that. That sounds just totally, totally memorable for everybody, I'm sure. Yeah. Awesome. Well, cool.
Viral Success and Storytelling Techniques
00:09:23
Speaker
Well, you know, as we kind of shift back to the work piece,
00:09:28
Speaker
you know maybe tell us a little bit I really enjoyed hearing this you know the world the notion of something going viral today with all of our social media platforms is certainly ubiquitous and well known but it wasn't always that way and I thought you had a pretty unique story about you know kind of earlier as I understand in your marketing journey about certain videos going viral that we'd love to share with our audience but
00:09:52
Speaker
Maybe tell us a little bit about that and then how that kind of played forward with your professional path.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, crazy story. It is weird when you talk about something that seems so normal now. And when you say viral video, everybody knows what that is. But long ago in a land far, far away, there was once a space called the internet that did not have a space called YouTube. It didn't have Facebook, it didn't have,
00:10:25
Speaker
Instagram, it didn't have Twitter. At that time, I think a lot of the internet was filled with blogs, and this is how people were communicating, or BBS boards, if you remember these old BBS boards. But I was a director of marketing for an industrial shredder manufacturer, and I remember the day that I was interviewing for the job, I was like,
00:10:49
Speaker
awesome big paper shredders industrial size paper shredders not the fun size that you have at your house and 100% not the case like i showed up and was like oh like they're putting an entire boat in a in the shredder when i like first day i got there i'm like a boat a whole boat
00:11:11
Speaker
30 seconds later is nothing but a bunch of little scrap pieces of metal and fiberglass that fit in your hand. And I quickly became aware of a world that I was unaware of. And so when I got the job,
00:11:28
Speaker
And I started working there, and I remember talking to the CEO, and I was like, I don't know if anybody that works here can remember how fascinating it is to find out that we shred things like this. And wouldn't it be a cool thing to do for a marketing campaign that would kind of extend a little bit further out? And the CEO was like, yeah, I mean, how many people are going to buy half a million dollar shredder? And I'm like, yeah, that's not really how the internet works. That's not the point.
00:11:57
Speaker
And I actually talked him into us creating this little web, you know, that is back in the old days of flash, a little flash player. Right. And so we paid this local company fifteen, twenty thousand dollars and they created this and it had to load, you know, the whole thing had to load and.
00:12:16
Speaker
So we had to make these shreds and we had to like, basically, I had to produce them because they had to be less than 60 seconds. So it's kind of like you had the whole formula for the whole shot was like, show the very big thing, then show it going into the very big shredder and then show the very big shredder, you know, crunching this thing really quickly.
00:12:35
Speaker
And then cut to the underneath where the big thing is now little things. And then show hands so that you could actually show a human hand and show exactly how small this was. And so that was kind of the formula for creating these videos. And we made about 12 of them. I mean, I'm literally up on like man lifts recording into shredders and creating this whole thing.
00:13:01
Speaker
And we buy a URL called watchitsred.com. And we put about 12 of these up. And like a week and a half later, I get a phone call. Hi, this is Mike from the David Letterman show. I want to talk to you about having your shredder on our show. And I'm like, Oh, that's really funny. My sister tries to punk me every year. And so I literally hung up on the guy.
00:13:24
Speaker
But then like 20 minutes later got an email. I was like, oh, this is Mike from the David Letterman show.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly, right? Whoops. And so we did. We ended up on The David Letterman Show, CNN, CNBC. We ended up with two reality TV series. We became this mega thing. And in the midst of all that happening, YouTube launched. And one of the videos that we put up was one of the very first viral videos, which at that time would be anything over a million was kind of the criteria.
00:13:59
Speaker
And it was like, oh. And that was a term that, at that moment, nobody really knew what it meant. And it was just kind of like, hey, we've got this new platform. And Google just bought it. Because Google ended up buying it like, it wasn't even a year later. It was like in 2006 that Google bought YouTube. And there were very few videos. I mean, if you can go back, you can go back in these times. And you got the Charlie bit me. You know, you got some of these original videos that
00:14:28
Speaker
that created, you know, over, you know, and they were even like 100,000 hits back then. It was a lot, but a million? Oh, that was like, that was like getting a platinum record back then. So yeah, we had several viral videos that went. In fact, to this day, people tag me constantly on various social media sites of a compilation that I put together of us shredding a couch, a big huge tire, a refrigerator, a bunch of different things.
00:14:57
Speaker
computers and people just keep re, you know, putting it out there like, oh, look at this. So yeah, that was interesting. And you know, to tie it to the marketing, I would say that, you know, some of the time now that I speak, you know, Ben, you asked me to tie it to what I do now. I always tell people, if you think about the Shredder story, everybody has their own Shredder story.
00:15:24
Speaker
Everybody has that. Everybody has this unique thing or this unique idea or the unique compilation of what makes you who you are or what you've done in your life, your experiences. And so everybody has that, but not everybody realizes it. I don't know, you're this close to stuff sometimes and you're very, you don't know, you don't realize it. And so in the speaking part, I've really been able to help people figure out what that could be. What is their shredder story kind of thing?
00:15:53
Speaker
Kathy, several things jump out at me. For one, the midnight thing. Ben knows I do this paddle trip every year. I'm over on the east side of Washington State. I'm over in Spokane. And there's a lake up north in North Idaho called Priest Lake.
00:16:10
Speaker
We put in at midnight. Well, not at midnight. We put in after dark on a Friday night and paddle through the night to get to our spot. We put up in the night and it could be foggy and rainy. We put up at like 2 a.m., right? But like you just said, the magical part is waking up in the morning to this thing that we were just as close to the night before, but now we can see it, right?
00:16:34
Speaker
Um, that is a hundred percent. I totally get that magic of, you know, doing something that people should be in bed. They shouldn't be out here. Like it's just different, right? But yet it's actually the same trail that you walk in the daylight, you know? But I'm going to reach here. I'm going to see if I can tie this into your other side of, of coaching, um, speaking, right? Is that uniqueness, like you said about storytelling, about everyone has their shredder story.
00:17:02
Speaker
your methodology to coaching speaking, does that come out as find that midnight kind of shredder story? And again, I'm linking your two stories together, but like find that one thing that someone didn't see before because it was midnight, but suddenly because you told that story, now it's daytime, now they can see it. Is that part of some of your unique coaching or better put, maybe what is?
00:17:28
Speaker
You know, that's pretty brilliant that you put that together. And I think sometimes when you do your stuff, you're just like, I'm just doing my stuff here. But that was really, that was a pretty brilliant thing. So I mean, like, I think that's really good. I would say yes. I think one thing that you hit on that I have consciously tried to help people with is when they're speaking, and you know, I coach people for all kinds of
00:17:53
Speaker
talks, speeches, presentations, TED talks. And there's different levels. And I would say like a TED talk is more of a legacy type talk. I mean, you're going to put months and months of preparation. This is not something like, oh, I'm running a meeting next week. 20 people are going to hear me speak. I'm a little nervous.
00:18:09
Speaker
But as soon as that presentation's over, meeting's over, nobody remembers anything. You know, it's nothing. But you're a TED Talk, and once you put it out there, it's kind of living on the internet forever kind of thing. It's a little bit more legacy level. Anytime you're speaking, you should be thinking about the experience that you are giving whoever your audience is.
00:18:33
Speaker
And sometimes people do it lazy. I think sometimes people just go, hey, let's just go to the trail during the day. The trail is great. I'm just going to rely on the fact that the trail looks awesome. And that's OK. And for many times and many people, you're like, great. This is a great trail. And I do. I think this is where the brilliance of what you said is. Or you could say,
00:18:58
Speaker
I'm going to take you to that same place that another speaker could have taken you to, but I'm going to give you a totally different experience. I'm going to make you see things that you didn't see. I'm going to show you a more magical version. I'm going to show you a version of that that you're not used to seeing, and that's what makes it different. I'm used to seeing the one during the day. I'm not used to seeing the one at night.
00:19:24
Speaker
And that makes it different and unique and the experience. So yeah, yeah, I, I think that's a really good way of looking at it. Well, the other reason I bring that up too, sorry. The other reason I bring that up too is, uh, is after watching that viral video, right? Of the shredder, several things. One, it's really long. Right. And you mentioned 60 seconds, right? Like.
00:19:49
Speaker
If we fast forward to now, it needs to be 12 seconds maybe, right? Because the tension span is like this much shorter now, right? But I think why that was unique was, like you just said, we've all known shredders. We have a shredder below our desks and stuff, and it does a little paper. But what we haven't seen was giant objects going through the shredder. And I'm just like, I just want to keep watching. I know that that bug, the one video with the bug, like the hippie one,
00:20:18
Speaker
It took forever to get in and actually, and I'm just like, I don't want to look away because I just want to make sure I get the moment that it gets sucked in. But can you maybe elaborate a little more on how you then talk about like,
00:20:35
Speaker
storytelling with people you're coaching, right? How then are you pulling out those specific little prompts, if you will, that the audience is that engaged now, even versus, and maybe you can compare it to Shredder Time, but even now, maybe you can elaborate a little more on that. I didn't hear the very end thing that you said. Could you repeat that?
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, no worries. And just so you know, I'll chop up this stuff if we're having connection issues too. Yeah. I'm closing my tags right now because I'm realizing it's probably coming for me. Sorry about that. I'm just sitting here closing all my tags because it got very choppy. So the question was, if you could elaborate a little more on how you coach folks that are giving talks, whether it is that little meeting next week or a month long prep for TED Talk,
00:21:29
Speaker
to pull out that little nugget that has that attention for the audience?
Coaching Philosophy and Methodologies
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Simon, great question because I think people get pretty freaked out by the process regardless of what it is. Anytime anybody has to speak, they're like, the first thing that they think about is themselves, right?
00:21:48
Speaker
They're imagining this experience and it gives a lot of people a lot of heartache and undue stress in their life. And I think one of the things that I've become really good at is making it a process, like a really good coach. You're like, hey, I can get you to this really high level
00:22:08
Speaker
But you're going to have to do some of this. And a lot of this, quote unquote, for me, would be first with going, well, we're not going to write anything. We're not going to talk about what story you're going to use until we figure out what your big idea is. And this is where my marketing background comes into play big time.
00:22:29
Speaker
because you wouldn't say as an agency, you wouldn't be like, yeah, we'll create a website for you. We have no idea what audience you're trying to talk to or what you're trying to sell, but we'll make it look really good, right? So for me, it's like, I will go through this process where not only am I gonna try to find out what idea you're trying to talk about,
00:22:54
Speaker
But then I'm like, is that idea even unique enough? Like are we getting down to your unique version of that idea? So I won't even get to step number two until I figure that piece of it out. So for me, it's a whole process.
00:23:10
Speaker
of understanding what the audience is going to digest by the time they hear a finished product. And so I'm building this whole thing, you know, from the ground up with the speaker and they don't understand it because in their past life of speaking, it would be like, okay, I just said I was gonna do a talk. I better sit down and start writing a speech out. That's a very bad way to do it. Very, very bad way. That's my go-to.
00:23:39
Speaker
No wonder it doesn't exist at all. It conjures up memories of the karate kid and you're like Mr. Miyagi getting to do all of these unique things and they can't connect dots on and all of a sudden it comes together and it's just like bam.
00:23:55
Speaker
Paint the fence, right? Exactly. Wax on, wax off. 100% Ben, I love that. You know, anybody that I've ever coached probably would tell you, I love that you said that. They would tell you, oh, Kathy has a great process, please trust the process. And one thing that I've learned after going through, you know, working with her is I now know how to prepare for a talk, a meeting, presentation, it doesn't matter. Like I could prepare in five minutes if I had to, because I have the understanding
00:24:24
Speaker
of what it is I need to prepare for before I go do it. Well, one thing that I think our audience would be interested in too is just understanding the breadth and the specificities of the services that you offer. I imagine your services look very different if you're partnered with TEDx Portland and you're supporting story development for some of the speakers there as compared to
00:24:49
Speaker
some larger retainer-based clients you have that maybe have their C-suite and director levels coming to you for various services as compared to maybe a small business person like myself that you might come and provide coaching. But do you have the three to five or how do you look at and communicate the different ways in which you support your clients?
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. And I'm gonna answer it, but I will say, I don't know if that's gonna be as interesting to your audience of like, oh, here's all the things like, I'm not, for me, it's like, I can tell you how I operate, because probably people are listening going, ooh,
00:25:31
Speaker
Speaker coach is that really a job I mean that would be the thing I would be thinking like really somebody actually does this like Full-time like people do this so I will answer that in that case But I think I really also want to give your audience something better than that so here's what I will say I coach I coach people across an array like you said Ben and
00:25:52
Speaker
I'm coaching people that are giving Ted talks that are spending three months to six months of their life. You know, working on this talk, I just got done working with a 15 year old that just gave a Ted talk this past Saturday in the New York area. And she had been doing debate since she was nine years old. And her dad actually
00:26:13
Speaker
was so really wanted her to do it right that he hired a professional and paid professional fees to get his daughter in the right space. And he sent me a text and said,
00:26:27
Speaker
Wow, from everybody that was on this stage and her, you can tell that she went through a professional process. You know, you could tell that she, where she started before we met you, what she was thinking, the story and the idea was going to be nowhere near what it ended up being. And so I think what, you know, and then of course, yeah, I coach CEOs. I have retainer clients where I'm coaching
00:26:53
Speaker
numerous people within the organization for various things. Sometimes somebody will have to go before, you know, for a legislative meeting and they'll want me to kind of help polish up some of their points. The CEO might be having, you know, be doing a big media interview or, you know, there's a lot of various things that I coach on, but it always comes down to this is what I really kind of want to tell your audience. Speaking is its own entity.
00:27:22
Speaker
and we really should be thinking about it that way. Simon, you were talking about brand. Everybody has a brand themselves, we know that, personal brands. When you speak, if you think, oh, I'm just a good speaker or people think I'm funny or I'm okay, that's just somebody talking. But speaking is like,
00:27:48
Speaker
is the highest you know entity of how you communicate and so if you want to get better at that you have to kind of learn the psychology behind it and I'll even I'm just gonna I'm gonna give you one tip that will like change your audience mind on how they should be speaking in any format anyway um I teach this
00:28:11
Speaker
psychological concept that I created called the IU balance. And it's that you should be saying more use, like the audience you, than I or me. And the more my story is like, I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, I did this, I did that, I did this.
00:28:33
Speaker
And less like integrating the audience to be able to be open to this experience that could be a shared experience or could be something that they could envision themselves being part of that story that you're talking about. The more you're going to just cut your audience off immediately. Just boom, gone. I'm not even there anymore. I can't even hear you because I don't care about your trip to Hawaii. That's why vacation stories are boring.
00:29:01
Speaker
because they definitely don't include the audience. It's like, oh, I went and did this awesome thing. Do you want to hear about the awesome things I did? Nah, not really. No, but if Ben, you and I have had great conversations with the love of outdoors and we're having a shared conversation and shared stories,
00:29:22
Speaker
where we understand each other, we understand each other's like loves of the outdoor and we're talking in a manner that's open to the experience that could be shared as opposed to just like, this is what I do, this is what I do, this is what I do, this is what I love. And so the IU balance, and we could even hear it in the way that we talk. If you do a little 30 second story and then you listen to it and you go, oh, how many times did I say I in that story?
00:29:49
Speaker
and you can start replacing a couple of them with you, even if it's just a rhetorical you, because sometimes it's a question. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you did something you couldn't believe? And then even if I go on to tell you the thing that I did that I couldn't believe, I already bought you into it because I asked you the question, I invited you on my journey of exploring if you did something that you couldn't believe. It's a big difference.
Marketing and Speaking Connection
00:30:17
Speaker
Absolutely, and I think about the sales training I've received in the past, and they talk about, you know, as a salesperson, you should be speaking 30% of the time, and the other person should be speaking 70% of the time, and I think that kind of connects with what you're saying, is if you're just, it's all on, if the light's just shining on you the whole time, people aren't very interested, and some other interesting psychology components there to where you can draw people in versus at some point having them roll their eyes and say, you're great, we get it, we get it, I'm shut out.
00:30:47
Speaker
Exactly. Awesome. You do awesome things. Yeah. One thing that I think that when I work with anybody that's speaking, my marketing brain and my speaker coaching brain cannot be un
00:31:05
Speaker
connected anymore. It's kind of intertwined. It's just, it's just where it is. Every time I think about somebody speaking, I'm thinking about it as a mini marketing campaign for whatever they're talking about. And, and vice versa, anytime I think about somebody maybe speaking on behalf of the company or the organization, I, you know, I'm like you again, speaking as an entity, you're, you're speaking in a different realm, you're speaking for the brand, you're speaking for the reputation, you're speaking
00:31:35
Speaker
you know, for your personal brand. I think that everybody has their own unique way that they are. Not only that they are, the way that they talk, the stories that they, you know, that they've cultivated in their lives. And, you know, one really important critical thing that I love to teach people is to keep a story file. So keeping a story file is just,
00:32:02
Speaker
you know, keeping a little free app of any kind that will track that you'd be able to easily input like a little, a little notation for a story. I will tell you that right now I have in my story file almost eight, yeah, almost 1800 stories right now. And I use an app because I want to categorize them.
00:32:25
Speaker
I don't want to have to try to look through 1800 every time I'm speaking, right? But I have, I'll put a story in and then I'll put a category to it. Like it happened to me or it's a quote or it's a family story or it's a love story or it's a lost story or it's a business concept or it's a great idea or it's a funny story or, you know, whatever. And then when I go to speak or when I'm going to go do something, all I need to do is go search in that category
00:32:55
Speaker
and find something. And I can build an entire story around it. I can build an entire speech around it. But this is also what makes me unique. And I see a lot of people speaking that will regurgitate other people's stuff.
00:33:11
Speaker
They'll be like, oh, this quote. I've watched speakers, professional speakers, mind you, get paid and they'll have multiple quotes from other people in their keynote or in their, whatever they're speaking about, in their presentation. And it blows my mind. It's like, if you want to be the best at whatever you're talking about, you have to bring your uniqueness to it.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so anyway, something to kind of think about is like, where can you bring your unique experiences and share them with other people? I really like that. And I tend to be a person that doesn't spend a lot of time rethinking, rehashing, and putting interest around experiences in my life, kind of just looking ahead in many ways. But I've always been really intrigued and fascinated with my friends that are always
00:34:05
Speaker
just pulling these nuggets out. Remember this time or this one time that something happened and then spinning into some fun anecdote or story and being enjoyable. So that could be a really nice support tool, really, you know, because there are so many of these cool experiences. And to your point, the notion of just regurgitating other people's quotes, they're meaningful. They, you know, are
00:34:27
Speaker
they put a little exclamation point perhaps on your, on your, the point you're trying to get across. Boy, if it's personalized, that's a whole lot more meaningful than just, you know, proving that you're well-read or you listen to a ton of podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like here, like, uh, if you guys are willing, let's play a little game. Okay. Are you, are you willing to play a little game? You best do it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm going to ask a question and everybody's going to answer it. Okay.
00:34:52
Speaker
So the question is, what is one of the biggest life lessons that you have learned, and where did you learn it from? So think about that for a minute. What's one of the biggest life lessons that you've learned, and where did you learn it from? And when either of you are ready, go for it. Ready. Okay, Ben, go ahead. Excellent.
00:35:20
Speaker
One of the biggest life lessons I learned is that to chip away every year at some big goals you want to achieve. And many times, these aren't really professional or success-specific goals, but taking time to create really meaningful experiences. And for me, that's usually in the outdoors with people I love, friends, family for sure.
00:35:42
Speaker
And the story behind that is that my mom, she battled cancer when I was younger. And growing up, she would always tell the story about how she loved riding horses. And she wanted, she was a hunter jumper, which is a specific type of riding. And she always wanted to go to Scotland and do an actual hunt, a fox hunt.
00:36:02
Speaker
And you know a lot of its theater i don't know if they actually the hounds actually you know hunt and kill the the foxes but it's just very formal and i've got their attire and she always wanted to do this and just painted these beautiful stories and would show us pictures and just like man i can't wait for you to get that done mom and then unfortunately she you know she fought hard but lost her battle the cancer and never realized that dream and so um
00:36:25
Speaker
I carried that forward with me in a lot of ways where instead of kicking the can down the road and saying, I'll do that later, I'll take that trip, I'll have that experience, I'll skip out on work to catch a sunrise high on the mountain. Instead I said, no, no, I'm gonna make time for that.
00:36:40
Speaker
you know, trade-offs like everything, but it's been really, really meaningful to be able to look back over the year or this time of year, you know, on the iPhone, right? I get the little reminder of like, here's some photos of your past year. And I get to look at those and you're just like...
00:36:56
Speaker
It was a great year. I need to take stock of that. We did some stuff and that's because we made time for it and we planned for it and we were able to enjoy it. But knowing that that's not always the case, it came from a challenging experience in my life but I think it's enriched my life every step of the way to make that space for it instead of like a lot of folks that I know that don't and I just do my best to distract them long enough to go create some experiences together.
00:37:25
Speaker
Ben, so good. So, you know, when I, when I heard you telling your story, I got goosebumps twice. I, you like melted my heart and I'm hearing something that only you can talk about Ben and, and the speaker, coach brain and me also, I was like,
00:37:43
Speaker
I could see a hundred different uses for where you could put that story and what you could do different angles to that idea but you learn this amazing lesson and so right now you just learned one of the best things about storytelling is teaching somebody something that you learned and where did you learn it from
00:38:00
Speaker
It makes us appreciate who you are as a person. And it also makes us think about where have we learned a lesson similar to that? It could even be very similar to that, you know? So nice job, nice job. All right, Simon, are you ready for one?
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it. I was getting a little inspired by Ben's too and I almost shifted over, but I think I'm sticking with my gut on the one that came to mind immediately. I did have to Google the term to make sure I had the right term, but it's just simply the golden rule about doing unto others as I would want them to do to me.
00:38:36
Speaker
I think ultimately that's one foundationally that I learned early on. I grew up overseas, not the normal childhood raising that a lot of my friends or even wife have. But I think ultimately just seeing the impact of treating others with kindness and love
00:38:53
Speaker
uh goes so much further is so much more rewarding um than than the opposite and i even look you know when i watch the news or or whatnot hear about robberies or crimes and stuff and and i think you could even trace them back to golden rule like the reason i don't
00:39:11
Speaker
is because that is someone's possessions. That would be awful if someone took from me, right? I don't like that feeling. You know, so I kind of traced some of those back to early childhood, just growing up a little different than everyone else, seeing the impact of being kind to others, even that I didn't know, and just seeing that impact.
00:39:32
Speaker
See, I love that too, Simon. And like, okay, and here's something. You told a little tiny story and I learned so much about you. I learned that you didn't grow up. You grew up overseas. Like there, you have a different perspective now. So now when I'm listening to you, I'm also, I'm also looking at this story, even though I've heard the golden rule before, I'm seeing it through the eyes of another person that has a different perspective than me. And that makes me appreciate it in a different, in a much different way.
00:40:03
Speaker
And same, that story you just talked about, oh, I mean, you could use that as the basis for so many different stories, because you could get very specific into it and talk about a time when maybe that was challenged in your life or it was put to the test or something. There's so many different ways you could play that out. It's such a beautiful concept. And if you two just put those stories in your story file,
00:40:31
Speaker
You won't have to think about this next time. It's there. Also, it does something. It changes your brain. It makes you look at the world a little bit different. It makes you look at the world and say, there are stories everywhere unfolding. Things are great. Things are happening to me. Things are challenging are happening to me, but other people could learn from them. It makes you think about life in a very, very much more meaningful, deeper way.
00:40:58
Speaker
I feel like that was such a simple exercise, but Ben and I both are just like, whoa, this is storytelling. This is what she does. I feel like we have to send her, or she's gonna send us an invoice for that, Ben, because you and I both are getting out of this better as speakers, right? Just like that, right there. 100%, 100%. No, I'm really grateful for all of that.
00:41:21
Speaker
And just as a time check, we want to make sure we get you out of here for your next meeting,
Future Ventures and Inspirational Guidance
00:41:24
Speaker
Kathy. But one thing I'd also be really curious to hear about is, as we find ourselves going down these paths, you start in one spot. You don't really know where it's going to lead as you move forward. And certainly, technology comes along as well. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about where you see your business evolving and growing, and maybe telling us a little bit about the partnership that you've
00:41:45
Speaker
you struck up and as well as your, you know, your, and you call it a web show, right? Versus a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for asking, Ben. Yeah. I started, so I, I met a really good friend of mine in New York one time when I was speaking. He was sitting in my, one of my, my unbreakable rules of marketing session and he came up to me after and we, we struck a conversation and we became fast friends.
00:42:11
Speaker
So fast forward 10 years later, we're like really good friends the the pandemic hit and I was like, I have an idea.
00:42:21
Speaker
You live over in Brooklyn and I live over in Portland, Oregon, but we both kind of do the same thing. We coach people on speaking, communicating, presenting. Why don't we do a show where we pull the curtains back and we show people what it's like to coach people? And so that's where our show was born. And we intended it for it to be a show that you watched.
00:42:44
Speaker
so you could actually see our reactions to things, to see how the person that we had on the show, what it would look like if you were sitting in the room with us. So we decided to call it a web show instead of a podcast. We still put it out to podcasts and a lot of people listened to us that way still, but that's how we intended. And then Mark and I, we had this epiphany, both of us independently for different reasons, but I'll tell you my version of it.
00:43:12
Speaker
I was playing pickleball one time in Miami and I went to go play in a game I was just there for business and I noticed that there was a bunch of courts and on two of the courts people were drilling and they were practicing and I was watching them work on some really high level things and I thought to myself
00:43:32
Speaker
You know what? That is the only way I've ever gotten better in pickleball is when I practice. I never get better when I'm actually playing in the game. Because in the game, I'm in the moment and I'm just trying to do whatever I can to be successful. And I was like...
00:43:46
Speaker
That's the same as speaking. When you're speaking and you're on a stage and whatever prep you've done before is what got you there, but many times speakers only work on the speech that they're actually giving. And then when you're there in the game, so to speak, you're just doing whatever you can do to win. But what if we could increase our chances at winning
00:44:10
Speaker
by actually drilling as a speaker and Mark had independently had that same, he's really into exercise and he's like, I thought the same thing. It's kind of like conditioning for being a speaker. And so we came up with this idea and we're launching this, actually we're launching our kickoff. Next week we're doing like a free showcase, but we're gonna launch it in January of 2024, the Speaker Skills Academy.
00:44:33
Speaker
And it's gonna be an academy where you show up almost like a gym and there's gonna be these live sessions with really cool coaches on different things. And you get to work on, like you're actually just gonna work on drills on how to incorporate humor. You know, I just worked with you two live on your show. Like how can we take a story? How can we gather a story and get different pieces out of it? So we're gonna kind of do things like that.
00:44:59
Speaker
We're pretty excited about it because we think that if you think of speaking as an entity and you want to get better at it, you should practice it before you have to do it. Amen. That sounds amazing. I can't wait to check that out. Great. Well, Kathy, is there anything else that maybe we didn't ask or that you're excited about that you think you'd like to share with our audience before we graciously say goodbye?
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah, gosh, we've covered a lot of really cool stuff. I, okay, that I really liked that you had in there was, you know, who have I ever coached that might've had some kind of transformational story? And that was a hard one, actually, because I was thinking,
00:45:48
Speaker
almost everybody because there it is a big transformation especially in the Ted space like it's a big transformation to have this huge talk like how is it not going to change you but you know one person actually came to mind that was interesting to me because he was somebody that I didn't
00:46:07
Speaker
actually personally coach until after he gave his TED talk. So there was this guy named Leford Fate, and he was like a chief commander in the Air Force. He was flying, you know, he's like really high up in the Air Force. And he, after he retired from the Air Force, he
00:46:25
Speaker
became involved in the in the community. And he got really involved in some health care organizations. And then he got connected to like a prison organization. And just he was giving a lot of his time away to the community. It was pretty cool. And he wanted to give a TED talk about the prison and how how the prison system needs to kind of be reformed and changed.
00:46:47
Speaker
And, you know, this was maybe seven or eight years ago. And he looked me up and he found me and that I had a program called How to Rock a Ted Talk. And so he like bought it. And he's one of those like A plus students that went through the entire thing, which, you know, eight to 10 hour program went through it twice in a couple of days and like really, really, really, really got into it.
00:47:09
Speaker
And he said he felt like it was like I was coaching him. It was like me in a box, you know, so to speak. And he landed this TED Talk at TEDx Charleston, really one of the really good TEDx events in the United States. And he gave this talk and it went viral. It was awesome. And it was amazing. And he reached out to me after he gave the TED Talk to tell me how much
00:47:34
Speaker
the coaching helped and how everything that I did. And so I thought it was a funny story that even, you know, there's a couple layers to the story, right? You can affect somebody by something that you've said or done or produced or put out there, even when you don't know them or know that you've
00:47:50
Speaker
done that you know and then there's this other layer that you know sometimes when you're doing something you could be helping so many other causes I love I love to be that person that can help
00:48:06
Speaker
somebody that's doing something. I coached a cancer doctor two years ago. His TED talk went really viral. Like, I love when I can coach somebody on an idea that I know nothing about, but I'm helping get their message out to millions and millions of people.
00:48:22
Speaker
Yeah, what an amazing tool to offer. I like to use the term in that case, force multiplier, right? Where someone's got something really valuable to offer. And whether someone has something really valuable to offer, and you're helping to release that to a broader audience, or just in general, if you feel like you've got something to offer or provide access,
00:48:42
Speaker
that the more people you go out and touch and involve in that cause, but boy, there's nothing better than seeing something that you're excited about really take flight and impact other people. What a huge gift associated with your profession.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I love that, Ben. That's a great way. Can I end with one of my favorite quotes? Please. Okay, so one of my favorite quotes that I've ever seen in my entire life, and it just, it affected me. The very first gym I ever joined in Southern California, they had it on the back of their shirts. And it was this saying, it said, there's no such thing as staying the same. You're either striving to get better or you're allowing yourself to get worse.
00:49:27
Speaker
And even as a teenager, that was very powerful to me. But even more so now that I'm an adult and, you know, even in the profession that I do. And I would say my piece of advice to everybody is there is no such thing as staying the same. Are you going to be the one that's striving to get better, whether that to be to find a coach, whether that be to find a really good way to market what you're doing? Like, how can you make whatever you're doing better?
00:49:53
Speaker
are you just gonna sit there and hope that you're staying the same but in actuality you're not you're just allowing yourself or or the circumstances to be to get worse well one empowering way to
00:50:07
Speaker
apply a little capstone to a great conversation here. I know as Simon mentioned earlier, I mean, I feel like I just took away, we took away so much from chatting with you and learning more about your process. And I'm very excited to learn more about you and share that with our audience here. So Kathy, I wanna thank you for taking time to join our podcast today and share these exciting insights. Yeah, thanks for having me you guys. This was very fun. And yeah, thank you for doing what you do in the world.
00:50:39
Speaker
All right, thank you, Kathy. If anyone was to reach out, what would be the website? What would be at? How would you want someone to get ahold of you? Well, true story. If you spell my name right, I'm the only Kathy Armeus in the whole world. So if you spell it with an E-Y and you spell Kathy Armeus right, you will get me on all the social medias. If you find a Kathy Armeus, it's me. I'm the one and only.
00:51:04
Speaker
Well, I appreciate your time and definitely the exercise we went through. That was fun. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Like we mentioned, if you have any questions, hit us up at webwell, at cascadewebdev.com. We'd love to hear what you think. Again, Kathy, thanks for joining. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks, Kathy. Bye bye.