Many of us have had that feeling of being invisible, in life and in business, especially if we are on the introverted side of the scale. If that's you, you're going to love this episode with Stevie Dawn Carter where we discuss emotional intelligence, performance energy and how to be someone who is getting noticed for the right reasons.

Most of us have heard about emotional intelligence but most people don't really know what it means. Stevie is going to explain all of that and how emotional intelligence is a key aspect of improving your communication and connection skills. I learned a lot in my chat with Stevie and I know you will too.

Dr Stevie Dawn Carter is a professional speaker and coach based out of Mansfield, Texas. Her experience as a 4-time business owner, along with her work in the private and public sector, allows her to enhance her presentations with real-life stories and examples that are applicable to every audience. Her educational background includes a master’s degree in sociology from Wichita State University and a doctorate in leadership from Colorado State University. With over 20 years of teaching and training experience, Dr Stevie Dawn approaches every engagement with humour, inspiration, and energy to get people moving towards their best lives.

In this episode:

• Connect to your why
• Overcome feeling invisible
• What is EQ?
• How does EQ relate to communication?
• The difference between good and bad performance energy
• How to pump up your energy
• Why you should be more like a shark and more...

In the episode, Dr Stevie promised you a special checklist and you can grab that here you can visit Stevie's own website here: http://www.drsteviedawn.com/ and get your copy of Always Be The Shark here

To connect with Stevie on social media, here's where to go:

Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Dr Stevie's book recommendations were Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry, Atomic Habits by James Clear and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Want to find out what podcasting could do for your business? Take this short quiz https://mrqz.to/podcastpossibilities

Come and join other professionals who are building their authority through podcasting in the Podfluencers Facebook Group https://bit.ly/3aesFPJ

Did you enjoy the show? Did you learn anything new or useful? If you did, then the best way to show your appreciation is by sharing the show with your online network. Tag me and I'll give you a shout out on an upcoming episode. Leave a review and I'll read it out on the show.

Of course, if you REALLY liked it, you're welcome to support the show financially too using the link below.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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As a child, I felt invisible and I hated that feeling.

And I did a lot of things that probably weren't smart to try

and get out of that feeling.

And now as an adult, I look around me and I see adults who feel invisible.

They don't see their greatness.

They don't feel like they're being seen by the world.

And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Welcome to the show.

My name is Johnny Ball.

This is Speaking Influence the show where we delve into the world of influence

and persuasion to help you build your influence on authority and become a

more powerfully persuasive communicator.

You just had a brief clip from my guest today, and we are going to be talking

about amongst other things, emotional intelligence on how important that is

in terms of all of your presentations and your communication skills.

We'll be talking about that performance, energy, and really a whole host of

things that are going to help you in being able to be a better speaker and

communicator, especially in the world of podcasts and public speaking, the

places where you might want to be building up your authority and influence.

At the end of June, 2022, Speaking Influence is going to be transforming

and changing its name and rebranding.

And I hope you'll stay with us for that.

We are going to be focusing much more into podcasting as part of influence and

persuasion in the professional world while still having some amazing conversations

with influence and persuasion experts from other walks as well.

You'll be hearing a lot more from me with shorter solo episodes,

where we'll be talking about some of the resources that are going

to be particularly helpful to you.

And also talking about some of my own information and learning an

experience around building influence I'm persuasion through podcast.

My guest today is Stevie Dawn Carter.

She's an expert in emotional intelligence.

I know you're going to love what you have to say.

We had a really fun conversation.

There's lots of great takeaways for you.

You may want to take notes on this and certainly check

out the show notes as well.

So you can get in touch with Stevie afterwards.

If you're not already subscribed to the show and you're like, what you

hear today, make sure you do subscribe and come and leave us a review.

It would mean the world to me.

What I want you to do right now though

is enjoy the show.

Welcome to you Speaking Influence.

And today I am very privileged to be joined in my virtual studio by someone

who has incredibly interesting background, but is here to talk with us about things

like speaking and emotional intelligence and a few, possibly a few other things

besides, so let's officially welcome.

Stevie Dawn Carter to the show..

Hello, hello.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm just so excited to be here.

I'm really pleased to have you here.

And I've been looking forward to speaking with you as well.

And I'm going to kick off as I do with every show by asking you, who

would it be if you had to, if I asked you, who would you choose for someone

who has been an inspiration to you with their influence and persuasion

and for how they've utilized it?

Who would that be?

Oh, gosh, that's a tough question.

I think, you know, in, in the latter part of my life, right early part of

my life, I probably would have picked some rockstar superstar influencer.

Right.

But I feel like as I get later in life, I go for a little bit

more, the more realistic down to earth influencers, right?

Not necessarily mega stars, but people who have made a huge influence on me.

And so for that, I, the first name that popped into my head as you

asked, was a Doctor Tajita Fulkerson.

And she was a president at a college that I worked at, uh, years ago.

And she was this person who just had the ability to walk

into a room and change the vibe.

Make everybody feel better, make everybody feel like they mattered.

And I always really looked up to her in that space and we did

get to spend some time together.

But I think right now, if I were to call her up, I would love to

have that conversation of just, how did you grow in your ability to

influence and speak to people and make people feel good by your presence?

Because I think that's an amazing trait that she had.

Do you feel for yourself that there were some things that

you have tried to emulate from her?

Oh, definitely.

I think one of the things I always think about, and I still tell the

story at events all the time is, she was a leader who she ran this

huge college with thousands of employees and all these things.

But if she walked around the building, the campus, whatever, and she saw trash

on the floor, she picked it up and threw it away because her thing was the

building and everything we do within it,

we are always leading by example.

And so I have often found myself thinking about when people come to our events, when

people just yesterday, I had a live event.

I picked up some trash in between things.

And I think part of that is just her influence on you lead by example,

make sure everything that's in your space is leading, even if that's the

quality and niceness of the building.

So yeah, I do think I take some of those things that she did and I do them,

whether I realize it in the moment or not.

Great.

Wonderful, wonderful answer.

and we can all strive to be a bit more like that in our lives.

I think that's a good way to think about things and not just think

about all the different ways we can impact our environments and

how that actually affects people.

Maybe.

Consciously or directly, but the stuff that people pick up

on and realize that does make a big difference in the long run.

I love that.

So let's start talking a little bit more about what you do, cause a lot of

the audience for this show are going to find that you are in a similar.

Yeah.

Say avatar similar needs to them, the life of being, uh, someone

who is a speaker, someone who does events and someone who has some

expertise in your particular area.

And so I think that should make you really very relatable to

the audience for this show.

Tell us a little bit about the event that you've just done and

what it is that you were teaching.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, so we just had our unstoppable success event.

Um, it's a one day live event.

We also do a virtual version, but yesterday.

One day live event, and it's really about helping people to focus in

and, and really target their dreams.

I think as adults, we get stuck into goals and while I think goals are good,

I think vision and dreams are better.

And so it's really about helping people say, okay, you can have goals that,

you know, your boss gives you or your clients give you deadlines or whatever

those things may be, but what are you really trying to strive for in your.

Outside of the work outside of the family, like the whole overall picture.

And are you doing things every day to get you.

I, I definitely found myself decades ago, not doing that and found myself

kind of in that place of stuck.

And I feel like I'm doing all the things that people say I should

do, but I don't feel good about it.

I don't love it.

What's missing.

And I had to get clear on my vision and it was life-changing for me.

So yesterday was taking people through some of that same process I went

through and helping them connect to their why and their vision in life, so

that they can have unstoppable success.

been really a great day.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Sounds like a wonderful event.

What, what did that vision end up being for you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my vision is really about speaking and I never saw myself as a speaker

growing up that would have never been a profession that I would have considered.

Right.

But I love.

Being able to share a message and see people's eyes light up.

See people have that aha moment in an audience.

And I feel just absolutely ecstatic about being on that stage and doing that

work like that is what gets me up in the morning every morning to do this job.

And so for me, my vision.

Is all around using my speaking to impact others and my why behind it is

so that nobody ever feels invisible.

Because as a child, I felt invisible and I hated that feeling.

And I did a lot of things that probably weren't smart to try

and get out of that feeling.

And now as an adult, I look around me and I see adults who feel invisible.

They don't see their greatness.

They don't feel like they're being seen by the world.

And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen.

So for me, That vision of speaking tied in with my why of invisibility is

really what, what keeps me going every.

That'That's a powerfuling force and it's important.

I think one of my, one of my earliest episodes, I was speaking

with Mike Michalowicz about this.

And and he, he was explaining what his driving force was, what his

why and his mission were as well.

Yeah, he's on this mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.

So since we all, what is it?

What is it for you?

And and I think my mine is probably a bit more along the same lines as you,

but I, I said, I think I was being a bit flippant at time and I said something

like oh, maybe, uh, I, I just don't want people to have to sit through a

boring presentations and events anymore.

And it's like, well, you, the kind of, part of it, like I see my driving

thing as being this, or I really want.

Educate and entertain.

And then some people are calling this edutainment kind of thing.

And that is really where, where I see myself being.

And similarly to you, as I think of when you see people's eyes light up,

when you see people making connections or people come back to you and say,

oh, this has transformed how I think about this, or this is what I'm going

to do differently now, or later on.

I have changed, and this is what I've achieved because of what we've done there.

That is really powerful for motivating you and driving you forward.

Everyone should have that if they're going to go forward, because if

you, if you don't, I think you're just gonna make me feel like you're

just throwing stuff out there.

And I was talking about this before on the show about just sending

stuff out into the void and not really getting any feedback from it.

It's a frustrating.

It is.

And I feel like as, especially as entrepreneurs, I think

that's always a struggle.

Right.

We hear all the time, create content, put out content, put out

content and that's beautiful and you should absolutely 100% do that.

But there's an element to me of speaking that I really appreciate,

which is, but you get feedback in the moment at that time, you get to see

it, you get to feel it in the room.

You know, if your content is hitting.

And I feel like so often some of our content production is, you

know, I put a post on social media.

It gets a couple likes.

Did it really hit?

Do people really enjoy it or were they just clicking the button?

You know, I don't, I don't get feedback from that.

One of the things I think that keeps me in the speaking game is

I love the, the feedback you get from the audience to your point.

So huge.

Yeah.

You've uh, when we talked about, what about, you mentioned about emotional

intelligence and, and some people might be unfamiliar with that term, but can

you describe what emotional intelligence.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I define emotional intelligence as the learned ability, right.

It can be learned.

You're not born with it.

The learned ability to regulate.

Your emotions effectively.

Right?

So we have to be able to not let our emotions drive our whole

entire world, but then it's also emotional intelligence is being able

to interpret messages correctly.

There's an element of emotional intelligence that is woven

into all communication.

Are you able to truly listen to the words of another human.

Without letting your emotion color, what you believe is being said.

And so for me that that's emotional intelligence.

It's making sure I don't let my emotions rule my life.

It's also making sure that when I'm communicating with somebody, I don't

let my emotions color what they're saying, because my emotions are mine.

They may not be theirs.

yeah.

How, how useful or important is emotional intelligence to you as a speaker?

I think as a speaker, it's critical.

I think for two reasons, number one, it's the ability to

communicate effectively, right?

How do you give a message?

That's going to impact people.

And I think as speakers, emotion can be a tool, right?

How do I use an emotional story and emotional pitch to

hook people into learning?

Right.

And I do think there's some emotional intelligence that

speaker's used to do that.

The second part though, that I think speakers have to focus on

is making sure you regulate your emotions before you go on stage.

I have seen so many speakers show up on stage.

And felt like they weren't 100% present.

They were thinking about something else.

Something bad had happened, all of this.

And, and I always say the people in front of me or even the person in front

of me does not deserve any less of an experience because I'm having a bad day.

Right.

I'm having a bad day because of life over here.

Part of being a speaker is being able to step on that stage.

And nobody notices.

And I do think that's an emotional intelligence skill.

yeah.

Not going to ask you to name names, but can you think of, or describe a specific

situation where, where you've seen that and what was it that made you think?

Hmm.

Now that person doesn't seem to be fully present here and.

Yeah.

So I think I'm trying to think back.

I think the most recent ones, probably the most obvious, so, uh, probably

about three months ago now I was at a conference, several speakers throughout

the day, but we had a keynote speaker at lunch and the bio they read, right.

The.

The kind of preview of that speaker was he was going to be energetic,

lively, and he was a comedian.

So there should have been a lot of humor and a lot of fun.

Right.

And so I was really looking forward to, I always like

watching other speakers, right.

So I was really looking forward to it.

And I remember sitting there and he comes up on stage and he

just walks kind of hunched over.

He's got like, his shoulders are kind of huh, he's kinda dragging his

feet and I instinctively thought.

my gosh, this is like a comedy sketch.

Like he's going to do something with this and then he just started talking.

And there was nothing bad about what he said, but it didn't sound convincing.

It didn't sound like he was speaking sincerely.

It sounded like he was doing the same speech.

He had done 50 times and he was bored with.

And so I really felt like he had been touted as this huge thing.

And then it was just kinda like humdrum.

It was a little mundane, it was a little boring.

And I really looked at that and said, I wonder if there's something going on in

his life that made today, not a good day.

Right.

And he just, he got through it and I applaud him.

He, he went up, he did it, he got through it, but I felt like

we deserved more as an audience.

And I think that's something as speakers that we always have to consider.

I agree.

And I think we've probably all encountered those sorts of situations

where we expected, or at least hoped for more in a presentation or

a speech or something or workshops or any kind of situation like that.

And it can definitely be a little bit disappointing.

That phoned it in energy is, and isn't really ever going to cut it.

You have to bring a lot more to it.

So this, this is a good thing to talk about and it's something I like

talking about a lot in the show.

Cause I don't think personally it can ever get talked about enough is this energy

that you need to bring to the stage?

As a speaker to, to engage an audience, the sort of level of charisma or

X-Factor, whatever you want to call it.

But what is that to you?

What does that look like to you personally?

Yeah.

I, I think it's so right, right.

We, we all have as speakers and energy, we bring, and I think number one, it's

about being authentic to yourself.

Right?

What kind of energy is your energy?

Right.

So some people are funny.

Some people are powerful.

Some people are soft-spoken, but have amazing things to say, right?

Everybody's energy is a little bit different, but I really, before

every presentation I do two things.

Right?

Number one, I listen to a pump-up playlist.

I think everybody should use music to get ready to go on stage it always.

Whatever your best music is.

Right.

And it's different for all people.

But I like to put on songs that just make me get my heart pumping

and make me want to clap and move.

And that movement in my body brings energy to the stage.

Right.

So I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make as speakers

is just sitting in the back of the room, waiting for it to be.

And then we're kind of like having to trudge up to this, that stage.

Right.

I always like to find some quiet space and kind of dance it out, get my blood pumping

because that helps me have more energy.

But the second thing I always do is I always go into a presentation

saying this audience deserves my best.

So shake off everything else that's going on, right.

Shake off, not feeling great.

Shake off the jet lag, whatever it is, like, shake that off and come in and be

like, this audience deserves my best.

And there's somebody here who needs what I'm about to say.

And I owe it to them to show up 100%.

So for me, it's get the blood pumping and then get your mindset, right?

So that you can show up fully.

And I always believe that the number one way to engage an audience is to be a

little larger than life because they see a lot of presenters that just go through

a slide deck with their clicker and have no personality, bring your personality.

And then I always teach my clients, take it up about 5% from normal, right?

So here's your normal personality as a speaker.

I want you up.

I want you for it.

I want you a little bit bigger because you got to show up on that stage and nothing

makes you feel more small, I think, than if you're being small and you're

in front of a room of 4,000 people, you got to be larger so that the people in

the back of the room feel your energy.

And I think

I agree.

Oh, the other, I say maybe if your natural energy is already at an 11, maybe there's

not going to be that much room to turn it.

Right.

Like maybe you just go to 12 and you're done.

Right.

But if you're normally a five, maybe it deserves a nine, right?

Like let's try and bump it up a little bit.

And I think that one of the things that really separate great speakers from, okay.

Speakers is energy.

It's it's.

What energy do you put into your voice into your body, into your face?

I always look at speaking is acting on stage.

I look at it as a performance, just like a play would be a performance, right?

There's a script.

There's timing.

There's pauses.

There's all the pieces of a quote unquote show.

So are you putting on a show?

Right.

I would maybe think about that in the same way as perhaps a musician going on

stage to perform, whether it's a singer or a guitarist or whatever, and now

they just go on and sing the words or just stand there and play the guitar.

I don't really bring much personality or character.

You might enjoy the music.

It might be perfectly pleasant, but when they really bring some

character and performance to it, it turns everything up to it.

To a whole new level.

I was particularly particularly laughing to myself, was smiling.

When you were saying about having the pump up, I actually have a playlist on

my own on Spotify that I created myself, which is called pump it up Johnny.

That's what, that's what goes on before I'm doing a presentation.

I can say relate to that.

Have a similar.

A similar process, but it's a, I think it is just the thing that people don't fully

realize how much energy leads, energy.

Like if you have to think about what's going on with your audience.

So, you know, you put yourself in that mindset, you said, I think about

no, what you're doing this for them.

And you, you know, you want to bring your best and somebody needs

to hear this tonight, being a great way to think about it because it

motivates you to turn that up.

But, but you also then have to be thinking about what is going on

for them whilst you're presenting.

Like if you're not emotionally leading the energy, they're not going to be

emotionally following you either.

No, and, and emotion is how we connect to people, right?

That's why as speakers, we always say speakers should be great storytellers

because stories have emotion.

And when we attach to emotion, people are more willing to learn and

listen and lean in to a conversation.

Right.

And so you have to be thoughtful as a speaker of what

emotion are you bringing in?

Are you leading them down that journey?

Right.

And I think sometimes we can overlook it, because we're, we're in our

own head or in our own kind of situation that we're dealing with.

And I know we all go through stuff like no doubt, we all go through stuff, but

I, I always feel like as a speaker, you are to your word, a leader, and are

you leading them through your content with the emotion, with the energy

to get them to lean in and learn.

And I think that's something we always have to think.

Do you primarily see yourself as a speaker or a

coach or a trainer or an author?

I mean, what do you mainly see yourself as?

Yeah.

I always tell people I'm a speaker first and a coach second.

My passion in life is the stage.

And that's in all facets of my life.

By the way, I also run a non-profit theater company.

So I do theater at night and speaking during the day.

So I love a stage.

That is my happy place.

It's where I feel the most

me, which I know some people feel like onstage you're

acting, so you're not yourself.

I'm actually the most me on stage.

So that is always where I would say my number one, places is

on the stage as a speaker.

I think as I've gotten to do more speaking, I've learned that

the speaking itself is great.

But implementation happens through coaching.

And so I've become a coach to help people implement things I say in my presentation.

So, so coaching was something I learned to do after I became a speaker because

I saw a disconnect between showing up .And delivering this powerful keynote

and then people wouldn't do anything.

So I found by learning how to be a coach and having coaching support my speaking.

Now I take them from the presentation and go, if you want to implement this,

here's the coaching program to do so.

And so I feel like they're a natural connection, but if people just ask me and

I have to pick one, I always pick speaker.

Yeah.

What, what does.

The setup of your business without having to, obviously you don't want to bring out

all your secrets here, but I know that a lot of the people who tune into the

show will, will be thinking what I have in the similar area or having similar

kind of ideas and kind of businesses.

So what is the structure of your business model for yourself then?

Is it primarily speaking gigs and then they come into a weekly coaching

program or I'll let you describe.

Yeah, but that was really, that was really close to it.

Right there.

You just nailed it.

So, yeah, so I consider 85% of my income comes from speaking or speaking

related things, training for companies.

And some of that, I do a lot less training now and a lot more speaking, but it's all

in that kind of speaking realm for me.

So, so 80 to 85% of my income comes from speaking.

Right?

So that's my first thing.

That's where I put all my energy in terms of prospecting, marketing, all

of that, all in the speaking realm.

Then what I typically do is when I go and I do a speech, I always invite

people to join either my webinar list,

or my weekly inspiration list, depending on the event, depending on the people

I do free webinars every month.

And so anybody on the webinar list gets invited to my webinars, those webinars

pitch my coaching programs and like.

If they go onto the weekly inspiration email list, then that

is weekly inspiration, motivation, tips, tricks, all the things.

And they also are gonna find out about the webinars.

And they're also going to find out about the events, right?

And so I use speaking as a way to get people into the funnel.

And then through that funnel, they're offered events or another

large part of my business.

So we do a lot of live events or webinars or the coaching programs that I offer.

So I really look at it as, you know, it's a speaking business.

And then I actually say my side hustle is my coaching, right?

Because speaking is where I make the majority of my income and impact.

And then coaching is something that I have as an offer for

those who choose to go that.

And I always put more focus on the speaking and the event

side than I do on the coaching.

That's just me.

No, that's great.

And I appreciate you sharing that with us as well.

And I know it's wonderful for people who may be.

Starting out with this or, or in a position where they're thinking.

I know you've mentioned that you had a big life pivot.

I had to change this.

A lot of people have been experiencing that over the last few years.

And some people may be looking to move into this kind of direction.

What's the most important thing you would say for people to be

focusing on, to get started?

And how long for you did it take to start seeing that you were building some

buildings, some influence and authority with what you were doing and starting

to really make it a viable business?

Yeah.

absolutely.

Well, I think.

The most important thing you can do if you want to be a speaker

is find opportunities to speak.

It sounds silly, but that is the first step.

And that is what I did.

When I first started my business eight years ago, within the first

year, year and a half, I had done 158 speaking engagements.

None of those were paid.

Those were free things, podcasts, interviews, TV spot, anything

where somebody would give me an opportunity to speak about my business.

If there were five minutes, if it were 20 minutes, it didn't matter.

I knew I just needed to be speaking.

And so that's how I built my business.

Year two, year three, those all started to be paid.

Anything.

And so for me and what I tell all of my clients who are wanting to enter

the speaking realm, you have to just put yourself out there as a speaker

for everything, put yourself out there for conferences, submit every

to every conference in your area.

Proposals for breakout sessions, get on every podcast.

You can do TV interviews, Facebook live interviews, whatever you

can because the number one thing you have to be as a speaker.

You have to be good and you only become good through practice.

You don't become good by sitting at your home practicing.

You got to get out in front of audiences, you got to feel the energy.

You got to learn how to tailor your message.

And that's what I did that first year I made $0.

Right.

But I tailored my message and I became known because I did

it so often people started to recognize my name and recognize me.

So then that second year as I started turning some of that into paid, right.

People would say, oh, we need somebody to speak on emotional intelligence.

Oh, well, Stevie Dawn does that because they had seen me 5,000 times by then.

Right.

So they were like, and that is how I generated the buzz.

So I think my biggest advice to anybody.

Start putting yourself out there for every speaking opportunity you can and

be okay if it doesn't make you money in the beginning, because you're one

honing your skills and two, you're getting your name out there and that's

actually more critical for speakers than it is for some other businesses.

Because most of my speaking engagements now are totally because they've heard my.

Yeah.

And that makes it makes total sense to me and people who are on that kind of track.

If you haven't already checked out the recent episode with Grant Baldwin from

speaker up, you should definitely go and listen, definitely go and listen to that.

But but yeah, I think it's really smart.

And you said you became known.

For your emotional intelligence stuff that you're talking about.

And I know that it's not, maybe not, everyone's talking about that, but enough

people are talking about this, but it's in something that people may have heard

or even if they don't fully know what it is, but it is important to have that

thing that you're going to talk about.

It is important to have your topic, your area.

And I see as a podcast host, a lot of people who want to be on podcasts and then

they'll give me a list of Maybe 20 or so things that they can come and talk about.

That's great, but I don't want that.

I want people who have an area of expertise and I've actually

become known as an expert for that.

No, No, but if I just having more of a conversational, non purposeful

chat with people, it wouldn't matter.

But because this is like a business kind of talk or professional based podcast

for people who are looking for that kind of professional development and

leadership development and communication skills that is essential to be

able to deliver something specific.

But it doesn't mean that that's all you are right.

No.

I always tell, and my clients struggle with the same thing.

Right.

They're like, but I could talk about this and I could talk about

this and I could talk about this.

And I'm like, yes, you can, you can.

But what do you want to be known for?

I may be known for emotional intelligence, but that's not everything I speak.

I mean yesterday, we did a whole event on success.

My coaching programs are all around success and mindset and confidence.

Right.

I also have programs around prospecting and marketing for entrepreneurs.

Right.

I have all these topics, leadership, communication, productivity.

I mean, next week, I'm doing a thing about how to use LinkedIn.

Okay.

I can talk about a wide range of things.

But I'm really known for one thing.

And I think to your point, that that's important in the

beginning, get known for one thing.

Cause what I have happened, and this is something I asked my speakers to track.

So any of you who are listening, track your rebooking.

I think it's something we don't talk about a lot, but it's one thing to be booked.

It's another thing to get that booking and then get rebooked for that same

event or with that same company.

Right.

I have a 75% rebooking rate.

One of the reasons my rate is so high is because they go, okay, well, you

came in and did emotional intelligence.

What else can you do?

And I have a list.

I have a list of 18 topics that I consider my core topics that

I can talk on any given moment.

So I can keep getting rebooked for conferences over and over and over again.

They just book me for different topics, but I got known for that one topic.

So I think it is really important to choose your area and be an expert in

that area, position yourself that way.

Then you can always, when you're fabulous, they'll say, well, what else could you do?

And then you can give them the list, Right.

And show them all the things That you can do.

And you can continue to get rebooked, but you gotta be

great at that one thing first.

Right.

That makes a lot of sense.

You have to be an, your name needs to be a known quantity, a recognizable name,

at least in your industry so that people can trust that you can deliver on stuff.

Even if it's not the topic that you're originally well-known for, but when you're

looking to become known, it just makes absolute sense to become known for one

thing, to specialize in that and get on as many shows that are relevant to that.

A course or a program that's relevant to that have a book that is relevant to

a podcast and all of those things that it's like, what become known for that.

But then when your name is known, it won't matter so much.

Yeah.

You'll still, people will still want you for that, but they will also want that.

They'll be happy to hear, talk about other things.

And I think someone like you know, Pat Flynn is maybe a good example.

Initially.

Maybe people wanted him to talk about podcasts, but now you can listen to

Pat Flynn, talk about passive income to talk about success in other areas,

maybe even public speaking leadership, you know, that all sorts of things that

he would now probably talk about that he always could have, but he initially

became known for that one thing of I think initially he more became known for

having that podcast around passive income.

But it is essential to have that and, and to understand that

that's how people's minds work.

We we'd like to be able to box people pretty neatly into one thing.

We don't like.

Work too hard in our thinking is that, yes, we're all more than just one thing.

But when you think about one person, if you got, oh yeah, Stevie, she talks

about emotional intelligence, Johnny.

He talks about influence and persuasion.

Great.

So it's a great association to have, and then at some point

it doesn't become so important.

absolutely.

you know, to your point, and this was never more obvious to me than.

Three years into my business.

When I realized some of my best friends like that, I consider real friends

were like, so what do you do again?

And I was like, if they don't know what I do.

What makes me think anybody else in the world knows what I do.

These are supposed to be my friends who pay attention.

Right.

And it was such a realization to me that we can be putting too many different

messages out into the world because it was like, okay, if they don't know.

Then, you know, what does that say?

And so I think to your point of just, just tailor and focus that message in the

beginning, none of us really fit that.

neatly in a box, but when we're first putting our name out

there, we need something easily

remembered by the people around us.

And if you know that you're a speaker on influence and persuasion, boom, that's it.

And if that's your message, people will always think of you in those spaces.

And that really does help you gain business.

I think it's such an important.

It is.

And it's much easier for you as an individual to be more confident about one

thing then perhaps anything else as well.

And to make that your, your go to that, you, the thing you could always

easily talk about at length and are ready to go, when you ready to answer

just about anything about that.

I wonder for you.

We talked a while back and it is quite a while back now, but we talked about brand

awareness and being aware of your brand.

How would you define your own brand and why is it important

for people to be able to do that?

Yeah.

Um, you know, I think for me, I, I try and I guess I hope, right.

I always think branding is what other people think of you.

It's never what you think of you.

So, I hope and believe that people think about me as

somebody with a lot of empathy.

So a lot of care, a lot of compassion something that is about energy and.

I try and be as lively and upbeat and positive and energetic as I can.

I think people need that in their lives.

And then really my, my main message over these last several years has

been around unstoppable success.

Right?

So how do we get success in our life?

Whether that be emotional intelligence and communication, because that

leads to success, whether that be.

Skills that leads to success.

Right?

All these different things can lead there, but that's really become my main message.

So I would hope my, my brand out there would feel unstoppable

success with energy and empathy.

I think those would be my keywords.

And I think that brand awareness really is making sure that you put that same

message consistently out into the world.

But it's also about, are you getting that feedback right from others to know

that your brand awareness is working?

Because I think sometimes we can put messages out, but if they don't

connect to the audience, they're not really getting what we mean.

And I do believe that

branding is not how you feel about you,

it's how others feel about you.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's absolutely essential to have that focus on it, but it's maybe a

bit more complicated when it comes to having control over that you going

to have to correct course, correct.

A lot along the path, along the path to achieving it and

make sure you get the feedback.

And I think maybe that is one of the places where some people

do go a bit wrong with this.

are actually not getting the feedback and just trusting in that what they think

they're putting out into the world is, is how they're being seen so I'd say

it's an interesting way to look at it?

I seem to remember you mentioning that you had been working on a book.

I did.

Yes.

I'm like, oh my gosh, do I even have it?

That's terrible.

But after the event yesterday, things are a little things are

a little chaos in the house.

I did, it came out February.

Always be the shark.

And it's all about that concept of unstoppable success.

And how do you become a Shark in your life?

Not in an aggressive way, but in a powerful way.

'cause I think a lot of times we spend our lives be a minnows and goldfish and that

really isn't going to get us anywhere.

So yeah.

Came out February 8th and super excited for it.

Fantastic.

So what is a shark thing?

It's not, it's not aggressive, but what makes them, what makes

us a shark in our own lives?

Yeah.

So I think for me, it's about owning your ocean.

I, I love sharks.

I have tons of shark stories.

But one of the things that I've, that really impacted me as I went cage diving

with great white sharks several years ago.

And.

Just this idea of they weren't bothered by anything, right?

They paid no attention to the humans in the cage.

They spent no time on the tuna that was swimming around them.

Like they are living their lives with no care or concern for other people.

Right?

Like they're doing their thing.

And I think in life, especially as adults, we get stuck in doing what society.

Right.

Society gives you this checklist that says, if you want to be happy

and successful, you need a good job that has to have health insurance.

You need, right.

A good house.

You have to have a nice car.

You know, you should be married to the right kind of person.

You definitely are a family person, like all of these things.

Right.

And I just realized in my life that I checked all the boxes of

things that society tells me should make me happy and successful.

And I was not happy and successful.

I was miserable.

And lonely.

Right?

So I needed something else in my life.

And so it was through this idea of kind of sharks becoming a mantra for me and a,

and a guide for me and saying to myself, I can own my ocean, whether my ocean is

my little office or whether my ocean is the world, I deserve to just swim in.

And be 100% okay.

Being who I am for that.

And, and I really think other people need to buy into that message because

I see so many people not going after their dreams, not going after

what they want in life, because they're worried about other people.

And there's an element of being the shark means saying, I own my

ocean you are welcome to join me on the journey, but I'm swimming.

Yeah.

you know what, whatever that looks like for you.

Yeah.

Do you, do you feel now that you're a published author, do you, do you

feel that having that book gives you an increased level of authority and

influence in your, in your sector?

Yeah, I definitely do.

I think so I've published before.

This is actually my third book, but I would say that the first two

were more for marketing, right.

I wrote a book specifically to try and market myself, if that makes sense.

And it never worked.

And I think to the point that it never worked is exactly what you and I were

talking about just five minutes ago, which is I wasn't tailoring my message.

My books were kind of all over the map.

So they didn't really go along with my speeches.

They didn't really go along with what I was saying to the world.

They were just, Ooh, but I want to show you I know stuff.

Right.

so this book being absolutely aligned with my keynote that I do.

Right.

And I think every, every presenter, every speaker needs,

what I call it, killer keynote.

Cause you know, sharks.

killer keynote always be the shark, the book.

Came out of a killer keynote that I have done for a while, which

is called unstoppable success.

And so for me, I think now having the book.

I've already had several clients say, oh, well, when you come to do that

presentation, please bring books.

Let's have you sell books.

Hey, let's put books in everybody's swag bag.

So it has given me a new level of authority and power, but

I think what's important.

There is because it's connected.

To what I've put myself out as an expert for, to our point from earlier.

So I, I think books can help, but I think they need to be tied in to what you want

to be known for and what your message is.

And this is the first of my books that I truly feel is tied to what I'm doing.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

And that really ties in as well to what we were saying earlier about that,

knowing yourself and having that thing that you're thing that you're known for.

And Having your content, whatever you're doing, whether it's speaking videos or

books, connecting with your audience.

that I see a lot of people going so wrong with it because, because they are

all over the place, they're trying too many things they're doing the spaghetti

against the wall strategy and hoping that something sticks or people will like

some things like that, that may be the case, but far better to pick your thing.

But I I'd say in addition to that, you know, one of the things I learned, and

I don't know if you had any sort of similar experiences, but I also learned.

I had to get over one, trying to give people what I wanted to give them.

And rather serving them with what they needed or what they were looking for.

And that was it.

That doesn't sound like much of a difference, but it is it's.

Yeah, it was like finally finding where people were already, already

thirsty, already looking to drink from the well and, and serving the needs

that were there rather than Hey, well, forget the, well, I want to give you

some Coca-Cola, you know, is that

Nobody's right.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force them to drink.

Right.

There, there is an element I think, in business where you have to know.

What's going on in the world around you, what are they looking for?

What are they needing help with?

Yes, you can help them with 50 things you may know that well, I know you say

you're struggling with marketing, but what you really need is mindset help.

I mean, you may know that and that's great, but they're

not looking for mindset help.

They're looking for marketing help.

So if you can help them with marketing and you do that through helping their

mindset great, but focus on what they are looking for and needing.

Otherwise, it's always going to be an uphill battle.

Because before you can sell them, you have to convince them they need it.

Yeah.

and that's never an easy strategy.

So Yeah.

I totally agree with you.

I think you can have all the things in the world you want to talk about, but

that doesn't mean people will pay you.

Exactly.

So some people who are tuning in maybeare thinking it would be pretty good to find

out more about your unstoppable success.

And certainly there'll be a link in the show notes for people to go and

find a copy of your book as well.

But what would be the best way for people to come and find

out more information about you?

Yeah.

you?

know, I hate to sound like I'm such a trend follower, but I would tell you, I

spend a lot of my time on social media.

So you can connect with me on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, the easiest

way for us to start a conversation.

You can always go to my website as Well, but I feel like the most relevant

up-to-date information and connection is through those social media channels.

And you can find me everywhere as Dr.

Stevie Dawn

well, there you go.

That's a good way to do it.

So we learned a little bit about your book.

I wonder if there are maybe one or two.

That you often recommend to people may be related to things

we've been talking about today.

Perhaps emotional intelligence or speaking through that, what, what kind

of books have made an impact on you that you would always happily recommend?

Yeah, absolutely.

So my emotional intelligence kind of go to for people if you want a quick,

easy read on emotional intelligence is by Travis Bradberry and it's Emotional

Intelligence, 2.0, it's a little older.

Now it was new at a time when I started this, which is kind of crazy to

Yeah.

I've been talking about this now,

but it's it's an easy read.

It gives you kind of the basics of emotional intelligence and helps you

with the self-awareness piece, which is always the first step of emotional

intelligence is self-awareness.

So I think it's a great book, something I recommend, on the business side.

There are really two books that I ask all my clients to, to lean into.

that is Atomic Habits by James clear, I love Atomic Habits.

I, it really changed my life and how I got stuff done and

how I became more productive.

So I always recommend that to clients.

and then Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, all about creativity to bring

more creativity into your life as an adult and what creativity looks like.

And I think as entrepreneurs, especially, we need to lean into that

creative, but we need to understand how to lean into that creative and

big magic is a great book for that.

So those are two that I ask all my clients.

Yeah, perfect.

I I've certainly read the first two and I think I think emotional

intelligence, 2.0 was quite new when I first read it as well.

So it's been around awhile, but

Yeah.

but big, big magic is one that I haven't come across and I'll

look forward to checking that out and again, I'll put links to all of

those in the show notes for anyone who wants to go and check them out.

I do like to find out from, from all of my guests.

What your greatest strength your superpower is when it comes

to influence and persuasion?

That's a hard one.

You know, I think for me, I would say my super power is really seeing people's

greatness, even when they don't.

I think that is my super power.

And I think the reason that is applicable to influence and persuasion.

Taking that, being able to see that in somebody and then being

able to verbalize it back to them.

in a way that influences them to believe it.

And I think that's really the key.

So I spend a lot of my day looking at people and going, you

do not know great you truly are.

me tell you.

Right.

And

Yeah.

think if we use our influence and persuasion to

get people to take action towards their best lives, then I feel like

we're really doing the good work.

Yeah.

I mean that, that's like one of the, I think one of the key principles and how

to win friends and influence people is to give people this grethis great this

great nam e up to this great reputation to live up to as I think they phrase it

in sort of oldy timey language in the book a bit, but it is that thing of, like

you say, seeing the best potential in people and then feeding that back to them.

Give them something to move towards that they can see in

themselves and, and live up to you.

That's fantastic.

If there was just one amongst the many that people would take

away from this episode, if they only remembered one thing, what

do you hope that that would be.

I think at the end of the day, I hope that they would remember

that are all an expert in something.

No matter where you are in your life, no matter how many years,

no matter what industry we are, all an expert in something.

And if you position yourself as an expert and you do it with

your, with your marketing and advertising, but you also just do it

with your heart and your emotions.

And you say, this is what I want to be an expert in.

This is what I want to share with the world.

You truly will make an impact if you focus on that one.

So I think of everything we talked about today, that would be

the one thing I would want people to take away and remember is you're an

expert at something, position yourself as an expert and really lean into it.

And you'll see the success on the other side.

Fantastic.

I know for our listeners, this isn't quite the end yet because there's a little

gift that you have for our listeners as well, which is going to be a checklist.

Yeah, so I thought.

For kind of the speaker side and for the emotional intelligence side, I

put together a checklist that just has things to think about emotionally

before you get onstage to think about emotionally as you're onstage and also

just the checklist for speakers, right?

Yeah.

What are the things you need to remember, right.

As you go into a speaking engagement, as you get these opportunities,

because I found myself I needed a checklist to get through it.

So I kind of combine those two checklists into one since we were

kind of combining both topics today.

So I hope people enjoy it.

I do too.

And certainly I'll be downloading my copy.

And for those of you who want to download yours, that's

going to be in the show notes.

So another good reason to go and check those out.

Steve Dawn Carter,

thank you so much for coming and being my guest on Speaking Influence today.

Well, Thank you.

so much for having me.

It's been a pleasure.

Thanks for tuning in.

I hope you've enjoyed the show.

And if you did make sure you are subscribed for future episodes, and

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So please share the episode out with your friends or network that has the best

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especially if your plan to come back or check out some more of our episodes.

Is there any really a month left now, before speaking influence starts to

change its name and branding and a whole host of other things, but we're still

going to be bringing you lots of great information and some amazing guests.

In fact, some of the guests I've already recorded with, and some of the

guests I have lined up just soup pub.

And I know you're going to love for me, especially if you are at all

interested in building influence and persuasion through podcasting as a

guest, as a host or other ways of using podcasting to grow and scale up business.

I'm not gonna say too much about that just yet, but we are going

to have a bit of a buildup to the rebranding and renaming of the show.

If you'd like to connect with me, one of the best ways to do that is to come and

join the Podfluencers Facebook group and come and connect with other people who

are looking to build up their influence and inspiration through podcasting.

And if you'd like to download my free ebook or take the quiz about how

podcasting can help your business, then visit my website, present influence.com.

You'll be able to do all those things for free.

And I look forward to connecting with you on another show very soon.

But for now, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing,

have an amazing rest of your day.