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It's Not Rocket Science! Five Questions Over CoffeeHelping business owners explode their business growth Author: The Complete Approach
The mission of It's Not Rocket Science! is to bring a new idea for building business to growth-hungry business leaders and owners who want to do more with less time and so increase their business and influence. We deliver actionable ideas using our five questions over coffee. thecompleteapproach.substack.com Language: en Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Five Questions Over Coffee with Lauri Smith (ep. 120)
Thursday, 3 April, 2025
Who is Lauri?Lauri Smith is a visionary in the realm of authentic communication. With a deep understanding of the constraints imposed by traditional speaking models, she recognizes the dissonance felt by individuals striving to convey their genuine selves. Whether addressing audiences through a TikTok video or a TED Talk, Lauri is committed to helping people break free from outdated molds and masks crafted during the industrial era. Her mission is to empower speakers to transform the ambiance of any room, helping them step into their roles as true leaders and change-makers without compromising their authenticity. Through her innovative approaches, Lauri offers a path for those eager to leave a genuine impact, guiding them to speak and gesture in a way that truly aligns with their unique essence.Key Takeaways00:00 Inauthentic speaking inhibits true self-expression.05:08 Practice presentations early; familiarize with location.10:17 Authenticity in acting: shedding protective masks.12:18 Embrace authenticity to expand personal presence.16:21 Sign up for podcast updates via email._________________________________________________________________________________________________Subscribe to our newsletter and get details of when we are doing these interviews live at https://TCA.fyi/newsletterFind out more about being a guest at : link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/beaguestSubscribe to the podcast at https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/podcastHelp us get this podcast in front of as many people as possible. Leave a nice five-star review at apple podcasts : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/apple-podcasts and on YouTube : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Itsnotrocketscienceatyt!Here's how you can bring your business to THE next level:If you are a business owner currently turning over £/$10K - £/$50K per month and want to grow to £/$100K - £/$500k per month download my free resource on everything you need to grow your business on a single page :It's a detailed breakdown of how you can grow your business to 7-figures in a smart and sustainable way————————————————————————————————————————————-TranscriptNote, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)SUMMARY KEYWORDSsoulful speaking, speaking coach, visionaries, empaths, soul driven vision, authentic speaking, impact, transform vibe, TED Talk, TikTok, mainstream speaking solutions, industrial era, mask, leader, change maker, alignment, true selves, inauthentic speaking, PowerPoint, script, presentation practice, networking meeting, inner critic, hope, intention, oneness, charismatic presence, flow, energetic hug, raising consciousness, primal and purpose.SPEAKERSLauri Smith, Stuart WebbStuart Webb [00:00:31]:Hi, and welcome back to It's Not Rocket Science 5 Questions Over Copy. And I'm delighted to be joined by Laurie Smith, who I'm thinking this is gonna be an interesting conversation because Laurie is a soulful speaking coach. Now if that doesn't sound like the most interesting conversation you're gonna have today, I don't know what is. Laurie is, somebody who helps visionaries, empaths, people who are on a soul driven vision to share their magic, share their story on stages, big, small, podcasts, etcetera. So I'm really looking forward to hearing Laurie's stories and Laurie's, advice. And welcome to It's Not Rocket Science 5 Questions Over Coffee, Laurie.Lauri Smith [00:01:12]:Thank you so much, Stuart. I'm so excited to be here with you today having this conversation.Stuart Webb [00:01:18]:Well, let's get into it. Let's start by speaking about those those visionaries, those empaths, those those people who are on that soul centered, journey, and how you how you how they how they are trying to reach what they're trying to do.Lauri Smith [00:01:34]:Well, the thing that can sort of steer them off course is they're wanting to speak in a way that is authentic, wanting to speak in a way that has an impact and transforms the vibe in the room, whether that's a TikTok or a TED Talk. And a lot of the mainstream speaking solutions out there are putting them in a box that was created in different waves of the industrial era. That's one way of speaking, one way of gesturing so that it's creating sort of a mask that doesn't feel like it fits them. And sometimes as a result of that, they go into those rooms and they feel the dissonance and they feel like there's nothing that can help them, or they go into those rooms and they they hide their true selves and they try to fit into the mask or the mold that they're being given as what a leader or a change maker quote, unquote, should be. ThatStuart Webb [00:02:37]:Should be.Lauri Smith [00:02:37]:It's supporting this era that we're now in where people really need to be authentic and to be in alignment with themselves and their 1 in 8,000,000,000 way of showing up.Stuart Webb [00:02:52]:And and and how have they tried to address this before they come across somebody like you, Laurie? What are the what are the things they they tempted with, you know, presumably is everything from speaking in an inauthentic way through to not speaking at all.Lauri Smith [00:03:06]:Yeah. Speaking in in that inauthentic way that they think they should. So, they might try to be hyper intelligent in a left brained way when that's not fully their that's not really their true inner radiance, or they might someone might have told them that they needed to be peppier, or that they needed to work harder or be funny and make the audience laugh and they might have gone to places like toastmasters and not not felt an alignment with that. They might have decided, I'm not a speaker. I'm not a leader, so they're not doing it like you said. Some people have gone to solutions like yoga and mindfulness, and on their own, they're trying to take the wisdom from yoga and mindfulness and having it translate onto the stage. A lot of them will spend a lot of time creating the PowerPoint, trying to come up with the script, the what am I going to say so that they've got the whole entire thing mapped out moment by moment, and they're essentially reading because they think that saying that there is an absolute perfect thing to say and that saying it is gonna get them the impact that they're looking for when it really isn't. It's much more effective to have an outline and to get up from your chair unless you're actually preventing presenting from your chair like I am right now.Lauri Smith [00:04:46]:To get up on your feet, so to speak, and to practice out loud just like a basketball player will practice their free throws again and again and again so that when they go into the game they can make the shot in the high stakes circumstances of the game rather than just thinking about the free throw.Stuart Webb [00:05:08]:Yeah. I often talk to leaders that I work with about important presentations, and many of them, like you have said, are the sort of person that will have a a PowerPoint deck of 50 slides and just put them up and read them. And so often I turn around and say, well, how many times have you actually practiced that? And I'll get practice. I didn't get it until 2 minutes before you start. Yeah. And and I've often said to them, you know, the thing is you should have it 2, 3 days before and get to know it, and then stand in the room where you're actually going to give the speech so that you're used to the place where you're gonna do it. So you're used to the site because it will change, and practice to not get it right, but fail to get it wrong. You know, I'm a I I I I sing when, in the, on on evenings, and we we compete.Stuart Webb [00:06:02]:And and the idea is that we don't sing and get it keep getting going until we get it right. We keep going until we can't get it wrong. You don't forget words because they're ingrained. And that's what speaking has to be as well sometimes. It has to be something which is just coming out of your soul. Isn't it?Lauri Smith [00:06:19]:Yeah. And with speaking, I think of it a lot like Saturday night live, where for Saturday night live, they create a thing, and then they've got a list of scenes and moments that they wanna hit in the scenes backstage and then when they go to do it live, it's semi scripted so they can do it fresh in the moment and speakers, they know their stuff more than they believe they do and they need to practice that structured improv enough to look down, see a bullet point, and know what do I wanna say with this bullet point? And what do I wanna say in the next bullet point? And it can be their same messaging, the thing that they know really deeply and are passionate about and slightly different every single time.Stuart Webb [00:07:13]:Yes. Yeah. So that you hit that audience connection, don't you?Lauri Smith [00:07:16]:Yeah. Absolutely.Stuart Webb [00:07:18]:I think you've got a very valuable, piece of, free advice that you're you're offering, which I'm showing on screen now, which is, voice hyphenmatches.comforward/sorryforward/podcast. Tell us what what we'll find there, Lori, and and how it can help.Lauri Smith [00:07:37]:That is the Soulful Speaking podcast. When you go to that site, you'll get to listen to the podcast for free. A quiz will pop up that you can take that will tell you which mask you're using and hiding behind, probably unconsciously, and then there's a whole bunch of resources and tips that are gonna come back after that. That's the the free free offer to start moving forward. And, I think you also wanted a tidbit of advice that they could put into action right away.Stuart Webb [00:08:11]:That would be great.Lauri Smith [00:08:13]:Yeah. The the advice that I would give to people is to set an intention for what you want the audience to experience emotionally or energetically. And it's not something like I want them to like me. That's an inner critic driven thing and with the intention we're trying to take the reins away from the inner critic and give it back to that highest most confident part of yourself. So it might be something like I want to give the audience hope. If you're going into a networking meeting instead of thinking I hope they hire me or I hope I don't screw up. I hope I don't say the wrong thing. Those are all soul suckers trying to protect us.Lauri Smith [00:08:57]:I'd like to give the audience a glimmer of hope either for themselves or for a friend they've got that is struggling. It might be something like I wanna see people expanding or opening as if they're opening their heart which is a little bit more of an energetic or a physical thing and when we do that instead of looking for what might go wrong and then that becoming a self fulfilling prophecy we're connecting with that soul driven mission that we're here to do and then aligning with, a mile marker of that and we'll start to notice shifts toward people feeling more hope rather than shifts toward, oh, I think I might said I think I just said the wrong thing.Stuart Webb [00:09:50]:That's a really wonderful tip. That's a really wonderful tip. And it it's you're right. We all need to sometimes learn to silence that inner critic, don't we, and take away the oxygen.Lauri Smith [00:10:00]:Yeah.Stuart Webb [00:10:01]:What is it? What is it, Laurie, that got you, to become the soulful speaker? Was there a particular moment in in your career or your your journey? Was there a a book, a course, something which sort of took you from where you are to where from where you were to where you are now?Lauri Smith [00:10:17]:The the key there have been a lot of different bread crumbs along the way that I followed, and the key that I talk about a lot was in an acting class that I took. Many people think that acting is about lying. It's actually quite the opposite. It's about authenticity and mirroring things back to humanity. And in my favorite acting class ever, there was an exercise one day where I was up there by myself instead of being up there with a colleague or 3. And I kept pulling myself together between these little bits of the exercise, very similar to these masks that industrial speaking is consciously or unconsciously asking us to wear. And Richard, my teacher, stopped the exercise and said, whatever that is that you're doing in between, stop doing that. And I said, I'm not that comfortable having everyone's eyes on me.Lauri Smith [00:11:21]:And he took off his glasses and he said, well, then you've picked a strange set of careers for yourself. You're an actor, a teacher, a speaker, a leader. Part of you wants this. In fact, part of you knows you're meant to be here. And that really struck me. And even my protectors and inner critics deeply trusted him, so it was like my heart and soul knew he was right. And because I trusted him and the space that he held, I jumped back into the exercise and was actively releasing those masks, and it felt like decades of protection were melting away in a kind of combination of fire and ice and when the exercise was over I looked out at my classmates and I felt completely in sync with them. I felt like I could see and feel what kind of a day they were each having.Lauri Smith [00:12:18]:And I now say it was my first moment of being in flow or in oneness that lasted beyond the sport or beyond the acting. I had had them while acting before. I had had them while playing basketball in high school where time just doesn't seem to exist. And when it's over, people ask you about a certain play or a moment, and and you're you kind of don't know what they're talking about because you were so in it. And what I realized from that is that our charisma, our one of a kind presence comes from allowing ourselves to be seen while also holding the room in kind of an energetic hug. And that's at the root of how I work with speakers today. It's the same way that that acting instructor worked with me. Instead of thinking that you need to reach for something other than what you are, It's about letting go of everything that the world has told you that you should be and then learning how to expand your energy from there.Stuart Webb [00:13:32]:That's a wonderful story, and I think we all we all need a Richard. Don't we? We all need we all need that somebody who looks at you and tells you how it is and helps you to uncover the truth behind what you're hiding. And I know I have had Richards in my life who have been exactly the same, not with acting, but with with with other things. Yeah. Laurie Laurie, there must be one question that I have not yet asked, which you are really itching, witching an issue that I could could ask you. So what is what is the one question that you think I should be asking? And, obviously, when you ask it, you need to give us the answer.Lauri Smith [00:14:15]:Yeah. That's always the rub, isn't it? I I lead networking groups, and I will come up with great questions and forget that I have to answer them. The the question that popped into my mind when you asked that was theStuart Webb [00:14:28]:why. Mhmm.Lauri Smith [00:14:30]:Why am IStuart Webb [00:14:30]:Love the question.Lauri Smith [00:14:32]:Yeah. I and the short answer is it's my calling. And the longer part of that that I that I've kind of lived into or I am living into is I believe that speaking soulfully is actually part of raising consciousness on the planet. That is the biggest why. So the more soulfully our leaders and change makers can speak, the more it's gonna have a ripple effect. I see there's that image that we also in, like, a science class of evolution of humans, where they're hunched over, little bit taller. And to me, the way most of the western world is speaking is a generation or 2 back. It's actually not aligned with our our highest selves, our most courageous selves, and helping us to oddly, not oddly, recapture the kind of expressiveness we had as babies while marrying that to our sense of purpose or our intention or our mission as an adult.Lauri Smith [00:15:48]:Primal and presence coming together, primal and purpose coming together and creating a more resonant presence is it's it's a it's a huge thing, and it can also be paired down to tiny, small moment by moment things.Stuart Webb [00:16:06]:Brilliant. I love I love the message. I love the way that you put it. And I think you're right. We all need to, we all need to grasp those moments. We all need to find those moments. Even if we're not in front of a stage, we need to grasp them for ourselves anyway. Yeah.Stuart Webb [00:16:21]:Laurie, it's been wonderful having you speaking to us. I'm just gonna take a moment now and beg, people to just go to this link, which is link dot the complete approach dotco.ukforward/newsletter. If you fill out the form there and only ask for an email address and your name, you will get an email once a week who and it all it really tells you is who's coming on the podcast this week so that you can get and listen to the sort of advice that you get here and also ask questions, on on the podcast of the, of the authors and people that we have speaking. So, Laurie, thank you for coming and spending a few minutes with us. I appreciate that you've, got a busy day ahead of you, so I'm gonna let you go and get on with it and get more of those, people that really need to make TikToks, TED Talks, and other connections. Make them soulfully.Lauri Smith [00:17:14]:Thank you so much for having me, Stuart. You have a great day and a great week as well.Stuart Webb [00:17:19]:Thank you. 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