Transcript: 

Dave Bricker (00:01)
Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media brought to you by speakipedia.com. I’m your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk and smart strategies from visionary speakers and thought leaders. Would you like to know which communication skills can make you a better leader? Today’s guest is one of the world’s experts on leadership communication.

She’s the founder and CEO of Global Public Speaking, and for over 20 years, she and her team have worked with global leaders and executives at some of the largest organizations in the world. She’s a former opera singer who went from stage presence to executive presence. And her class at Harvard University is oversubscribed every year. When she’s not speaking on stage or singing on stage,

She’s sailing, traveling, and learning new languages. To help us learn how to lead with our voice, please welcome Allison Shapira.

Allison Shapira (01:04)
Thank you so much, Dave.

What a treat to be with you.

Dave Bricker (01:07)
Likewise, thanks for joining me. So, Allison, the parallels are amazing because I’m also a recovering music student who continues to play and perform. Share a little bit about your journey from opera singing to speaking.

Allison Shapira (01:25)
Growing up, all I wanted to do was be an opera singer. That was my singular focus and goal in life. And then I got to college, I started to learn a little bit about the industry and I really started to lose my passion for the politics of singing, the politics of opera. And after a few years, I decided to leave the field, never thinking that what I studied as an opera singer would be helpful in the professional world. But then … in my first job out of college, I found out I would have to give speeches on behalf of my organization and I was terrified. So I joined Toastmasters and started to learn the skills of public speaking and the more I learned about public speaking, the more I realized I already knew because of my training as a classical vocalist with elements like breath support and eye contact and presence.

And so all of those elements I had honed as an opera singer, I was now able to apply to being a public speaker.

Dave Bricker (02:31)
very interesting how sometimes we’re studying one thing and we have no idea that it’s going to carry us into someplace completely different and give us background that a lot of other people don’t have. And as you know, I’m a big fan of Toastmasters and I always encourage people to take that route at whatever level they’re at.

So I know that you work with speakers and it’s always fun to work with contest speakers and TEDx speakers, but most true professional speaking involves professionals who speak, leaders, sales teams, customer service teams, et cetera. So who needs to pay attention to presentation skills and what differences can proper focus make in the success of an individual or an organization?

Allison Shapira (03:23)
so much impact. There’s so much we can see in terms of what public speaking skills can do to help an individual and an organization with whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. I focus on business professionals who have to speak, leaders who have to speak as they move up in their career, recognizing that as we start a job or go into the professional world,

We have a specific set of speaking skills that we need. How to introduce myself, how to speak up in a meeting. Then as we move into more senior positions of leadership, it becomes how do I have a difficult conversation with my team? How do I deliver a difficult message to the organization? How do I communicate up to the board of directors? So the more we move up in our career, the more we have to build our communication skills in different ways.

And what I’ve seen is that when we can harness our public speaking skills, it gives us more visibility within an organization. It gets people to take notice of us because if we’re in a room for a meeting, we’re expected to speak up in many organizations. So what that means is the way you speak in a meeting is partially how your leadership skills are measured. So every time you’re speaking, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate your leadership.

And then the more senior we become, then our communication, our words become the policy of the organization, which means every word is critical.

Dave Bricker (05:01)
I love what you’re saying. I think a lot of professionals don’t even think of themselves as speakers. And I’m reminded of several times I’ve gone in front of corporate groups and say, how many professional speakers do we have in the room? Nobody raises their hand. And I say, let me ask that question again. And they, OK. Do you speak to your colleagues? Do you speak to your clients? Do you speak to your boss? Do you manage a team? You speak.

Unless you’re sitting alone in a toll booth for a living, you’re a professional speaker. And I think it’s very important that people start assuming that identity and getting the training. Which brings me to my next question, because most professionals, and sadly, this includes most people who do identify as professional speakers, they never get any training in how to use and care for their voice.

And what are they missing?

Allison Shapira (06:02)
They’re missing a lot. It is critical that as speakers, we take care of our voice. Anyone who has studied theater or singing or voice knows how important it is. In fact, we say our voice is our instrument when we’re singers. We can’t put it in a velvet lined box and keep it in a dry place. We take our instrument with us when we go into a bar, which used to be a very smoky place.

into a noisy networking event when we’re at the office trying to speak to a group of people without using a microphone and we can do a lot of damage to our voice unintentionally. If it’s during the holiday times and you’re going to holiday receptions and parties, you’re probably straining your voice to be heard over the crowd and what you’re doing

you’re damaging your voice it can make you hoarse and over time it can lead to nodes on your vocal cords which might even require surgery to remove so it’s really important to be able to Rest your voice. Don’t stay up too late Don’t drink too much alcohol or coffee which can actually make your voice dehydrated so keep hydrating yourself with water with herbal tea with honey to soothe your voice. And those are some of the recommendations I make to people who need to keep their voice healthy before a speech.

So I’m thinking vocal stamina has a lot to do with technique. And I remember when I was first getting into sailing.

And the advice I was given was let the oars do the work. Because I always rowed in and out with a rowing dinghy. And of course, the first time you’re struggling and you’re splashing and you’re spinning. And after a while, it’s a mindset. Let the oars do the work. And you can row for miles without getting tired. And somebody who’s got good vocal technique can speak for hours without getting hoarse, without getting strained. It’s a very important skill.

Allison Shapira (08:52)
It’s actually something that we’re born with and somehow we unlearn as we grow up. So if you think about a newborn baby will scream for hours without going horse, how can that happen? Cause when we’re born, we’re able to take that deep diaphragmatic breathing that engages every part of our breathing apparatus and lets us project a sustained tone.

for hours. But yet as we grow up, something about how we’re socialized means we change the way we breathe, which changes how we sound, maybe to fit in, which then changes the amount of time we can speak. So we actually have to unlearn what we’ve picked up along our lives and go back to that original form of breathing that we grew up with.

Dave Bricker (09:47)
so completely agree with you. I think the ladies get it before the guys do, but you do. listen to those little children on the playground with these massive voices, and then someone says, act civilized, use your inside voice. And we shrink and we have to rediscover our big, which is where you come in. That’s fantastic. But it’s the awareness of that.

that you have to deliver that kind of training. It’s not just head voice, chest voice. It’s a mindset thing. Yeah. So music, at least most popular music, and I know I’ve heard you play your wonderful, you play guitar and you sing all of these great tunes, but there’s both an instrumental and a lyrical component and the words really matter.

Allison Shapira (10:23)
That’s right. There’s so much to it. It is a mindset. You’re right.

Dave Bricker (10:44)
in speaking. So in your book, Speak with Impact, you write about the important questions a speech needs to answer. Can you dive into those a bit?

Allison Shapira (10:55)
Absolutely. And I will first start by saying, if anyone can play the guitar, it is you. I learned so much from watching you and listening to you play the guitar. So I’m in awe of your guitar skills. When I’m teaching people to craft a speech, I tell them it’s critical to answer three questions or to ask and then answer three questions before they write the speech. This is not the structure. It’s the strategy of the speech. And those three questions are first,

Dave Bricker (11:00)
Hahaha

Allison Shapira (11:25)
Who is your audience? Which means who are you speaking to and what messaging and argumentation will work for them. The second is what’s your goal? Which means what do want people to do as a result of hearing you speak? Do you want to include a call to action? And finally, the third question, which is really the foundation of my teaching methodology, is why you.

And why you doesn’t mean why are you qualified? Why are you the right person to give this speech? It means why do you care about the work you do and the people you represent? And when was a moment in your life that made you care? And when you answer that question, you tap into a deeper sense of personal motivation around why you do what you do, which can help you find a personal story that you may include

in the speech itself. And so it humanizes the language and makes it a speech only you could give, as opposed to a speech that’s just the talking points of your organization.

Dave Bricker (12:31)
And it’s interesting because you just connected me to something because I think when those questions are unanswered that

That lack of focus is what underlies a lot of nervousness. I don’t really know why I’m here. I don’t know the outcomes I’m going to provide for my audience. I guess I’m just here to spew information about a topic. And without having that emotional investment in self so that you can have the emotional investment in the speech, you get into nervousness. So.

Many of our viewers and listeners are new to the speaking game. What about being nervous in front of an audience? And how have you dealt with nerves and imposter syndrome and all that? Because people see us on stage and they think, they’re not nervous. They’ve never dealt with that.

Allison Shapira (13:27)
That’s right. And there are two components here. There’s nerves, which everyone feels, and then there’s imposter syndrome. So there’s nerves and there’s imposter syndrome. And I find one can be connected to the other, but there are two separate phenomenon. Let’s focus on nerves. Most people I’ve ever met.

get nervous before a speech or presentation. I get nervous before every speech and I think of it as a positive element. It means I care about doing a good job. And I will tell you, the few times in which I haven’t been nervous before a speech,

That’s when I’ve made mistakes. That’s when I get a little too relaxed, a little too casual. I might say something that I didn’t intend to say, or what I say may not come out in the way I intended to say it. And that’s because I’m too relaxed as opposed to focusing on delivering my message.

So I acknowledge it, I embrace it, I say bring it, and then I use it productively and I translate those nerves into excitement because they’re both

because they’re both caused by adrenaline. It’s simply how do you judge the presence of adrenaline? Do you judge it positively or negatively? I choose to harness it and use it positively.

Dave Bricker (14:53)
Love that. It’s very interesting because sometimes the nerves hit me after the performance and they surprise me. Have you ever experienced that? You go up there, you’re confident, you do a great job and then you get off here like, my God, why do I feel nervous? It’s over.

Allison Shapira (15:13)
I think about the concept and I don’t know, I can’t remember if I learned this from someone else or if I came up with it myself. And I have to figure that out because I like to say there are three versions of every speech. There’s the version you write, there’s the version you deliver, and then afterwards there’s the version you wish you had delivered.

Allison Shapira (15:36)
And that’s usually what makes me nervous when I second guess myself and say, wait a second, did that come out the way I wanted to? Could I have said something different? Should I have included this? What if somebody else has a follow-up question? And I’m usually my own worst critic in terms of what questions people have picking apart my speech. So yes, you could certainly be nervous afterwards for a whole host of reasons.

Dave Bricker (16:03)
interesting how the brain works. So you’re talking about that host of reasons. I find that a lot of people speak for the wrong reasons because the stage is not a substitute for therapy. And I know when people come to us for coaching, sometimes there’s that delicate advice. Maybe this isn’t a good speech to give. But what are some of the narrative no-nos that you’ve encountered?

Allison Shapira (16:16)
Thank

I steer away from saying never do this because I believe in nuance and so it depends. The answer to whether or not you should use a particular element is it depends. What I generally advise against is delivering a message because you want to deliver it but it’s not what the audience needs to hear. That’s why I always start with who’s your audience because most people start with what do I want to say but I can’t figure out what I want to say unless I first know who’s going to listen and what I want them to do with it. I also avoid or ask people to avoid telling stories that are too personal. And I think about a woman named Catherine Burns, the artistic director of The Moth, a terrific nonprofit organization that helps people tell their stories. And she says, good stories should come from scars and not wounds.

And sometimes if we’re evaluating whether or not to include a story, if we’re too close to that story, if it’s too soon, we’re not ready to tell that story yet. And so we have to ask ourselves, am I ready to tell the story on stage right now? And if it’s a wound and not a scar, I ask you to rethink whether or not you should tell that story.

Dave Bricker (17:56)
Yeah, it’s funny how that works. And our friend Kelly Swanson, said, what she says is, never tell a story until you’ve stopped bleeding from it. And she got that. said, I forget where I got that. I didn’t make it up. Someone else said it. So I’m quoting somebody, quoting somebody, and not giving proper attribution. But it’s interesting. And then at the same time, people come to me. Maybe they want to enter the humorous speech contest. But I’m not funny. What do I say?

Go back, way back to something you’ve healed from. The boss from hell, the camping trip from hell, the date from hell, something where just everything went sideways and it was traumatic at the time and now you can look back and laugh at it. And now it becomes funny because as you say, it’s a scar, it’s not a wound.

Allison Shapira (18:47)
Exactly. And sometimes we need someone to help us find the funny or find the story within us when we’re too close to it to see it.

Dave Bricker (18:57)
Definitely. So if you’re just joining us, you’re tuned into Speakipedia Media for aspiring and professional speakers and thought leaders who want to change hearts, minds, and fortunes. My guest today is speaking expert, Shapira. So, definitely. Great to have you. It seems like everyone has tacked the word keynote speaker onto their professional title these days.

Allison Shapira (19:14)
Such a pleasure to be with you.

Dave Bricker (19:26)
Talk a bit about the speaking business because it’s a lot more difficult than many people expect and it involves a lot more than getting on stage and smiling and running your pie hole.

Allison Shapira (19:40)
That’s right. And I’ll have friends who come to me and say, I’m between jobs. You seem to be having a lot of fun. You seem to be very successful. Can I be a keynote speaker for a few years while I look for something else to do? And the short answer is no, it’s going to take you at least two years to get off the ground as a keynote speaker. You have to

hone your speech, means lots and lots of repetition. Once you actually write it, it means a lot of investment in the business of speaking your website, your marketing, your back end operations. It might mean bringing on staff to help you manage it or outsourcing some of the work that you need. It is a business. And I think about myself starting out as a professional speaker, trainer, and coach, with the first two years, I would say 75 % of my time was spent on sales and marketing. 25 % was speaking.

Dave Bricker (20:41)
Yeah, it’s about 5% glamour, isn’t it? And unfortunately, that’s the part that people see and figure that they’re just gonna put that title on the end of their title, right? Keynote speaker, and now I’m gonna start making five-figure fees every weekend and life’s gonna be easy and it’s not that way at all, is it?

Allison Shapira (21:06)
No, it is constant work and study and constant performance tuning. And there’s no manual. It’s not like, you when you go to law school or business school, you have a very clear idea on what does success look like? What are the kinds of jobs available to me? What’s the job description of that job? What kind of certification do you need?

We have very little of that. I mean, we do have the certified speaking professional designation, but you need 250 speeches to get there. So it’s not like you just go out, get your certifications and you’re ready. It’s something that you have to develop over time, often by yourself without guidance, which is why the National Speakers Association is such an important resource.

Dave Bricker (21:56)
Yeah, why don’t you expand on that? I was going to get into that later, but since you bring up NSA, I know I wouldn’t be in the speaking business without NSA.

Allison Shapira (22:07)
It’s been pivotal to my professional success. And I will admit, when I first moved to Washington, DC and heard about the National Speakers Association, my first thought was, well, maybe I can speak for them and I’ll get some clients. So I looked at it for sales and business development. I went to my first meeting and realized how far off that thought was because I needed to be there to learn not to sell.

Everyone there was at a much more advanced stage than I was in my business. I was just starting out and I had so much to learn and grow and I’ll never forget a friend of mine. became a mentor, Greg Gregory, sat next to me, introduced himself and became a mentor of mine for many years. He referred business to me. He told me, have to go to the annual convention. You have to do this. And I would call him for guidance because again,

There’s no manual, there’s no handbook for what to do when. And so we have to ask others for guidance. And I have been so struck by how people in this industry will help one another, even when they’re direct competitors.

Dave Bricker (23:17)
Yes, because as soon as you call and you say, hey, Bill, maybe you don’t know me, but I’m an NSA colleague. Dave, good to meet you. I’ll make some time for you. It’s just been remarkable. So I definitely encourage people to join NSA and a local chapter as well so that you’re connecting with people on the ground.

Allison Shapira (23:40)
Exactly. The local chapter is really where those connections happen because on a monthly basis, you’re meeting people, whereas at the national convention, you see them once a year, maybe you’ll go to the winter conference as well. But it’s the local chapter where I think we have the most to gain on an ongoing basis.

Dave Bricker (24:00)
Definitely, definitely. I know I’ve been a member of mine for I think 11 years now and wouldn’t miss it.

So let’s come back, we’re talking about speaking. Let’s talk about presentation skills because there’s a lot of academic advice that we get like pause after answering, asking it, pause after asking a question. Well, good advice, but we can get that anywhere. What are some of your favorite presentation tips that aren’t so well known?

Allison Shapira (24:31)
My favorite presentation tip, which I have been talking about more and more, is the combination of surprise and contrast, which I believe are underutilized and incredibly powerful, even in the most professional settings. Take, for example, the beginning of a presentation. Most people start a presentation by thanking people. I want to…

Thank this person and our CEO and thank you all for being here. I know your time is valuable. You could be anywhere. You could blah, blah, blah, blah. We’re already on our phones. There’s nothing new. There’s no reason for us to actually pay attention and listen. I like to start by doing something nobody expects. If nobody expects you to tell a story, you could start with, it was 1995.

As soon as you say that, everyone’s going to put down their devices and listen. And another example, because a lot of us talk about the power of story, and I know you specialize in this as well, a different example of how we might use surprise and contrast actually comes from one of my students at Harvard. Last year, he was giving a speech and he started out by saying, the other day, I was walking along the river and I was thinking about the little things in life.

They’re really little things. I’m talking about semiconductors. I’m here today to talk about the importance of semiconductors to American national security.

You could absolutely use that introduction at a national security conference, any conference of any kind. And the surprise and contrast is that it’s the opposite of what you were expecting him to say. You expected him to talk about the little things as in family and friends and quality of life, but he physically little things. And that contrast was brilliant. And that is, I believe, one of the most underutilized techniques in public speaking.

Dave Bricker (26:36)
I love it, absolutely. I like to think it’s almost as if you’re going into a boxing ring. It’s ding and you’re in there. And if you stand around and you ramble, you’re gonna get knocked down. And you need to enter that ring with a right hook and to slay your audience. What do they say? You’ve got seven seconds. I don’t know who came up with that. I think it’s probably closer to three, but.

It depends on your move, but instead of coming on stage, like before I begin, wait, you just begin. Don’t give the preamble, come in and just knock them out, because sometimes they don’t even want to be there, but their boss told them to be there. How do you convert them into an audience?

Allison Shapira (27:18)
That’s I agree, I might find an alternate metaphor that isn’t you against your audience, but more you with your audience. And I think about something that the musician Livingston Taylor said in his book on stage performance. He says the job of a stage performer is to get the audience to leave their reality and enter yours.

And I amend that. I’d like to amend it to say the job of a speaker is to co-create a new temporal reality between you and every member of the audience. And so what we do, the moment we go on stage is we have to both open a door and give the audience a reason, pique their curiosity enough that they’re actually willing to walk through that door or to go through that door and join us in that new reality.

Dave Bricker (28:16)
Love that. Very articulately stated too. So I like to ask this question sometimes just because people see us on stage and like I say, there’s that 5 % glamorous part that they see. But if you’re willing, share a disaster story, maybe yours or one of your clients when something bombed or went sideways at a speaking engagement. And what can we learn from that? Because it happens to all of us.

Allison Shapira (28:46)
It happens all the time. I wouldn’t say a disaster story, but I would say mistakes happen all the time. There’s the time I’m speaking and a cockroach starts walking across the floor. Do you do anything? There’s the time I’m speaking, the mic cuts out and the audio visual people hand me another mic and just start to play with my belt to change the mic pack. And I’m standing there saying,

Allison Shapira (29:13)
I’m going to continue talking and pretend that there isn’t someone playing with my belt right now. So to the extent that I can add humor to it, I will. Things always go wrong. There’s always something that happens that you didn’t expect. And what I recommend is whatever happens, the show must go on, which we know as performers, but at the same time, we can acknowledge what’s happening and simply talk through it.

The AV isn’t working. The microphone‘s not working. You can pause and talk through the discomfort and say, we’re going to see if we can find someone to help with this AV right now. I’m going to keep talking and then we’ll get someone up here to fix it. So let’s pretend that I don’t have slides because as they say, live by PowerPoint, die by PowerPoint. There’s actually a reason they say it. So I’m going to keep going. And we talk through

the discomfort. I’ll tell you one quick story where I made a mistake on stage. I was speaking at an organization and I was trying to show that I could relate to their volunteer experience. And so I said, imagine yourself volunteering for your organization. And it’s, it’s a sea of blue shirts as far as the eye can see. And I just hear out of, out of the corner of my ear, someone turn and say something about red. And I stop and I said,

They’re red shirts, aren’t they? And they all nod. I’m like, a sea of red shirts as far as the eye can see. So I was flexible enough on stage to be able to stop, listen to my audience, and then use dramatic humor as a way of laughing at myself. I got it wrong, but I was able to make it funny and we saved the day and we kept going. So I love that as an idea of… how to be flexible when things go wrong.

Dave Bricker (31:12)
And I think that’s one of the reasons that live performance is so much more engaging than watching the video. You can watch Cirque du Soleil on video, but nobody’s going to fall off the high wire, or hopefully nobody does anyway, but nobody’s going to have that bump and have to catch their balance. You’re not going to see that on the film. It’s edited. And when we watch live performance,

We see people under pressure and the way they handle those problems very often is more inspiring or engaging than the speech itself. You watch somebody, because the audience doesn’t want to be up there, they’re terrified. And they see you handle stuff going wrong with grace or there’s a problem and you just own it or you laugh about it and smile and.

Keep on going. I think that’s very inspiring for people to see.

Allison Shapira (32:11)
It is because it reminds them that audiences don’t expect perfection. In fact, we mistrust it. We wonder what’s really going on. We expect accuracy and we expect preparation, but we crave authenticity. And when you can bring that authenticity with the accuracy and preparation, then you really win over the audience.

Dave Bricker (32:35)
Completely agree. So you published a wonderful book called Speak with Impact. And one of the reasons I highly recommend this book is not just because the content is really well thought out. It’s not just another book on public speaking, but also you narrated the audio book because reading about speaking is just not the same thing as hearing someone speak about speaking.

And this seems like an obvious thing to do, but there are not a lot of audio books out there on speaking. And of course, it makes sense that the author, the speaker would do the reading. So talk a little bit about that process and how that came together.

Allison Shapira (33:20)
So I worked with HarperCollins leadership on the book. They were the publishers of the book and

They sent me an email one day and said, we are going to record the audio book version and we’re going to work with a professional voice actor. And I, they asked me some random side question and I said, wait a second. And I think you even, you helped me because I posted something on the NSA Facebook page about how do I get the publisher to agree to let me record.

the audio book, because I said to the publisher, I’d like to record it. And they said, our policy is to work with professional voice actors. And I published language. And I believe you and a couple others were the ones who gave me the language that the book by the public speaking expert should be narrated by the public speaking expert and we’ll sell more books that way.

And that was the language that changed the publisher’s mind and let them make an exception and then fund me renting a studio to record the book myself. And it was a challenging process. was two days in the studio. took, it took two days at six to seven hours each to record that. And I think I recorded for 50 minutes and took a 10 minute break. And that’s how I worked. And it was taxing.

But ultimately, I believe it leads to a better audiobook because my personality is already in the book. Now you can hear it in my voice as well.

Dave Bricker (34:56)
You know, I published a sailing memoir, I think back in 2014. And at the time, I connected with a voiceover artist who was actually sailing along on his cruising boat recording audio books. And it just like, okay. And he did it for a royalty split.

I’m sure he made tens of dollars off of the whole project. But looking back on it now that I’ve got some more vocal chops, I really would like to record that myself. And I think that must have been a really rewarding experience for you to take control of that project and really make it your own.

Allison Shapira (35:21)
you

It was, and I believe it leads to a more personal listening experience as well for those consuming the book to be able to connect with me on a more personal level. So I’m really glad I did it.

Dave Bricker (35:51)
So I’m going to throw in one question before we wrap things up, which is, what do you see going on with speaking and AI? Because this is penetrating everything these days.

Allison Shapira (36:08)
I could talk about that for an additional hour, so I’ll have to rein myself in, in talking about it. There’s a lot that AI can do to help us improve our speaking skills. We know about websites like Yoodli where you can practice and get AI driven feedback. We use that at Global Public Speaking and it’s a great start.

to augmenting what a human can do because humans can only coach you for so many hours. So it gives you an ability to practice on your own time and get substantive feedback. I’m also excited about the possibility of AI helping us become more authentic, not less. If we can train the AI to our values, stories, experiences, favorite quotes,

And then the AI can prompt us to bring out our best self consistently, even when we’re tired and overworked and don’t really want to. So I think we talk about prompting the AIs. think AI can prompt us to be more human, more authentic, more effective when we communicate, if we use it effectively.

Dave Bricker (37:26)
And I completely agree with you. So many people are so worried that AI is coming for their job. And I always say AI does not want your job. AI does not want your car, does not want your house, does not want your status, but

Somebody who knows how to use AI is coming for your job. So it’s time to get those skills. And like anything else, it’s a little intimidating at first, but it’ll make you a more creative writer. It’ll make you a better speaker. There are so many things, so many ways that AI will boost your creativity.

Allison Shapira (38:05)
That’s right. And that’s why I created the AI authenticity loop, which is a framework for how to use AI and in the process of communicating a message and still maintain your authenticity. And it’s not that you’re keeping the human in the loop. It’s that the human is the loop because communication starts and ends with humans.

Dave Bricker (38:25)
Well, that’s something I hope to learn something more about from you.

Allison Shapira (38:31)
would love to share more.

Dave Bricker (38:32)
So anything else new that you are working on these days?

Allison Shapira (38:36)
I’m focusing on my keynotes, my lead with your voice keynote, which teaches my ACE methodology for leadership communication. And then my keynote on AI authenticity and the future of human connection. And those are two very different keynotes that really speak to what people need right now. We need to connect and use our voice to inspire others. And we need to use these AI tools to further human connection as opposed to drive people apart. And that’s what I’m most passionate about as we go into 2025.

Dave Bricker (39:13)
And that’s music to me and you’re not even singing. if one of our listeners or viewers wants to discover more about Allison Shapira, where can they find you?

Allison Shapira (39:27)
come to my website, allisonshapira.com, and I know you’ll have that, and you can see the spelling of my name here, and connect with me on LinkedIn. I write quite a bit on LinkedIn, and so it’s a great way to stay in touch, to see some updates, some new thoughts and insights, and reach out to me that way.

Dave Bricker (39:46)
Wonderful. Allison, thanks so much for joining me today.

Allison Shapira (39:50)
A pleasure to be with you, Dave. Always a pleasure to collaborate with a like-minded friend and colleague in this space.

Dave Bricker (39:57)
Definitely. So I’m Dave Bricker inviting you to explore the world’s most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at speakipedia.com. If you’re watching this on social media video, please love, subscribe and share your comments. And if you’re listening to the podcast, keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Speakipedia Media.