Think You Don't Have a Story? That's Exactly Where to Start | Brigitte Lessard

You have a message worth sharing, but landing the right speaking opportunities takes more than being great on stage. Welcome to Landing the Gig, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the speaking industry, I'm your host Kelly Woodhouse, and each week I bring you honest conversations and practical strategies to help you strengthen your message, stand out to event organizers, and turn more speaking opportunities into impact and income. Now let's land the gig! Hey there, everybody! Kelly Woodhouse with Landing the Gig, and today I have a very special guest.

She's also a very good friend of mine. I, you know, and we've been friends for I don't know how long anymore. And Bridget Lasard, and here's what I love about her is that Bridget is this big ball of energy, and when you meet with Bridget, you just love her because she's just so amazing. Oh yeah, just bring her diet coke, and she'll love you forever. So, and you know, I remember the very first time I met Bridget, she invited me to speak on her stage, and she was doing a big women talk event, and it was three hours away from me, and it was like I gotta go to Bridget's event because she's

just so awesome. So, anyways, I want to introduce you guys to Bridget Lassard because she's an amazing woman, and I know you're gonna love her. So, Bridget, welcome!

The crowd goes wild. Wow! Me in my office all by myself.

I know,

but all my imaginary friends are cheering right now.

Exactly. Hi,

Kelly. How are you?

I am fantastic. You've made my day, so I'm so excited to have you on the on the show with me today.

And I know exactly when we met, and that was in 2012 when I did my very first Women Talk event here in Calgary.

Oh my gosh, 2012! That's how long we've known each other. Well,

oh, actually, no, I might be lying. That was the the first trial I had, and it was not good. That was like nothing related to women talk. The following year, so 2013.

2013. Well, that was fantastic. Okay, Bridget, we're gonna jump right in. All right, let's do it. What got you into this whole speaker world? How did you get started?

Let's go with 2012, where I did that. So I own a sports bra store. It was actually brick and mortar back then, and I was looking for a way to give back to the community. And I thought, oh, maybe a golf tournament, or you know, I just. And then I just started falling in love with TED Talks and those kind of, and I've thought, oh, maybe we can do like a little event. We teach women about health, so we had all sorts of female speakers that spoke about female health, and I'm like, all right, that's okay. But then December 620, 12, the words "women talk" woke me up at

2o'clock in the morning, and I went to my computer and I searched a URL, and it's available. And I thought, "Oh my God! So I bought it, and then I thought, "Now what? I never considered myself a speaker. I've all I've always been a bit of a ham, but you know, like that was never something I considered. Then it just kind of went from there, and then took a life of its own. And I've had 1000s of stories probably shared at all my events,

and you have, and I know because I've been involved in your Women Talk events. And you know, one of the things I love about your Women Talk events is that there was such a diversity of people and such a variety of people. And what I loved also about Women Talk is that you gave everybody an opportunity to talk. If they wanted to talk and be on stage, you did. You you let them, and I thought that was wonderful about you and women, yeah,

and it's it's really based on stories. So no matter what kind of speaker you are, you should always have a story when you're on stage about something or other. Even when you're teaching, nothing will hook people like a good story, and a good story can be about something very simple, but it just engages people. So I've heard it so many times. People, women saying, "Oh, I don't have a story, and I'm like, everybody has a story. And so we'd start talking, and it's like, oh yeah, like one of my hips is kind of shorter than the other one. Because I got shot in Zimbabwe or

something. What? And you think you don't have a story? That's a true story. Because people think like, oh, I don't have a story. Because to you, it's boring. It's your story. You know it. It's like big deal. To other people, it's oh my gosh. So I just did a podcast yesterday about canning, about sorry pickling, and she's like, "Really, you want me? And I'm like, "Yeah, like people that have never done it, like it's cool, like you don't know. So everything can be a story,

you know. And that's one of the things I loved about you, Bridget, is that it was based on stories, and I feel what happens is that a lot of speakers feel like they have to teach something, right? Like they have to. They feel like they have to teach you the five steps to sell more, right? But they don't always see that the stories fit into it. And I am always sharing with people. Tell us the story of you know the the time you tried to make a sale and you completely bombed, right? And that's going to make you relatable to the audience because a lot of times when we do a

speech, you know, people put us on a pedestal because we've got all these credentials, and they think, well, I can't relate to Bridget or Kelly because you know you guys have done so much more than me, but it's not about that. It's all about what is the journey and the story that it took to get you to that point.

Yeah, and it's I don't know. It just you connect with people when you share a story. You know nothing worse than death by slides like PowerPoint. There's also a TED Talk about that, you know. And people go up there and they're like spewing numbers after numbers, and like you're just like, oh my god, right? But if instead you share a story and create a picture, people will remember it and will be engaged. So whenever you use one of these, have a story.

Yes, have a story. People love stories. Okay, Bridget. I always ask this question of all my guests: What are speakers doing wrong? Why are they not landing more gigs? What are your thoughts on that?

Have a story. Be different, right? Don't try to be like everybody else. Like you see somebody who's very successful, and you're gonna try to copy them. It's probably not gonna work for you, you know. Like find what's your thing. What makes you different? You can be both talking about hairdressing, but what's different? What is different about you, and how did you know? What's your story about the hairdressing and or whatever your topic is, and that's what will make you get some gigs, right? It's and be entertaining. Don't be boring, people. Don't be boring.

Exactly, and that's part of it too. Is some people just don't know how to add their humor into their stories. So, how do you suggest people to add more humor into their stories so that they're more engaging? What do you think?

You so I've started doing stand-up comedy a couple years ago, and usually, like some of the worst shit that's happened to you, or will be the funniest stuff, right? Like a divorce, for example. I used a lot of stuff in my divorce, right? So I'll give you an example. There was a when I was getting texts, and my anxiety would shoot up. Actually, I got the idea from you about this, but I use it in my comedy now. So my anxiety would shoot right up, and so what I did is I changed the picture, her picture, to a black hole because every time she texted me, it would suck the life out

of me. But I like I didn't think of that at the time, right? And I didn't think it was funny. But once you're on the other side, like something that really created a lot of anxiety, pain, or you know, embarrassment, or like look at those stories and try to flip it. Like look at what's funny about this. What could people, you know? So and how I present it is like, yeah. So I'm very mature, so I changed the picture to a black hole,

and I I love that you share that because that's exactly what I did. And I know the story you're referring to is that when I was going through my divorce, same type of thing. All I had to see was his name pop up. I didn't have his picture on there because I didn't want to see his picture, but even just seeing his name would cause me the anxiety, the anger, and I'm thinking, hold it, this is crazy. I'm a speaker. I need to be motivated. I need to be positive, and I can't have his his picture or his name cause me this anxiety because sometimes I'd be just. Getting up to go on

stage, and I'd see his name, and it would instantly trigger anger. So I changed his name to Poor Soul. But what's really cool is I also work it into my speech because I would tell the story about that, and then I would say, "So what do you guys think I called him? And everybody would say, "Oh, asshole, dumbass, you know, and I'm like, "No, no, no, because that still triggers anger. So I had to call change his name to poor soul, and so then when I would see his name pop up, I say, "Oh, what does poor soul want? And that was how I kept my mindset in a positive state. Yeah.

So, so exactly. So this particular story can fit in any speech.

Yes.

Any time you're on the stage, you just gotta find a link between what you're talking about. So, which could like maybe if there's anxiety or something like that, and then you can see there's many different ways to deal with anxiety. For example, and then you get into the story, or it could be about my friend Kelly is very mature. She called it her ex poor soul. I called mine a black hole. But I mean, this is but this is to prove the point. Like horrible things can be so funny, and the other side of that too is that when you make a funny out of it and you use it, it heals

you, because then you don't have all of that angst and anxiety and bad feelings, because now you're making people laugh with it. So, yeah, absolutely. Those little moments, and are your kids driving you crazy, or a boss, or you know, you get a flat tire when it's 20 below. Look at the worst. Make a list of all the worst things in your life, and then I bet you you can find some comedy out of most of them.

You know, it's interesting. Do you remember when we were in San Diego? We were at Bo Eason's event, and do you remember one of the exercises that he had us do? We had to pick a story. We had to tell it from our own point of view. Then we had to write it from the the other person's point of view that's in the story, and then we had to write it as if it was a fairy tale. And I just love doing that because when I I picked a story about with my stepfather and and how challenging like I we didn't like each other, right? And so that story, my mom, my point of view was when my mom

had a different point of view, and then my stepdad. That part of the story was he's my evil stepdad, you know, and and that part became you know the Cinderella story, right? And it was like what a an amazing exercise because it was so good to see all the different points of view,

yeah. And again, like so, to do something like that, if you can find things that trigger emotion, whether they're good or bad, right? When you have emotion in something, it also makes you a better speaker.

Yes, and one other thing too, and I've learned this even about you know being at one of your events, I remember sharing the story of my baby that I lost, and you know I was even doing the hand motions and stuff of like holding a baby, and I could just see the whole audience was just crying, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, you know, like this is so horrible. But then you got to remember to always bring them up, right? And that's why don't leave them on the

floor.

That's why it's always good to have those funny stories because then I'd share, you know, the dating story when I ended up dating my cousin I didn't know that I had, and you know, and then you bring them out of it too, right?

Yeah, yeah, that is a very important point. Unless you're serving a lot of tequila, don't leave the people on the floor, exactly. Like you can use the hard stories, like depending what the event is about, right? And get deep and get serious. But yeah, you always have to like. And actually, during depending how long your speech is, it's kind of nice to have the ups and downs, right? The cry. Like if you can make people cry and laugh in one speech. You're killing it.

You are okay, Bridget. Tell us a little bit more about Women Talk because we've only got a few minutes left, and I wanted I wanted people to know more about you and what you do and how they can work with you.

So before COVID, I had 13 chapters across Canada, from Vancouver to Ottawa, and it all blew up. It all died, and then I went through a divorce. So it was like it's been in flex a little bit. So the the latest thing that we're doing is I'm focusing on doing a podcast because then I can reach Canadian women across the country, and then a couple times a year we're gonna pick the. Best stories or those that kind of fit together, and we're going to have a bigger event where you have the stage and the lights and the cameras and all that. Everything is at womentalk.ca.

Great. Now, Bridget, I know you also do a little bit of coaching. So, how is it that you help speakers? Because I know, like I took your workshop, your story writing workshop, and it was phenomenal because it really helped to trigger some of the stuff that was happening in my past that would be great in a speech, and then I wrote those out, and they became part of my story journal. So share more about the workshop.

Yeah, so every once in a while, I don't have one planned right now, but I do these workshop where it's it's called Discover Your Stories, and I love working with people. I think when you're together, like it gets me more excited, it gets higher energy than being by yourself. So I have a series of questions that I go through, and everybody shares their answer. And it's really like it's hard to like. One other question that I use is list all of the jobs you've ever done in your life, volunteer as a kid, paper route, like whatever. And I'll give you like you know three minutes or

whatever, five minutes, and people just write everything down. And every time that we go around the room, and everybody reads all of them off their list because it makes every oh yeah, I did that. Oh yeah, I did that. And then you end up with a list that's twice as long just from listening to the other people, and then from that you can choose, pick and choose a story like one of them that you could create a story with. So it's really just being imaginative.

I loved it because when you did it, and now I remember that question: What other jobs that you had, and sure enough, exactly that. I'd listen to somebody and like, oh yeah, I did something like that. Oh, you know, and you're constantly writing stuff down, and that's what I loved about it is that it triggered so many other stories, and then I put it in my story journal. So I love that. Yeah,

yeah, and like it helps you come up with ideas because again, like this, it comes back to this thing where it's your life. You don't get that excited about it, and you forget stuff. And then when somebody else talks about working at A and W, and you're like, "Oh, I did that, right? And then, then funny stories will start popping up in your mind.

Yep, I love it. Okay, Bridget, one more time. And where can people get a hold of you? And any final last words?

WomenTalk.ca, and my final word will be your story matters.

I love that. So true. So there you go. That's another episode of Landing the Gig with Bridget Lazard from Women Talk, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. And you know, get in touch with Bridget because she's just an amazing superstar. Because not only does she plan events, but she also does MCs. I know she didn't mention that. She's a fantastic MC, full of energy, you'll just love her. So there you go. Thank you, and have a great day.