Marnick Vandebroek - Stand up to stand out: Expressing yourself in the most powerful way

For my lovely wife,
Natalie.

My soulmate and
business partner.
Inspiring me every
day to be the
best version of
myself.

2+2=?

Chances are you just said four. You didnt feel challenged at all, but deep down you are still sensing a little bit of pride for getting this right. Most people dont have to strain themselves to come to this solution. You probably didnt take out your smartphone to check your answer or thought I have two chickens and if I now add two cows this will result in four animals. You just responded without breaking a sweat and your mind is now saying: Give me another one, I got this. Who am I to let you down? Try the one below without using a calculator, pen or paper.

17x24=?

When I do this exercise at conferences there is always one or two people who yell out the answer in a reasonable timeframe. Congratulations, if you did too. Then I ask the rest of the group who thought, when I asked the question: Somebody else will solve this for me. Or in your case, Im not going to bother and will just read on. Everywhere I go in the world, more than 60 % of the people in the audience will raise their hands, while laughing to confirm that this is indeed what they were thinking.

The answer is four hundred and eight. Now be honest. Did you try to find the solution or did you give up and just continue reading, hoping I would share it with you? This little test is based on the research Daniel Kahneman published in his magnificent book Thinking, Fast and Slow to see what happens to the human brain when a person is confronted with a challenge like the one above. Your pupils will have dilated like those of a cat spotting a mouse, but will have just as quickly decreased in size when you found the solution or, like most people; gave up.

You tend to take in content or a situation more easily when you have a recollection of it. A past memory you can go to that makes it easier to cope with things and tells you its ok. As with the 2 + 2, its easy and you have seen this so many times before, that your mind has no trouble solving it. 17x24 is, for most people, a different story. An effort is expected and the way towards the solution, as the outcome itself, is unknown. That is something we generally dislike, and we quickly doubt, question or flat-out fear the message.

For me, this is the easiest way to explain what happens in meetings, at conferences, network events or any place where people are sharing ideas with each other. People tap out. They either dont understand it, are not inspired enough to try or just go straight into panic mode, while you go from walking in like a pumped Magic Mike or Wonder Woman to walking out as a frustrated White Walker from Game of Thrones, tired of bumping into walls, getting rejected or being unheard.

We are living in a rapidly changing world where disruption, digital transformation and innovation are all around us, shaping our society. More than ever we have the tools and the need to spread ideas and connect with each other, but never have people, companies and brands struggled so much to bring humans together and get ideas, visions and plans across in such a way, that they truly inspire action. This book will show you how to do just that, so you can STAND UP, express yourself in the most powerful way and STAND OUT in life and business.

Do you still remember what your biology teacher told you in high school? If you are a doctor, I hope you are now nodding yes for the sake of your patients, but most of us will have no or very limited recollection of the content that was shared in class. I remember something with a frog, passing out and that it is not healthy for your bladder to hold in pee for too long. All the rest is a very distant memory.

Now do you remember the teacher that really got on your nerves, picked on you or gave you cold sweats every time he yelled pop quiz? Most of us do and you immediately go back in time and feel the same way you did in high school. You will always remember that teacher, because content fades, but feelings stick. Great content is crucial, or we wouldnt learn anything, but when it comes to staying in the hearts of people, the bad teacher always wins. Same goes for a very likeable one, but lets face it, we tend to remember the villain more than the hero unless you are James Bond; nobody can ignore that much style!

In a week or so, this book will also be a distant memory. When you finish reading it, you will only remember 50 % of what I wrote. The next day it will be around 25 % and the next week it will have shrunk to a measly 10 %. Same goes for your presentations, emails, pitches, conversations When I first read about these stats, I had a hard time believing these numbers myself until I was invited by a recruitment firm to talk to their headhunters about storytelling.

I spoke for about 45 minutes and was asked by the CEO if I could do a full day workshop around the topic the week after. I agreed to it and showed up the next week ready to start training her enthusiastic team. At a certain point there was a section in the workshop which was pretty similar to the content I had shared during my talk the week before. I knew half of the group attended this talk, but seeing it was crucial information I had to repeat it for the other half who hadnt. After I finished this section, I rhetorically asked the group if they remembered these insights from last week. I expected nodding heads confirming they had seen this before. Instead I got a group of fast writing headhunters saying that it was super interesting, and they didnt recall having ever seen or heard this content. I thought to myself : This information apparently wasnt part of their 10 % .

Expressing yourself, inspiring or convincing people starts not with purely content. It starts with focusing on how you are going to make people FEEL about that content.

A great story isnt about
WHAT you say,
its about how you can
make people FEEL.

Making people feel is the most beautiful thing in the world. The thing that separates great speakers from bad ones, inspiring leaders from KPI crunchers and a great story from a boring one. My most memorable experience of this was around the time when I just started my company, during a 5-minute pitch to 40 + CEOs of the most influential companies in my region.

I pitched my business for the whole 5 minutes, using the story flow I use in everything I do (videos, presentations, blogs), which I will discuss broadly later on in this book. It was over in a blink of an eye and I could only hope I practiced what I preached, and business opportunities would follow my talk. Afterwards one of the business owners immediately came to me to shake my hand and said : I dont yet fully understand what you do, but I just have the feeling that I need to work with you. A couple of weeks later I was training his development team.

No matter how fancy your suits, dresses or function titles look, in the end you are still human. No matter how many graphs and Excel files you flip through at your desk, when you step into your car, you will most likely watch a funny cat video and share it with your friends. We are social creatures, emotion driven. We like to feel something. Like with any great movie that takes us on a creative, emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows, keeping our attention every step of the way and leaving us in an OOOH! at the end. Its what we call entertainment.

Dont get me wrong, entertainment doesnt necessarily equal funny. Im not saying we should all be clowning, cracking jokes and taking nothing seriously. Entertainment is when elements like emotion, creativity, surprise and passion meet. It moves people, takes them on a journey, triggers their curiosity and of course lets them have some fun. You know, that thing you experienced every day as a kid and slowly lost during your schooling and career.