Grow Your Speaking Career by Escaping the Expert Trap [Case Study]
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
Release Date: 08/11/2025
From Technical Talks to Inspiring Keynotes: Finding Your Authentic Speaking Style with Elaine Schomburg-LaFleur
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
How do you go from giving short, tip-focused talks to inspiring audiences with a full keynote? That’s exactly the journey our guest has taken and it’s one so many of us can learn from. Our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz talks with Elaine Schomburg-LaFleur, a senior project engineer who has spent over 20 years in the theme park industry, including at Disney. Elaine thought of herself as “the tip girl” - packing her presentations with lots of helpful advice. But when she was invited to give her first keynote, she realized she needed a new approach. With the help of a VIP Day and...
info_outline![Why Your Story Is More Powerful Than You Think [Case Study] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/item/37815465?height=50&width=50)
Why Your Story Is More Powerful Than You Think [Case Study]
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
Whether you've had one day that changed your life forever - or a series of events that shifted your understanding of yourself and the world - or a culmination of hard-won lessons from work and life, you have a story worth sharing. This is something I emphasize often, because so many women tell me, “I don’t really have a story. Nothing big has happened to me.” What matters isn’t the size of your story, but how you tell it and what lessons you offer your audience. In this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast, I talk with Karen Keene, a graduate of our Thought...
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Taylor Swift’s Speaking Secrets: How to Connect with Any Audience
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
Ever wish you could walk on stage and instantly connect with your audience, whether it’s a room of five people or a stadium of 50,000? In this episode, Diane Diaz and I are trying something new: a reaction video to a famous speech. And who better to kick things off than Taylor Swift’s 2022 NYU Commencement Address? You might think being a global superstar makes Taylor impossible to relate to. But what she does in this speech is exactly what you can do in your own presentations to make your audience lean in, laugh, and feel like you’re speaking directly to them. We break down three...
info_outline![Grow Your Speaking Career by Escaping the Expert Trap [Case Study] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/item/37733990?height=50&width=50)
Grow Your Speaking Career by Escaping the Expert Trap [Case Study]
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
Do you ever feel like you're stuck in the "expert trap" - sharing lots of great information, but not quite connecting with your audience the way you want to? In this episode, I talk with Dr. Teri DeLucca, founder of Impact Early Education and a graduate of our Thought Leader Academy, about how she made the bold leap from academic researcher and fact-based presenter to transformational speaker and sought-after thought leader. Teri has not one, but TWO PhDs (yes, you read that right!), and like many high-achieving women, she found comfort in data and research. But as she began training preschool...
info_outline![How to Turn Your Business Talk into a Lead-Gen Machine [Case Study] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/item/37648515?height=50&width=50)
How to Turn Your Business Talk into a Lead-Gen Machine [Case Study]
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
If you're using speaking for lead generation, you won’t want to miss this episode. I’m joined by Danielle Hayden, CEO of Kickstart Accounting, Inc., who came to me for a VIP Day to create a new signature talk. Like many entrepreneurs, Danielle had been speaking often, but she knew she was overloading her audience with too much information and not enough transformation. In this conversation, we pull back the curtain on the process we used to refine her message, develop her thought leadership, and craft a presentation that truly connects - with results to prove it. You’ll learn: Why...
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*Not* Your Typical Corporate Presentations: Live Signature Talks from Thought Leader Academy Grads
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
We believe that every presentation, whether internal or external, at a conference or at a board meeting, has the power to shift how your audience views a topic and the positive changes that can come as a result. It’s not just about delivering information – it’s about shifting perspectives, sparking new ideas, and inspiring action. This episode is the audio from a live show we did with two of our recent Thought Leader Academy grads: Dr. Bonnie Boles and Denise Cárdenas López. Both Bonnie and Denise are executives at companies and often present both internally to team members as...
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Turn Your Stories Into Impactful Messages: Live Signature Talks from Our Thought Leader Academy Grads
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
The key to a powerful presentation isn’t just telling stories – it’s uncovering the lessons within them. When you share a personal experience or an impactful moment, you’re not just recounting events; you’re inviting your audience to see the world through your eyes, to feel what you felt, and to learn from what you lived. Your stories become more than just a narrative – they can spark change in the hearts and minds of your audience. This episode is the audio from a live show we did with three of our recent Thought Leader Academy grads: Moe Boles, Melinda Hrynewycz, and Sara...
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From Blank Page to On Stage: What It’s Like to Create and Practice a Talk in One Day
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
What if you could go from a completely blank page - or in this case, a blank poster board - to mapping out and practicing your signature talk… all in just one day? That’s exactly what happened at our recent in-person Speaking Accelerator Workshop in Orlando, and in this episode, you’ll hear directly from three of the incredible women who participated: Lesline Pittman, Monica Mitchell, and Dr. Emma Jones. You’ll get the behind-the-scenes scoop on what it’s like to go from idea to delivery in a single day (yes, it’s totally possible!) - including the unexpected improv exercises,...
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AI Needs Women: Why Your Voice Matters to Shape the Present and the Future
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
I vividly remember the day after Christmas 2022. Not because I was relaxing, but because I was at my laptop, updating my university courses and diving headfirst into AI tools for my business and podcast. ChatGPT had just launched, and I knew instantly: this was different. This wasn’t just another tech trend; this was a transformation. In this episode, I share the talk I recently delivered at the ElleX Summit, where I wove together history, technology, and the urgent need for women’s voices in AI. From Ada Lovelace and the women of NASA to Eleanor Roosevelt and the Brontë sisters, women...
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Behind the Scenes of My AI-Powered Business: Real-World Use Cases
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
Ever wish you had an extra set of hands - or better yet, an AI assistant - to take care of all those repetitive tasks in your business? In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes to share the exact AI-powered workflows I’ve built and now rely on every week at Speaking Your Brand. From automating my podcast production (yes, even these show notes!) to cloning my voice for a brand-new companion podcast, you’ll get a sense at what’s possible - and what's already working. I walk you through real-world examples of how I’m using AI to: Save time with automated content workflows ...
info_outlineDo you ever feel like you're stuck in the "expert trap" - sharing lots of great information, but not quite connecting with your audience the way you want to?
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Teri DeLucca, founder of Impact Early Education and a graduate of our Thought Leader Academy, about how she made the bold leap from academic researcher and fact-based presenter to transformational speaker and sought-after thought leader.
Teri has not one, but TWO PhDs (yes, you read that right!), and like many high-achieving women, she found comfort in data and research. But as she began training preschool teachers and school leaders, she realized that just presenting facts wasn’t creating the impact she truly wanted.
In our conversation, Teri shares:
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What led her to start her own business and step into entrepreneurship
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The power of personal storytelling in leadership and speaking
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How embracing vulnerability changed everything for her and her audiences
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Her transformation through the Thought Leader Academy and how it impacted her signature talk
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Her behind-the-scenes prep for a major international keynote (and why she called me in for a VIP Day!)
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Why it's not only okay, but essential, to share your personal challenges as a speaker and leader
If you've ever worried that being real with your audience might hurt your credibility, you need to hear what Teri says about the moment she realized not sharing her struggles was actually holding her back.
Teri’s story is proof that when you let go of perfection and speak from a place of truth, that’s when real transformation happens—for you and the people you're meant to reach.
This conversation originally aired as episode 338 on July 17, 2023.
Links:
Show notes: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/escape-expert-trap/
Learn more about Teri’s work at ImpactEarlyEd.com.
Listen to Episode 241 – The Expert Trap – to learn more about how to shift from expert to transformational speaker: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/241/
Ready to escape the expert trap and develop your own signature talk and thought leadership? Join us in the Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/