Wendy Lipton-Dibner Of Bruce Merrin’s Celebrity Speakers Bureau On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Impact every life you touch. My top priority has always been to make an impact, or measurable difference, on every life I touch. Steps one through five lay the path to make that happen, but the secret sauce is step three — helping people get clarity on what they have, what they want, what’s missing and what happens when they get it. To make that happen, we assess their starting point and then repeat assessments over time at precise intervals. That provides a complete picture of measurable results and enables us to spotlight and celebrate their success. When we prove our impact, people get driven to strive for still greater results.
At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Lipton-Dibner.
Wendy Lipton-Dibner is a five-time bestselling author and internationally recognized authority on business acceleration through impact strategy and ethical influence. She has delivered business growth programs to audiences in almost every industry, creating rapid increases in revenue as the direct result of making impacts, or measurable differences, in people’s lives. Lipton-Dibner has impacted millions of lives worldwide thanks to her revolutionary approach, and she is represented by Bruce Merrin’s Celebrity Speakers Bureau, one of the longest-operating organizations providing bookings to an elite clientele of event planners and corporate meetings since 1973.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in New York City, gazing into the windows of strangers’ apartments and making up stories about the people I saw. My fascination about their lives led me to major in theater in college, but the plays we produced were light compared to the real-life drama I lived in my off-campus apartment. Every day my three roommates mercilessly bullied me, leaving vicious notes on my bathroom mirror and dirty dishes under my bed, then terrorizing me with threats of what I’d endure if I reported them. When I finally went home for winter break, I burst into tears and blurted out the whole story to my mom.
I was sure she’d tell me to move back home, but instead my amazing mom took my head in her hands, put her forehead to mine, and said, “Wendy, if you don’t like it, change it!”
Her words instilled a power in me I’d never known. I found a new living situation at school and started fresh. That semester I took my first sociology class and discovered answers that explained everything from the behavior of the strangers I’d watched as a child to the bulling behaviors of my roommates. Sitting in that classroom, thousands of puzzle pieces came together.
I fell head-over-heels in love with the social sciences and went on to study sociology, social psychology, clinical psychology, neuropsychology, medical psychology, anthropology and every other -ology I could find. There I discovered endless answers to questions I didn’t know I had, and I wanted more.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
While pursuing my Ph.D. at Duke University, I was invited to speak at an academic meeting in Philadelphia. One of the attendees complimented my research and invited me to join his team as project manager of a huge study at Texas Christian University. It was an extraordinary opportunity, so I took a leave of absence from Duke and moved to Texas. Our one-year grant led to more grants, high-profile speaking engagements, publications in prestigious professional journals and, most importantly, living proof of everything I’d learned about people.
Three years later, I received an invitation to present the results of our largest study at the U.S. Senate. I worked 20-hour days generating elaborate models to explain what we’d discovered while a team of lawyers observed and made constant little “suggestions.” I finally understood what my Duke mentor had meant when he warned, “Be careful, Wendy. If you torture the data enough, they’ll confess to anything.”
We arrived at the Senate and entered a chamber packed with dozens of male doctors, lawyers and senators. My report had been placed at my chair, but when I scrolled the pages, I discovered the sponsor’s attorneys had significantly edited what I’d written, making the results appear stronger for the sponsor. It was still accurate, but the narrative they’d added dangerously straddled an ethical line, and I was the one who was going to have to walk that line. I hurried out of the chamber, down the marbled hall, and into the ladies’ room, where I promptly had a bona fide panic attack, got sick, washed my face and stared in the mirror at the mascara that had stained my cheeks. Suddenly I heard my mother’s voice in my head, “Wendy, if you don’t like it, change it!”
Right. No one knew that data better than I did, so I reported the facts of our research and left out the narrative they’d added.
As the senators posed their questions, I realized the real priority of this hearing wasn’t about doing good for people. It was all about money. The sponsor wanted to make more money, the insurance companies wanted to save money, the university wanted to get more grants, and the senators wanted to appease supporters. While our research ultimately helped the senators make a bold decision that has since enabled millions of suffering people get the help they need, the behaviors of everyone involved had revealed something seriously wrong with our system. I was driven to do something about it.
Two weeks later, I left my job and walked into a bank with a proposal for a loan to build a new business — a social laboratory designed to prove businesses could be more effective and more profitable if they were built and operated entirely for the purpose of making a measurable difference in people’s lives. This is popular thinking now, but at the time it was wildly rebellious. To their credit, the bankers were intrigued and gave me a check for $50,000.
I hired an inexperienced team, and for the first three months we sat in an empty shop. I used that time to teach them what I’d learned: what makes each person unique, what moves people to action, and what keeps them from letting themselves have what they want. Most importantly, I taught them to forget about money and place all focus on making an impact on every life we touch. By the end of the year we’d broken industry standards for retail and service sales and developed a stellar reputation throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Merchants were fascinated by our accelerated growth, and I began receiving multiple requests each week for speaking engagements. Three years later, I sold the shop to an employee and went on to build more businesses, to prove that my impact strategy formulas would work in any industry. They did.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
After selling my first business, I searched for stronger paths to expand my impact by learning more about people. I deposited my profits into a brokerage account and spent the next year training to be certified in transactional analysis, redecision therapy, group and family therapy, and gestalt psychology. I opened a private practice to apply what I’d learned and, just as I was hanging my new sign, the phone rang.
“Hi, Wendy, it’s Dave. Sorry to disturb you, but I thought you should know there’s been a major disruption in the market and, well, all your holdings are gone.”
I thought it was some kind of joke. It wasn’t. It was Oct. 19, 1987, a day that came to be called Black Monday. People worldwide had lost everything they owned, so I was in good company. The problem was I’d planned to run my new business without taking insurance — and my intended clients were getting the same calls I’d just received.
I stared at my sign, feeling powerless and lost. Once again, I heard my mom’s voice in my head — “Wendy, if you don’t like it, change it.”
I looked out at University Avenue and, to no one in particular, asked, “OK, who needs me most today?” The answer was clear: If anyone needed a therapist that day, it was stockbrokers. These men and women were having to make call after call, dealing with panic, anger and blame from clients — all while facing the terror of their own uncertain future. I drove downtown to talk to the managers of the top three brokerage houses. Along the way, I heard news on the radio of the crash, along with horrific stories of brokers jumping out of windows. I was determined to do something effective.
Everyone I met accepted my offer of help, so I spent the week in their offices doing whatever I could to make a difference. Within a week, all three companies had hired me to help their brokers. As it turned out they needed more than therapy — they needed skills. After all, how do you succeed in an industry that is 100% focused on money when your would-be clients have no money? I shared the formulas I’d developed in my first business, teaching them how to strategically and tactically focus on making an impact on every life they touched. Soon they were engaging a whole new market of clients and achieving revenues they’d never seen before the crash. That was the beginning of my next business: helping organizations increase revenue by shifting focus away from market share and turning all their efforts toward making a measurable difference in people’s lives, internally and externally.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The funniest (and most instructive) entrepreneurial mistake I ever made was when I was 4 years old. My grandmother often paid me to do little jobs for her, and my favorite was sharpening pencils in her large, wall-mounted sharpener. It wasn’t easy for my little hands, but when I succeeded, she’d give me a penny and a new pencil to sharpen. I loved our special game. One day, she suggested I expand my “business” into the neighborhood and gave me an empty box to collect pencils.
My grandmother walked with me, staying just far enough behind to make it feel like I was on my own. At each house, I’d sing a little song I’d made up, inviting people to let me sharpen their pencils. Everyone laughed and applauded and gave me their pencils. My little box quickly overflowed, so my grandmother carried the rest in her purse. That afternoon, I carefully sharpened each pencil, and, after a few broken points, I eventually got them all done and brought them to show Grandma. She looked at each pencil very carefully and told me I had done a great job. Then she asked, “How do you know which pencils go back to which houses?”
I had no idea! So, I did what any self-respecting 4-year-old girl would do — I cried. Grandma responded by doing what any self-respecting grandmother would do — she gave me chocolate cake and milk. By the time we were done eating, Grandma had convinced me to go back to each house and explain what had happened.
As we walked up the slate steps to the first house, I could feel my knees shaking. Grandma nodded and smiled encouragement, so I got up on my tiptoes and rang the bell. A woman opened the door and I just held out the box with both hands and blurted out, “I did all the pencils, but I don’t know which ones are yours. Can you please just pick out the ones that are yours? You don’t have to pay me anything.”
I must have really looked pathetic, because the woman turned and went into her house, and when she came back, she gave me a dollar. “What’s this for?” I asked.
“For the song you sang for me yesterday,” she said. “You brightened up my whole day! Do you think you could sing it again?”
I took a deep breath and sang my little heart out right there on the stoop. The nice woman gave me a second dollar, and then she took my hand, marched me next door and told her neighbor to give me a dollar! By the end of the day the pencil box was empty and I had 17 dollars. My first entrepreneurial mistake — and my first entrepreneurial success.
Many years later, the woman from that house came to my grandmother’s funeral. I didn’t know her name, but I remembered her. She gave me a big hug and whispered, “I still remember the day you and Ruthie came to my house and you sang your little song. Ruthie was so proud of her little Wendala.” Once again, I cried.
I learned a lot about entrepreneurial success that day:
- Be fair.
- Do something to make an impact.
- Keep your promises (and if you can’t do what you promised, be honest).
- When you focus on impact, the money will come.
- Always keep track of your pencils.
Actually, my grandmother taught me a lot about business. But more than anything else, she taught me to value impact. And I’ve been passing that message on ever since.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
After speaking for thousands of organizations, I decided to produce public training events. To get a handle on the industry, I attended a Tom Hopkins event. Tommy was a sensational trainer, and I was fascinated by how his audience responded to him. For the next six months I attended his sold-out events from coast to coast. Then, one day, the crew saved me a seat in the front row, and I got a closer view as Tommy sat on the edge of the stage to sign books. I’d purchased lots of his books already (mostly to learn about back-of-the-room sales processes), but this time I took my book and got in line to meet him.
Two hours later I was face-to-face with the man I’d been watching for months. He took my book, peeked up to ask my name, then sat up straight and said, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Sort of,” I smiled. “This is my 27th time coming to your events.”
“Why?!” he asked.
I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Because, sir, someday my events will be bigger than yours!” (Of all the things I’d imagined saying, this definitely wasn’t one I’d have chosen.)
To his credit, Tommy just grinned and said, “Well then, I guess I’d better teach you how!”
That evening he took me to dinner and graced me with more information than I could have ever expected. The more he shared, the more I knew the events business was right for me. He asked about what I planned to teach people, so I told him about the system of impact and ethical influence formulas I’d developed, and the extensive research I’d done proving the power of my system. He was quiet for a minute, then invited me to come work in his company. I was incredibly honored but declined his offer. We’ve been in touch ever since, and his mentorship and friendship have made a profound impact on my career. I’ll be forever grateful.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
Launching a career or business is incredibly exciting and paralyzingly scary. I’m currently building my 11th business and know a little something about the terror of what-ifs in the middle of the night. Here are three things I’ve used that have gotten me through every time.
First, I always remember what my mom taught me: If there’s something you see that you don’t like, change it! The sad and simple truth is: pain is everywhere. Our job is to open our eyes and find the pain we most want to address, then learn everything we can about it to find a solution.
Second, be their lid. Just as every pot has a unique lid that will fit snugly, every consumer is searching for a solution that’s just the right fit for their unique needs. When you provide just the right impact in just the right way at just the right moment with just the right message, products and services, it all comes together. Your impact will grow exponentially the moment you discover how to be the right lid for the people you want to serve. Once they find you, they will trust you, listen to you, follow your advice, pay top fees for your products and services, and tell all their friends.
Third, and most importantly, make impact your top priority. In my book “Focus on Impact,” I define impact as “the measurable difference you make in people’s lives as the direct result of contact with you, your team, your message and your marketing, products and services.” The key word is “measurable.” Whatever you bring to people must be measurable — before, during and after contact with you. Your impact will be your best asset in this (or any) economy.
What drives you to get up every day and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?
I’m driven to make a measurable difference in people’s lives, and so every day I ask myself, “Are you making the impact you want to be making?” If the answer is “no” (and it always is), then I bolt out of bed. I’ve discovered my greatest impact happens when I help others make their greatest impact, and that propels me forward every day.
The message I want to empower people with is: You were born with amazing powers and your greatest power is your ability to make an impact on people’s lives. When you purposefully infuse your unique impact into your message, products and services, that’s when you’ll see your greatest power of all.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
Around 2011, I noticed a rapidly growing trend of failure among highly motivated, innovative thinkers. While my research also showed an increase in the number of support businesses that had emerged to help innovators succeed, the vast majority of ideas weren’t being successfully developed, scaled or delivered. As the trend grew, reports showed fully funded entrepreneurs failing at rates of 78% and companies ignoring innovative ideas that came from within their own organizations. In every industry from farming to technology, innovations were being lost, opportunities were being missed and billions of dollars were being wasted.
Considering all the brilliant minds and resources available in the world, why was there so much failure? To find out what was blocking innovative impact, I conducted a study of more than 5,000 entrepreneurs to uncover the causes of these ever-increasing failure rates. The data clearly revealed a robust solution, so I generated a comprehensive strategic and operational plan and brought in a highly seasoned team to make it happen. Together, we’re working to complete a unique infrastructure designed to solve the pervasive problem of innovative failure by enabling entrepreneurs and their investors to develop and scale innovative ideas and get their impact directly to the consumers who want and need it — quickly and efficiently, with lower costs, higher returns, measurable impact and reduced risk. We’re all very excited and are currently gathering the final pieces so we can launch. Stay tuned.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Growing up, I frequently heard elders say, “Life is short.” I didn’t really understand the magnitude of that message until my mother got cancer. She’d done so many wonderful things in her life, but she also had much sadness about the things she’d never finished. In her final weeks, I spent every moment by her side as she shared what she was most proud of, and her deepest regrets. Each day I knew we were getting closer to the end, but nothing prepared me for what I would feel holding my mom in my arms as she took her last breath. She was only 59. The morning she died, I heard my grandmother’s voice saying, “Life is short,” and finally understood what she’d meant. The saying is about far more than the amount of time we get. It’s about what we do with the time we have.
I believe to the bottom of my soul we were all born to make a unique impact in the world and that life’s greatest journey is discovering our impact and making it happen, before it’s too late and we miss our chance. That’s why I always end my presentations by saying, “Life is far too short to settle for less than we truly want — in our business or our lives. So, get up every morning and move people to action so you can make an impact on every life you touch!”
Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.
In my experience, highly effective (results-producing) public speakers give audiences precisely what they need so every single person leaves permanently changed as a result of their time together. Here are 5 steps to make it happen:
1 . Identify their Action Formula. The Action Formula is the shortest distance between where your audience begins and the results they achieve. I researched and developed this formula during my work in corporate, healthcare, small business and nonprofit organizations and on stages worldwide, and I’ve detailed it in all my books. My research revealed there are three components necessary to effect immediate and lasting results. All three components must be attained and balanced to the difficulty of whatever action(s) people need to take to achieve their goals. Highly effective speakers need to meticulously identify and detail the Action Formula for each unique audience we serve by determining in advance: the specific results we’re hired to make happen; the precise actions our audience must take to attain those results; and the unique strategies, tactics, and insights our audience must have when they leave so they are able and driven to take action.
Every organization and individual has their own unique Action Formula. The strongest results come when we interview decision-makers and attendees in advance and use the information to prepare our content and delivery.
2. Generate a customized plan. The more difficult the desired results, the more crucial it is that everyone we’re speaking to has a follow-up action plan when they leave. Game-changing results happen when we get creative. Design a comprehensive, customizable system of step-by-step tactics people can easily apply to their unique situation, personality and Action Formula. Then deliver that system in a fun way that encourages the audience to get highly engaged and excited to implement. Whenever possible, I include a support system to help people through each step of their action plan so they’re never alone on their implementation journey.
3. Impact every life you touch. My top priority has always been to make an impact, or measurable difference, on every life I touch. Steps one through five lay the path to make that happen, but the secret sauce is step three — helping people get clarity on what they have, what they want, what’s missing and what happens when they get it. To make that happen, we assess their starting point and then repeat assessments over time at precise intervals. That provides a complete picture of measurable results and enables us to spotlight and celebrate their success. When we prove our impact, people get driven to strive for still greater results.
4. Value their uniqueness. Nothing brings results faster than targeted customization of content and delivery. That’s why I urge speakers to forget signature speeches. If we don’t take the time to get to know the unique challenges, desires, cultures, pains and needs of everyone in every audience; if we don’t find a way to fully connect to individuals while addressing groups; if we don’t understand and speak in a way that fits for them; if we don’t adjust our delivery to align with their unique brain wiring and style; in other words, if we don’t value their uniqueness, then all we’re doing is flapping our wings, spreading sparkleberries and collecting a check. Life-changing impact comes when we value the uniqueness every person brings to our lives and honor their gifts by delivering uniqueness to them.
5. Expand your effectiveness with products and services. When I first began speaking, people would ask me about how they could get more. Of course, as a newbie I didn’t have any more to give them, so I purchased a franchise from an established motivation company and sold their books and tapes (yes, tapes!) at every engagement. That made a big difference in my outcomes, but it wasn’t really what people were looking for. They wanted to carry me with them, hear my voice in their head and see a replay of what they’d just experienced. This became clear when I began to get return requests and see repeat attendees at my own live events. Data showed 25% of attendees had been to at least one of my multi-day programs, 95% had attended my virtual programs, listened to my audios or taken one of my e-courses, and 98% read my books before or after the events. At private speaking engagements the most frequent questions I received were, “What’s next?,” “Have you got a book?,” “Where can I find you online?” and “How do we bring you into our organization?”
I believe this happens because people are drawn to speakers who give them what they need to get measurable results. When that happens, they always want more. So, highly effective speakers come equipped to give them more.
The bottom line is highly effective speakers help people change how they think, how they feel, what they do and ultimately what they get. That’s why my answer to your question turns out to be an acronym: I GIVE.
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
Terror of speaking comes when we focus on ourselves. The key is to take the focus off us and place it all on the people who need us.
Instead of “I could never speak in public!” ask “What pain do I see in the world?”
Instead of “What was I thinking wearing this?” ask “What are they thinking about at 2 a.m.?”
Instead of “I’m going to make a fool of myself!” ask “What shame do they feel in their lives?”
Instead of “I can’t stop shaking!” ask “What are they feeling right now?”
Focus on their pain, then go out and make an impact on every life you touch.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I developed and launched the Action Movement years ago for the purpose of helping people make a greater impact in their business and personal lives and, through the ripple effect that creates, an impact worldwide. The Action Movement is based on my research that showed the strongest impact we will ever make is when we come together to ethically move people to action in a way that helps people think, feel and act in ways they’ve never done before. There are complimentary training videos about the movement on my website.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Hilary Rodham Clinton has made a profound impact throughout her life, and while it hasn’t been easy, she’s never lost her resolve or determination to create a measurable difference in people’s lives. Secretary Clinton has been a tremendous inspiration to me, personally and professionally, and I’d love to sit down with her and have a lengthy conversation about impact.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ImpactExpert
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/theactionmovement
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendyliptondibner/
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Wendy Lipton-Dibner Of Bruce Merrin’s Celebrity Speakers Bureau On The 5 Things You Need To Be A… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
