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How One Talk Can Generate Opportunities for 15 Years with Ashley Stahl · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What if the key to building a career you love isn't doing what you love, but doing what you are? Ashley Stahl has given two viral TED talks, built an international bestselling book, and runs Wise Whisper Agency, the only speaking agency founded by a speaker herself. But before all that, she was broke, in debt, and figuring it out just like the rest of us. In this episode, Ashley breaks down the difference between your skill set and your core values, why most solopreneurs are chasing credibility when they should be building authority, and how one signature talk can open doors for the next fifteen years of your career. Whether you've never stepped on stage or you're ready to land your TEDx spot, this conversation will change how you think about your brand and about yourself.
• 0:45
  You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business. I'm Carly Ries, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I spend every episode with solopreneur who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first, then business. So let's get right to it. Ashley, we were just talking offline about your TED talk, which is one of the most viewed TED talks of all time, which is a crazy claim to fame of yours.
• 1:20
  But for today's conversation, I kinda wanna bring you down to regular human level, because that skyrockets you to a whole other level. So let's bring you back down just to relate to our audience a little bit. Because I wanna know, having been on stages, talking about speaking, personal branding, what's the most nervous you've ever been before walking on a stage?
• 1:41
  Ashley Stahl: Oh, I'm always nervous. And you know what makes me most nervous about speaking is getting paid a lot, which is so funny because it's just an integrity thing. I really want to feel like I always provide the value I'm being compensated for. And actually at Wise Whisper Agency, we coach a lot of speakers lately on how to get paid gigs and all sorts of different things. I always tell them , never use new material, never get paid for new material. your new material should be tested on complimentary audiences. And there's something about the transaction where there's the expectation where it's like, was that inspiring enough? And it's not to say I have impostor syndrome, but I think every single time I just wanna do my best so I get stressed out every time, literally.
• 2:30
  Carly Ries: And that's a good thing. Right? Doesn't it give you kind of momentum to get on stage and like feed that anxiety, nervous, and everything? You gotta hype yourself up. Well, so we're gonna talk about personal branding and speaking and everything today. let's start with something that you say. You say, don't do what you love, do what you are. And I feel like this resonates with a lot of our audience because a lot of us solopreneurs start their business around a skill they're good at, and then realize five years into the business, it owns them. And they no longer own the business.
• 3:01
  How do you help someone tell the difference between what they love, what they're good at, and who they actually are?
• 3:09
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. Well, really the one thing that I look at the most, first is what are you good at? I think there are two things, I'm always holding on to. Number one is the what of what you do, and number two is the how of how you do it. So what I mean by that is the what has to do with your skill set.
• 3:28
  The how has to do with your core values. Your skill set presents you options. There are things in the market that need your skill set. And different things in the market that use your skill set could be a home for you to go harness it and contribute with it and give it to the world.
• 3:45
  The difference between all those different opportunities is a couple of things. Number one, is an opportunity whether it's a business that you own and a service that you offer or a job that you have, does that opportunity sharpen that skill set most of the time. So as a business owner, you could be spread pretty thin and it depends on what kind of business you have, right? Like my gift is words. I'm probably using words in order to make revenue 60% of the time.
• 4:13
  Like, I'm sitting here on a podcast, it's words, right? I would say a lot of people, even if you have a gift, if you end up in a job or you have services that require you to be in a different skill set, the majority of the time you're not harnessing your gift. So that's the one thing. I think the second piece of the puzzle is the how, which is how you do things. And that has to do with core values. I think core values are wildly misunderstood. a lot of people think about values as things they value. I value a lot of things, but I see your core values as the non negotiable ingredients by which you live your life. they're like principles, right? So you know somebody is not in their core values.
• 4:59
  If you hung out with a friend, like let's say you have a friend that's super funny, maybe humor is a core ingredient of who they are. If they're not funny when you see them, you think something's wrong. Usually you're like, are you okay? You wouldn't think that of somebody else. It's them because it's their values, it's their essence. so I think the core values are something that a lot of people misunderstand and are misdirected with. people will say, oh, I value peace. I was career coaching for twelve years before I started Wise Whisper Agency. And I remember when I was career coaching, I had an attorney who was really struggling in her work and I was like, okay, well what are your core values?
• 5:37
  And one of them was peace. I was like, well, you're a litigator. you literally did not pick a peaceful path. Like, are you sure that's not aspirational? Because I trust that if a core value was peace, you would have broken down faster here. you've been doing this for ten years. When you look at your career, it's almost like your core values are a filter for what's the yes or a no. So if you have a certain line of work, but you value balance, let's say you're using your gift over here in your business and you're using it most of the time and you're sharpening it, that's all good. But what about on the other side if the place you have to use it is on a different time zone and one of your core values is balance and you're totally out of balance because of the time zone. It's a deal breaker. so the thing about values is they're a filter of sorts for what's a yes for you and what's a no for you. And there's a difference between missing a value, like let's say you love something but you have a core value of fun and it's using all these other parts of you but you're not really having whatever fun means for you. That's okay. It's not ideal, but sometimes something is missing. That's one thing versus something being violated.
• 6:48
  That's different. So the time zone thing is a violation of the value. The person who has a violated value is going to have a visceral experience of the absence of it.
• 6:57
  Carly Ries: How do you rectify people that like where they are right now and where they want to be? Like, how do you speak to that?
• 7:06
  Ashley Stahl: I think that a lot of people are trying to figure out who they are. And a lot of that has to do with the process of life, which is getting to know who you're not. And a lot of the problem I think that a lot of people have early in their career or their business, is they just want a straight shot to the goal, whatever that means for them. And there is, you know, I got a graduate degree in psychology and one of the spiritual sayings that they would say all the time, they said, never rob someone the dignity of their process. There is a dignity to a process. I run my business now. We used to have white glove services to help people get talks on stages and stuff like that. And I realized eventually that getting people booked on stages was a huge scope of work for my team to do. Obviously, I already knew that but it was just a lot because I guarantee it, I'm crazy like that. And so I guarantee everyone whatever they pay us for, we're gonna do it.
• 8:09
  And so I moved over to more of a coaching offer helping people get paid gigs, helping people write their talk. And I could not get to the coaching offer without going through the headache of having to book 80 people on major stages. And we did it, but I suffered. I have literally gray hairs.
• 8:29
  I started to feel like Obama before and after the Presidency with his hair. But my point being, it's like people do not want to go through the down to get to the up, but it is the dignity of the process, and stepping stones are your right to what you're supposed to do. so I think that is the problem with a lot of people.
• 8:51
  Joe Rando: Yeah. You know, I just wanna jump in and say amen to that. people don't understand that there are places you cannot go without going through the bad places first. You'll never recognize the good place until you've been through the bad place. it's so important that people understand that, I have been starting businesses since I was 30 years old, and I screwed up so many times. And even the ones that were successful, I screwed up in the beginning. I had some failures and there's no way that I would have found my way to the success without all the screw ups and all the pain. And I just wanna drive that point home that you don't look back and rue those things.
• 9:40
  You say, okay. That's the path I had to take to get to where I am and recognize that it was the place I wanted to be.
• 9:48
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. You know, it's interesting as you're saying that because really success is a layering effect of experiences and that's why there are a lot of sayings around people being successful too young. It's like your shot to the moon. I actually was successful financially at like 26. I made $5,000,000 in two months off an e course.
• 10:09
  After failing at it and going in extreme debt for two years, that was the thing about my success, I just didn't stop until I figured it out and I was like totally broke by the time I did. And then I created extreme wealth and then I was 26 and didn't know how to manage numbers and I had 10 employees and I just let the whole ship sink, you know, and and lost all this money and didn't know what I was doing. Now, my business is working. It's hard, but it works. I got a CFO , and I would never prioritize that salary on my payroll as fast as I did here, because I learned.
• 10:44
  And now it's like, oh, wow. This guy's gonna make sure this operation doesn't go into the ground because I'm awesome at all this other stuff, but not math. I think you really do just have to learn. And so I think core values and skill set are two ingredients that if you can actually be in an inquiry with that, you're going to get ahead faster. And a lot of the problem isn't just knowing these things or having the stepping stones, it's being honest with yourself.
• 11:12
  And that's another huge area that where people struggle, people struggle to be radically honest. And there's the theory of sunken cost, right? Like I went to school to be a doctor. I spent five years being a doctor. How could I go be a tech person now?
• 11:28
  And it's like, well, the truth is the truth. So do you wanna rip the band aid today or do you wanna rip it in six years? Because unless you're 85, you're not retiring anytime soon in today's world. So, you know, you have plenty of space and time to do something you love.
• 11:45
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Plus, I again, just totally agree. And, the thing is that it's not necessarily sunk cost either. You know, a doctor that becomes a tech person is not the same as a tech person that becomes a tech person, you know, who goes to school for tech. You bring stuff to the table. some of these pivots that people make and they're like, I wasted my time. it's like, no. You are unique. You have this skill set from here that you bring in this perspective into this new area and it can be really magical. I mean, really, even for myself, I went from, I majored in physics as an undergrad and then went into real estate development, which seems ridiculous. But it wasn't.
• 12:32
  I ended up writing some software using the physics stuff to figure out where to put the shopping centers, it ended up working out really nicely in the long run. So I mean, I don't even think of those as sunk costs, some of them.
• 12:43
  Carly Ries: Well, and I wanna take a look at all these, the core values, who you are, and bridge everything into personal branding. Because I think a lot of solopreneurs struggle with that. Ashley, you're successful. You have a very strong personal brand. But a lot of our listeners are just starting out.
• 12:59
  They are just trying to figure out who they are from a personal branding standpoint, as opposed to wanting to go speak at South by Southwest next year. how should they approach it from the beginning when their personal brand isn't really a brand yet, and then they want it to become something?
• 13:18
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I love helping people with is figuring out number one, what is your signature talk? Like what do you really have to say? Because everybody has something to say whether you wanna be a speaker or not. And number two, how do you get something as big like a TEDx talk for example?
• 13:35
  It's 45,000,000 subscribers. It's the biggest stage in the world. People ask me all the time, is it too late to do one? And I'm not affiliated with TEDx I'm not them. But what I can say is, it's simple math.
• 13:46
  Is it ever too late as a business to get in front of 45,000,000 subscribers and talk about your thing? Probably not. I would say from a personal brand perspective, people listening now should think about the internet like a bunch of islands. There's a podcast island like right now where I'm a guest on your show. I've been on a sabbatical for my show.
• 14:07
  I haven't done my podcast in a long while, but I have 500 episodes on there. So people find that big old island of episodes, not just the day they release, but every single day that they search those topics. Right? So there's the island of having your own show, there's the island of being a guest on many shows, people could keep finding you. There's the island of Instagram, the island of TikTok, the island of being on TV.
• 14:30
  A TED talk happens to be to me a massive brand island that people find you forever and it has a lot of authority, which by the way is very different than credibility. I think a lot of your listeners probably are thinking too much about credibility and not enough about authority. And what I mean by that is they're thinking, am I credible? Do I need a third, fourth or fifth training to make myself certified or make myself legit? People are not, like if you're not getting hired or you know, supported in your business, it's usually not because of credibility, it's because of authority.
• 15:04
  There are a lot of people that have a lot of experience, education, whatever trainings they have, and you don't need another training to get more clients. You need authority, and authority has to do with being a household name. It has to do with being known for the thing you're known for. Just the other day in New York, I went to a party, my friend who works at Meta invited me, and I have no idea that the woman whose party it was, She has like 3,000,000 people following her on Instagram. I've never seen her Instagram.
• 15:34
  I'm not very good at Instagram these days. But I walked into her party and I realized it was a career book and I was a career coach for twelve years. And she goes, ugh, Ashley Stahl, I learned career coaching from you. And it was like, cool. What's your name, is this your party?
• 15:53
  You know? And so it's one of those things where I don't have an ego that tells me that everybody knows me. But what I do have is an awareness that if you're a career coach the past fifteen years, you've probably come across my content. And it's because of the authority. And to me, I love the idea of being an aspiring solopreneur because there are two ways to create a business, and the essence of this show is really speaking to one way, which is , you don't have to create a business you hate and push and hurt yourself.
• 16:25
  There's a way to attract opportunities to you. And that's why my two TED talks I gave were the best things I ever did. Because I sat on that stage for ten minutes, and for literally fifteen years after that, I got opportunities every single month. And these aren't just opportunities that I thought about or fought for. They are opportunities that people saw me and my gift and came to find me for. and through doing that, my career became this creative calibration with the universe where I put myself out there in the right energy and people think of things and come to me and help me form my career. I got a huge spokesperson deal with a fintech company. I got a book deal in Taiwan. I went on a 100 podcasts in The United States. But the people that found the publisher in Taiwan that found my book, found it through my Ted talk.
• 17:15
  I sold more than 50,000 copies out there, and became a New York Times level bestseller. So the thing is, that influenced who I am, what I see as possible, and it came because I put this big nugget of my brand out there. And so that's why I love speaking, it's because if you really put your time into crafting one talk that is your best work, it's what you really have to say. And what we're really big on over at Wise Whisper is original thinking. Original thinking doesn't mean you're the only person who's ever said the thing.
• 17:50
  It means how you're saying it is landing in a unique and different way. So for example, if I talk to you about getting outside of your comfort zone, that's like a soundbite. We hear people say that all the time, right? And what you automatically think is probably like doing something different. Like the guy that's dating and you tell him, get out of your comfort zone.
• 18:09
  It's like, alright, I'm gonna ask the girl out at the bar. that's what socially we think about getting out of your comfort zone to me. What I think about, I was just at a mastermind of business owners. All these guys were talking about lawsuits. And one next to me was saying, oh man, I didn't realize that when you become a successful entrepreneur, you get hit with like really weird lawsuits that you didn't do anything wrong, and it's just kind of the ridiculous part of the territory.
• 18:33
  And in that moment, I realized getting out of your comfort zone for me, doesn't necessarily mean what I go do. It means what am I willing to go face? And that is my own thought about comfort zone. So original thinking isn't about not saying something that's said, it's about having a different texture to the way that you see it. And the problem with a lot of speakers and communicators is they haven't taken the time to really think about what's landing differently. a great way to pressure test that is to ask your clients like, what have I said that has changed the way you think or the way you be? What is the topic you're getting from me that's influenced you the most? Because ultimately, my second TED talk I gave, I asked my clients, what is the thing I've said to you about clarity that changed the way you think? And those became my talking points for my TEDx that went and got 10,000,000 views.
• 19:26
  Carly Ries: So let me ask you this. for solopreneurs who are like, I know what I wanna say, I wanna stand out, TED talk sounds great. Like, if I can land that, that sounds awesome. You talk about bringing you into your speeches. And even though solopreneurs are their business, people don't like talking about well, some people don't like talking about things that are too personal, too specific.
• 19:49
  So what is your response to that fear?
• 19:53
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. Where you're feeling too personal? Tell me a little bit more. Like if a talk feels like you're just oversharing?
• 20:00
  Carly Ries: if they're like, you talk about bringing you, showing who you are in your talks? And if they're like, I don't wanna talk about my dog. I don't wanna talk about my kids. I don't want people to know a lot about my life. I just want them to know about the topic. Why is bringing yourself into it so important? And how can people kinda combat that fear?
• 20:19
  Ashley Stahl: Well, so actually first of all, it depends what your topic is. So if you are a foot doctor and there's somebody in the audience that just broke their foot on the way into the speech, the bar for inspiration is low, the need for the content is high. Right? And so it depends on your audience. are you a doctor speaking to a sick audience and they just need to know how to get better? Usually there's a level of story that you need to connect with people emotionally. And so I would say number one, yes, content worlds. And there are two types of talks that I see often. And there's one that we index on when we're teaching people how to write their talks.
• 20:55
  So the first one is like a standard keynote where there's a message. When you think about those, it's like, maybe the message is just do it like Nike, you know, just do it. And then the beginning of the keynote is somebody's story and it points to the just do it. And the middle is somebody that is more of a story, just do it. In the end is a story, just do it.
• 21:14
  You keep getting back to the message. That to me is very advanced speech writing. one of our creative directors wrote speeches for Steve Jobs executive team at Apple for thirteen years. She can easily write a keynote like that. But not everybody can write like that.
• 21:28
  So the other type of speech that you can sell as a keynote on the speaking market is more instructional. It's more like a powerful opening two to three points and you close. So what you're asking me about is the client that has those two to three points, that's great. You still need a powerful opening. you don't have to share about your dog and all your stuff. But what I would say is , look back at your life and think about 10 moments, not events. There's a big difference between a moment and an event.
• 21:57
  An event is I had my wedding in 2011. A moment is when I was cutting my cake at my wedding and I locked eyes with my dad, I felt this wave of gratitude that he was here for this moment. That's a moment, right?
• 22:10
  Like the vanilla smell of the cake hit my nose, right? So it's really thinking about moments in time, not events. I would think about 10 different moments throughout the course of your life that when you look back, that moment moved you, it did something for you. And by the way, those moments could be something you saw that has nothing to do with you, but it moved you and so I think how you open up a talk, you can share a moment in time and bring people into the touch taste and feel of the moment. And a lot of people think, if I give a talk about gut health, I need to have an opening about a patient in my practice about their gut health.
• 22:47
  No, you don't. You can open up your gut health talk about a conversation you had in the subway, and all you have to do is find the thread. for example, just today somebody in one of my programs to craft your talk and get a TEDx and all the stuff that you do on stages, she was presenting me with an opening story about losing a baby and a miscarriage. But her talk is actually about burnout.
• 23:13
  So I looked at the opening story that she wrote and I'm like, how can we tie your topic into this so that the rest of your speech makes sense? if we wanna share this story. And it was like, well, what pieces of this miscarriage point to burnout? And she's like, there are so many elements of it. There's the burnout of my family not really getting how I feel. I always feel like I'm like trying to tell people how I feel. She's like, there's the burnout of all the medical appointments I had to do. And so she was able to start threading the concept of her talk and her talking points into the opening story without the story having to directly be and I mean, her example was very much about her. But it could be a story about a person on the street that you saw and then it's like, well where's the thread with your topic? Because you have to thread the opening into your topic.
• 23:59
  Do you follow me? Am I making sense? Yeah. No. That all makes sense. do you wanna keep going?
• 24:06
  No. I just wrote it out. I'm like, hopefully I'm not taking you on a wild ride, and this makes sense.
• 24:11
  Carly Ries: You're not at all, and it makes perfect sense. So another side to branding, so you're talking about formulating the great speech and all that. But another side to personal branding that I think swallows a solopreneur's life especially, is that they feel like they constantly need to be posting, performing, optimizing, and just putting all their time into this personal brand. So how do you help clients build a brand that serves their life rather than just completely takes over it?
• 24:42
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. I think it's really about focusing on one thing every year. when I started my brand, my first year I was like, I wanna get a TED talk. All I did was put myself out there for those. And then by the end of that year, I got that talk.
• 24:55
  And all I did for three months was write it. All I did for three months was practice it. Once it went out, I got so much out of it. The second year, my brand was all about Twitter, or x I guess now. I was all about how do I build a following there?
• 25:10
  And so like the Ted talk was done. It was behind me. And then I was like, how do I do this here? And my whole year was about learning it. And I spent one day a week on Twitter.
• 25:18
  I spent one day a week writing my tweets, scheduling them, interacting with people. And then I got a following there. And then the next year was about Instagram. So I think it's really about seeing this not as a sprint, but as a marathon, and really focusing. I think the reason why I'm so interested in helping people with getting on major stages, is because I just think it works quickly and having a signature talk in your back pocket is very powerful. we help somebody get his TEDx talk and write his TEDx talk, but what he didn't expect was that he got an award at a gala and he got on stage and they were like, you have ten minutes to talk if you want. And he used his TED Talk script. And then at the end, he gave a call to action to donate to a cause. And he accidentally raised like 2 and a half million dollars that night because he had the one signature talk in his back pocket. So I think my thing is just we are living in very weird times right now.
• 26:18
  People are sad, they're scared, they're heavy. The world needs your voice more than ever if you are somebody that feels like they have something to say. And with the rise of AI, I think more events are happening. People want that connection, especially in the wake of COVID. And so I just think now is the time where if you have a voice and you wanna be intentional about how you use it, you can create a lot through it.
• 26:43
  Carly Ries: So let me ask you this. let's say a solopreneur is listening, and they're like, Ashley, this makes so much sense. I would love to raise over $2,000,000 in one night through a speech that I give or get on a TED Talk stage. But I've never talked to anybody more than a Zoom call. That's the extent of my audience.
• 26:59
  This is what we're doing right here. What would you say to them as their first step towards that bigger stage? what are the baby steps to get there?
• 27:08
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. I would say the first thing is write a powerful talk. And before you even write the talk, start to ask people where you have original thoughts. Start to ask people where you've said something that's clicked in. And then I would say from there, everybody has three to five topics or more living inside of them.
• 27:26
  But just because you can talk about something doesn't mean you should. I would say ask yourself of these topics, what is my goal? Is your goal to get clients? Is your goal to get authority? And is your goal to a become a paid speaker?
• 27:41
  Pick the topic that supports that goal, Like, if the topic to get you clients is medical, but the topic you wanna be a speaker on is about success, talk about success. Like that's the thing you wanna be a paid speaker on, right? So pick the topic that serves the goal number one. Number two, of those topics that serve your goal, which one has the most original thinking?
• 28:03
  Because you know, with our white glove services, we've had clients come in that are akin to a Rockefeller level sort of person with like a fifty year career. And they come in and they're like, oh, I could talk about so much. Yeah, you could. But like, past fifty years, what are two or three conclusions you've come to about your life? what do you deeply believe to be true?
• 28:26
  And people actually have a lot less to say than they think. So I think it's really about getting to the heart of where do you really have original thoughts and where do you really have deep senses of belief?
• 28:36
  Carly Ries: And then are they just like, should I talk this to my clients first and then pitch to a local group? like how to get the gigs?
• 28:48
  Ashley Stahl: So one thing we have over at Wise Whisperer is a software that like almost allows people to see how many paid gigs there are in The United States in their topic, and they can, use the service of the software to unlock that person's email. We just have something proprietary over here.
• 29:04
  But I think there are other services that do stuff like that where you can look for paid gigs as a speaker. And that's the thing about like my Ted Talks, is that just created inbound for me. The other way to do it is to go outbound and prospect. It's like getting a job. you prospect, you send emails, you find out about gigs, you contact them about them. You have the right materials. Like having a good speaking reel, having a clear message.
• 29:32
  That's why once you write your talk, if you can go give it somewhere for free and get somebody to record it and turn that into a speaking reel, that's a really good asset to have as well.
• 29:43
  Joe Rando: I'm just wondering. Can we back up for just a minute? Because I feel like we skipped over something that, at least for me, is like, okay. How do I do that?
• 29:51
  So writing a great speech, now I know you can't give a coaching session on how to write a great speech. But if you could give maybe, two or three pointers or two or three don't do these things. I mean, focus on something that you're passionate about. I get it. But is there anything in terms of how you approach it that you could give in a couple of bullet points, or is that just too big an ask?
• 30:14
  Ashley Stahl: No. I would say, we see speeches as a 115 words per minute. So that's one thing to think about. usually three minutes fit on one page. So if you have a ten minute talk, you're looking at three and a half pages Times New Roman 12. I think about structure, how long of a talk do you wanna write? I also think the speaking market, if a booker is like, hey, we want a forty five minute keynote. There is a way for you to say, well, I have a twenty minute keynote, we could do twenty minutes of q and a, what do you think? So there are ways to position what you wanna do, so you don't have to overdo yourself. let's say you want to start with twenty minutes, that's like a six page talk. If you have an exercise where people need to pause and reflect, maybe that's like five and a half pages. I think just understanding structure, how you open a talk with a powerful emotional opening, we see that as like 25% of your talks. The first quarter of your talks. So if you have five pages, just over a page is going to be your opener. I think it's just thinking in structure. We also don't really believe you can fit more than two to three points in a twenty minute talk. So that's something structural you can think about, like, how much space does each point get? I think if you can think about it that way, you're not just writing, but you have structure you're writing in. Is there anything to be effective say in a TEDx or TEDx anything that, in terms of I don't know, you talked about the emotional components and showing change. You know what I mean? like, some of the greatest stories that we love show a change in the character. And that really you know, if you look at things like a Christmas Carol. You know, Scrooge changes, we just all love that happening. Is that something that could be applied to it? You know, a TED talk or TEDx talk or something?
• 32:04
  I think the most important thing with a script for a TEDx talk is you have to realize there's the talk that people are hearing with the content you have to say, and then there's the theme beneath the content. we helped a client write a talk. He was in one of our intensives, and it was about racism in the banking system and how people of color, like the history of where banks have been and who they've given credit to have left people of color without access to credit, without mortgages, and then without family generational wealth that other populations have. I was telling him, I'm like, God, I love this topic and not a lot of people are gonna click it unless you can connect because there's certain people that are interested in this. how do we get everybody to connect? So I think what makes a talk do really well, especially a TEDx talk, is when you have a theme beneath the talk that people can feel deeply. So what is racism really about? I mean, ask anyone, they're gonna have a different thought. To me, it's about justice.
• 32:59
  It's about doing the right thing. It's about people feeling othered. It's about fairness. If you can start putting soundbites in your talk about fairness, about doing the right thing, if you can ask questions to the audience about that, you're connecting beneath the talk to the audience on a much deeper level, and that's what makes a talk do well.
• 33:19
  Joe Rando: Hitting the emotional, not just the factual. Cool. Thank you.
• 33:23
  Carly Ries: Well, I know you're not supposed to, pick your favorite kids or anything, or, maybe say stuff like this, but this has sort of been one of my favorite interviews, truly, that we have done in the nearly 300. I just think all of this is so helpful, and you explain all of it so well. I can see why you are where you are. Thank you so much. But Ashley, on that note, we ask all of our guests this question, and because you've helped so many others find success, and I think you're really gonna help our listeners, we have to ask you, what is your favorite quote about success?
• 33:53
  Ashley Stahl: One of my favorites is that success is the warmest place to hide. I think about that because in times that I've been really successful, I can see myself hiding behind it. Like I stopped doing certain development on myself. It's almost like my ego allows me to hide. And so I feel like that quote humbles me.
• 34:13
  Joe Rando: That is a first. that is a first.
• 34:15
  Carly Ries: Yeah. I had to think about it for a second.
• 34:17
  Joe Rando: We hear some of these over and over again, but, that's a new one. Thank you.
• 34:21
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Well, Ashley, if you've inspired somebody listening today to be like, you know what? I'm gonna do it, but I want her help. I want her agency's help. Where can people find you?
• 34:30
  Ashley Stahl: Yeah. On my website, you just go to wisewhisperagency.com/speak, and we have an application to work with us. We're really intentional about who comes in. You can get an invitation to talk to my team, or wisewhisperagency.com/calendar. And you can just book a call.
• 34:49
  Carly Ries: Perfect. And those will be in our show notes. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. This was just so wonderful. And like I said, I think it'll be so helpful.
• 34:56
  Ashley Stahl: Yay. Thank you so much for the good feedback. And I nerd out on this all day, so it makes me really happy if it helps anyone. I'm here for any questions in my DMs too on Instagram.
• 35:07
  Carly Ries: Perfect. I'm Sure it will. And listeners, if you want to help other people listen to this, share this episode with a friend, leave us that five star review, shameless plug, but it really does help us get this word out to other solopreneurs. And subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, And we'll see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur.
• 35:28
  You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.