983 Tricia Brouk:

Wings of Inspired Business Podcast EP983 – Host Melinda Wittstock interviews Tricia Brouk

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Tricia Brouk:

The transformation is belief in self. The transformation is understanding how to own the stage and deliver material on stage where you are in control of it. And because of the skill and the techniques that I teach all of my thought leaders and speakers, they become more confident, they become more impactful, and they realize that being an influential voice is not just standing on stage. Being an influential voice means making eye contact with the barista when you’re buying a coffee so that they feel seen by you. Being an influential voice means you understand when you’re sitting across the table from your kids or your partner that every single word that you say has the ability to elevate them or to diminish them. And so, the transformation is everyone that I come in contact with and who works with me moves from beyond ego nature to Buddha nature, and they realize that every single word they say is a responsibility. And that is our mission.

Melinda Wittstock:

At the end of the day, inspiring leadership comes down to our ability to communicate. It’s hard to achieve your dreams as an entrepreneur if you can’t communicate your vision in a way that can be easily understood and inspire aligned action. Tricia Brouk is a three-time entrepreneur and founder of The Big Talk Academy who helps high-performing professionals transform into industry thought leaders through authentic storytelling. Today we talk about mastering communication, building great team cultures, and purpose-driven impact.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m your host Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring three-time entrepreneur, author and award-winning director and producer who has put thousands of speakers onto big stages around the globe. Tricia Brouk founded The Big Talk Academy where she certifies speakers in the art of public speaking. She was the executive producer of Speakers Who Dare and TEDx Lincoln Square and is also the producer and host of The Big Talk, an award-winning podcast and YouTube Channel. She’s the author of two books, The Influential Voice: Saying What You Mean for Lasting Legacy and her latest, Being Smart is Stupid: Why Embracing the Wisdom of Your Buddha Nature Is the Secret to Great Leadership. Her work is featured on the award-winning documentary Big Stages is on Amazon Prime.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we talk about what it truly means to lead with wisdom, compassion, and authenticity, and challenge the long-held notion that “being smart” is the hallmark of great leadership. Tricia shares key insights from her latest book “Being Smart Is Stupid” including how kindness, gratitude, and conscious awareness are powerful tools for successful entrepreneurship.

Melinda Wittstock:

We also talk about why it’s time to rewrite the rules of leadership for women founders—and how embracing your intuition and empathy not only creates thriving company cultures, but also leads to tangible business success. You’ll hear actionable insights on transforming toxic workplace dynamics, building team loyalty, and the often-overlooked art of letting go. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Tricia Brouk.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Tricia, welcome to Wings.

Tricia Brouk:

Melinda, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, one of your latest books is really all about, well, you know, being stupid by being smart all the time. I think this is a really important lesson for women and men to learn that, as an entrepreneur, you know, it often pays actually to be the stupidest person in the room. Tell me what inspired you to, write this book?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, I think there’s a lot of leadership that has been inherited that is from smart people, and I think that a lot of smart people are actually stupid because they don’t see what their impact has as a leader. And you’re a serial entrepreneur, you’ve led 5 companies, I have 3 companies, and I did not go to business school. I am a former dancer. I learned how to lead by leading with kindness and consciousness and awareness. And kindness is part of ego nature. And pardon me, kindness is part of Buddha nature. And the leadership that we have inherited, mostly by men, from men, is ego nature. And I wanted to write a book that was contrarian to what most people think leadership needs to be.

Tricia Brouk:

And that’s why I titled it “Being Smart Is Stupid: Why Embracing the Wisdom of Your Buddha Nature Is the Secret to Great Leadership”. And it’s not a book about Buddhism; it’s a book about Eastern philosophy and my point of view as a leader who runs 3 companies who did not go to business school. So, if I can teach people how to think differently about leadership and stop inheriting the leadership that’s not working, it is one of the, hopefully one of the impacts that I can have and the legacies that I’ll leave behind.

Melinda Wittstock:

One of the things about entrepreneurship is that you write your own rules. You don’t have to abide by the old ego-driven masculine ‘Art of War’ business school theory. You really can, especially as a woman, change the game. And yet, it feels like there’s more of a permission structure for that now. Do you think women are leaning into this a lot more than before or still trying to squeeze ourselves into these old paradigms?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, I don’t really spend time with women who are trying to squeeze themselves into old paradigms. I spend time with women like you and the women who are on your show and the women who are in my community. And as leaders, it’s our responsibility to model what is possible so that we can give other women permission to make up their own rules, to make the decision of how to lead that’s in alignment with their values and how to stop thinking they need to lead like men or like everyone else. And you’re absolutely right, we can make up our own rules. And you know this, when you’re an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, many times you have a team of consultants who can go anywhere, anytime. They’re not beholden to you. Hopefully they’re bought into the mission, but if a better gig comes up, they’re gonna go. And part of being a truly wise leader is knowing how to lead in a way where those team members want to stay with you, and they want to elevate and amplify the mission that they believe in because of your leadership.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So where in all of that do we get too smart for our own good? Is that purely the ego thing, or are there other aspects to that?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, the, the difference between smart and intelligence is that you are not thinking about the effect you’re having on other people. You don’t understand oneness, which is how we’re all connected. You are not clear on the importance of discernment or getting still when it comes to decision making. You think that sleeping 3 hours a night is a good thing, or the grind is a good thing. That is the smart leader. The wise leader understands that every decision they make has a ripple effect. The wise leader understands that they need to be well-rested to make important decisions. The wise leader is not going to send a rage text or a mean email.

Tricia Brouk:

They’re going to get still and think about their actions. And that’s the difference that I’m trying to get to, is that there’s a lot of smart people out there leading companies and leading teams, but it doesn’t mean that they are wise. And when they’re smart and they’re leading from ego nature— what’s the bottom line? How’s this going to help me? I don’t care about my employees because I only care about the bottom line— that’s not wise leadership because the ripple effect of those actions go way beyond what they can see because they’re only thinking about right now. Mm-hmm.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, exactly. So, Tricia, what you’re saying I think is really profound, because when we’re actually in our intuition, leveraging empathy, and you mentioned kindness, you mentioned all these different things, right? We’re more likely to, I don’t know, attract and enroll the team members, the customers, the clients, the investors, or whatnot that are aligned with that vision. And it just makes creating and running a business a lot more enjoyable.

Tricia Brouk:

And this whole concept that being kind is being weak or soft, that is absolutely not the case. And I’ll give you specific data. In the chapter, “Embodying Gratitude,” I really talk about what it means to embody gratitude. And this doesn’t mean saying, “Hey, thanks for whatever,” or sending a simple email. It means embodying gratitude, going above and beyond when you’re showing how grateful you are for a team member. For example, Indra Nooyi, who’s the former CEO of PepsiCo, she was the first woman to ever be the CEO of PepsiCo. And in 2006, she was hired to take on this role. So, she went to India to spend time with her family before she knew she was gonna become very busy and unable to travel.

Tricia Brouk:

And she was sitting in the living room with her family and Everybody walked into their home right past Indra to her parents and said, thank you so much for creating such a, a powerful, beautiful daughter. She’s the CEO of PepsiCo. And that stuck with her. So, in her tenure at PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018, she wrote 400 thank you notes to the executive’s parents. And she had a 75% approval rating, and she took the company from $2.7 billion to $6.5 billion net profit in that period of time. That is something you cannot deny. And she did that because she embodied gratitude. That’s wise leadership, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what did those letters say? That’s so curious to me.

Tricia Brouk:

Thank you for creating such a wonderful son or daughter. They’ve been an incredible part of our community. She thanked the parents for making amazing humans.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. How lovely is that? When we give from that place of abundance and gratitude, there’s so much that comes from that. But I think in business sometimes we can get so stuck in like, oh, I don’t know, just the speed and the race to hit milestones and the numbers and all that kind of stuff that we forget to be human.

Tricia Brouk:

We forget to be human. We forget that we’re all connected. We forget, using your word, abundance, that there is more than enough for everyone. And that’s partly why this podcast is so important, is that you’re reminding everyone that we need to support one another. And when we support one another and we lift each other up and we are, you know, support each other’s wings, that that we’re all going to benefit from that. And I think that that’s part of the beauty behind these conversations that you’re having with women in business is that how can everyone listening to this podcast benefit from all the stories the women are sharing and not compete with one another, but celebrate one another?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Now we see the impacts of this quote unquote intelligent leadership. I mean, we’ve talked about it being ego-driven. It can be very left-brained, very analytical at the expense of the intuitive and the more creative and empathetic. And the impact that we see around that; there was a lot of press around quiet quitting some time ago, right? Money and perks and ping pong tables aren’t enough, right? And so, this obviously is hitting business bottom line. So, there’s an opportunity to do things very, very differently, and especially for women. So, what would be your main advice, Tricia, for say a pretty early-stage startup that’s creating that culture right from the get-go.

Melinda Wittstock:

What are some of the ‘dos’ and ‘don’t dos’ to get this alignment right? 

Tricia Brouk:

Well, the first thing I would say is you as a leader need to take responsibility for yourself always and apologize for the things that you do that are mistakes or that potentially could offend or hurt someone in your company, on your team. That’s something that is going to teach everyone that you sunshine mistakes and that you are not afraid to take responsibility for something that you have done that could potentially have affected someone else. And allowing everyone’s voice to be part of the conversation. Those are the first and most important things, because when you lead in that way, then you give everyone permission to, A, not be afraid all the time if they’re making a mistake that they’re going to lose their job And B, that mistakes are learning experiences for everyone. And then specifically inside of the book, as a leader, knowing that you are, you are who everyone looks to for how they should behave. And if you are getting still and thinking about how you make decisions before you just act, and make them, then they will do that too. And you’ve just given them agency. So, they’re going to think about, how can I solve this problem before they come to you or before they ask another team member? So, all of a sudden, you’re becoming— your team is becoming more efficient because you’re teaching them how to get still and how to find the answers.

[PROMO CREDIT]

Wings of Inspired Business is brought to you by the podcast, Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets where Steve Little – serial entrepreneur, investor and mergers & acquisitions maestro – shares the little-known 24 value drivers that spell the difference between a $5m business, and a $50mm even $500 mm business. It always pays to understand what’s driving the underlying enterprise value of your business. So, check out Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets at zerolimitsradio.com – that’s zerolimitsradio.com and available wherever you get your podcasts. More information about valuation growth at Zero Limits Ventures.com

Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Tricia Brouk, 3-time entrepreneur, founder of The Big Talk Academy and author of Being Smart is Stupid: Why Embracing the Wisdom of Your Buddha Nature Is the Secret to Great Leadership.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Tricia Brouk:

And then going back to Indra, embodying gratitude, making sure that everyone on your team knows how much you appreciate them and that everything that they do is connected to the mission. And then something that I think is really important that founders and CEOs forget is the whole concept of impermanence. And this is specifically a chapter in the book, and it’s also very much grounded in the Buddha, the Buddhist philosophy that I practice. And I practice it not only in my personal life, but also in business and specifically in business. When you practice impermanence, what that means is, you know, that no matter how much you love your team and how devoted and committed they are to you, they’re not gonna be with you forever. They might decide to move, get married, have a baby, whatever it is they decide to do that’s gonna change what they’re focused on. And so you need, as a founder, as a— you need as a founder or a business owner to make sure that you have a plan so that— and processes and systems in place so that when they move on, you are not out of luck, that you’re not struggling, you’re not challenged in that moment. I love my team.

Tricia Brouk:

I have the best team. Many of them have been with me for over 5 years. The longest someone’s been with me was when I founded the company almost 8 years ago, and it will be challenging when and if they move on. However, I’m very conscious of the fact that I have the systems and processes in place that I could bring a completely new person on tomorrow and the business would keep running.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, business is about people. We’re all connected. It’s not an analytical function. Yes, we can analyze different things. We can watch our numbers. We can do all those sorts of things.

Melinda Wittstock:

But at the end of the day, it comes down to people. So, I want to ask the question from a different perspective, which is, say for instance, you are running a company that has actually really suffered from what’s become a toxic culture because everyone’s being kind of stupid in their intelligence, right? As we’ve sort of defined here. How to turn the ship around? What are some things that can be done when a culture is really entrenched? Like, say you have a large team and that’s a little bit harder. How do you go about that?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, I would say if you’ve got a toxic culture, take a look at where it started. And it’s usually 1 or 2 people that you’re afraid of letting go of. Because you are not practicing detachment and you think that if you replace them, you’re not going to have the kind of success you’re having. So, you’re actually in a mindset of fear when you know if you get still and you think about it from a really clear Buddha nature and not ego nature, that you need to let those people go. And when you do, it’s very important that you have a conversation with your team on why you let them go, because they need to know that your environment is a safe place. And trust me, if you’ve got 1 or 2 team members who are creating a toxic culture, everyone else on the team is leading— they’re, they’re in fear, they’re in reactive mode. There are— they don’t trust you, they don’t believe in you as a leader because you’re allowing this to happen. I would say if there is a situation that you’re in right now and you’ve allowed your team and your company to move into a culture that is toxic, it is your job as the leader to remove the toxicity and to practice detachment.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you’ve founded 3 businesses over the years. You know, in your own businesses, Tricia, did you ever have to confront this? I think women in particular, like, we can fall into the trap of just kind of wanting to be nice or like people pleasing everybody. So not making those decisions that need to be made. Like if you need to fire like a toxic person because it’s dragging your whole company down, I’ve seen lots of women wait too long. So, there’s like afraid of taking that kind of action. Did you ever experience anything like that in your own company? Or, you know, tell me a little bit about the learnings of the actual block and tackle of entrepreneurship that shaped your, your you know, your epiphanies around all of this?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, two parts to this answer, Melinda. One is that as a former dancer, I am set up for this. I am built to be an entrepreneur because part of being a professional dancer means I have discipline, I have grit, and I have a high-risk tolerance. And so that has set me up to be a very successful entrepreneur in terms of the day-to-day. And I would say that the letting go of a team member who is toxic or who is not doing their job is far easier than letting go of a team member who you love. And I have done both. And I would say that letting go of a team member who I know is not the right fit, who is also not the right fit for the other team members, That was difficult because I did not want to lose trust with my team. They, they were on board with a year with me for a year when I worked with this person, this team member, and we had a lot of goals, and they weren’t meeting their goals.

Tricia Brouk:

And my team was seeing us not meet our goals and I was still working with this team member. And so, the concern there was, have I lost the trust of my team?. And by letting that person go, I then needed to go to my team and say, this didn’t work. I want to promise you all that this isn’t going to happen again, and you can count on me to not be put in this position again. And I didn’t put them in that position again, and now I have their trust. Letting go of a team member that everyone loved that I also loved, was excruciating. Because I had to make the decision based on data.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. I remember years ago in one of my earlier companies, I had an executive team member that was— what’s the best way to describe it? He was sort of meh, you know, like, um, not great. But not bad, not rising to the level of actually toxic or having done something that would rise to the level of, you know, like, you know, firing that person right away. And I remember it was sort of bothering me because I felt like something was just off. Like, I just felt something in my bones. Things just weren’t going as well. Things didn’t flow as well in the company as before. And I remember my flight was delayed and I was standing in Boston Logan Airport. And I opened up an HBR and I just like was flicking through the pages and landed on a page where it was talking about exactly this type of employee, right? It was in the context of an A player, B player, C player, D player. And it really convinced me in that moment that I had to come back and let this person go. And I was so afraid of it. I was like, oh, everyone’s going to hate me. I’m gonna seem like, like, you know, the B word. 

Melinda Wittstock:

But I knew I had to do it. And I did it. And then I was so surprised because every single person in the office came to me and thanked me. Yeah. And I hadn’t even known the extent, like, because sometimes you’re a little bit disconnected. You’re sitting there as you’re the CEO, you’re busy with a lot of things, things on the surface seem fine. People aren’t necessarily telling you everything you need to know, you know. And it was just, it was such an important lesson of like when to be uncompromising in terms of, you know, making sure that you’re surrounding yourself with the very best people.

Melinda Wittstock:

And like, to your point, I think it was so evocative. It’s just much more painful to let go or say goodbye to somebody that you really value.

Tricia Brouk:

And imagine if you had kept that person around, the other team members eventually would have left you because they didn’t feel like they could come to you, because that’s an awkward position to be put in. And so, it’s your job as a leader to be mindful of what’s going on, uh, energetically with everyone. Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

It was a very good lesson. So, I want to talk to you a little bit about your dance, because I think, and how that set you up for entrepreneurship, because I grew up as a figure skater, but also doing ballet. I went to the National Ballet School of Canada. Ultimately at age 10, they looked at me and said, you’re too tall. But by all means, carry on with your figure skating. But the diagnosis from the ballet was, yeah, correct. I’m too tall to be a figure skater.

Melinda Wittstock:

And ultimately, my knees didn’t make it past 15 and national level competition. But I am so grateful for all of that background because that also has made— I credit that with making me a really great entrepreneur. Like just the grit, falling on hard ice all the time, getting back up again, doing it, making it look pretty, just over and over again. So, I’m curious how you ended up as an entrepreneur. I mean, what was the spark? I understand that background really helps you to succeed in entrepreneurship, but what was the spark that led you to create your first business?

Tricia Brouk:

Well, I moved to New York City to pursue my career as a professional dancer when I was 20, and I got a job waiting tables. It’s very like, you know, fame cliché, but that’s what we did. And I realized that it was very hard on my body to be on my feet until 11 PM and I would get up at 9 and go to dance class at 10 AM and then audition all day. And a friend of mine said, you know, I’m a personal trainer. I get to charge what I want, and I go to people’s homes, and I make my own hours. And I thought, well, I want to do that. I had zero fitness background. So, I went to New York Health and Racquet, and I applied to be a trainer.

Tricia Brouk:

And they said, well, you don’t have any experience doing this. And I said, yeah, but I’m a dancer and I know all about the body. So, I’m going to ask, give me 1 hour to learn how to use the machines. And in 1 hour I’m gonna, I’m gonna come out and train you. And if I’m, if I do a good job, you’ll hire me. And if, if you don’t think I did a good job, then, then we’ll part ways. And so, in an hour I taught myself how to use all the machines. I trained the manager and she hired me.

Tricia Brouk:

I was making $6 an hour at New York Health and Racquet as a gym floor manager, which meant I essentially monitored the treadmills. So, and This was during, you know, between 5 and 8 when everybody after work was going to the gym. So, I had to tell people they only had 20 minutes on the treadmill. It was a horrible job. However, um, it got me certified. I learned how to be a fitness professional, and then I founded Brooke Moves, which is my fitness company that still exists. So, I was training and realized that I started going on tour with companies— Lucinda Childs, big dance theater. And I thought, okay, I’m going to hire trainers to train my clients while I’m on the road.

Tricia Brouk:

And that was game-changing because I had income coming in. I also ran my company the way I wanted to be treated when I was working at a gym. And what I mean by that, Melinda, is as a trainer, when you’re working at a gym, they make you sub out. So, if you need time off, you have to find a sub for the client. Well, I didn’t want that to happen for my trainers, so they’re all in the performing arts or in the dance business. So, I said to all of them, you’re a Rockette and you take 3 months off during the holidays to kick. I’m gonna sub you out, and when you’re done with Radio City, you come back and you still have all those clients. And because I did that, all of my trainers always subbed for each other.

Tricia Brouk:

I never had a problem finding subs. So that was my first company, Brooke Moves. It’s my fitness company.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that you use the empathy that we’ve been talking about to actually create just a much more productive culture, an empathetic culture where the team is really showing up for each other. And that ultimately translates to the bottom line. So, you move from that business to helping a lot of high-performing professionals really become industry thought leaders through storytelling. You help a lot of people master public speaking and such. What was the spark that led you there?

Tricia Brouk:

A friend of mine asked me to direct her TED Talk. She’d seen all the work that I was directing and producing, and I thought, okay, that’ll be fun. It’ll be just like a one-woman show. And I worked with her on script analysis and choreography and blocking and performance, and that was it. And then she planted the seed. I wasn’t thinking about it at all, and she said, you know, you’re really good at helping people communicate effectively, you should do this. And I thought, well, that’s interesting, and started looking into it. And that’s when I founded The Big Talk, my second company, and realized that I would be able to really leave a lasting legacy And this is part of my first book, The Influential Voice, by supporting thought leaders in how to communicate their thoughts and their points of view for impact.

Tricia Brouk:

And that kind of ripple effect is really important to me because I chose not to have children. I’m childfree by choice, but I also want to leave a legacy behind. And by supporting thinkers, thought leaders, influential voices in sharing their powerful message with the world, that’s the ripple effect, and that’s the legacy I can leave behind.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. So, tell me a little bit about Big Talk Academy.

Tricia Brouk:

The Big Talk Academy is my signature program where I support thought leaders in ideating their big ideas, learning how to write their talks through my point of view, which is film, television, and theater script analysis, arc, narrative throughline. I teach them how to perform just like I work with my actors. I am really a director. I’m not a speaker coach. Coach. That’s what many people, I would say, make the mistake of thinking. I’m a speaker coach. I’m, I’m a director and I work with speakers.

Tricia Brouk:

I’m a mentor and I work with thought leaders. I’ve got a bunch of speakers coming into New York next week to work on stage with me at the Triad Theater, and I really, I give them direction just like I give actors direction when I’m working on a play or a musical. And the Big Talk Academy is our signature program where you get to work with me on the art of the big talk craft and really take your speaking from being good to being great.

Melinda Wittstock:

You mentioned that you’re— so I want to understand this a little bit better. You mentioned that you’re a producer, so you’re helping people go from good to great, as it were. But you’re not a speaker coach. So, tell me the difference there.

Tricia Brouk:

Well, the difference is there’s a million speaker coaches out there who can teach you their version of what it means to speak. I work from intention, objective, and action. I have been in film, television, and theater my entire career, so I see the art of speaking and communicating the exact same way I see the actor performing on stage. And I’m not saying you become someone else. I’m saying that there’s an art form behind this, and when you understand the skill of how to communicate authentically and you understand how to masterfully perform that skill on stage, you can have more impact. That’s the difference. Now, if you were to ask my team the importance of SEO, they’re going to say using speaker coach is important for people to find you, and I will give them that. However, I don’t consider myself a speaking coach.

Tricia Brouk:

It’s much deeper. The work that I do is much deeper.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, there’s so much stagecraft, and I suppose there’s, there’s a lot there. Give me a sense of the transformation you, you see in people. I mean, you mentioned you’ve worked with, you know, actors, you’ve worked with, uh, you know, executives. Um, what’s the before and after?

Tricia Brouk:

The transformation is belief in self. The transformation is under— understanding the skill of how to craft a powerful talk. The transformation is understanding how to own the stage and deliver material on stage where you are in control of it. And because of the skill and the techniques that I teach all of my thought leaders and speakers, they become more confident, they become more impactful, and they realize that being an influential voice is not just standing on stage. Being an influential voice means making eye contact with the barista when you’re buying a coffee so that they feel seen by you. Being an influential voice means you understand when you’re sitting across the table from your kids or your partner that every single word that you say has the ability to elevate them or to diminish them. And so, the transformation is everyone that I come in contact with and who works with me moves from beyond ego nature to Buddha nature, and they realize that every single word they say is a responsibility. And that is our mission.

Tricia Brouk:

It’s to unite humanity through speech.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s beautiful, to unite humanity through speech. I think we often don’t take as much responsibility for our words. I think people think out loud or they don’t necessarily, not necessarily conscious of the impact of their words generally, just whether they’re speaking on a stage or just day to day or just in a meeting. I imagine this work helps people generally, like, not just on the big stage.

Tricia Brouk:

It helps people tremendously. And I have an example. One of our community members, one of my one-on-one clients, she’s a litigation attorney. And in addition to having a second company where she helps people transform from trauma, she’s still a practicing litigation attorney. And our work has enabled her to close deals for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like, she closes million-dollar deals and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in those deals.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing, right? It’s like conscious communications.

Tricia Brouk:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is wonderful. So how can people work with you, Tricia, that, um, really want to learn? This is such a valuable skill.

Tricia Brouk:

Thank you. Well, you can certainly grab my book at beingsmartastupid.com. You can also grab The Influential Voice at theinfluentialvoicebook.com. Uh, you can watch, um, the documentary about my work on Amazon Prime called Big Stages. You can find me at trishabrooke.com. And I would love to offer your listeners, um, access to a complimentary workshop that I teach every single month. It is me teaching. It is not pre-recorded.

Tricia Brouk:

It is live. It is 1 hour. It’s a new topic every single month on the art of speaking. And that is trishabrooke.com/workshops.

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay. That’s a one general workshops. That’s a wonderful and generous offer. Thank you very, very much. And that’s every month. And people can just go to trishabrooke.com/workshops.

Tricia Brouk:

Yep. And you can register. It’s completely free. It’s a new topic every single month. And I would love to see you there.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Tricia Brouk:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Melinda. 

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Tricia Brouk is a 3-time entrepreneur, founder of The Big Talk Academy, author of Being Smart is Stupid: Why Embracing the Wisdom of Your Buddha Nature Is the Secret to Great Leadership, and the producer and host of The Big Talk, an award-winning podcast and YouTube Channel.

Melinda Wittstock:

Please take a moment to give us a five-star rating and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify—it helps more entrepreneurs like you find the secret sauce to support and grow their businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show. When you subscribe, you’ll instantly get my special gift, the WINGS Success Formula. Women … Innovating … Networking … Growing …Scaling … IS the WINGS of Inspired Business Formula …for daily success in your business and life. Miss a Wings episode? We’ve got hundreds in the vault, all with actionable advice and epiphanies. Check them out at MelindaWittstock.com or wingspodcast.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn or Instagram @MelindaAnneWittstock. We also love it when you share your feedback with a 5-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify or wherever else you listen, including Podopolo where you can interact with me and share your favorite clips.