I’m not judging you…except when I am
I got to judge a debate tournament last weekend. It was fascinating—high school students discussed complex policy and legislative issues in much more detail than I could have. The debate took a specific format, with students alternating speeches in the affirmative and negative about the proposed legislation. Each student also stood for questioning when their …
Like-ability
Each Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok post is set up to collect “likes.” Let’s say you post something that you feel good about, maybe a photo of a hike you took along with a cute caption. You post it, and a few hours later, there are a few comments and likes. You notice, though, that another …
Tell me a story, then give me the facts.
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a conference where my team had coached a majority of the speakers. The conference was about a specific software solution for a particular industry, one that I don’t know anything about. As I arrived, someone we hadn’t coached was onstage, walking the audience of 300 people through …
The thing about vulnerability
When we are standing up in front of people giving a speech, we can feel very vulnerable. It’s natural—our adrenaline and cortisol often spike in those situations, just like they would if we were experiencing a physical threat. We react by protecting ourselves. Get small, be quiet, don’t put yourself out there, blend in, …
When to shut up.
Did you know that in professional theatre, the director is not allowed backstage after “half-hour,” the time the actors are called to be there for the show? Do you know why? Because that is the actors’ time to prepare for the show. Well-meaning but ill-timed directors are likely to want to tell them …
Three things that can derail your presentation, and how to avoid being derailed.
There are so many things that can go wrong when you’re giving a talk. Let’s look at just three: 1.) Your tech. The number one thing that throws speakers off their game is when the microphone or PowerPoint doesn’t work. 2.) The room isn’t what you expected. 3.) Your time is cut short. …
This is why you don’t want to practice.
Practice brings you face to face with how much work you still have to do. It’s easy to fool ourselves when we’re just thinking about the task ahead—“oh, it won’t be that bad, I’ll just run through this speech/clean out this closet/revise this report.” But once we dive in, we experience failure. The …
The paradox of the “confidence monitor”
When you give a speech at a conference that’s reasonably large, they’ll set up what’s called a “confidence monitor” for you. This monitor has your slides on it, and it’s positioned at the edge of the stage, facing you. So I want you to imagine this for a moment. You’re in the audience, and …
6 Tips for Creating a Speech You Can Remember (Without Memorizing)
Six tips for creating a speech you can remember without memorizing: Jot down the basic outline of your presentation on index cards, one per idea or topic. Compose your speech out loud. Don’t write it down first. As you find elements that work for you, you can make a note on an index card. …
5 Reasons Not to Memorize Your Speech Word for Word
We coach speakers every day. And every day, someone tells us, “I just feel more comfortable when I memorize. How else can I be sure I remembered everything?” This point of view lets us know that the speaker needs to change her intention. When the intention is, “To remember everything I wrote down,” it …
