October 22nd, 2019
Here’s a little pop quiz: You have a presentation to give. The date is on the calendar and getting closer. You sit down to work on your talk. What’s the first thing you do?
A. Go to the kitchen and eat some potato chips, then see that the garbage needs to be taken out but on your way outside you notice the pile of laundry you had started earlier which you decide to throw in the washing machine, which is by the window, which looks out onto the garden, and then you find yourself out in the garden weeding for the rest of the day. Did you say presentation?
B. Open up PowerPoint and start building your slide deck
C. Pull out your pad of sticky notes and put a big piece of chart paper up to start brainstorming ideas & stories.
D. Take a walk and start walking your talk
What’s your preferred method of beginning?
I’m gonna vote for C or D as the most effective ways to begin. I’ve certainly started enough talks with the A method, and they turn out OK. I suspect the idea is still in there stewing and cooking even when I’m letting my squirrel mind follow every impulse.
The only one I’m voting a hard no for is B.
If you plan to use slides (we’ll get to the whether or not later) please please please don’t start there.
When that’s clear, then you can decide whether or not slides will support your message.
Let’s take a step back and look at some key points to consider when you’re determining whether or not to use slides.
Then, if you DO choose to use slides, we’ll take a look at how to make your slides visually interesting and supportive of your idea rather than distracting from your idea.
For years I didn’t use slides, and still only use them sometimes. When I’m working with new speakers, I encourage them not to use them at all to start.
So many new speakers use slides as a crutch, as notes for you to follow. The clicker becomes your safety net, and the slides end up being a thin (or thick) veneer between you and your audience.
If something goes wrong with technology, you’re doomed.
Plus, as a new speaker, you want to get solid practice connecting with your audience without the crutch of a slide AT ALL. Feeling all the feels that come with speaking. Owning the stage AS YOU, not as someone who advances slides and regurgitates what’s on the slide.
YOU showing up fully, delivering a clear message, connecting with your audience is WAY more important than spending hours building fancy slides, so put your efforts there. When you’ve got that dialed in, then we can talk about slides.
Keep it simple. No more than 10 words per slide. Yep. No more than 10. Sometimes just 1 or 2. A key idea. A word you want me to remember. I’m listening to you, so I want to be able to glance at the slide and get the big picture idea of what you’re talking about.
Give your audience time to process what’s on the slide. First of all, see point 1 above. But if you insist on having more than 10 words on a slide, then you’re gonna have to give me time to read & process all that information.
I can’t read it AND listen to you at the same time, which means there’s a good chance I’m gonna tune you out for a minute and read what’s on the slide.
Here’s a great way to gauge if there’s too much info on the slide: If Stop talking, and give me in the audience time to read the slide. If you find yourself standing there waiting way too long, this could be a signal that there’s too much information on the slide. You need to kill your darlings and boil it down to its essence.
Use images to paint a visual picture. One of the great things that slides do provide is another way for our brain to relate to the information. So rather than filling your slides with notes from what you’re saying, ask yourself “What can my slide say that I’m not saying?” A picture can paint a thousand words, so what’s the picture that paints an image of your idea?
Use slides the way you use vocal dynamics. When I teach vocal dynamics in Speaker’s Playground, I talk about how the dynamics of your voice communicates to your audience what’s important, what to listen to, when to soften my heart, when to wake up my brain. Your dynamics lead the way of my attention. Slides serve the same purpose. Your slides aren’t just a collection of information you’re going to read off to me, but they communicate what’s important. They tell me how to listen.
It’s OK to repeat a slide. Not only OK, but super effective. Any time you return to the Big Idea, or the Genie Gem as I like to call it, you can return to the same slide. The audience has seen it before. Our brains like to see things again. It helps us remember what we’re learning. It communicates that what we’re seeing is really important. It sinks the idea in even deeper so that ONE THING you want us to remember, we actually remember.
“But my audience wants me to share my slides with them so it’s gotta have all the info!” It’s great that you have valuable info that your audience will want access to after your presentation. But the slides you share with your audience afterwards don’t have to be the same slides you use for your presentation. You can have an expanded version of your slides to share, and an essential version you use for your talk. That way your slides support your talk while you’re giving it, and your audience still gets all the info they need afterwards.
“But I use my slides to help me remember what I’m saying!” I get it. When I use slides, they help keep me on track, too. But it’s the key ideas on the slides that keep me on track. I’m not reading my talk off of the slides. If you need that level of detail on your slides just to remember what you’re saying, then my diagnosis is that you haven’t spent enough time practicing. Let the big idea of the slide point you to where you need to go in the big map of your talk. But beyond that, learn what you want to say about the key ideas so it’s in your bones, not on the slides.
Don’t compete with your slides. It’s ok to pause and gesture towards the slide and tell me to bring my attention to the slide. That will give you a break in delivering and your audience a break in processing. It will also communicate the value of what’s on the slide, which sends a message that it’s not just filler, but something truly worthy of my attention. If you’re making a key point in your talk, let your slides go black. That also sends a message that you want ALL of my attention on you for this central point.
Always have a back up. You never know when technology is gonna go kaput on you and leave you without any access to your slides. Your job is to stay relaxed, and continue rolling in your talk, delivering value and connecting with your audience. Have note cards available, or a white board, so that you can seamlessly move through the minor obstacle without freaking out. And keep doing your job of delivering value.
Remember, you’re building a relationship. Whether your goal is to make a sale, get an investor, or change the mind of your audience, you need to build a relationship to get that yes.
YOU come before the slides in that relationship, so be sure that you put YOURSELF front and center, and create slides that enhance and clarify the idea you’re communicating.
And always remember it’s absolutely okay NOT to use slides. Connection first. Slides second. If your slides don’t make your presentation stronger, then don’t use them. Your presence is way more important.
How about you? Do you use slides? Love em or hate em?
October 7th, 2019
At the National Speakers Association “Influence 2019” conference for professional speakers this July, I discovered a t-shirt that read: “Your greatest fear is how I make a living.” I knew I had to buy one. I wore it the next time I flew and was amazed by what a conversation starter it was.
Lucky for me I love to listen. (Truly I do!)
I used to have big public speaking fear. But the truth is — and in these and other conversations I’ve learned this is true for a lot of people — it wasn’t as much fear of public speaking as it was a host of other fears that tend to rear their heads to the surface when someone decides to step out and speak.
Fear of being seen.
Fear of making a mistake.
Fear of getting it wrong.
Fear of other people’s judgement.
Fear of people finding out I’m an imposter.
Fear of going blank.
Fear of embarrassing myself.
Fear of saying something stupid.
Fear of not being funny enough.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of what others will think
Fear of not making any sales
Fear of falling off the stage.
You get the idea. The list goes on and on.
You may know that I’ve been co-hosting and co-producing a story slam called Truth Be Told for the last seven years. You may also know that Truth Be Told has ended and I’m now hosting Boulder’s Story Slam solo.
Except it’s not solo — I’m partnering with The Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, and I have a crew of helpers to make it happen. (If you want to get on the mailing list to hear more about the next slam, click here)
The first slam of the new chapter was a couple of weeks ago. I co-hosted it with my brother, Hal Walker, who flew in from Ohio, and it was fantastic!
But here’s the thing. I WAS SCARED! I’ve produced and hosted the slam with a partner for all these years, and we had a particular groove going, and THIS BIG CHANGE brought up a host of haven’t-felt-that-in-a-while fears.
Which I took as a good sign that I was doing something worthy of doing, and something that would take me right to my edge.
That it did. I won’t go into all the ways it took me to my edge, but I will tell you that having done it, I’m stronger. Less scared. More connected to my truth. More connected to my power.
It’s on hallmark cards and fridge magnets and bumper stickers all over the place, but doing something you see on an inspirational bumper sticker is usually WAY harder to do than the bumper sticker might lead you to believe.
AND doing it is the only way to go.
OK not true. NOT DOING IT is a fine choice, but I promise that if you do it, those fears will have nothing on you. That’s how you’ll get traction. That’s how you’ll make contact with the powerful speaker, leader and change-maker that you are.
When you’re public speaking, you’re putting yourself out there. You’re claiming your authority. You’re opening yourself up to other people’s judgement and disappointment. You’re risking humiliation and embarrassment.
Yikes! But still we do it anyway!
It’s true. I have historically been “bad” at practicing (in other words, I have been much more of a procrastinator than a practicer). Which means, I honed the skill of improvisation and thinking on my feet. It worked out well enough, but I don’t recommend it. Here’s why:
Now I am a procrastinator turned practicer and it makes a world of difference. It does wonders for any lurking fears that want to wrestle me down. When I’m uber-confident in the content, then I get to show up and really work the room. Which is way more fun than frantically re-writing my talk in the bathroom only moments before I’m on. (yes, it’s happened. I don’t recommend it)
One of my favorite ways to practice is to record myself giving my talk then listen to the recording a whole bunch of times. Yes it can be kind of ouchy — hearing yourself talk is hard for a lot of people, because you hear all the flubs and neuroses in your voice.
But it will give you so much information! It will help you learn the talk, plus you’ll get to hear where you fall flat, where you repeat yourself, where your voice drags. I’m a reformed practicer and I LOVE this method of practicing. It takes lots of time, indeed, and it’s time very well spent. (Here’s a link to a short video I made with other tips for rehearsing)
If there’s a tape in your head that sounds something like “You idiot. Why did you say yes to this?” or “You thought you could get on stage and speak?! Ha! That’s a joke.” Or “When are you gonna learn that you do not belong on this stage. You’re an imposter. The crowd will catch you and humiliate you any minute now.”
But as I always say, we get good at what we practice. What we practice we get good at. So flip the switch and change the recording. “It’s fun to be me” is a good one. Or “You’re gonna love this!” Start practicing THOSE stories and you’ll suffocate the stories motivated by fear.
Often when the fear creeps in, it looks like wobbly knees, nauseous belly, shaky voice, racing heart. It shows up as physical manifestations of fear. Your body tells your mind “We’re f***ed!” and then your mind gets on a racetrack to oblivion with that story. Which of course feeds your body, so the nerves get worse. Your body feeds your mind feeds your body and you can’t show up and connect with your audience when THAT’s happening.
This is when the practice of dropping the story and simply paying attention to the sensation can change everything. Track the sensation with no story, so judgement, no problem. “There’s my belly doing flips. That’s an interesting sensation. I’ve felt that a time or two before. And my face feels hot. And my throat feels a little tight.” No drama, just tracking. Then you can connect to your feet on the ground, your breath, this moment.
(I have an audio recording that walks you through this practice. You can listen to it HERE.)
This is one of the rules of Speaker’s Playground. Your curiosity is your best teacher. So whatever’s happening, however you perceive that you’re doing, whatever sensation is present, always stay curious.
There’s no problem. There’s nothing that needs fixing. Your body is doing what it needs to do to take this big risk, so it’s doing just the right thing.
Say thank you and keep moving forward.
When you stay curious about your body’s wisdom, that’s when things start to change. You and your nerves start to be on the same team, not against each other. And that always helps things go better.
Yes, breathe. And then breathe again. And breathe again. With presence. With mindfulness. With your feet on the ground. With your heart open.
You can’t speak without breath. You can’t live without breath. In fact, the quickest way to the grave is to stop breathing, which means the quickest way to more vitality is to breath more fully, more embodied, more joyfully. Turns out the breath can help scoop up the nerves and turn them into vocal power.
That’s a start! I’m always discovering new ways to make friends with your fear. So stay tuned.
What’s your best way to befriend your fear? Leave it in the comments below
September 19th, 2019
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about stories, and what makes a story great. I’ve listened, I’ve watched, I’ve told stories myself — and have figured out one or two things about what makes a story spine-tingling.
It’s not (necessarily) about some big major traumatic event in your life.
It’s not a string of events leading to an end.
It’s not about achieving perfection.
It’s not about finessing it so it applies to everyone who might hear.
It’s not about spectacle or fanfare.
I’m laying out some of the secrets here for you right here:
I’ve got more tips where those came from, but I’’ll stop at 10. I don’t want to overwhelm you. Leave a comment to let me know if these were helpful for you!
Johanna
September 3rd, 2019
Last week in Speaker’s Playground, we shared what the big vision was for each of us. If you got that speaking thing totally dialed in, and the nerves or the fear or the heebie jeebies or the running & hiding was more like a little fly you got to flick off your shoulder rather than a mighty moat with fire-breathing dragons you had to slay, what would be possible? What’s the big vision?
These visions were great to hear — being able to tell a story with ease any time I want, sharing my ideas on a stage of 2000 people with confidence and joy, just being comfortable in my skin any time I talk.
I shared that mine USED TO be giving a TEDx talk. And last year I gave that TEDx talk.
I got to thinking what got me there, how that talk came to life. And I want to share some of the how with you. It’s sort of magical and awesome.
The short version is Action begets clarity begets action begets clarity…. and so forth and so forth.
First, I named it
Maybe this is a combo of action and clarity. Action is the “saying it” part. Clarity is the “knowing it’s gonna happen” part.
So I said I wanted to give a TEDx talk. I said this was the year. Honestly, when I said it, I didn’t believe it. I thought “yeah yeah yeah whatever. That whole visioning thing. Psssht.”
And I had no idea what the talk was going to be about. I just knew I had one in me.
But I discovered that naming it matters. I could tell in the circle last night that NAMING THE THING YOU WANT actually makes it real.
I don’t know much about how brains work. I’m no neuroscientist. But I do believe naming it makes your brain say, “OK, let’s do it.”
If it stays lurking in the gray area as just a vague, unnamed sense of something that might happen one day down the road, then, well, you know what will happen to that vague unnamed feeling, don’t you?
Second, I applied for a 5 minute pitch contest to win a 20 minute slot on a conference stage.
I didn’t even know this action was a stepping stone to my TEDx talk, but it sure was.
Speakers were invited to make a short video articulating their message and why they should be invited to speak for 5 minutes on this stage.
The winner of the 5 minute pitch contest would get invited to the stage to give a 20 minute talk at the main event later that year, and I thought winning would be great. I love winning.
I didn’t know what I would talk about, but I knew I needed to be on the 5 minute pitch stage.
I knew it would be something about body and voice and story. So in my short video I talked about bodies and voices and stories, how they go together and how much freeing them matters. I talked about the violence we do against our own bodies (and therefore our voices) by hating them and shaming on them.
And I thought “Hmmm. There could be a talk in there.”
See? I took action and found
And they picked me! I got to give the 5 minute talk!
Which meant, THIRD, I had to CREATE the 5 minute talk.
And when you have a date on the calendar when you’re gonna get up on stage and give a talk, you better believe you will figure out which words to say.
I gnashed and I clawed and I rode my bike around talking to myself and I talked into my voice recorder and I squeezed the essence of my still-slightly-vague-but-getting-clearer-by-the-minute idea into 5 minutes.
Even when I had thoughts like “This is not a talk” or “I have no idea what I’m saying” or “This is just weird. People will think I’m weird.”
Fourth, I gave the talk — with confidence.
It landed. It resonated. I felt the audience with me. I felt my own body & voice rise to the occasion and own the room and stand in my story with confidence.
The action was not only giving the talk, but giving it with confidence. Deciding to stand in my voice & my ideas & my body without apology.
I didn’t win. That’s cool. I gave the talk. I did the thing I wasn’t sure I was gonna be able to pull off. I know it landed. I know people were touched by my story and my ideas.
I had another opportunity to give a talk that spring — a 15 minute talk at a private event. “This will be a great opportunity to hone my idea” I thought, and indeed it was.
I gave the talk. (I took ACTION)
I felt myself on fire! (The CLARITY was doing its work on me)
After giving that talk, I had that sneaky little thought thought again, but this time it wasn’t so sneaky.
“This is my TEDx talk! There’s something here! I really DO have a TEDx talk inside me! Let’s do this!”
With that kind of CLARITY, I could do anything, and was definitely ready to take the next step and apply for TEDx.
In writing the application, I found even more CLARITY.
When I got invited to speak at TEDxCherryCreekWomen, I started to work on the talk, and invited friends & supporters & clients into the process.
I took ACTION.
From that ACTION — of moving through the mess, unraveling and unpacking the idea and putting it back together again, asking for feedback, trusting my own thinking, not trusting my thinking, falling apart, wondering what I was thinking in the first place, fearful that I wouldn’t get it right, confident that I would — I got more and more clarity.
The story goes on, but you get the idea.
Every time I took ACTION, I found more CLARITY.
The more CLARITY I found, the more willing I was to take ACTION.
Sometimes when you take action you gotta take a big fat stab into the dark. It’s risky. You just never know how it’s going to turn out.
But every time you do, you get a little closer to your truth.
So take action, get clear, then take more action, and get even clearer.
Can’t wait to see you out there!
Johanna
August 15th, 2019
Do you ever get STUCK in the process of creating a presentation or a talk?
STUCK comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes in all times and places.
It comes before you even begin your talk and shows up sounding something like “I’ll start speaking NEXT YEAR” and you just can’t quite get yourself to start THIS year.
It comes in the middle, after the enthusiasm of beginning has worn off, and you sit in the middle of your room surrounded by piles of sticky notes, not knowing how to make any sense of all the ideas.
It comes after edit # 5,642, when no matter how hard you try you just can’t take that perfectionist hat off, so you do another edit.
It comes at the end, when you’re pretty sure you’re ready to roll, but you get up on your feet to rehearse it and you think “THIS IS ALL WRONG!” and you convince yourself you have to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch.
It comes when you’ve rehearsed it for the gazillionth time and you hate the talk so much you don’t want to hear another word come out of your mouth.
It comes after you nail a brilliant talk and you think “That was the one and only brilliant thing I’ll ever say. There’s nothing left inside me. I have no more stories to tell.” So you hide under the covers for the rest of your life as your glory slowly fades out there in the world.
I confess I’ve been in each one of those places. I know it’s easy to throw in the towel and walk away when stuckness reigns. But the truth is, that stuck place could turn out to be the doorway to your next layer of genius that hasn’t revealed itself yet.
Here are a few ideas for getting unstuck:
A private client who was creating a TEDx talk recently came to me and said he was hitting a wall. He’d started off strong, but hit some muck mid-process.
So we took a walk! We spent the entire session on our feet walking by the creek.
There’s a lot to be said for a white board to organize ideas, but he had aha’s he wouldn’t have had if we’d be inside sitting in my office getting friendly with the dry-erase markers.
We came back to the white board later, but the walk shook the stuck place loose, and what he didn’t know he already knew revealed itself.
One morning I was dragging my feet to get my day started. I found myself wanting to do anything but make my daily morning list of the top 3 gotta-get-done-today items.
So I started making lists. Here’s the list of lists I made:
A list of talk titles
A list of big ideas
A list of opening lines for my keynote
A list of stages I want to speak on
A list of Johanna-ism’s
A list of customers who have inspired me
A list of programs I want to create
A list of story starters
A list of themes for Speaker’s Playground
A list of mentors who have impacted my business
A list of people I want to reach out to who are a little bit scary to reach out to
A list of moments from my life that I want to turn into stories
A list of limiting beliefs that get caught in the filter of my mind
A list of affirmations that remind me my work makes a difference
The list of lists got my brain oiled up and excited about the work I get to do. Not only did it juice my creativity in the moment, but it helped me hunker down and focus on the projects of the day.
I’ve started in on a few of these lists and each one presents new ideas I hadn’t had before.
Wherever you are in your talk-creating process, make a list of what could possibly come next. Be ridiculous. Be wild. You might surprise yourself!
You can’t correct course standing still. Sometimes you just have to put a stake in teh ground and move forward. No matter how imperfect it is.
In fact, the imperfecter the better.
If you start to get used to imperfect, the dragon of perfectionism will have much less power over you. You’ll start to see that putting out imperfect ideas makes way for the brilliant ones.
So put an idea out there. Make a decision. Let your idea be NOT Amazing. Just let the idea breathe the light of day.
Action begets action.
You can always move the stake down the line, but putting a stake in the ground will help you get out of STUCK and into ACTION.
There’s nothing like play to unhook rigidity from its mighty grip.
STUCK is RIGID. When something is stuck, it doesn’t move. Play usually involves moving, which makes play a powerful antidote to rigid.
With play you get to let go of preciousness, let go of some of the stakes that are locking you down. You get to access the full expressive capabilities of your body and your voice, and do something weird and over-the-top in the spirit of creating new pathways for getting unstuck.
At the Speaker’s Playground we play a lot. I love getting to watch people crack open in ways they never imagined possible, and then apply that new possibility to the place that was previously STUCK.
Play invites surprise and delight, which gives you fresh eyes for looking at an old stuck place.
~~~~~
So if you find yourself STUCK in any phase of your talk-crafting process, try one of the above strategies for getting unstuck, and see what happens!
Do something. Do anything to move away from stuck and towards action.
Energy creates more energy. Words make way for more words. Ideas make way for more ideas.
Whatever you try, stay curious. Rather than making stuck a problem, get curious about it.
What does stuck feel like? Where does it live in your body? How is it serving you?
Curiosity is your best teacher. Your stuckness can be the doorway to your next big idea if you let it!
I’d love to hear what gets YOU unstuck.
July 29th, 2019
If you’ve been around these parts for a while, you’ve certainly heard me say that telling a story is the shortest distance between two people, right?
It’s the best way to show your humanity and let your audience know you’re an actual human person who lives and breathes out there in the world.
It’s the best way to SHOW your idea rather than TELL your idea.
It’s the best way to make a real connections so you can more effectively convey your message.
As someone who preaches the value of a good story, I often find myself in the audience when someone is telling a story thinking, “yeah, yeah, yeah, get to the point.”
Then I sheepishly say to myself “But Johanna, she’s telling a story. Isn’t that what you’re all about is telling stories?”
Absolutely, but here’s where so many people go wrong.
Too many people think “I have to tell a story!” And then they tell a story just because they think they’re supposed to tell a story.
Or they tell the whoooole story — as in every last curve of the story.
Or they tell the story without really understanding why they’re telling it.
Here’s the thing: Stories! Yes please! More stories! But the story alone is not enough.
You have to know precisely WHY you’re telling the story, and which parts of the story are necessary to serve that why.
If you’re telling a story about YOU, it’s essential to remember that IT’S NOT REALLY ABOUT YOU! This means when you’re crafting the story, don’t try to tell everything. Ask the question, why will this matter to the listener? Which part of this story will they best relate to? How much can I leave out and still have the story make sense?
Get clear about the IDEA the story is conveying. What’s the aha? What’s the take-away? What’s the lesson from the story? When you’re really clear about where you’re going and why you’re telling this story, you can better determine what parts of the story are essential to convey that idea.
You gotta know the before and after. A story is about a CHANGE. Something changes. Something is different at the end than it was at the beginning. This change is usually the aha. So when you know what the aha is, be sure you know what it was like BEFORE the change happened. Show that really clearly, that way I’ll care way more when you get to the aha.
Be willing to be vulnerable. This is not about pouring your heart out all over the place and sharing all the intricacies of your childhood trauma. This is about being vulnerable. It’s about showing your humanity. It’s about not being all shiny and perfect and out of reach. It’s about finding that spot where your audience will say “Oh yeah she’s like me. She really gets me.”
You gotta know who’s in the audience, what they care about and what they long for. Tell the story that is relevant to them. Tell the story that speaks to what they’re struggling with right now. Even if you tell the same story to audiences that have different concerns and different goals, you can frame the story so that it’s entirely relevant to this particular audience.
When you’re sitting at the kitchen table or around a campfire, I’m all for taking the wild and circuitous path to the destination, but when you’re telling a story from the stage, in service of a larger idea you’re trying to convey, you gotta craft a journey for your audience that connects to your idea and that is relevant to them. That’s when stories stick.
What do you think makes a great story? When do you lean in to hear more?
July 16th, 2019
Ever feel like you’re planted right smack dab in the middle of your comfort zone and can’t move? Is there something you’ve done outside of your comfort zone that flared up the ole’ fear?
If you’re anything like me, or anything like most of the people who hang out in these parts, you probably spend a pretty good chunk of time hanging out inside your comfort zone.
Maybe on occasion — or maybe even on a regular basis — you dip your toe in your risk zone. It’s uncomfortable, but you know you’re gonna be ok.
And then there’s your danger zone — the zone you likely avoid going into, and if you go you’re not sure you’ll make it out alive.
I talk about this OFTEN in The Speaker’s Playground, with my 1:1 clients and when I speak.
In fact talking about going outside your comfort zone is pretty darn comfortable compared to actually going out side your comfort zone!
Recently, I was at the NSA Colorado (National Speakers Association) end-of-year party, and they had an improv contest for members.
Here’s how it went: If you raise your hand to play you get a random title picked from a jar, a random set of slides, and you have to give an impromptu 3-minute talk as the slides (that you haven’t seen yet) advance.
I love speaking from the stage, and I actually came from a world of improv — but dance improv not theater improv.
Improvisational dance is EASY. Coming up with words to say? HARD!
Plus these are the pro speakers. These are the big kids. A lot of these folks are the ones making big bucks for speaking from the stage. (Total transparency — that’s not me. YET!)
The little girl part of me wanted to be amazing so they would all say “She’s amazing!”
When I signed in to the event, the registrar invited me to put my name in the hat. At that precise moment I felt a strong impulse to run.
“Maybe I’ll just watch this year and put my name in next year” I thought. “It would be good to scope the scene and first see how everyone else does.”
“What if I bomb? I might suck. Maybe I’ll go blank, and won’t be able to think of words to say. What if I humiliate myself? What if I’m not funny? What if everyone think’s ‘That’s strange. What’s she doing here?’”
Then I thought, “You gotta walk your talk Johanna. You gotta get uncomfortable and risk bombing. You gotta put your name in.”
I was nervous. And excited. Scared-cited, you could say. The best thing to be.
The mysterious random jar picked my name!
The title that came out of the hat for me was “Life is a Fortune Cookie”
I did ok and didn’t die. In fact I did pretty great. I thought of words. Even some funny ones. And some smart ones. I even made some sentences out of them, and, as it turns out, had a blast.
I didn’t win.
The thing that happens when you step outside your comfort zone is — not just in theory but in actuality — you get a little bit more of yourself.
The part that’s hiding and playing it safe? She comes out into the room, and once she’s out, she’s more likely to stay.
The bonus is, when you go back to your comfort zone, your comfort zone is a little big bigger. There’s a little more space there. A little more room to try stuff. Maybe you’ve got even a little more room to fail so you’re not so scared of failing the next time, and you put your name in the hat without hesitation.
Your turn! What have you done recently that put you outside your comfort zone?
Leave a comment and let me know! I love to hear your stories!
July 1st, 2019
I have often said that what it takes to become a sought-after speaker, or even a speaker who regularly speaks on stages, you need three things. You have to be a relentless networker (in other words, tell everyone you know you’re a speaker), pitch like crazy (in other words, make big, scary asks), and deliver EPIC CONTENT.
“YOU HAVE TO HAVE EPIC CONTENT!” says every content-creating guru (or guru-wanna-be) out there.
In a LinkedIn post a couple of months ago, I shared the three essential cornerstones for getting booked to speak — which includes creating EPIC content. In response, a reader asked “Everyone’s always talking about epic content, but what is epic content anyway? How do you create it?”
Great question.
Epic is a big word.
Or it’s a little word with a big punch.
The Odyssey and The Iliad are epic poems, which means they “extend beyond the ordinary in a timeless way.” (You want your talks to do *that,* right?)
The internet (and those of us who use it) loves to co-opt big words so we can all start using them in a watered-down, slightly obscured kind of way.
(I went backpacking this weekend, and I gotta say, the wildflowers were EPIC. That hailstorm on the 4th of July? EPIC! I left my sunglasses in a friend’s car and had to go backpacking without them. EPIC FAIL. I found a $100 bill while riding my bike home. EPIC WIN!)
Kinda like that. 🙂
I realized I had fallen into the hole of big words that the internet takes over, and started to think about what epic content really is.
Here’s what I came up with:
Let’s face it. Everything’s pretty much been said. All stories have already been told. I teach the universal shape of all stories, and pretty much all stories are a new version of the same old story.
The secret to making each story a new story is DETAIL. SPECIFICS.
The more you dive into the specifics of your story, the more it becomes uniquely your own story and the more universal it becomes. (I know. It’s kind of a conundrum — the more details make it more universal. Funny the way that works.)
The DETAILS of your story make it a story that’s never been told. No one else can tell that story. NO ONE.
So when you’re telling your story, dive into the nitty gritty details of the moment. Go into the particulars of the moment. The smells and tastes and quirky neurotic thoughts you were having.
Rather than talking about ALL THE DAYS, talk about ONE DAY in particular.
Tell me about the sound of the rain. Tell me about the feeling in your cheeks when you said that thing you wish you hadn’t said.
Those details will make it a new story, and put you on the road to EPIC.
Not fluff. The real deal.
You kinda have to give it all away. When you give it all away, believe it or not your listener will want more.
Give such snap-cracking value that you make your listener think “I’m getting this for FREE?!”
But it’s a fine line between giving it all away and overwhelm: you want your audience to leave wanting more, rather than leave swamped with too much to think about.
So giving it all away doesn’t mean throwing every single idea you’ve ever had at your audience.
It means knowing who they are, what they care about, and what one thing will set them on the path to profound transformation.
THAT’S value. THAT’s epic.
EPIC CONTENT solves an old problem in an uncommon way.
There are a million (gazillion?) people out there trying to solve the same problem you’re solving.
So how in the world are you gonna stand out? How will you set yourself apart?
You gotta come in through the back door. Or the window. Show me a new way. Even though nothing is new, say it differently. Make it new.
The thing that makes your idea different is YOU. Tell us what your quirky, neurotic, heartbroken, slightly strange, a little bit boring self KNOWS in your BONES about how to solve the same old problem just a little bit differently.
EPIC CONTENT has heart.
Heart, baby. Heart.
Show me some heart.
Be human.
Be real.
Be you.
Yes. Like that.
More.
More.
EPIC CONTENT is TRUE.
You’ve got research and experience to back it up. No BS. No lying.
Use real-world data from real-world experiences.
Research doesn’t have to be numbers and data (though it could be).
In my TEDx talk, “The stories that live in our bodies,” some of the research I share is data from my own life of living in the world in a body of a woman.
Research could be what you know from living your life. From working with clients. From what you see every day at the coffee shop.
Just ground whatever big idea you’re talking about in real life data, real life experiences.
Tell it like it is, and then some.
EPIC CONTENT is risky. So when you’re creating your content, take a risk.
That thing you thought you couldn’t say? Say it.
Yes it might be scary and uncomfortable, and someone might judge you, and someone might unfollow you, and someone might talk smack about you, but someone will lean in and say “I want what she’s having.”
Someone will say “Thank you for telling your story. I needed to hear that today.”
Someone will say “The moment you told THAT story, I knew I had to hire you.”
That’s what happened when I took this risk, and told this story.
Saying the hard stuff is hard for a reason. It’s also what makes it powerful and necessary.
And what makes it epic.
Work with those 6 ideas and you’ll be on the road to epic.
All that said, though, only your audience gets to say whether or not your content is epic. You don’t really get to decide.
You just have to keep speaking your truth, keep telling your stories, keep walking your own edge, and keep showing up.
If someone thinks your content is epic, then hallelujah. If not, then you just keep shining your light.
Comment below and tell me how you know you’re in the presence of epic content. Also, if you want more epic content, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram, or grab your guide to the How to tell stories that attract clients and make bigger impact HERE.
June 25th, 2019
A few weeks ago I wrote about different ways to use a pause when speaking. One of the best pauses to get friendly with is the “I’ve gone totally blank and can’t remember what the heck I was gonna say next” pause. In Tuesday’s Speaker’s Playground, we got talking about that exact moment…
It goes something like this: You’re mid-presentation. You thought you were ready. You practiced–granted not as much as you wish you had, but still, you practiced. Then all of a sudden you are surrounded by blank.
The tape inside your head might sound like: “Ooooooh sh**. I can’t remember what the heck I was gonna say next, I’m totally blank, all words are gone from my head, as in totally gonzo, and here I am standing in the deep abyss of nothingness…
The next thing I was gonna say is the most brilliant thing ever but it is nowhere to be found in the deep crevices of my mind and body and a whole bunch of people staring at me waiting for the next word and I AM TOTALLY BLANK.”
Yeah. That.
Do you know that moment? I do.
I’m pulling back the curtain and sharing some stories of BLANK moments for me, and times I’ve witnessed other speakers go BLANK, with suggestions for a few different ways for you to deal with BLANK when BLANK happens.
One of the most terrifying blanks I’ve ever experienced was a few years ago when I was giving a very personal talk to an audience of about 300 people. I was not as prepared as I would want you or me or anyone to be when giving a talk that is no small deal. But alas, there I was, unprepared and totally blank.
I got to a point in the very scripted and timed talk where I had NO IDEA what words came next.
NO FREAKIN IDEA.
Here’s what I did: First, I felt the immense terror of HOLY COW I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S NEXT.
The operative word here is felt.
I felt it instead of running from it or ignoring it or stuffing it away. Yes, it was terrifying. And I felt the sensation of the terror roll through my body.
Then I waited, breathed, connected to my feet on the ground. I connected with the audience by noticing they were there in the room with me. I didn’t panic or apologize or stammer and stumble or freak out about whether or not I was going to remember.
I waited for the words to come and stayed with the sensation in my body–the sensation, not the story. I held that moment as long as I could. It felt like an immense eternity. In actuality, yes it was a long pause, but to the audience, it just felt like a long, on purpose, dramatic pause.
Then I knew I had to say some words. I repeated the last line I’d said (see tip 2 below) and inhaled to continue. Even when I inhaled, I had no idea which words would come out. But there they were, right at the top of the inhale, the next words. I let out a big internal exhale of relief and carried on. (Here’s a link to the spot in the talk where this happened.)
This is like backing up and getting a running start.
Sometimes when I’m speaking, my brain gets ahead of itself and loses track of what’s next. When I back up for a do-over, and repeat the line I just said, the thought catches up.
When you repeat the line, repeat it with the intention of emphasis. It’s as if you’re saying “I’m repeating these words because I really want you to hear them.” (Not because I can’t remember what to say next.) You gotta sell it.
Here’s the moment in that same talk when I did this.
The thing is, even when I said the line twice, the words didn’t come. I managed to stall, and take my running start. But even in repeating that line, the words I wanted to say didn’t come. I said something else, which totally worked, but it wasn’t what I’d planned. Which brings me to the next point.
No matter how prepared you are, there’s a good chance you’ll forget something. You’ll leave out a brilliant line. You’ll go blank and say something you didn’t intend to say. THAT’S OK. Plan NOW for leaving out those beautifully crafted words. It will happen.
There’s a good chance you won’t forget them the next time you give the talk. If you do, they probably weren’t meant for that talk anyway. All that to say is don’t get too attached to your perfectly crafted talk. It has a life of its own and will change as you give it–with or without intention.
So let go, move on, get over it, and keep speaking.
In the middle of a memorable talk I heard at Emerging Women Conference a few years ago, the speaker went blank on stage. First she paused, and hung out in the pause for a couple of breaths, which was fine. I had no idea she was lost.
Then she came clean. She said “I have no idea what’s next.” The whole audience cheered.
It was a vulnerable, terrifying moment that she completely let us in on.
Her assistant in the audience gave her the next line, and she carried on.
After this moment of complete transparency, she was more connected, more present, more relaxed. The audience was with her. All pretense was gone. She delivered the rest of the talk with ease and breath.
It seems important to note that’s the talk from the entire conference that has stayed with me longest.
Indeed, this is not choice number 1. But I did it here. And I didn’t die. AND NOTHING BAD HAPPENED.
Sure it might have been “better” to pause, and slow down, and wait for the words. But we don’t always make the perfect choice in the moment!
We do our best, and then we move on.
If you do stumble a little, don’t beat yourself up. A fews ums, ahs and stumbles are not going to make or break your talk. Let it go. You’re human. We like your humanity. We want humans speaking to us, not robots. The more you let us see your humanity, the more likely we are to resonate with whatever it is you’re saying.
It’s true that you’re more likely to go blank when you’re not prepared. Trust me, I know from experience.
So take the time and prepare. Get that talk into your bones. Give yourself time to make it yours. With practice, there’s more space to speak it from your heart and feel the pauses. Then you won’t be thrown by something unexpected that might come your way, and own that talk inside and out. (Here are some tips for practicing your talk.)
However you find your way through the blank, do your best to…
STAY PRESENT. STAY IN THE ROOM. KEEP BREATHING. TRUST YOURSELF.
We, the audience, are on your side. The audience wants you to succeed. They want the wealth of your expertise. They want to hear your story.
So take a breath, and tell us.
What do you think? Can’t wait to have a moment of blank so you can try out these ideas? That’s the spirit! In the comments below tell me how you survived your last moment of blank. Or send a word when you survive your next one. I’d love to hear!
Here’s to fun in the blank!
If you enjoyed reading this post, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn for more updates and tips.
June 18th, 2019
It was one of those warm days last week, where we were all saying “Spring! You’re back! Thank you for coming back!” and we went outside and strolled through the yard, and spotted the crocuses, and didn’t even get a chill after being outside for a bunch of hours.
It was that kind of early spring day.
I walked outside and saw my new-ish neighbor across the street with his 5 year old son. They out in their yard digging around in the grass.
Since it was spring, I went over to say hello. We stood in the grass and chatted. Ari, the 5-year-old, told me about the things they were planting in the ground, and the rock party they were having, and how big the rocks are and how heavy they are to move.
When I walked away, he shouted “BYE!!”
and did a little leap for joy.
I suspect he was surprised when I did a little leap for joy in return and said “BYE!”
Then he leapt again, even bigger, and shouted BYE again, and I leapt again, bigger still, and shouted BYE again.
As I walked across the street we both did bigger and bigger leaps for joy as we shouted BYE even louder and louder.
Definitely a sublime moment of joy.
I’m telling you this because THAT’S HOW CONNECTION WORKS.
One person has to be willing to take the first leap.
When one person takes the first leap — in the direction of joy, in the direction of reaching for authentic connection, in the direction of showing a piece of your humanity, in the direction of vulnerability — it’s way easier for someone else to follow suit.
But something happens to so many of us when we become grown-ups.
We hold our cards close to our chest. We wait for someone else to make the first move. We play with caution. We hold out till we’re certain that we’re not gonna be hanging out there all by ourselves in the vast and unchartered territory of vulnerability.
That is, unless we don’t.
You could be the person who takes the first leap!
Think about a speaking situation you’ve been in — On stage, or in a meeting, or in a difficult conversation with someone you care about. Or at a party, or a networking event. Or in the grocery story.
Did you take the first leap of joy? Did you take the risk of showing a little more of yourself as a way of opening the door for your audience (whether 2 or 25 or 500 people) to do the same?
That’s the speaker who owns the room.
Owning the room is about so much more than confidence. It’s about showing up and opening your heart and leaping for joy and inviting the audience to leap with you!
We all want our hearts to be open.
So the speaker who opens his or her heart first
gives a tremendous give to the rest of us.
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