One perfect lime

One perfect lime. The only lime our tree produced all year.

To be fair, it's a dwarf lime tree in a pot. So we don't expect dozens of limes.

We might feel disappointed about "only one lime." But on the other hand, this lime made last night's dinner absolutely perfect.

I doubt our little lime tree was disappointed in its efforts. Look what it made! This lime sat patiently on the tree, waiting for its moment to shine. And shine it did!

As a self-proclaimed "chillpreneur," I sometimes get down on myself for not doing more. Not being more. Not shining more.

I like to take things slow and easy. I'm not about the hustle. I'm about creating a lifestyle that keeps me healthy, happy and sane.

But to a client, I might be the "one perfect lime" that comes along at just the right time: doing, being and shining exactly as much as someone needs me to.

Last night's dinner was vegan fish taco bowls with Good Catch
plant-based fish sticks. 

The lime appeared as both juice and zest, in cilantro lime rice and chipotle mayo, and squeezed over the separate elements of the dish, the radishes, arugula microgreens, cilantro, and avocado.

The meal was delicious and the lime was the star! 🌟

Right lime, right place, right time. What more could I ask for?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Your presentation is like a bird's nest...

This mama Dark-eyed Junco has been building her nest in a potted plant just outside our front door for a couple weeks. She's been building it in secret; we literally never see her there but when we peek in the nest there's more material.

This made me think about you! And your presentations. 🤭 Inexperienced presenters often think that your performance in front of the audience is the most important thing.

And yes, if it's important to you to change attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with your presentation, then your performance in front of the audience and your ability to engage and persuade is pretty important.

However your live presentation with an audience is just the final result of all the behind-the-scenes work that you should be putting in to ensure that you get the results that you and the audience need, want and care about.

That means:

🥚 determining your objectives for the presentation

🥚 researching your audience and location

🥚 choosing content that's most relevant and useful to your audience

🥚 tailoring, organizing and structuring your content so you lead them down a path to the desired result

🥚 building in engagement, exercises and activities that help your participants apply your content to their lives or work

🥚 practicing your presentation to establish a flow and estimate how much time each element takes

🥚 and understanding and practicing your tech; and cultivating the right mindset and energy management tools for the particular environment you'll be in.

The work that this mama birdie put into finding the right mate (he'll also defend the nest and help feed the nestlings), finding the right location for her nest, finding the right materials for her nest, and building the actual nest is what allows and supports the final result of laying eggs and protecting her offspring until they fledge.

I didn't see all the work that went into this final result, but I know it's there. And without all that work, there would be no nest, no eggs, and no babies. 🐦🥚🐣

The foundational work of a presentation is critical to its success. The presentation itself is just the tip of the iceberg. Or... just one straw in the completion of a successful bird's nest.

P.S. I just went outside to shoot an updated video of the nest, and I saw the mama's head just peeking out. I didn't want to disturb her. So this video is from a few days ago. And babies are on the way! Wish our little family safety and success and protection from predators. Which, luckily, is not something speakers ever have to worry about! 🦅

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

They don't even notice

Do you see my tattoo? Most people don't.

My first two tattoos were on my back, and after listening to me whine about wanting another one for, um, several years, my husband gave me a gift certificate to a tattoo artist for our 14th anniversary (now 18 years ago). 😂

Putting a tattoo on my wrist felt SUPER RISKY at the time. Unless I want to wear long sleeves (which I hate), it's going to be visible ALL THE TIME. At the time, I wore a watch on that wrist and I thought "Well, the tattoo will peek out from under the watch occasionally. That'll be cute." But during the period of healing, I had to stop wearing the watch. And I never put it back on.

Now here's the funny thing. It felt SO RISKY to have a visible tattoo, and yet NOBODY NOTICED.

I've had friends and colleagues ask me when I got the tattoo, because they've never seen it. At a quick glance, it just appears to be a bracelet. It is literally hiding in plain sight. 

See, I didn't realize that everyone is so busy worrying about their own shit, they don't notice other people's shit. (Not that my tattoo is shit, mind you!)

We're often afraid to put ourselves out into the world because we think people are going to notice all the things we want to hide. So many women I work with don't want to be seen on camera because their roots are showing or their teeth are crooked or they've got speech impediment or they need to lose 10 pounds.

People literally DO NOT NOTICE!

I'll acknowledge that there are haters and there are trolls. Those are sad little meanies who actually DO look for the stuff that's not "perfect." But we don't care about trolls, right? They've got their OWN shit.

Get visible. Share your message. I'm here for you!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Your presentation needs osteoclasts

Nerd alert! 🤓 I have become obsessed with the process of bone healing!

On July 4, I lost my footing on the stairs in my home and suffered a compound fracture in my right leg, an "open tib-fib" in medical shorthand. I'm calling it "The Saga of the Four Fractures."

I had surgery on July 5 to insert a rod and screws (you can call me the Bionic Woman🦿), and I've been working on my healing and recovery for the past six weeks.

Of course, I started studying up on bone healing. Our bodies are amazingly resilient, but the way bones heal is particularly magical.

You would expect that there are cells that are entirely responsible for building bone. They're called osteoblasts. 

A couple weeks after the initial fracture, after the body has produced a healthy swelling around the injury and then a soft protective callus made of collagen, the osteoblasts start their work building new bone.

The osteoblasts add minerals into the collagen tissue—starting at about the six-week mark—and between weeks 6 and 12 (on a lower limb injury like mine) the hard callus forms.

We might expect that, once the hard bone has formed, the work is done.

But wait, there's more!

There's another type of cell that now jumps in and continues working on the bone. This cell, the osteoclast, is responsible for removing bone.

What? Removing bone?

The osteoblasts are not about finesse. They build bone where it's needed, with a little extra for good measure.

The osteoclasts now come in and remodel the bone, reshaping it to its proper form. They break down and digest excess bone in a process called bone resorption.

This balance between building bone and breaking it down is called bone homeostasis: Osteoblasts and osteoclasts are equally important in the process of maintaining healthy bone, not just when bones are broken, but throughout our lives.

Yep, this illustration of homeostasis is directly related to your presentations!

Most speakers have too much information to share. It's rare when I see a client who doesn't have enough to say about their topic. When you're a subject matter expert, it's hard to say everything you want to say in an hour or less! I get it.

In an effort not to leave anything out, many speakers pack their presentations too full. They overbuild. And frankly, they make a mess of things. 

They put too many bullets on slides, they leave out interaction and engagement activities, they talk too fast, and they run over time... all in an effort not to leave out a single concept or idea.

There is a better way! Incorporate the osteoclast technique into your presentation!

First you build the presentation. Then you practice the presentation out loud and record it. Why out loud and why record? Because this will give you valuable information about flow, structure and timing.

Once you have this information, you start breaking it down, reshaping it and shaving off the excess. 

You cannot create a successful presentation without removing the excess, paring it down, and culling the extraneous. You can't create a successful presentation without the balance of expanding and contracting, building and demolishing.

Keep practicing, recording and revising, until your presentation has taken its most streamlined and elegant shape. Just like your beautiful bones.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Do you need massive action or fine-tuning?

One of my clients just emailed out his speaking schedule, inviting colleagues to attend. I was mistakenly added to the group—wrong Lisa!

Here's what I saw:

29 speaking engagements... over 3 months... across five midwestern states (they drive to the majority of their engagements).

And they do this every year. The owner of the company, the president, and several of their team members fan out across the midwest to speak to current and potential clients about their company and offerings, and to discuss agricultural issues, trends, and data.

I first worked with the owner of the company in 2013. In 2015, he hired me to train 15 of his employees. After the group training, I worked with several team members in a small group coaching cohort.

In 2016 and 2017, I worked with the president and another individual on their presentations, and this year, I provided additional coaching sessions for the president and another speaker.

Why are these clients still coming back to work with me, six years later? No, it's not because I'm an amazing coach. (Okay, I am an amazing coach!)

I mean, each one of these guys does somewhere between 20 and 25 presentations a year. Do they still really need to work on what is essentially the same presentation every year with updated data?

They're still working with me because they know there's always room for improvement! These men are stellar presenters. And their business grows every year, with new offices and new staff, because of it.

Every time we meet, we're making small tweaks, changing up the presentation openings, adding new interactive activities, finding new stories, and digging deeper into engagement techniques.

We're tightening up the core message, which may change from year to year, depending on what trends and issues arise.

And we're laser-focused on converting prospects to clients and current clients to renewing clients. This is still a requirement, every year, to grow their business. They always need new clients and they always need current clients to renew. As do all of us who are business owners.

Each time we meet, the president comes to the call with a series of questions to be answered and problems to be solved. And we tackle each one systematically until we have a solution.

Then he tests out our work in front of an audience and analyzes the results. And then, as they say, we "rinse and repeat."

High-level business speakers who have a lot of experience and years of presenting under their belt may feel that they no longer need support for their speaking. Or they may only seek out support when there's a high-stakes presentation looming on the calendar.

But as I've mentioned many times on this blog (because speakers and athletes have so many similarities), even the highest level athletes still have coaches.

Why? Because most of us are too close to our own work to identify what needs to change or how to change it.

And because those subtle calibrations that an elite athlete makes to their training and practice, with their coaches’ help, can create a huge advantage on the field, track or court between them and their competitors.

Florence Griffith Joyner still holds the women's 100-meter world record from 1988 at 10.49 seconds. Carmelita Jeter is right behind her at 10.64 seconds, a time recorded in 2009. The two closest times recorded in this decade were in 2012 and 2016 by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson. But still Flo-Jo (who died in 1998) holds the record.

Luckily, there's no competition to measure micro improvements to your presentations! Fine-tuning works as long as you're achieving your own desired results.

Business leaders who speak to grow their businesses also need to create an advantage over their competitors. In the coaching world, we say there are no competitors because each of us brings our own "special sauce" to our work, and each of our businesses is completely unique and different.

But unless you make yourself stand out from the others in your industry, unless your prospects and potential partners know how unique and different you are, your business may still appear to blend into a sea of similar companies.

There is no advantage to blending in. There is no advantage to appearing the same as others in your industry.

What are you doing to tweak your message, to fine-tune your presentations, to make yourself stand out when you speak in the community, at industry events, or even within your own company?

You don't need massive action anymore. You are at a level where the details are what matter. The fine points of your message, the minutiae of your slides, the arrangement of your paragraphs, the choice of one word over another.

This is the level where your adjustments may be small but will have major impact.

How are you creating incremental improvements in your presentation? And how can I help?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

10 reasons to join the Presenting for Humans Success Circle

Are you thinking about joining the Presenting for Humans Success Circle, but not sure if it's right for you?

Perhaps I can help you decide with these points about the benefits of the program to you!

1. Author-led discussion: Most book clubs and study groups are not led by the author, the person who knows more than anyone else about the process for the book, the premise of the book, the core message and teachings, and the whys, whats and hows of the book. PFH Success Circle has me, the author, leading discussion, answering questions, and coaching you along the way!

2. Practical outcomes: This is a program to help you put the concepts in the book into practice. Sure, you could read the book on your own, but we all know how much better we are at implementing (and avoiding procrastination) when we have accountability partners! Your goals will include finishing the week's reading assignment before our live call, and coming ready to review what you read and to compare notes with your fellow participants.

3. Making connections with your fellow program members: A shared love of reading is already a great connection point among you, but your shared interest in speaking adds another level of depth to your connections. It's a great online networking opportunity (when you join the Facebook group, especially) for meeting like-minded individuals—no matter where you live in the world.

4. The difference between reading a book alone and reading as a group is huge: Reading a book and discussing it as a group opens your mind to ideas you might not have considered, conclusions you might not have come to, and perspectives you might not have gained. Reading and discussing as a group supercharges your learning and absorption of concepts and takes you in entirely new directions.

5. Practice and grow your communication skills: Reading a book about public

speaking is one thing, but actually formulating ideas and sharing them with the group, defending your opinions, speaking up for your beliefs, and persuading others to see your perspective—tactfully and respectfully—are all valuable opportunities to enhance your own communication skills as well as to help you retain information better and reinforce your learning.

6. It's virtual: I get that the wine, snacks and personal interaction are big draws for in-person book clubs. But not everyone has the time (or calorie allowance) for that. You can stay at your desk or (if you're like me) on the couch in your pajamas. There's no judgement! Join the meeting from wherever you are, and even if you can't join live, it will be recorded so you won't miss a thing. You can leave your comments in the Facebook group at any time—whether you're a night owl or an early bird, whether you're in Australia or Africa. (Feel free to bring your own wine...)

7. And because it's virtual, you choose your own method of interaction: You can exclusively stick to the Facebook group if you prefer to write out your thoughts. You can come to the live Zoom calls, participate with the other members and get your questions answered on the spot by moi. You can shoot video sharing your comments and upload to Facebook. Or you can do any combination of these, or whatever else you think of! (Want to make a pic collage or Pinterest board with public speaking memes? Go ahead!)

8. You will learn to be a better speaker: There's just one book and one topic here. If you want to learn to be a better speaker, you've come to the right place. We will be 100% laser-focused on speaking. Your questions about speaking will be answered, your knowledge will grow, your opportunities to improve will expand. Period.

9. It's affordable: If private coaching isn’t an option for you right now, the PFH Success Circle is the next best thing with laser coaching and a private Facebook group—where I'm very active—and the only way to work with me for under $800.

10. It's a short time commitment: The program starts in May and ends in June. There are five weekly calls (but if you can't make it live, they'll be recorded). The reading is light: two chapters a week. We'll accomplish a lot in this short time frame, but it's not going to take months of your life to complete or hours a week of homework.

Each week, participants will read assigned chapters, do personal exploration and reflection, and return to the group for follow-up, discussion, and laser coaching on the concepts learned.

PFH Success Circle includes:

• A signed hard copy of the book (if you register by 4:00 p.m. PDT on Monday, May 7!)
• Five live coaching calls focused on action-taking and implementation of the main principles in the book
• Worksheets and handouts to help you integrate the ideas we’re discussing
• Recordings of all the calls
• A private Facebook group for discussion, support, encouragement and resources

Just think: You can start and finish a book during this five week program! You can gain some new perspective on public speaking. You can have fun and meet new friends.

The program starts Thursday, May 10. Register here.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Let go instead of holding on (to your content)

"Perfection is finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aircraft designer and author of The Little Prince

I'm fortunate that, in most of my speaking, I'm not required to be particularly concise. My speaking engagements are mostly trainings that range from three hours to three days, and there's a lot of room for spontaneous stories and discussion built into my workshops.

Of course, I still have to leave out a lot of content that I would like to use, because even over the course of three days, I will not be able to cover everything I know about public speaking.

But in the process of preparing for the upcoming Storytellers Project event in May, I'm having to approach my speaking in a way that is unfamiliar to me. I have to tell a story that took a year to unfold, in the course of 8-10 minutes. I have to be brief!

Ironically, I spend a lot of time working with clients who have very short presentations to deliver, such as keynotes (that might last 30 minutes) or speeches during public comment periods at city or county government meetings, that might only be 2-3 minutes long. I'm really good at helping them get rid of anything not critical to the core message while still maintaining emotional engagement, stories and the most important details.

In my Speak to EngageⓇ trainings, I display a slide with an image of a cleaver, and the words "Be brutal." You may have heard "kill your babies" or "kill your darlings," variations on the expression "Murder your darlings," originally attributed to Arthur Quiller-Couch, from his 1914 lecture "On Style."

What all of these expressions have in common with each other, as well as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's quote at the top, is the concept of cutting, culling, thinning out, simplifying, tightening, reducing and narrowing down.

Notice that no one suggests improving your presentation (or your writing, or your aircraft) by adding a bunch of stuff. Even Coco Chanel was quoted saying "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off." Or something close to that. Which would be a problem for me as, lately, I'm only wearing earrings. I'm not sure I'm ready for the one-earring look.

Yes, we would all like to add more to our presentations: More facts, more data, more content, more humor, more persuasion! But as you add, so must you subtract. 

In fact, cutting and culling can be painful. It requires the ability to let go of something we want to hold onto, a piece of writing or a story we think will make all the difference!

For example, adding humor doesn't necessarily mean adding more words. It means rearranging what you've written so that the right words, in the right order, make the line funny. And we all know, logically, that adding more facts and data just confounds and exhausts our audiences.

Good writing and speaking are about how you express your ideas, in terms of how compelling, creative, intriguing, provocative or thought-provoking your words are. The number of words you use is not even a factor, except for the literal time frame you're given to express them.

The "New Beginnings" story I'm telling on May 9 for the Storytellers Project (tickets available here) is one of the shortest presentations I've ever given. It's not even a presentation. It's merely a story. I have ten minutes total, but right now it's at about eight minutes, and I don't want it to be much longer.

First of all, I have to memorize it! *Stomach does flip flops*

Second of all, I want it to be lean. I want it to be entertaining, and I want there to be enough detail and color so that the audience can feel connected to my story, and even feel like they're inside the story. But I don't want to go on and on, saying something in 25 words that I can say in 12.

It happens that I have a history of being too brief. In high school and college, when I was asked to write a ten-page paper, I couldn't stretch it to more than eight. Even the Storytellers Project story clocked in at five minutes the first time I delivered it to my coaches. They asked me to add more detail, so I did. But I'm a fan of brevity, a clean structure, and an easily navigated journey.

Still, this is a challenge for me, as I typically don't need to be quite so lean and quite so brief!

How about you? Are you a good self-editor? Are you willing and able to cut out the extraneous so that the beautiful and powerful core of your message can shine through?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Lessons from driving: Don't be a mechanical speaker

(c) Jenny Rollo

Do you remember what it was like when you were learning how to drive? There were so many things to pay attention to, so many details.

Where do I put my hands and my feet? When is it too soon or too late to press the brake pedal? How much pressure do I put on the gas? How exactly can I keep my eyes on the road if I'm also trying to look into two rear-view mirrors? And how exactly do I change the radio station while keeping both hands on the wheel?

I remember scraping against a pole in a narrow driveway because I just didn't have a concept of how wide my mom's car was!

When you're learning, every move is a conscious one. It can be overwhelming and even scary - especially when you're on the road in a 3,500-pound vehicle, trying to follow the rules of the road, drive the speed limit, change lanes, not crash into anything and not get a ticket!

Now, think about what it's like for you after having been driving for 30 or 40 years.

Most of what we do is completely unconscious. It's just natural to move our feet, hands, and eyes simultaneously in the practice of braking, accelerating, entering traffic, avoiding a raccoon crossing the road, taking a call on Bluetooth, and a million other things we do every day. In fact, I imagine that all of us have had that experience where we're SO much on autopilot that we get to a place and don't even know how we got there.

As a speaker, you aim for somewhere between ultra-conscious and ultra-autopilot.

If you have to consciously think about every motion, every facial expression, every story, you come across as wooden, rigid, or staged.

However, if you deliver every presentation on autopilot, then you lack attention and presence, and you lose your connection to the audience.

Both extremes put you into a mechanical mode that your participants can see and feel, making for an uncomfortable audience experience, to say the least.

How do you develop this speaking approach that's conscious but not too self-conscious, and autopilot but not in the clouds?

One thing: Practice.

Get in front of audiences every chance you get. Speaking to lots of audiences helps you get over the self-conscious over-awareness of everything your body and mind are doing.

Speaking to lots of audiences also allows you to get used to being in the moment and getting used to going with the flow of unexpected conversations and relationships that arise with each new group.

I certainly don't want to go back to the old days of having to think about every single thing my body is doing when I'm on stage. But I don't want to become so complacent about speaking that I don't even connect with my audiences.

How about you? Are you more self-conscious or more autopilot? How can you come closer to the middle?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Your stats are paralyzing your audience

When you're using statistics in a presentation, it's really easy to get caught up in the numbers. And unfortunately, just because those numbers are meaningful to you, it doesn't mean they're at all fathomable to your audience.

This is why it's important to break down big numbers into manageable and concrete concepts and visuals. Here are two ways to do this:

1. Portion large numbers into smaller bite-size chunks.

I'm working with a nonprofit project right now where 20 nonprofit leaders are getting training and coaching to develop three-minute "fast pitches." The top ten finalists in our competition will go on to an event where they'll be judged, and the winners will be awarded cash prizes. (Read about Fast Pitch here.)

Many of these nonprofits have big numbers: they serve large numbers of people, or they provide large quantities of food to their clients, or they need large sums of money to do their work.


The speakers who are most successful at conveying their numbers are the ones who make the numbers manageable for an audience. For example, asking each person in an audience of 300 to donate $200 a year for the next three years is much more effective than saying, "We need $180,000" and leaving it at that. As an individual who wants to help a local organization, that number is just too big for me. I'm paralyzed by it, and I'm pretty sure my meager $25 check isn't going to make a difference. So I don't write one.

2. Paint a picture, use an analogy or make a comparison, so the large number is equated with something familiar.

This sign above about how much our local zoo's herd of giraffes eats every year paints a vivid picture of how much grain equals 18,000 pounds. This amount of grain is hard to comprehend, but envisioning it as being the weight of a school bus gives me a much clearer perspective. There is no "ask" associated with this particular statistic, but perhaps knowing that my donation would help the zoo acquire a huge mountain of grain might inspire me to give money.

Here's an example I wrote about a few years ago that makes the size of a rocket easily understandable when juxtaposed against two things most of us are familiar with: a football field and the Statue of Liberty.

Many statistics in presentations are just tossed in with no thought to how they will affect the audience or if they will help persuade the audience to do the thing you want them to do as a result of your talk.

First, give more thought to how you are using your statistics and WHY you're using them. And then, when you have a good enough reason to use them, make the effort to create more manageable and concrete numbers for your audience, so they understand how the numbers fit into your overall message -- and are inspired, not paralyzed, by them.

Need some ideas for making your big numbers manageable? Post in the comments!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

In speaking, as in sports, the reward outweighs the risk

Photo: World Figure Skating

The Winter Olympics are full of risk-taking athletes. They jump, they spin, they twirl, they flip, they slide, they glide, and they push as hard as they can -- all at the risk of falling on their behinds and losing time, points and medals.

For a lot of the athletes, they know they might fall down, and even face serious injury, but that doesn't keep them from performing at the highest level.

For example, the announcers talked all week about  two-time World Champion figure skater Mao Asada, one of a handful of skaters who has landed a triple Axel in competition. Would she be able to accomplish this high-scoring feat during her short program?

Asada attempted but did not land her Axel in the ladies's short program. She was a favorite for the gold medal and the reigning silver medalist. She took the risk and didn't succeed, in fact, falling down to 16th place.

But the potential reward was worth it for her. She still performed her long program like a champion and -- guess what -- she landed the triple Axel and a plethora of other triples and combinations. Unfortunately, she was out of the running for a medal, finishing in sixth place. In the end, her score was a personal record.

Was she disappointed not to win a medal? Of course. Do you think she regrets taking the risk? Not for a minute. She said to a reporter, "With this performance, I could thank all the people who supported me all this time."

There are snowboarders and skiers who try extremely risky tricks, some of which they've only completed in practice and never in competition. But the potential reward outweighs the risk, which is why they do it. The chance of representing your country with a gold medal is a huge motivation, not to mention delivering personal best performances and justifying years of hard work.

How does the reward of speaking outweigh the risk for you? 

We all experience some risk when we get in front of an audience. We know there's a chance we might come across as less than stellar, that the performance we imagine in our heads might be a whole different thing in reality. We know we might forget our words, have a technology breakdown, or demonstrate our nervousness with shaking hands or quivering voice.

But are these risks really so huge when you think about the rewards?

As I mentioned in this post, some of the rewards of speaking include:

• The opportunity to share your message with a captive audience
• Learning about yourself as a person, and facing your personal challenges
• Connecting with people and building relationships
• Helping people move forward and take action
• Expressing your ideas, changing minds and facilitating personal transformation
• Not to mention building your visibility, credibility and reputation, which leads to promotions, clients, customers, more important leadership roles, and personal and professional growth.

You're not in danger when you speak. You're not going to get a concussion or tear your ACL. You're not going to be fired or shunned from society. The rewards far outweigh the risks. So what are you waiting for?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Are you a flabby speaker?

You know how annoying it is when that friend of yours who never works out and never eats healthy food decides to get in shape... and instantly loses ten pounds? While you continue to struggle to lose the same ten pounds you've been fighting to lose for months?

When you're already fit and healthy, it's harder to make big, dramatic strides. You're already eating right. You have to work harder to tweak your diet. Your exercises have less of an impact now; you need to "shock" your body to make bigger strides in your fitness level.

It's the same way with speaking.

The more experienced you are as a speaker, the deeper and more refined your training becomes.

You're not starting from scratch, learning the basics of engaging the audience, moving your body effectively, making eye contact, telling stories, and all those things that are complicated and scary for beginners. When a beginner starts from nothing, he or she is going to make great strides in their progress. They're starting from zero and every breakthrough is a big step.

Not so with us veterans.

We don't make huge breakthroughs most of the time, so we have to focus on the subtle tweaks and adjustments that allow us to continue growing, continue mastering the art and science of speaking, continue creating more effective presentations, and continue building our connection and relationship with our audiences.

Don't think that your growth and progress are "over" because you've been doing this a long time. Look at your progress as small refinements with big impact.

When's the last time you introduced a new exercise or activity into one of your presentations?

When's the last time you thought up some new questions to ask your audience?

When's the last time you challenged yourself to try something scary, like singing or acting out a character or something that's new and different for you?

When's the last time you added some content that rocks the boat or might be considered controversial in your field?

If you're not doing these things, you're stagnating. And, like the fit person who gets lazy about exercise and diet because he's "already there," you lose your edge, you lose your fitness, you lose your muscle tone, you lose your conditioning.

Dig deeper to find that next level of mastery. Add new tricks to your bag. Complacency will make you weak and flabby as a speaker, just like it does to someone who's in shape and thinks they don't have any more work to do.

Get creative and stay fit!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Serve without being asked

Shopping at Trader Joe's a while back, my husband and I had two really great experiences with their staff that made me think about how we, as speakers, are treating our audiences.

First, we found ourselves in the bread section, eyeing the pretzel challah. Never seen pretzel challah? It's just what it sounds like: a loaf of challah with a soft pretzel crust. We like challah. And we like soft pretzels. So it seemed like a no-brainer. But, adventurous as we are as eaters, we contemplated a bit about whether to try it. Nearby, a Trader Joe's employee was loading up a bread shelf, and saw us examining the loaf. She asked us if we had tried it and we said no. She said she hadn't tried it either.

"Do you want to try some?" she asked, and before we knew it, she had taken the bread into the back room, sliced it, and returned with samples. On the spot. We tried it. We loved it. We bought it.

Two things struck me about this interaction:

1. It was her idea to sample the bread. She didn't wait for us to ask. She engaged us in conversation.

2. She was flexible enough to stop the task she was working on and sample bread for us instead.

Are you able to read and serve your audience on the spot, or are you so memorized and rehearsed that you can't go off script?

Do you anticipate your audience's needs -- for example, building their possible questions into your presentation so they don't have to ask -- or do you give canned presentations to every audience, regardless of who they are and what interests they have?

Then, if that experience wasn't enough to impress us, we struck up a conversation with another employee while we were snacking on the pretzel challah.

We had wandered in front of a wine display. The wine on the stack was one we hadn't seen before, a blend, and we were curious about it. As we wondered aloud if it was any good, the employee shook his head and said, "You don't want this one...." and turned to the passing wine buyer to ask, "Am I right?" The wine buyer stopped, agreeing with the first opinion.

He said that, for this price point and this flavor profile, we could find several better wines in the store. And then he proceeded to tell me what they were, as I scrambled to write them down in my phone. (Okay, I do wonder why they're even carrying that wine if there are other wines at the same price point and with a similar flavor profile that are better. But hey, I'm not a buyer.)

Are you honest with your audiences?

Or are you so concerned with selling yourself or your product that you don't admit to mishaps or mistakes out of a need to appear perfect? Do you try to shoehorn a fit with your services and product, even when there isn't one?

These examples of excellent customer service also apply to us as speakers. We owe our audiences honesty, flexibility, and proactiveness, and the willingness to serve them based on our best research (or at least anticipation) of their needs and wants.

We've been shopping at Trader Joe's for decades, so we don't need to be sold on their great products and customer service. But these interactions reinforced what we already knew, making us even more loyal customers.

Maybe your audience doesn't know you well, and this is your opportunity to show them you care. Maybe they already know you and this is your opportunity to remind them why they keep hiring you.

Either way, take the initiative. Don't wait for them to ask. Be prepared to give them what they need, want and care about. You will delight the heck out of them!

If you've become a bit lackadaisical about serving your audience, because you're a seasoned speaker who's been there and done that and maybe -- just maybe -- has gotten a bit lazy, check out my free teleclass on October 10: "The Top 3 Mistakes Experienced Speakers Make... And What to Do Instead!" I promise to give you the kick in the pants you need to reinvigorate your speaking!

Click here to sign up for free!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Drop the low and high scores to read your audience better

If you've ever watched the Olympics, you've probably seen figure skating, diving or gymnastics, three sports that are scored by judges, as opposed to sports that are scored by time, speed or distance achieved.

Because scoring can be subjective, these sports all have a built-in protection against bias: The low and high scores in each event are discarded, leaving the remaining scores to be averaged, combined or otherwise calculated in some (usually highly technical) way.

If you ask your audience to fill out evaluations or give any kind of feedback after your presentations, you will also discover bias among your "judges."

Some audience members will love you to pieces no matter what you say or do. Some will just not click with you, no matter what you say or do. The rest will be along a continuum somewhere in the middle.

As I wrote in this blog post, paraphrasing Scott Ginsberg, it's far too easy to dwell on the 10% who have negative things to say, rather than the 90% who are more positive. But the truth is, there will always be that top and bottom 10%, who are both probably equally unreliable indicators of the overall quality of your presentation.

When analyzing your evaluations, or even if you're just analyzing your audience's reactions in the moment, remember to discard the highest and the lowest "scores," and you'll have a more accurate reading of how your audience is truly responding to your presentation.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

What's hiding in your presentation closet?

Many of my clients come to me with existing presentations that need freshening up, tweaking, revising, and improving. One of the simplest ways to freshen up a presentation is to rearrange it.

For example, a client will come to me with a really boring opening, a bunch of thank yous, or no opening at all. I'll go through the presentation with her and find a great story, question or activity a few minutes into the presentation. We'll take that story, question or activity and bump it up to the very beginning of the presentation, and presto change-o! We've got an engaging, interesting new opening.

Sometimes we find the flow of the presentation doesn't quite work, and upon further analysis, we realize that there's actually a chronology or logical order to the presentation that wasn't being utilized. We'll shift the order of the main points, and now there's a pleasing flow that helps the audience follow the topic better.

It's like going through your closet with an image consultant who sees your wardrobe with fresh eyes. She'll put outfits together that you never considered, and when she's done, you've got a whole new wardrobe without having to buy anything!

Poke around in your presentation and determine what can be rearranged. What would give it a better flow, a more organized structure, a stronger opening or closing? Maybe this story goes better with that point, or that activity goes better with this story.

Sometimes you have everything you need in your presentation, you just need to rearrange it. Now go clean out your closet!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Are you stealing your audience's time?

We are all familiar with the concept of wasting time. We consider our time wasted when time has passed and we haven't made progress or achieved what we hoped because something distracted us or caused a delay that was out of our control. Some people, like Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better, probably never experience wasted time, because they are so incredibly productive!

I find it especially disappointing when my time has been wasted by a speaker, because during that hour and in that room, I could have been learning something, expanding my horizons, or even just being entertained. Outside of that room, of course, had I not attended the speaking engagement, I could have been creating products, marketing my services, networking, and building my business.

Yes, we're all far too familiar with the concept of wasting time. But how about the concept of stealing time? This expression was introduced to me by my friend Drew, a guy who gets things done. His time, like all of ours, is valuable, and when he finds himself listening to a speaker who hasn't prepared, or who's winging his presentation, or who's reading from his slides, or -- especially -- doesn't seem to care much one way or the other, Drew considers his time to have been stolen.

Time passes, and no, we can never get it back, so it's gone anyway. We can give our time away willingly to good causes, good friends, family and pursuits we enjoy. We can spend our time doing things that engage, enrich, and enlighten us, propelling us forward, or we can spend time doing things that hinder and stifle us. Or we can spend our time just not doing, period. But those choices still belong to us (as much as we'd like to blame others when we don't get the results we want).

When someone steals my time, though, it feels like it's against my will. But is it? How many times have you walked out on a speaker? Never? Me neither. It sounds harsh, but if someone's stealing my time, maybe I should take a stand and salvage what time I still have remaining!

I would much rather give or spend my time than have it stolen from me, wouldn't you?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

A visual that fits in your pocket

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have seen a post I wrote in 2008 about Wayne Pacelle, the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. He visited The Ellen Show to talk about Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.

One thing I like about Wayne Pacelle is his ability to concisely state his issues. Here's a quote from the recent show:

"We need to be good to these other creatures because they're vulnerable. We have all the power in the relationship with animals, and how we handle ourselves is a test of our humanity. We can be cruel or we can be kind. And I say we need to be kind."

I also like the way he uses examples to help make issues concrete, for an audience who has never seen animal cruelty up close. In his initial visit in 2008, he used an example where he had the audience imagine a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper folded into thirds to explain how tiny and cramped the living space is for a laying hen in a factory farm.

In his visit this week, there was a breaking story about an undercover investigation at a factory farm, and this time he had the piece of paper in his pocket! Watch the video:



How can you make your examples simple, concrete and small enough to carry around in your pocket?


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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Are you giving the audience tools they can use?

One of the things I find lacking in many presentations is the useful take-home tool. Sure, I hear lots of good ideas from speakers, but I don't often go home with action steps rather than concepts. I don't often go home with concrete things I can DO to improve my business, my presentations or my life.

That's why I enjoyed Jason Womack's presentation so much last week, based on his book Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More.

First, I'll share my thoughts on why Jason's presentation was effective from a public speaking perspective.

I can be a bit jaded when I watch presenters, as sometimes I feel that I'm seeing recycled bits from other presenters, over and over and over, not even presented in a fresh way. I do a lot of internal eye-rolling, especially when speakers say things or try to get me to do things that feel contrived.

1. From the get-go, Jason's authenticity was transparent. His energy was infectious. And when it wasn't infectious (sometimes you can't help that it's 5:00 on a Friday afternoon or that a joke falls flat), he didn't let that get in his way, but used it as a moment of humor.

2. He was constantly asking the audience questions, inviting our participation. Occasionally, he had us turn to our neighbor and have a conversation. The first time, I was expecting to be asked to report back and wasn't. That was a little disappointing, and it reminded me how much audience members like to share! When given the right environment -- open, friendly, energetic -- people want to talk about their experiences and learn from each other. I was glad we got to share our conversations the second time.

3. Jason asked us for our "aha!" moments, and with the abundance of mind-twisting concepts he shared, people started having and calling out "aha!" moments. If you don't ask, how do they know what you want from them?

4. He used great examples and analogies. For example, he broke down a day into 96 15-minute segments, to demonstrate how much time we really do have to get things done that are important to us. And then suggested that, when someone is 15 minutes late to an appointment, they've just stolen 1% of my day. Quantifying our time, and dividing it up into 15-minute segments, also made sense in the larger picture that Jason was painting, that time spent waiting for the next thing, or after the meeting has been cancelled, can be used to accomplish tasks and goals. His examples were practical and relevant.

5. I also appreciated that Jason wasn't afraid to share his own process. At one point, he asked the audience a question, and commented afterward that sometimes he asks it at the beginning of the presentation and sometimes at the end, and that he hasn't yet analyzed whether the results are different.

6. A couple more things I noticed: He incorporated a lot of humor, some of it silly -- my favorite kind. He used a stool as a place to sit, to break up his movement on stage, and also as a prop to represent an office. He used pauses well, letting ideas sink in, and at one time taking a moment for a photo op. And he took a nice long time to think about questions before answering them, giving real thought to his answers. Sometimes my clients tell me that they fear looking like they don't have an answer, and so rush to say something -- anything -- without taking the time to think first. Jason's method shows that the audience is patient, and will wait for you.

Now, to some of the practical and useful ideas I brought home.

1. Make a list of four 15-minute things I could do if I had some time free up in my day. (Vacuum and sweep -- cats drag a lot of litter around; have a cup of tea; send a message to my 12for12 group members to see how they're doing; watch one or several of the short instructional videos I save but never "have time to" watch.)

2. I noticed that one of Jason's screenshots showed his use of Remember the Milk, and I had been meaning to check it out as an alternative to Evernote. Signed up and I'll see where that takes me.

3. Biggest time suck and productivity impediment: Interruptions. A USA Today study found that people (I'm assuming in a typical corporate environment) are interrupted 180 times a day. Well, I'm my own biggest interrupter. Something to remember as I flit from project to project.

4. "Three or more" -- the practice of saving up comments, e-mails, texts, conversations until there are three or more. Rather than send an individual e-mail every time I think of something to say to someone, wait until I have three things to tell them. Now if only I could get other people to adopt this practice!

5. Jason's use of a variety of domains to try out experiments was intriguing to me. He mentioned one domain that points to a blog post about a particular topic, that then leads to a PDF download. What a quick and simple way to test out an idea for a business, a product, or a service. And yes, I'm aware that others are doing this, but this is the first time it sounded like something that would work for me. As a speaker, you are frequently repeating information that is not new. It's how you deliver the information in a way that resonates with your audience that makes the difference between your audience taking action and your ideas flowing in one ear and out the other.

The presentation was a lot of fun for me, as speaker and as an audience member. If I can take something home, in addition to material for this blog, I'm especially happy. How can you provide more useful, relevant and practical tools for your audiences?

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

How is a speaker like a cinnamon roll cake?

Kathy Shields' cinnamon roll cake at Savoy Cafe

Yesterday I met a friend for an afternoon treat at one of my favorite Santa Barbara eateries: Savoy Cafe and Deli. Hubby and I have known the owners, Paul and Kathy Shields, for many years, and we love to support our friends and local businesses. (Stay tuned, by the way, for an episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, where you'll see me and my husband eating a meal at Savoy on camera!)

As I stepped up to the counter, Kathy saw me and invited me into the kitchen to show me her fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon roll cake. We chatted for a bit as she cut a slice and put it on a plate for Paul. She told me that she always cuts out a piece from a fresh cake before she puts it into the case, so the customers can see what's inside. It seems that customers are more likely to purchase a piece from an already-cut cake rather than a whole one. The interesting things one learns from trial and error in business!

It made me think (of course) of what we do as speakers. Audiences (our customers) also seem to prefer a speaker with a piece cut out in order to get a glimpse of our "insides."

When a speaker is too perfect, it's more difficult for the audience to relate to them and their message. But when a speaker shows some vulnerability, some imperfection, the audience realizes we're human, too. And if we can do it (whatever "it" may be), they can do it, too.

Are you a speaker who obsesses about being perfect, or are you a speaker who values connection over perfection?

And the cinnamon roll cake? It was as good as it looked!



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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Game changers! Presentations to inspire change... do they succeed?

I apologize for not putting up a blog post this week. We said goodbye to our 18-year-old kitty, the last of a dynasty of cats stretching back to our honeymoon in 1989. I'm working alone now in an empty house all day and it's a little hard to take. Here's the tribute I wrote to our sweet Noonie.

Unable to get a blog post finished this week, I nevertheless did find some entertaining videos of presentations that could use a little work. If you watch The Office, you've seen these. If not, take a look.

The first two presenters get their ideas shot down; they aren't appealing to the boss at all. But look what happens when the boss hears what he wants to hear from Kevin, believing Kevin's cookie idea to be an analogy for a bigger problem in the company. Game changer!







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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

5 public speaking tips from Nemo

While I'm moving over the next week, I've invited some of my favorite public speaking and communications bloggers to guest post here on Speak Schmeak. Please enjoy this post by Marion Chapsal from her blog, Geronimo Coaching Now. Follow her on Twitter: @MarionChapsal.

Remember Finding Nemo, Pixar's animated movie? It is the story of a little clown-fish named Nemo and his big Call to Adventure in the Big Ocean.When he disobeys his over-protective and stressed father Marlin, by swimming into open water and Crossing the threshold. He is of course caught and placed, far far away from home, in a Sidney Dentist Fish Tank...(The Inmost Cave??)

Fortunately, Nemo's father, on his way to save his son, meets a very brave and joyful creature, a female fish named Dory, who soon becomes his Mentor, in spite of her crazyness and very poor memory. It's a story of trust, of empowerment, of Father and Son, of friendship and tolerance, (remember the gang of sharks), of personal development and leadership. It's a typical hero's journey.

But it's also a lesson in public speaking, thanks to hilarious Dory.

If you believe you can speak whale and if you are fearless and bold enough to speak out and speak up, whales will actually speak back!

• Relax. Take a big breath. Just start. Once you start speaking, it's much easier to keep speaking. "Just keep swimming, keep swimming!" Relaxing your body before a presentation will make a big difference to your stage fright. Practise and keep breathing during the presentation too!

• Enunciate clearly and Speak Up. You don't need to open such a big mouth as Dory, but most of us don't articulate. It's necessary , especially if you are to speak to an International audience. Watch your pacing too. Slow down your delivery and pause. Make sure you are heard and speak with a good volume, adapted to the distance between you and your audience...

• Believe in Yourself. Dare to be different. Be bold and ask the questions nobody dares to ask. Is this the stereotype about men not asking for directions? Well, women on board meetings can also fall into that trap and would rather remain silent than ask for what they want. Do it even if others tell you you can't, if they think you're ridiculous, like sceptical Marlin ("You can't speak whale!"). Your heart may beat faster, people will start focusing on you, but do it! Listen to this little voice inside which says Go for It!

• Enjoy your talk. Play! Find a reason to be excited about your presentation. Here Dory has fun doing something completely new and exploring different sounds...She's playing! Think about why you're so passionate about what you want to say. Think about the impact your speech could have on others, the reason why they came to listen to you and what added value you can bring.

• Be totally present, here and now. Because Dory suffers from short-term-memory losses (and that makes her hilarious), she's always in the here and now. She's 100% present. I'm not suggesting you develop amnesia, but rather live the moment. To do so, be centered and grounded. Open wide your eyes and your ears. Observe, absorb, calibrate with all of senses. Use your 6th sense too, your intuition and plug yourself in your audience.

• Little fellow can speak to big fellow. If you speak from the heart, you will be heard. Your confidence and passion will engage others. Big fellows were little fellows, once. Public speaking is a skill you can learn by practice. Be bold, fearless and ambitious. You too, small fish, little fellow, you can speak to "big fellows".

What about you, do you speak whale? Come on, little fellow!




View video on YouTube

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!