Ep 29 Speaking: How to become a great public speaker

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates dives into the art of public speaking, highlighting the key differences between presenting to your team and captivating an audience of strangers. Drawing from his wealth of experience, Stephen shares essential techniques for crafting engaging presentations and offers invaluable tips and tricks to enhance your public speaking skills. Whether you’re preparing for a large conference or a small gathering, tune in to learn how to effectively connect with your audience and deliver your message with confidence!

SHOW NOTES AND MORE:
https://thecrazy1.com/

WATCH MORE CONTENT ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/@StephenGates

WORK WITH CRZY:
http://crzydesign.com/

FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 29th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership design, and a whole host of other things that matter to creative people. So today I want to talk about something that I get a lot of questions about. And that's how can you become a good, maybe even a great public speaker? Because public speaking is tricky. public speaking is hard, especially if you want to be good at it. And it's one of those things that I get a lot of recognition for being good at. I don't think it's something that whenever I say that is bragging because the reality is this for the past three years in a row, I've gone and spoken at Adobe max. Each one of those years I've been voted in Adobe max Master, which means I'm one of the top 20 speakers is voted by the attendees at that entire event. Then on top of that, across all the thousands of people who went they scored my events and the average that I've gotten is 4.9 out of five, I would go out on a limb here and say that that doesn't happen by accident. But the funny part is that for all the success that I currently have found, it's something I used to be really, really bad at. I honestly up until I probably when I was even in college, I was terrified to speak in front of more than just a handful of people. I couldn't do it. I'd freeze up. I couldn't figure out what to say. I'd mutter, I'd stumble. And so from then till now, it's something that I've had to learn. And there's a real art to it. There's some stuff that makes it a lot easier. There's some stuff that makes it a lot harder. So that's what I want to do with this episode, is I want to share what I've learned over the years in the hopes that it can help you that there are some tips and some tricks, some things, maybe even some insights that are going to help you become a better public speaker. And we're going to break this down into three simple parts. The first is just looking at the data difference between what is presenting versus what's public speaking, because those are two very different things. So let's define what each one of those are and understand the difference. whenever it comes to being a public speaker, I want to spend a little bit of time to talk about your style. How do you understand what your style is? How do you tap into that? And how do you use that, to make your talks to make your speeches, something that are really powerful. And then we're actually going to talk about the presentation itself, the content of it, what goes up on the screen some of the basic things around that. But those are the three parts that we're going to deal with today. So let's start by talking about what is the difference between presenting and speaking because this is something that I think we need to clear up here. I'll define presenting is this is often what you do at work. Presenting is about selling. I have something that I have done my creativity has yielded some product. I now need to go present that to people. Well the reality is and we talked about this before. previous episodes, that what that is more than anything is selling. public speaking, on the other hand, is something different. They share some traits. Absolutely. But public speaking is different. Because public speaking is about teaching, not about selling. So that the way that you approach it, the way that you need to do this is going to be different between those two. So if presenting is something that you want to find out more about, I would highly encourage you to go back and check out episodes 1213 and 14 of this podcast, because it's a foundation for some of the stuff that we're going to talk about here. And I think that there's just, there's a lot of what's in there that's going to help you at work. There's a lot of it that's going to help you even if you're doing public speaking, some of which will overlap on some of the most important things here. But if you're looking to be better at work, those are the episodes that you're going to want to go check out. So, I think that, you know, the biggest difference about public speaking is The fact that you have to speak in front of a crowd. And so if I'm on stage, and if I'm in front of a crowd, the reality is, even if I'm talking about design, creativity, anything like that, I'm putting on a performance. And if I'm putting on a performance, I'm essentially having to go through a similar thing, a similar mindset of what an actor would or a comedian or anything like that. So it means that you need to approach how you convey your information differently than you would if you're doing a presentation at work. Just because the audience is different because at work, there's some inherent investment that they have in the presentation that you're doing. Whether it's as simple as you both work at the same company, maybe they're your client, but there's some interest that's there. But the reality is when you're doing public speaking, that tie in that connection, more often than not, doesn't exist. So you You have to approach your audience differently, you have to get them to buy in, you have to convey things differently. But that's going to be the foundation is that it really is something where you have to be a teacher, and a bit of a performer. So let's start with that kind of just basic mindset in in the back of our heads. And let's go on and let's talk about your style. Because just like I said, in a lot of ways, you're a performer. And so you have to learn some of the things on stage that that stage performers do. And I think that the first part of this is to understand your style. Some performers know they're they're really serious, dramatic actor, some are better at comedy, they're, they're just different things that they know that they're good at. Here. Again, presenting isn't public speaking, in both cases, isn't that different, and this is gonna be one of those places where the content will overlap between those two because I think if you've ever had watched, probably I think what has been most consistently, the best onstage performers come from TED Talks. Because these are people who can get up of all different backgrounds of all different education's of all different expertise. But consistently, they're able to deliver great talks. And that doesn't happen by accident. Ted, as an organization, has a very rigorous way in which they work with these people. They go through and coach them and get them to practice and do these different things. But for our case, for this moment, what we're going to do is we're going to take really what are the three different personas that Ted will identify people as because in general, whenever you're going to do a public talk, they're kind of one of three things that you want to do. The first one is you want to be an educator. And this is where you are somebody who really seeks to understand the nature of why things are, these people will generally be the inventor. The scientists, the teachers, but they want to get up there. And these are people who are educators. The next one's going to be an entertainer. And these are people who are going to seek to share the secrets of their craft. Because if I'm going to get up there, and I want to do a public talk, then I need to share something, if I'm an entertainer, and I'm going to get going to get up on stage, and I'm not going to share something that's a performance. So that's different. But as an entertainer, these are people who might be comedians, magicians, artists, who want to talk about how do they write the jokes that they do, how do they build the tricks that they have? How do they make the art that everybody loves, and then the final one is going to be the change agent. And these are people who really are looking to inspire. These are the activists, the Guru's the entrepreneurs. These are the Tony Fidel's, the Elon Musk's of the world. These are the people that are really trying to do something that is really going to try to change the course of something And the best advice that I could give you, is whenever you're gonna start out by kind of having to get to the place where you say, Okay, look, I want to become a public speaker, I want to do this, either of my own want or the fact that someone is making me do it, which we know sometimes happens as well. Start by picking one of these, pick one of those personas, pick the one that you think you most identify with. Do you want to be the educator? Do you want to be the entertainer? Or do you want to be the change agent? And start by focusing on that one. But the other thing that I would encourage you to do is that as you grow, as you start to get confidence as you start to become better at this, the thing that you need to start to do is to figure out how can you cycle through all three of those. Because if you can be somebody who is educational, who is inspirational and who is funny, all within the same talk, then you can really engage your audience you can really draw Man, you can really hook them on what it is that you're trying to say. And that because that's really one of the challenges in so many cases is how do I keep people engaged? How do I keep them entertained? Whether it's for 20 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour and a half. And the longer the talk is, trust me, the harder that is to do. So think about how can I then cycle through that. So there are times whenever it just truly is about passing on something that I've learned that you think people could use, in other times, trying to lift them up to inspire them to try to push them to be more than where you think the audience may be. And then just to tell jokes every once a while, because it it's a good break in things that makes their brain kind of release that little hit of dopamine, and they like it. It's funny and it changes and it keeps them engaged. But think about how can you cycle through all of these. And so the basic, most basic part of doing any public speaking is understanding Your voice, it's the way you're going to convey your message. Because the reality that I have found is that sameness, quite honestly is just the simply the enemy of public speaking. If you have the same cadence, the same vocal rhythm, the same pitch, the same tone, and gesture patterns through your whole presentation, your audience is going to tune out, you have to mix it up. Sometimes you have to talk faster, sometimes you have to talk slower, sometimes. It's funny, sometimes it's a little more subdued. Sometimes it's very passionate. Sometimes it's very funny. It's one of these things where you've got to think about consciously How do you change it up? How do you keep variety in your delivery so you can hold your audience's interest? I very deliberately think about, the first thing I'm going to do is okay, what's the story I want to tell? But then what are the parts that are the slower more deliberate ones? What are the parts that are more high energy? What are the soapbox parts where I'm going to try to inspire them? How do I shift up my voice? Where do I put the pauses Where do I put the fast sentences? But there's some part of this where you've got to figure out, how do you mix it up. Because if it just simply is the same thing, the same way of talking the whole time, you're going to lose them, they're going to get bored. But then your voice is your instrument, your voice is the way that you're going to communicate the information. But the other part of this that I found to be something that's a bit more nuanced, but it's something that you also have to be aware of, is controlling your body language. Because if you remember the simple fact and you've probably heard other people say this in the past, is it probably over 90% of communication is nonverbal. If you think about it, if I'm engaged, I leaned forward in my seat. If I'm disengaged, I'm leaning back. If I really don't care at all, I'm slumped down and I'm kind of staring off into space. The way that your body is actually communicating things says a lot because your audience is going to read your facial expressions. The tone of your voice, the way you use your hands, even just the way you stand, makes a difference. So if you get up on stage, and you have an easy way about yourself, you smile, your body language is calm, you're not jumping around all over the stage, you're going to immediately tell the audience that you're comfortable and confident. Because that's what so much of it is, is that the people who you just engage with, think back about when you've been to a conference, think back about whenever you've seen somebody on stage, whenever you really have felt maybe uncomfortable, maybe not that drawn in. These are so often the things that do it is because you can tell they're nervous, maybe they have tics, and they say, um, all the time, maybe they pace, ceaselessly, but it just, there's an inherent, underlying part of it, where their body language and the way that they're doing it is giving it is giving away really what it is they're trying to communicate, and it undermines you, no matter how much you try it. It'll undermine you. So it's something here again that you need to figure out. How can you control this. It's one of those things whenever I come on stage, so many times, I try to make sure that I'm speaking slowly, I'll do an introduction to talk about who I am, I'm going to try to use a slower pace, a calmer pace to the way I do things. It's gonna put people at ease, it starts to draw them in, I'm gonna make sure that I don't move around on stage a lot. I'm not gonna make wild gestures with my hands. And like I said, this is a nuance thing that you have to come to over time. But it's something that really does make a big difference. The next thing that I would say is, so if we've talked about your voice about varying that up, and we've talked about controlling the way it is you move, well, now he's going to start to move on to what are you actually talking about, but not just what are you talking about? How are you talking about it? For me, I think that one of the biggest things that most people miss is passion. honesty, they get up there and they act like they're giving a book report, they're simply going to convey information, I'm going to just simply tell you something in a very direct way. And honestly, most times will start to bore the hell out of you. What you need to do is you need to figure out, how can I be vulnerable? How can I open up? How can I be honest? How can I show some passion? And I've talked before about this is something where in many cases, I'll often look to other industries to help me to help me understand how to be better at something. And one of the biggest places one of the biggest sets of people who really helped me with public speaking were comedians. Because the thing that you'll find out is when you go and talk to a comedian about how can you be funny? How can you be engaging with an audience? How can you quickly win them over so all of a sudden they don't start heckling you or tune out? They'll talk about really the two biggest things that you need to do are to be vulnerable. And to really be honest and open up about yourself, to tell jokes about your life story. To tell jokes about you about things that you've done that have either been successful or things where you've screwed up. And public speaking, honestly is the same. Because the thing that I found is that the more honest I am, the more honest I am about the struggles I have, the more I share about what I've learned, the more I connect with people, because it's not just simply conveying general ideas, but it's letting them know, even though this may sound kind of ridiculous, it's letting them know that I'm human, by the fact that you're on stage, you're being put in a position of authority, you're being put in position as an expert. And there are two different ways you can do that. One is you can treat it like I'm an expert, and I'm better than everybody. I know something that you don't, and I'm here because I'm better than you. And you see speakers who approach it that way. And I always think that's bullshit because it's alienating. It's arrogant. You're not a rock star. You're here to teach people The arrogance isn't going to help you with that. For me, it is about getting up there. And being open and being honest and talking about what are the things that I did really well? What are the things that I've screwed up on? How have I learned how have I grown, because that not only connects with the audience, but it humanizes the content. And I think, you know, a lot of cases, it's the foundation for this podcast, is to share what I've learned, is to share what I've learned the easy way, the hard way to share the ways that I've succeeded and also just share the ways that I've screwed up. But it's trying to be honest and passionate about that stuff. Because it's just one of those things where I really think that it helps you also be different, and we'll talk about that more here in a minute about why, why is your perspective and what you've done. Also a critical part of this. I think that with these sort of basics, about your style, your voice, your body language, your passion, your honesty for some of the things like that All sounds like Okay, I get it. I need to do those things. But in the moment, you hit the stage, the crowd looks up at you. There's that first moment when you need to get everybody to be quiet to focus on you and the lights come up in that moment, all that goes out of your head, and you're just left with the muscle memory of what it is that you know how to do. So this is the number one thing I'm going to I'll tell you to do. This is the one number one thing I'll actually demand that you do, whether you are presenting to sell at work, but especially if you're doing public speaking, is to practice, practice, practice, practice, but not just practice, practice and record it. I've talked about this in the episodes that we did on presenting, because the thing that you're going to find out is that public speaking is a lot like hearing your voice on a voicemail because for me, I record To podcasts, I talk all the time, I have heard my voice in my head 365 days a year for my entire life. I know what it sounds like. But then this funny thing happens. I hear it recorded. I hear it on this podcast, I hear it whenever I call in my voicemail or something like that. And I immediately think some part of my brain goes, I don't sound like that. Well, the problem is that the way that my voice rattles around in my head, and the way that I hear to my ears is different than the way that everybody else hears it. public speaking, is really not that different. And the way that it's not that different is because there's a lot of cases where you're going to go through, you're going to practice you're going to think, Wow, I've got this I was great. I was awesome. I was dynamic. Everybody is gonna love it. I'm gonna be a rock star. Go back right afterwards and watch it. Because the places where you thought you were really fired up, you were really doubt in you were really passionate, probably weren't as good and as big as you thought. You probably had a lot of body language tics that you weren't aware of you may have had some audible tics that you also weren't aware of. Because one of the things that most people who do public speaking, especially most people who are new to public speaking, one of the things that they do is that they're very uncomfortable with silence. Silence is hard. If I'm going to get up there, I lose my place, I lose my line, I'm not quite sure where it is, I need to go next. What do I do? I've suddenly have a verbal tic. I'm like, Well, uh, these sorts of things. You don't know that you're doing it. Because the reality is, is that your brain is trying to work through what is the next thing that's going to come out of your mouth. It's like a conveyor belt. It gets that thought lines up, it shoots it down to your mouth, your mouth starts to say it Your brain is on to the next line. So you're not actively paying attention to those things. But this is why you have to practice and then immediately go back and watch that recording. Because if you want to get better if you want to get confident if you want to get comfortable. These are the only ways when you're generally going to understand how do you look like when you're On stage. And the other thing that I'll tell you is that the number of times that you need to practice. And this is by all accounts, as far as I know, it works for me and I know that it's worked for a lot of very other famous people is seven. Seven is usually the number of times that you need to practice something to have complete command over whatever that content is. It's what Steve Jobs has done. It's what Tim Cook does. It's what a lot of other people I know still continue to do is they do the magic number of seven is the number of times that you need to practice. And so that's what I would encourage you to do. Practice it seven times, record it seven times. Watch it seven times. Yes, it will get easier over time. Yes, the flaws will become smaller. Yes, it's going to become easier. But whenever you first start doing this, if you want to be good at this, if you want to get asked back. If you want to build your brand, if you want to do a lot of the reasons and a lot of the things why we do public speaking, this is what you need to do. And there's one One other trick that I'll tell you, because here again, like I said, you hit that stage, the lights come up, all of a sudden everybody looks at you. In that moment, a funny thing often happens, all of the little minutia that you practiced all the little ways that you want to say something, suddenly kind of go out of your head. It's why most of the time, I really just tried to get at least like, what are the first two or three sentences? What's the introduction? What's the joke? And how do I go into my intro down, so that I know and that's the thing, I'm going to rehearse in my head in my head in my head, and get that down before I go up there. But the other big thing that I've discovered over the years is that I am far more effective. If I memorize the concepts that I'm about to talk about, as opposed to the exact words or the necessarily the minute content. Do you get up there, you're nervous. And in those moments, when you're nervous, remembering exact wording becomes really hard. Well, and then all Have a sudden whenever it's really hard, and you can't remember it, oh my god. Now all of a sudden, I'm even more nervous. I had this all worked out, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Now, I can't remember it. And now your brain starts to spin, and you start to get into freefall. And the nervous tics happen and you lose your way. So if you memorize the concepts, you can start to wing it. And then once you start to wing it, once you start to talk about that concept, it's amazing how you'll start to find your way back to that exact content to exactly to what it was you were going to talk about. There's also the trick of it's why if you've ever seen me talk at any presentation, you see, I use very, very simple slides. And I do it for two reasons. The first one is just because I don't want to get hung up on a script. I sound like I'm from a public access TV commercial. If I try to read off a script, it's not the way I present. So I will sacrifice accuracy for storytelling, because my flow is better. I know I'm not all hung up about, okay, now this is the next thing I've got to say in it. So again, the simple slides, let me do that. But the other thing that it lets me do is it lets me control the audience's attention. Because they aren't just sitting there reading the slide, and they know what it is. I'm gonna say, they're focused on me. And I think that's a big part of what you want is that I want them as, especially for me as the performer. I want that focus on me. But the thing is, is that you may be and you more than likely are different. So see what works for you. Maybe you are somebody that does better with a little bit more complicated slides. Maybe you are somebody who's good with the script. Maybe you're just good. If you write down just bullet points. Maybe you're somebody who's like me, if you just basically winging it. This is something you're going to need to figure out is how can you be that storyteller? How can you be that performer? How can you be that teacher because those are really the three things that are really going to be the demands on your school. dial to be able to make each of those compelling, engaging, because if you can do those, those are the people who are classified as a great public speaker. And the last thing that I'm going to tell you to think about here as well is that you have to think about how do you set yourself up to be successful, to be compelling, to be interesting to be somebody that people want to listen to. And this is something that maybe takes a little bit of time. And but I'll give you some examples of what I mean here. And it's one of those things like for me, I get asked a lot to either do solo talks, so I'm going to be on stage by myself. Or probably more of the time I get asked to be a panelist. I don't like panels, I'm not as good at them. Because I want is because I think it's a lot of people who are sitting around basically trying just for their turn to make a point But for me, it's very hard to deliver anything that I think that is genuinely useful, whenever the narrative where it is that it's going to go is just such a fluid thing. And I think that the better the moderator is, the more likely I am to do a panel. So it's not like I never do it. But it is really, really rare for me to be able to do that, because solo talks for me are something where I can control the narrative, I can control the flow, I can make sure that what it is that I want to communicate, gets communicated. So this is something just to think about that as you go through this. What are you good at, maybe you do want to start as a panelist because it's easier for you, if you don't have the complete burden of being the only person on stage. Maybe you're somebody who does want that attention, maybe you do want to be the one that's on stage. This is just something to be aware of. The other part, and this this truly is the last part now that I'm thinking of it, because I think this just occurred to me and it's something that I think is worth sharing is that if you're going to be a public speaker, if you're going to stand up in front of people If you're going to be just like any other performer, you have to be completely prepared that not everyone is going to love you. They aren't going to love your content. It's one of those things that gets to me. And it bothers me probably more than it should the bad reviews the people who walk out of a session it's one of those things where even like the last Adobe Max, I don't know what it was, I think I had four or five entire pages of absolutely fantastic comments. I had six and I remember the exact six of what they were that didn't they thought that the session was a waste of time. I didn't know what it was I was talking about and those six nah it me and just bother the hell out of me. They shouldn't but they do. And I think that this is something you have to try to find a way to make peace with. For me I try to use it to be motivational, like one of the things that I get a huge amount of pride in, especially the bigger the room is, is that as I talk If I can keep every single person in their seat and not leave, for me, that's an incredibly successful session. But there are some where the audience just isn't that into that message. They thought it was going to be something else people leave people give you bad reviews. And if you watch somebody walk out of your session, you can't let it throw you off. You can't suddenly let it affect your performance. For me, I've developed this. I don't know what arrogance, I guess where it's like, Okay, look, it's their loss. I'm trying to share something that I think is going to be really valuable that I think has been successful for me if they don't get it fine. It's on them. They're good. They're gonna miss out. Because you also just need to realize though, it's a natural reaction. And I think this is something that's taken me a while to embrace is the fact that somebody's not liking it. hurts. It bothers you. Just for the simple fact. You put I put a lot of work and a lot of soul into it. My presentations into my public speaking into my podcasts. So of course, I'm going to take it personally when people don't like them. Like it still bugs me when there are some episodes that I think are really good at this podcast and the numbers suck. People don't like either they weren't interested. They didn't like it. There was something that didn't connect with them. And it bugs me. But it should bug me because I also think that it's like I said, I've just come to embrace the fact that this matters to me. The content matters what I'm trying to share matters. So understand that the reaction is natural, understand that the reaction will happen. It's just how you control it, how you let it affect you. That really makes all the difference. That Yes, get mad about the bad reviews later. Yes. be disappointed that that person walked out. But don't let one person walk out. ruin the experience for the entire rest of the audience who's still there? Because it's just, you can't please everybody. It's never gonna happen as much as you want to. Never gonna happen. So let's move on. And let's talk about the actual presentation. Like what are you actually going to talk about? So we've talked about you, we've talked about the things that you need to do for you as the instrument who is going to communicate these things. We've talked about that. But now the words that you speak the content that you deliver, let's spend a little bit of time talking about that. And I think if we're going to talk about being great at public speaking, the first thing that you have to be able to get good at is you have to get good at figuring out what's your, we'll call it a lens. Because I think that it's one of those things where there's nothing I've ever talked about. There's probably nothing you're ever going to talk about as a public speaker that somebody hasn't talked about before. Unless you're some like crazy quantum physicist and you've discovered a new planet or a new particle or something that nobody's ever seen before. All the rest of us are going to talk about something that somebody else has talked about before. So that's a problem. It's a challenge. How do you overcome it? And I think that the thing that you need to do is you need to take the time to figure out, how do I see things differently? What have I done? That's different? How is this going to be presented, talked about viewed conveyed in a way that's going to be different than what everybody else does. Because for me, I talk about things like creativity, leadership, design, thinking, these are things that have been around for a really, really, really long time. So for me to be interesting at that, for me to be good at that for people to want to show up and hear it. I have to put a lens on it. I have to be able to position it in a way that's going to make it different than how everybody else talks about it. And I think that that's something that you need to think about. And here again, as with most of the stuff that I talked about, this is going to be we're part of the challenges because The way that this happens is going to be personal to you. I don't know your experiences, I don't know how you've done things differently. But I guarantee you that you have, you've done something, you've looked at something, you've approached something differently than everybody else. That has to be the heart of what it is that you're going to communicate. Now, that being said, that doesn't mean that you don't leave the basics out of your talk. If I talk about creativity, or leadership or design thinking or digital design or anything like that, I can't assume that everyone in the audience is an expert. So for me to do that, yes, I'm going to start with the basics. I'm going to start with, Let's all make sure that everyone has the same understanding of whatever this topic is. And then I can go on and I can move on, and I can then cover it in a way that then puts my unique lens, my unique spin on it, that's going to be different than everybody else. It's one of those things where you just you've got to start to figure out What's my voice? What's my approach? What am I going to be known for? What are people going to show up and listen to me about and that's really going to be really your lens on the world. The next thing that I spend a lot of time on, and it may sound maybe a little silly, it may sound like you wouldn't expect that this is something that you would spend a lot of time on for public speaking. But one of the things that I probably spend a really good chunk of time on is the name of my talk. Because a lot of ways my talk is a product. It's something that I want people to come to I want them to buy into it because especially for me, I tend to talk at events. Rarely do I have the opportunity where it's just like kind of a one man show the one night only sort of thing where I'm going to show up and I'm going to be the only guy there. You look at an Adobe max you look at a how design you look at a lot of these events. There are multiple tracks of multiple speakers that are going on. So I have to get people to buy my product over somebody else's product. And the problem here is it so many conference producers will call you up and they'll say, hey, do you want to speak at this event? Yes, I'd love to. Great. By the end of the day, can you send us like your session name and like just a couple sentences about what it's about and, and give me just a couple bullet points about, you know, just what are what are people going to walk away from? So can you just send that over today, agreeing to that as suicide? And I'll tell you why. Because I'm competing against other people. So I need time to think about how am I going to make my product stand out? How am I going to make what people are going to take away from this stand out? How am I going to get people to show up and buy what it is that I'm selling? I think that that's one of the reasons why my talks tend to have funny, maybe it's slightly dramatic, maybe slightly outlandish titles, because I know I'm competing. And that's the thing. So if you're, if you're at Adobe Max, and you have, I don't know what, how to use Photoshop in your new workflow, or would you rather go to light bulbs or bullshit, or successes a choice? And so this is the thing, right? Like, I know that that's the decision somebody is going to look at. I'm going to look at the new digital workflow versus light bulbs are bullshit. just naturally, I'm going to be much more interested in what are light bulbs are bullshit, because all the rest of the titles are just so expected. They sound like college courses. So this is why this is something where I've spent a decent amount of time and I always will spend a good amount of time thinking about it once I know what the general topic is going to be. What's the product of this? What's the brand? What's the title of my social, the description in the takeaways and how do I make those really as strong as I can. And I think that dovetails into the next part, whether it's naming your session, whether it's thinking about what you're going to talk about, whether it's thinking about the actual content of your presentation is that you need to think about, you need to understand or in some cases you need to research. What is the makeup of your audience? If I'm speaking in an event, I will often ask for past years, what are the demographics? What are the? What's the gender split? What's the age range? What's the title of the people who are there? What is their seniority? You know, what is that mix? Because for me, I need to understand, am I talking to people who are experts, and appeal have been in the industry a really long time? Or am I speaking to a bunch of kids who are just out of school? Is it going to be a really big audience? Is it going to be really small audience? How are they going to be engaged in this? What are the other types of sessions that they're doing? A lot of times, I'll even get down to talking about like, where in the day Do I want to be positioned? I mean, it like, you know, for me, death is being the first speaker on day two of any single conference. God help you if it's there's one in Vegas, because I have a bunch of people who probably went out and party the night before because they're away from their jobs or they're with a bunch of friends they haven't seen or they're away from their spouses or whatever the reason is. So I probably have a bunch of people who are coming in half hung over not really paying attention to what it is that I'm talking about. That is not going to lead to people who think I'm a good speaker that is not going to lead to good scores, that's not going to learn lead to people who are going to walk away, thinking, Wow, that was really good information. It's going to walk away from a bunch of people who think Damn, I need another coffee because I'm not awake yet. But understand your audience, understand their mindset understand some of these things, so that you really just can understand the makeup and the mindset of who it is that you're talking to. And the next part for me is just like any performer, you need to work out what is the story you're going to tell before you actually build the presentation. What's the lens that I'm going to use? How is this going to be different than how everybody else has talked about It, what's the flow? How am I going to connect the thoughts together? For me, as with most everything that I do is my creative process. This starts in Evernote. And it really starts by just kind of again blocking out what are the big points that I want to hit on? What are the big things that I'm going to want to talk through? If it's something like leadership, I want to talk about just the introduction of what does leadership mean? How are leaders versus managers different? I want to talk about what are the challenges that you're going to face. And then I want to break this down into the fact that there are two parts you and the part you're responsible for, and then the part of how you apply that to your team. So generally, that's the story I want to tell. Then I can start to dig in on what's the content, what are the stories I'm going to tell where am I going to be funny? How am I going to differentiate this from everybody else and I can start to work that out. Once I have it into a rough outline that I like. Then I transfer that rough outline into keynote. And here again, it's just one or two words where I can go through and it is just going to let me be able to start to see this flow and see to see if it works. I can start to look at it for time. Because that's another problem is all of a sudden, if I have a set amount of time, this is one of these things, I have to make sure I'm going to run to time. You just you've got to get clear on what's the purpose? What am I trying to accomplish? What's the impact I want to have on the audience? Am I looking to inform them, inspire them, persuade them, and it's really knowing that the ultimate purpose and the desired outcome will help me stay focused on that outline. But it is then working through it and figuring out what's that story, I want to tell a goofy trick for your presentation. And it's a simple one. Most of the times, if you actually tell people you'll do this, whenever you're doing a actual talk, they'll give they'll applaud which I always find more than a little funny. Tell them upfront that you're gonna send out your deck afterwards. Because if you don't, the funny thing that you're going to find is that you're going to be presenting to the tops of the heads of basically your entire audience. Because they're going to be heads down. They're going to be taking notes. They're going to be trying to transcribe what it is that you said in instead of actually listening and learning, I often will equate this to I find it funny. Whenever you go on vacation, there are certain people that you see who are videotaping the entire thing. They don't actually look around, they don't take everything in. They're constantly staring and trying to document the event. I often laugh that I think these people must have to get home and watch the tape to figure out if they had a good time. But presenting is not that much different. Because if you're not listening, if you're not learning, if you're just simply trying to transcribe what it is that I'm saying, the content doesn't connect to the same way. It doesn't work as well. So just do yourself a favor, Tom, we're gonna send the deck out so they actually build so they actually pay attention to you. The next part is I think with any presentation, try to figure out how do you build credibility with the people that you're talking to? Because I think this is the number one place where I see public speaking fail why see people walk out of sessions is because speakers do not have the ability to build credibility with their audience. Because the thing is, is don't just beat him over the head with your accomplishments. This is that rock star thing that we talked about before, if you stand up there and your ego takes center stage as you want to demonstrate how awesome you are, how much more I know than you do. I don't do that. I want to try to connect with people. Because it's one of those things where I don't I don't want to prove to you how smart I am. I want to try to teach you I want to try to give you insights. And the reality is is that you know, I know that I'm up at this podium for a reason. people showed up for a reason. You know, yes, I will do an introduction of myself if you've never heard of me, but in a big case, my experience, the things I'm going to communicate should be the credentials that speak for themselves. Think about it like this. Because whenever you stand on stage and when you're trying to present no matter how good you are, no matter who you are, there is a gap between you In the audience, and it's one of those things where it's also there's a gap because they really know that you're the expert. And since they're in the audience, they aren't, they're there to learn something. There's a vulnerability to that. But by trying to impress them with your intellect, to try to kind of say, look how much better I am than you, you create even more distance because there's some vulnerability in your audience that they showed up and said, Look, I don't know anything about this, or I want to know more about this. arrogance will make your audience disconnect. So think about how can you connect with them? How can you know that they have that vulnerability that they're looking to you and that they know that you're the expert. So don't stand up there and be the you know, this diva and this rock star that's just going to create even more of a gap between them. The next one for me always is and always is, I talked about this before my decks, keep your content simple. It's one of the things where I want people paying attention to me, instead of reading my slides, you have a natural inclination, your natural inclination will be to impart lots of knowledge on to your audience, right? I'm going to tell them everything, every little detail every little bit, every little part. You can't write, you have to figure out, how can I edit it down? I don't want to bore them. I don't want to overwhelm them. I don't want to make it where there's just this firehose of information. I would rather focus on a few really powerful things that they'll remember, as opposed to telling them every single thing that I've ever learned, and then in a funny way, that that thought, that thought right there is another one of the reasons why I started this podcast was because there was so much more I wanted to share. There was so much more that I wanted to teach. But the problem was, I just couldn't. I couldn't spend the amount of time talking about leadership or the nuances of it or emotion or things like that in a session. There'd be days like And nobody would show up to it. But just think about that sort of thing about how do I convey it simply concisely With a few simple words, no big dense eye charts, no big firehose of information to make that really work. And then once you have that down once you have your story, once you have it focused in once you have your deck built. The other thing that I'll tell you that really can go a long way is to put in the time to actually polish your deck. Things like animations and transitions can go a really long way to make your presentation stand out and feel more polished, making the your type build in a certain way. Making simple little animations. keynote is a far more powerful animation tool than people ever give it credit for. Because to me, it's always funny because so many people will come up whether it's my work presentations, or whenever I'm on stage, and they go wow, I always love your presentations. I feel like I'm watching you like something that Apple did. There's power in that There's power in that polish. And that attention to detail in that I didn't just throw a bunch of text up there and put a bunch of District dissolves between everything that I took the time to actually go through. And to build out these animations to make it look nice to make it feel like it wasn't just a bunch of words that were up there on the screen that it was a bit more of an experience. And I think that really is something that can go a long way. And I think that, you know, for me, the biggest thing, if there's one thing that you remember, out of all of this, is that when you're putting your story together, at the end of it, focus on what can your audience use tomorrow, whether they are a novice, whether they are an expert, give them takeaways that they can use, they need to be actionable. They need to be different. They need to be things that maybe they haven't thought of before, but they can go Holy crap, I can go you Use that tomorrow. If it's a case study about something that you've done in the past, and there isn't an actionable takeaway that I can use tomorrow. It's interesting. But there's not anything I can do with it. I don't think you're a great speaker. I think you're somebody who just got up there and told me about a bunch of stuff that you did. So think about out of this stuff. How can I make it so simple, that people can just write it down can remember, it can go, Wow, I can use that tomorrow. And whenever you get those moments, think about how you convey them. Because one of the big things that I do is I almost try to think about it and it may sound a little bit weird. If I have this idea, this insight this moment. How do I almost make it a tweetable moment? How do I make it so short and so precise, that they know to take it with them to write it down to remember it? For me These are lines like creativity as a blue collar profession. Agile is the new smart, they're like, there's a ton of these sort of things that I've developed over the years. And the reason why I have is because they're the key moment, the key takeaway, the thing that I want people to remember, but I want to make it simple and concise. And thinking about it like a tweet often really is a good thing for you to be able to do, to be able to kind of go through and to make sure that it is that simple. And it's that straightforward. Because I think if you can do that, give your audience something they can use, make it about them, because that's the heart of what teachers do. I don't just want to convey information. But I want to give you information that you can use that is actionable for you. Because if I'm doing that, then that's really the heart of kind of what teaching is. So as you go to try to think about how do you become a public speaker, either a new one or one that wants to improve? focus on that mindset of a performer of understanding your voice, your body language, all of these sorts of things that any performer again have to deal with, understand your style. How is it that you are how do you want to communicate? And how do you evolve that. And then as a teacher, as somebody who's going to convey things, put in the time to think about every aspect of your presentation, from that initial title, the thing that it's called, it's going to get the butts in the seats, through those different moments and making sure that at the end of the day, it's about them, that it's about giving them something that they can use. Because if you're going to do that, then and with some practice, and with some repetition, then that's gonna make you a great public speaker. And the other thing, like I said before, is that anybody, anybody can do it if you follow these steps, because I'm living proof. I'm the guy that went from being terrified at 20 something years old in front of speaking in front of just a handful of people to Now I have the insane, insane life that lets me travel around the world speaking in front of thousands and thousands of people. So if I can do it, God knows you can do it too Just follow the steps put in the time and have a little belief that you can get there. So as always, if you find the show useful, if this is content that you like if it's content you find makes things better for you all the only currency I ever asked for is just take a quick second head over to iTunes leave a review, it makes a big difference helps with the way that the show is ranked and the way the show is ranked brings more people into the show. So it's something that I definitely definitely appreciate. As always, you can find out more about this podcast you can find related articles and you can find the show notes and as always, I've spent a lot of time really improving the show notes for people. You can find all that stuff at podcast dot Stephen Gates, calm Stephen is still STP h n click on episodes find this particular one in The list, you can listen to the episode again, find any related articles about this and the complete list of the show notes. So if you want to use that, so you don't want to feel like you have to scribble everything down, you can find that there. If you like the show if this is a conversation you want to be a part of hover over to Facebook, search for The Crazy One podcast give the page like I post articles, post updates, post new episodes, my weekly inspirations a whole host of other stuff, that's a spot to go check it out. As always, the boys down illegal want me to remind you that all of us here my own, they don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own funny little thoughts. And finally, I say it every time because I needed every time but thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that we have. It's always incredibly humbling that so many of you want to spend any of it with me. So until the next show, and until we talk again, stay crazy.