Speaking & Presentations Archives - Page 9 of 13 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Pam, thank you so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Pam Skillings
Thanks for inviting me. I’m excited to chat today.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited too. I understand you also have some excitement and enthusiasm for a particular dinosaur. What’s the story here?

Pam Skillings
Well, I have a five-year-old. As you can imagine, that’s where my love of dinosaurs has come from. When you asked me for a fun fact, I thought not too many people are going to share that the diplodocus is their favorite dinosaur, but it was fresh in my mind because I had just been having a very in depth dinosaur conversation that very evening.

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t think I can summon an image of what a diplodocus is off the top of my head. I think of the pterodactyl, the tyrannosaurus, triceratops, but I’m drawing a blank here.

Pam Skillings
I’m trying to be a little bit different, you know? I think the main reason is because it’s a lot of fun to say. Diplodocus. I don’t know, something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Does it have any noteworthy features or abilities?

Pam Skillings
It’s kind of brontosaurus like. It’s big and it’s an herbivore. It’s definitely in the top ten I think of all time dinosaurs.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny, we have a new baby at home. The shirt he wears most days has three dinosaurs on it and one of them might be a diplodocus. I’ll have to double check.

Pam Skillings
Yeah, you’ll have to see if you can find one. You’ve got to start them early with the diplodocus.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. Well, I want to hear all about your brilliance when it comes to helping folks with interviews. It’s impressive to behold. You’ve been doing this for a good while now. How long?

Pam Skillings
I’ve been doing this – well, career coaching since 2005 I guess. Yeah, and focusing, not exclusively, but mostly on interviewing for the last several years if not more. I hate to – it makes me feel old when I think too hard about it, but yeah, for a good long time. I kind of found my niche for a lot of people.

I still do coaching on other career issues, but I think I started out focusing more so on career change and bigger sort of career issues, trying to figure out the next chapter of your career. I still help people with that.

But I found that along with that, a lot of people, their biggest challenge was once they figured out what they wanted to do next, “Okay, how do I get someone to give me that job?” Most people are not naturally good at interviewing. Even if they’re not terrible, they could be better. They tend to get nervous. It’s a nerve-racking kind of experience.

I found I kind of had a knack for helping people with it. I think maybe because earlier in my career I worked in – I’ve worked in both marketing and human resources before getting into coaching and falling in love with sort of helping people with their careers and finding work that they love.

For whatever reason, I found that I had a knack for sort of listening to people and helping them figure out how to present themselves and their accomplishments and their strengths in the way that was really going to resonate with the interviewers. It was really rewarding to me once I started working with people on that because you see results right away.

I love ongoing coaching because you help people overcome big problems, but it takes a lot of time. With interview coaching I tend to even in one session, sometimes I’ll get a call the next day, “Hey, it went great. I got the job offer.” It’s really a nice feeling. It’s really rewarding to help people who have a lot of great things going for them just to get over this one hurdle, to learn this one skill, to kind of look at themselves and their own experience in a different way.

It’s hard I think to look at yourselves objectively sometimes and think about “What do I want to emphasize? What do I want to bring out about myself for this particular opportunity?”

An interview is kind of a different interaction than anything else we do in I guess normal life. People sometimes haven’t had training or it’s just not something that they’re comfortable with, but with a little bit of training, a little bit of coaching you can see people make a huge, huge difference.

Getting good at interviewing is a major life improvement opportunity. You can get a better job. You can get a job that you love more, make a lot more money. There’s so many things that you can achieve if you get good at interviewing.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. The stakes and the rewards are substantial, which is how you’ve been able to command a 500 dollar an hour rate for years upon years, so congrats to you fellow entrepreneur. That’s really cool.

I’d love to hear then a couple of the gems that you share during these coaching sessions that make people say, “Yeah, that was totally worth it.” I’ll get specific shortly, but for now I’d like to go wide open in terms of those nuggets you share that make people go, “Wow, yes. That was the thing.”

Pam Skillings
Yeah, I think there’s a couple things that are recurring themes. I think most people are terrible at the whole ‘tell me about yourself’ because it’s just an awkward hugely open-ended question. It’s so easy to get off on a tangent or to stumble.

That’s one I’ve seen make a huge difference, just spending  a little bit of time together kind of thinking about, “Okay, how do I want to open this interview?” You’re opening in an interview and almost always that first question is something along those lines, sort of open-ended ‘tell me about yourself,’ ‘walk me through your resume.’

I find just making improvements to that and how you open, because it’s kind of like how you position yourself with this person. What their first real impression of you? What do they focus on? Well, you kind of have some control over than in terms of what you emphasize and how you describe yourself in that ‘tell me about yourself.’

Now of course, you’ve got to cover the key facts on the resume, but there’s a lot of different ways that you can do that. I think that’s one of the things.

Just being able to give real objective feedback to people about how they’re coming across. I think it’s very difficult sometimes to know yourself and often in interviews, you don’t get real feedback. You might get a, “Well, we went another way,” or “Yeah, we really liked you, but-.” You rarely get told, “Hey, you could be doing this better and this could be-” so I think that’s part of it.

I use my time very effectively. I sit down with someone and I am 100% focused on them and hearing what their challenges are, hearing how they’re coming across. I do my homework before each session on their industry. At this point I’ve worked with people across a lot of different industries, different levels, and there are definitely some nuances and differences when it comes to different types of jobs.

I think that’s sort of where I add value in having done this a long time and having a pretty good understanding of where people go wrong and what hiring managers are looking for and being able to give advice on sort of all the steps along the way in the job search and interview process.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love to dig into some of these matters then. When it comes to the ‘tell me about yourself’ or ‘walk me through your resume,’ what are some of the key do’s and don’ts there?

Pam Skillings
Well, I think one of the biggest ones is having a strategy. We have this three-part model that we recommend to people. It’s not the only way to do it, but sort of going in and knowing, like this is the chance to basically tell my whole story. I don’t know want to try to wing it and end up going off on a tangent or end up leading with the stuff that’s less relevant or interesting and losing the person after 20 seconds.

We have this three-part model. We have articles. We have lots of information and free advice on our blog, BigInterview.com/blog and Big Interview is our online training platform, so people who don’t have the budget or inclination to hire a coach to work one-on-one, we’ve put a lot of different lessons in terms of how I do things with my clients and there’s a practice tool and a bunch of stuff like that on Big interview.

‘Tell me about yourself’ is definitely one of the things that is most popular and that people are most likely to be looking for on our site. Really emphasizing what’s most relevant and interesting for this particular job.

I think a lot of people by instinct kind of walk in and start at the beginning of their story. It’s like “Well, I grew up here. I went to college here.” If you’re a ten-year seasoned executive, by the time you get to the stuff that I really care about in terms of are you the right person for this job, I’ve kind of checked out a little bit. That’s one of the things I see people doing.

I think one of the other things people do with the ‘tell me about yourself’ as well as the rest of the interview is they just don’t – I hate to say sell yourself because it sounds like not a very human thing to do, but the truth is that in a job interview, you really have to think about how do I sell them on the fact that I’m the best fit for this job. How do I really highlight my strengths, experience that I have that will make me great in this position.

A lot of people aren’t comfortable with that. Most of us are not taught how to do that. We’re taught actually that that’s obnoxious to say nice things about yourself or to be too forward or to brag, especially people who are introverts, who are a little more modest by nature. They kind of struggle with that.

Even if they’re trying to do it, even through, “I know I’m supposed to sell myself, so I’m going to try to say something here,” they don’t necessarily do it in the most effective way because it doesn’t feel comfortable. They hold back. It’s out of their comfort zone or they stumble.

I think being able to do the planning upfront in this sort of three-part model is a helpful way to do that. You really think about “What are my talking points here? What is my story?”

We’ll talk some more about this I’m sure, but storytelling I think is a huge sort of secret weapon in terms of job interviews because they can be sort of dry at times. I think if you can use storytelling techniques in interviewing, it really helps to connect with the interviewer and also just make you a much more memorable candidate.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, you talk about selling yourself. Could you provide maybe just a couple example sentences to orient us a bit like, “Oh no, that’s not going too far. That’s just right.”

Pam Skillings
Yeah. I think everyone has a certain comfort level. One of the things I tell people is, “Okay, you’re an introvert. You have a quiet personality. I’m not going to force you to memorize a script saying I am the greatest manager ever and I leave all the other candidates in the dust.” That’s not going to feel natural and that’s not going to make a great impression by going too far in that direction either.

I always talk to people about how to find a way to say it in their voice, way to talk about their accomplishments in their voice to make sure that the interviewer is hearing it and is suitably impressed, but without it feeling over the top for them.

That’s why practice I think is huge too for people who are a little bit uncomfortable with this idea of selling themselves because the first time you say it, even if it’s perfectly fine in terms of the language, it’s going to feel weird because you’re not used to talking that way.

But if you practice out loud a few times, then you tweak it a little bit, maybe you change a word here and there, and you just get more comfortable with the idea of speaking that way about yourself.

Some of the things I advise people to do if they’re feeling a little bit uncomfortable or having a hard time figuring out a way to do this in their own style is first of all think about factual statements that are impressive. You don’t have to say, “I’m the greatest ever. I’m fantastic. You should definitely hire me.” You can say, “I led a multimillion dollar project that we delivered two weeks ahead of deadline and got amazing feedback from the client.”

Yeah, you put a few adjectives in there. You give a little enthusiasm around it. But it’s basically just stating the facts of something that you accomplished. That’s one thing.

Another technique for people who struggle a little bit that I  – there are others too, but another one that I found people find useful is quoting someone else. If you’re having a hard time saying, “I’m a great manager,” you can say, “In my performance review I got great feedback from my manager about my ability to mentor.”

Then you’re quoting somebody else and that gives it – first of all it gives it maybe a little bit of an extra credibility boost in terms of the listeners but it also doesn’t feel so much like you’re bragging as that you’re just sharing what someone else told you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that. I’m curious then in terms of sort of the tone with which you deliver these factual sentences or these quotations from others. Do you have some pro tips on calibrating that nicely?

Pam Skillings
Yeah, I think – you mean in terms of vocal quality and things like that?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. I can imagine that you can do it raw in a sense of “I delivered a multi-million dollar result.” It’s like, “Oh my gosh, I hate you. Shut up. Get out now.”

Pam Skillings
Yes, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s the best way to say it?

Pam Skillings
Yeah, well those are the two ends of the extreme. The one end of the extreme is the person who’s just fumbling about it and then there’s the person who memorized this script that they’re reciting and that sounds totally canned and totally phony.

The best way to do this, finding that perfect balance between preparing and not over preparing to the point where it doesn’t feel true or it’s not at all spontaneous. I’m a big believer in this idea of the bullet-point approach. It’s about thinking about what you’re key speaking points are for the most important questions.

There’s a core set of questions that I think are the most commonly asked as well as the ones that I think maybe have the biggest influence in terms of the overall impression that interviewers have of a particular candidate.

Especially if there’s an area that you’re sensitive about or if there’s a gap in your resume or something like that, questions around more awkward topics, sort of preparing some bullet points. You’re not scripting word for word but you’re sort of capturing a few bullet points that allows you to really focus on the most interesting, relevant things you have to say for that question.

I use the metaphor sometimes about celebrities going on a talk show, right? They’re going on a talk show and they’re not going to completely improvise, but they’re also not going to get up there and read from a script, but they’re going to have, well probably their publicist, but somebody’s going to prepare these speaking points for them.

They’re going to get up there and they’re going to make sure to mention that fun story about their co-worker on set. They’re going to make sure to mention this other interesting fact about their favorite hobbies. So thinking a little bit about the bullet points.

Then practicing. Again, I think sometimes people – practicing gets a bad reputation because people feel like, “Oh, well if you practice too much, it’s not going to be authentic. It’s not going to be natural.”

For me it’s the opposite. I’ve seen it time and time again with people because everybody knows you’re supposed to practice. Every interview book is like, “Well, you should practice.” But a lot of people are like, “Eh, yeah. But it’s awkward. It’s weird. I don’t know. I’m just going to say it in my head.”

But I see it time and again in sessions. People go from stumbling to sounding really polished and confident after practicing it a few times. It’s sort of like – because an interview is a performance to some degree. You’re starring as yourself, so hopefully you’re being authentic, but you’re also preparing. You want to make sure you’re prepared, just like when you give an important presentation. You’re being yourself, but you’re being the best version of yourself that you can be.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. That analogy to the talk shows, it’s true with like the anecdotes. It just reminds me of – there’s this goofy TV show called Nathan for You.

Pam Skillings
Oh, I don’t know that one.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s so funny. It’s out there. This comedian studied all the anecdotes shared at talk shows and then crafted what would be the perfect anecdote for him to share at a talk show and then elaborately constructed the events to unfold so that he wasn’t technically lying. We can link to that in the show notes.

Pam Skillings
Yeah, that sounds hilarious.

Pete Mockaitis
When it comes to these questions that show up a lot and have a big impact in forming the impression of a candidate, could you share a few of those right here, right now?

Pam Skillings
Absolutely, absolutely. ‘Tell me about yourself’ definitely is one of the top ones. I’ve already sort of talked at length, perhaps too much length, about that one. That’s really important.

Every interview is going to ask you some form of ‘why are you interested in this job,’ why do you want to work here.’ There’s different angles on that: ‘why this company,’ ‘why this position,’ ‘why this career path,’ sort of depending on where you are in your career and whether you’re making a switch.

Really being able to speak at length in a non-generic way about why this is the perfect next opportunity for you is very important.

Strengths and weaknesses both are very important and also tend to come up and maybe there are different variations on how they are worded, but these are things that are frequently asked about.

Even the weakness, and I do think the weakness question is a bit of a cliché and probably not something where you’re going to get a ton of truthful information from someone. Everyone knows to expect it at this point I think or most people do, especially if they read my blog. But it is still asked a lot.

I keep waiting for it to go out of fashion and for people to stop asking it, but I keep asking my clients when they come in after a new interview, they’re like, “Yup, yup. They asked me. They definitely asked me.”

Strengths and weaknesses. I think strengths even more so because preparing for the weakness question is more a matter of limiting the downside, where because it’s an awkward question and if you’re not prepared you could blurt something out that’s weird or just not ideal versus the strengths question, which is another example of where you’re sort of being forced to sell yourself and say good things about yourself.

If you’re not prepared, a lot of times people lapse into this very generic, vague, laundry list of “I’m a people person. I’m detail oriented,” but just not taking full advantage of the opportunity basically to say, “Okay, here are the top three reasons why I would be awesome at this job.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I like that. You gave a little bit of detail there. You have some bullets for top three and not being shy about doing the sales when it comes to the strengths side. What are some components for the why are you interested in this company or this role.

You say you want to be non-generic, so don’t, I guess, parrot back the information that’s on the website and say general things. But what are some sort of particular examples that really make that come to life?

Pam Skillings
Yeah, there’s a couple things. First of all, you definitely want to do your research on the company. I think most people know to do that. You want to show that you understand what the company does and there are things about the company that you like. Doing some research and fining some things about the company.

If you can go beyond what you read on a website and talk about, “Oh, I have a friend who worked there,” or you have some sort of information that you’ve gained.

But even if you’ve just read about the company, but you have a couple of specific details that you pulled about they won an award for innovation or they’re CEO did this interview in the journal that you thought was really insightful. Being able to talk about something specific if you can.

Then I think one of the things that people sometimes don’t do that I think makes the biggest difference with this kind of question is they think about the company, but they don’t really think specifically about the job itself. I think that’s really important here.

You do want to make sure that it’s clear you did the research on the company, you think the company’s a good fit for you. But when it comes down to it, your success in this position is going to depend on what you do every day, the job itself. Being able to talk about how this job description is made for me.

I’m being a little over the top in the language, but being able to point to, “Hey, these are the things you’re looking for. This is why I’m a great fit because I’ve done this and I’ve got this strength and I’ve got this training.”

Being able to really speak to the job description and both the fact that you are a great fit for that job description and also that you would be excited about doing the work, that this is the kind of work that you love to do and thus, you would be motivated to succeed if they hired you for the role.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s super, so not just “I thought it was cool that you won these awards,” which is like front and center on the homepage, but particulars associated with this will get you fired up to go forward and do that. I like it.

It’s interesting, it seems like that is really a theme here is that in each of these instances, it’s not so much a matter of directly answering precisely the facts requested of you so much so as telling the story of your talking points about why you are particularly wonderful for this opportunity.

Pam Skillings
Yeah, absolutely and thinking strategically about – and that’s why I think sometimes – some people are good at winging it and good stuff comes out.

I’ve had lots of clients who have said, “Yes, I do pretty well when I get a good interviewer and they ask good questions and we have a good rapport, but then I have these other situations where I walk in and I’m like the person’s not giving me anything or they’re asking really weird, vague questions.” And they just shut down or they start blurting things out.

I think the preparation that I work with people to do allows you to be proactive, allows you to kind of take control of the experience, so you’re not scripting, but you’re thinking, “Okay, I know that these are the key things I want to convey about myself in this interview, so if they ask the perfect question, great. If they don’t, I’m going to find ways to work in the fact that I have these great leadership skills and I’ve led an international team of 25-“

Thinking about these are the things that I want to make sure I’m able to communicate gives you a little bit of control. It can feel a lot like you’re at the mercy of the interviewer in a job interview and you somewhat are, I guess, but if you go in feeling comfortable with your speaking points and the things that you want them to remember about you, it gives you a little bit of that opportunity to be strategic and proactive about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have any pro tips for doing a smart segue there in terms of they’re asking you a question and you’re delivering your speaking points.

I guess I’m chuckling and thinking about politicians now. They’re asked a question and they just say what they want to say regardless of the question that is posed to them. I’d say, if I were an interviewer, that would make me angry. It’s like, “Okay, either you are not listening to me or you’re dumb, or you are sort of determined to railroad this in the way you like.” Whatever the interpretation, I don’t like it. What are some of your pro tips for making a smooth connection between the question and your talking point?

Pam Skillings
Yeah, I agree. I think you don’t want to completely ignore the question and basically just say what you feel like saying. I think that’s definitely not going to serve you well.

I always say you do want to answer the question. You don’t want to just sort of jam your speaking points in there regardless of what they asked. You’re looking for questions that legitimately provide an opening for what you want to say. Usually there are. Usually there are some open-ended questions where you get an opportunity to talk about what you want to talk about.

I do think you do want to answer the questions that are asked though. I definitely see some advice out there about “Seize control of the interview. Turn the question back on them.” I have heard many stories about how that has backfired. I would not advise it.

Pete Mockaitis
What are your strengths?

Pam Skillings
How do you feel about this position? Yeah, so you can ask questions and they’ll probably prompt you to ask question at some point in the interview, but there’s also a certain matter of respect to answer the questions that are asked.

This is their job. Their job is to hire someone great for this role. They’re not just trying to torture you. Some people are better interviewers than others, some are not great. But this is serious for them. They have to pick someone.

It’s a big risk factor. If they hire someone who doesn’t work out, it’s going to make them look bad. It might influence their bonus and promotion possibilities. You kind of have to think about their perspective too.

That’s one of the things I always talk about with people. Why are they asking a certain question? It’s not just because they want to be difficult, but thinking about where is it that they’re coming from and how you can address what their concerns are and what they feel they need to know about you.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love to hear, you talked a lot about getting really specific about what you’re talking points are and what’s special about you and getting those out there and the research.

Can we zoom out a little bit to talk about some universals in terms of “Hey, no matter what your talking points are, no matter what the industry or the role, these are some things that always go over well in interviews, so be sure to do them or something that always don’t go over so well, so be sure not to do them.”

Pam Skillings
I love these questions. You don’t want to generalize too much, but there definitely are some things that you see time and time again.

I think one of the things that goes across almost all interviews, I would say all interviews, in addition to the ‘tell me about yourself’ thing and being able to talk about your strengths, but one of the things that’s really important that I think some people either don’t think about or they just have difficulty doing is really showing your sincere enthusiasm for the position.

I always use the analogy of dating with people. I always say, “Hopefully your dates are more fun than your job interviews.” As much as I think job interviews are important, there is a difference. But it’s about making it clear that you’re happy to be there and that you find the opportunity really interesting. You have enthusiasm. You’d be motivated to succeed if they hired you.

That’s why I think that question of “Why are you interested in this opportunity? Why are you interested in this company? What are you looking to do next?” they’re really trying to get a feel for what you care about, how this position fits into your career goals and into what you love to do, and trying to get a feel for whether you would be a passionate, strong performer if you were hired. I think that’s one thing that cuts across all types of interviews.

Some people struggle ether because they have a very low key personality. One sort of sub-group of my coaching clients over the years are people who have a very sort of poker-faced, low key kind of demeanor and they miss out on opportunities.

They’re getting feedback, “Well you just didn’t seem that interested. It didn’t seem like you were that excited about the opportunity.” They’re like, “I really was, but I’m just not someone who goes in there and says, “This is the greatest job ever.’”

We work on ways to bring out their personality and their enthusiasm a little bit in a way that still feels like them and practice helps with that too because they can see – on Big Interview we have a video practice interview tool. I also video record the mock interviews I do with coaching clients.

So they can see themselves on video and they can see that sometimes if you have a very low-key personality, every little bit of smiling or hand gestures feels, “Oh, that’s over the top,” but then you see it on video and you realize, “Okay, well, that isn’t as weird as it feels to me. I just have to kind of get used to it.” I think that helps with that particular issue as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, yeah. That’s good. The enthusiasm is one universal. What else?

Pam Skillings
Let’s see, what else is a universal? I think asking smart questions is definitely a universal and preparing some questions to ask at the end of the interview that are smart, they show you’ve done your homework, not like, “So what does this company do anyway?” But also that focus on your ability to do a good job, so not vacation days and things like that.

But “What do you think are the biggest opportunities for the department this year? What are some of the most interesting projects that are happening at the company right now?” Questions that show your interest in the work and the company and the team and show that you’re already thinking about how can I contribute, how can I get involved in this. Asking smart questions I think is definitely a universal.

Another universal and we can go into more detail about this or not is I think the behavioral questions, being able to tell good stories about your greatest accomplishments because you’re going to get those behavioral questions in most interviews, ‘tell me about a time,’ ‘give me an example.’

Even if you don’t get those formally behavioral questions, having stories of your greatest hits, I call them your greatest hits stories, sort of having some stories prepared in a nice, concise way that kind of help to show, “Hey, here are some of the cool things that I’ve done that demonstrate my ability to do the work that’s required in this position.”

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. I’d love to get your take, yes, when it comes to what makes a story great. How do we think about that in terms of I guess length or components or how do we story tell well?

Pam Skillings
Well, I think in an interview there are some similarities to telling a great story at a party and a story in an interview, although I’m sure the interview ones are maybe not quite as amusing as stories you might tell in other areas of your life. But there definitely are similarities.

You want to have a little bit of a story arc. You want to paint a picture and you want to make sure that you’re really sharing what you in particular did to contribute to the project or the situation instead of falling back on the generic ‘we.’

I think this might come from people who are a little bit more on the modest side. Instead of saying, “I did this,” or, “I came up with the solution,” it’s, “Well, we, we, we.”

I always use, I think it’s a tried and true approach until they come up with something better, the STAR format. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that from your career, but there’s something called the STAR format that you might see in career books in college career centers. I share it with students sometimes. I think it originated out of management consulting as a way to evaluate these behavioral stories.

The idea is that each answer should form a complete star. I take it a little bit loosely. The ST is supposed to stand for situation task. For me it’s like not necessarily situation or task, but it’s a little bit of backstory. Here’s the context. Here’s why this project was important. Here’s just enough background so that you can understand what happens. Not a whole history of the entire project, just enough to set things up.

The A is kind of the meat of the story. It’s approach or actions. Then you walk through just a couple bullet points. This is where it can get difficult. Sometimes you’re telling a story of a multi-month or even year project, so you’ve got to think about “Okay, what are the highlights here? What are the key things I want to talk about?”

Of course, being prepared to give more information if there are more follow up questions, they want more detail on certain things. Having a couple of those bullet points about what happened, here are some obstacles that came up, here’s how we address them, here’s some other things that I did.

Then all of that leading up to the R, the happy ending. Every good story has a happy ending. The result. Having some sort of positive outcome. This could be a concrete result and often that’s very effective being able to say, “We saved the company a million dollars,” or, “We increased revenue by 8%,” or whatever, but sometimes it can even be anecdotal. “I got great feedback. Everyone was really happy with the project. We got in under budget, under deadline,” etcetera.

Having a positive outcome that you can speak to, that gives it a nice story arc, a little bit of a hero’s journey from the beginning to the positive outcome.

Pete Mockaitis
So in sharing this story, it’s interesting. I think that in many ways you could complete a full STAR in one minute or ten minutes. What are your thoughts in terms of about how long is the right amount of length?

Pam Skillings
My go-to advice is for any answer, one to two minutes is a sweet spot. Two minutes is stretching it a little bit. There are some differences in terms of types of interviews. There are some types of panel interviews that are fully behavioral and they have a little bit more leeway for the stories to be a little bit longer.

There are some exceptions here and there, but I think after two minutes you’re going to start losing people even if your content is good. I think it’s just attention span, monologue versus dialogue. I think you’re trying to come up with a story that’s in that one to two minute range.

Then of course, being prepared and hoping by the way you tell your story that you’ve given them some interesting things that they might want to dig more deeply into. Then of course you can give that additional detail.

But I think one of the things people struggle with is being able to focus it down to something that’s concise and engaging and still making sure that they’re giving me enough information to show why this was a big success.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Any other thoughts when it comes to body language or vocal pauses or how we’re presenting ourselves?

Pam Skillings
Yes, this is a big one. I think so many people come in after their first session and one of their biggest questions is, “Okay, well, how is my body language? Was I doing anything weird?” The answer is almost always, “Well, yes.” Because we all do. I do it too.

When we’re not focused on body language or we’re not 100% sure of what we’re talking about sometimes, we all fall back on things like um’s and ah’s, and fidgeting. I like to fidget with my hands. Everybody has different things that they do. I’ve had people who twirl in the seat, who play with their hair, who have the key phrase ‘like, you know,’ repeat ‘like, you know’ after every line. Most people are not hugely dramatic, but everybody has those little tells.

One of the things I tell people is that the practice, as tedious as it may sound to you, but preparing so that you feel good about what your key points are going to be and how you want to describe things in sort of a general way, not memorize word for word, but having done enough preparation and then practicing, doing a couple practice interviews. It goes a long way in removing those things.

I could tell you, if you look at some of the video recordings of people, their first practice interview and their first session or a new user on Big Interview, they record their first practice interview versus later on after they’ve kind of worked through some things and practiced a few times. It’s a huge difference. Almost always those little body language things go away.

Yeah, sometimes I do have to direct people’s attention to it because they’re not even sure that they’re doing it. But I usually tell people at the beginning, “Don’t overthink the body language thing yet. Let’s think about what you want to say. Let’s dig into that.” Then try it a few times and almost always I see it naturally either at least significantly reduced, if not go away completely.

Of course, you don’t have to be perfect. Even the best public speakers that get up on stage in front of hundreds of people, you’ll catch them in an um or an uh here and there I’m pretty sure.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. Most of the time you’re saying when you see weird body language that is largely due to just folks being unprepared and doing what their bodies do when they’re I guess feeling nervous or not rearing to go.

Pam Skillings
Nervousness and I think the other things is when you’re distracted by trying to think of what you want to say, you fall back on – you’re not even aware you’re doing that. That’s when people do things like stare down at the table or stare up at the ceiling or start fidgeting with the pen because they’re not even aware they’re doing it because they are nervous and most people are at least a little bit nervous in an interview.

Then they’re just distracted by – in their head they’re so caught up with, “Okay, well I could say this, but I’m not really sure. What did he mean by that?” or, “Oh, why’s he looking over there? I think he hates me,” all this stuff that’s going through your brain. If you’ve prepared in the way that I’ve tried to get people to prepare, there’s a lot less of that noise happening in your head.

You’re occasionally still going to get a curveball and you’re still probably going to have some nervousness here and there, but there’s a lot less of that.

There are some people who are just not as comfortable face to face, where we have to do a little bit more work. Maybe they haven’t had a lot of experience having to sit down and present and speak to people face to face, so there are people who need a little bit more sort of extra work and guidance, but for most people I think a lot of that gets smoothed out with the preparation and the practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Tell me, Pam, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things.

Pam Skillings
One thing sometimes people are surprised to hear and you mentioned in your last question things to do that are more universal and also things not to do that are universal.

I think one of the things not to do that a lot of people do is at the end I said it’s great, ask smart questions. There’s some advice floating around somewhere out there that says, “Ask a question like, ‘Is there anything about me that you have concerns about in terms of this position?’” There’s variations on that. Basically, getting the interviewer to tell you what objections do you have to me.

I think it’s a bad idea. I see where it came from. I think it came from sales because when you’re a salesperson this idea of surfacing objections so that you can address them makes perfect sense. “Well, why don’t you want to buy this product?” Well if they say it’s pricing, I have my thing I can say about pricing. But it’s just a very different situation in a job interview for a couple of reasons.

One is that most HR people and managers and especially at big companies, they’ve been trained not to give feedback like that on the spot. Sometimes they just don’t have that feedback on the spot. They need to take it in. They need to process. They’ve got other candidates.

You’re putting them in an awkward potion. I’ve so many HR people and hiring managers who have said that’s their least favorite question because it puts them on the spot, it’s awkward.

I think that ties into this whole idea of – I’m sure you’ve heard about there’s studies but there about sort of the peak end experience and how influential the end of an experience is in terms of how you remember it.

I think asking a question like this at the very end of the interview is just a perfect set up to say, “Okay, now think about everything negative you can imagine about me right at the end.” I think it doesn’t do people any favor to ask a question like that.

I think you could flip it and ask in a more positive way, something more like, “What do you think are the most important qualities for someone in this role?” something like that because that might get them talking a little bit about qualities that maybe you haven’t had a chance to talk about or give you an opening to talk about your experience in a different way.

The whole setup to critique me at the end of an interview is not a good way to go.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting because I can hear how folks would very much want to say, “Is there anything else? I want to make sure I nail that for you,” so you can accomplish that by asking it differently, so that’s good.

I guess you – if you’re at the phase of the interview toward the end, which you’re asking the questions, it might seem a little off to say, “Oh, what are the most critical things?” “Oh, well, by the way, I totally have all of those.” What’s the next step do you think?

Pam Skillings
Well, yeah, I think you look for a way to naturally bring it up if you can. If they say, “The most important thing here is we’re looking for someone who’s an innovator,” and then being able to say, “Oh, that’s great. I thought so based on the job description and I think that that’s something that’s a great fit for my background because of the innovation that I’ve done at blah, blah, blah.”

I think trying to make a natural segue as opposed to, “Oh, oh, oh, that’s me. That’s me. That’s me.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. Thank you. Now can you share with us a favorite quote, something that inspires you?

Pam Skillings
Yeah, I looked up – I was thinking about something that would be interesting. Sorry, I have to scroll down because I have all these quotes saved in my files. This is a Picasso quote that I like which is, “I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.”

That one just stuck with me in general because so many times I found new things that I loved to do, that I’m good at doing by pushing myself out of the comfort zone even though earlier I thought, I could never do that. That sounds horrible. That sounds way beyond my capabilities.

I think that’s interesting. A lot of research backs up the fact that just the practice, the doing it, of putting yourself out there, may be you won’t be Picasso, but it’s a way of learning and a way of pushing yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Pam Skillings
I think for me all the interesting research that’s out there about storytelling I find just fascinating. To try to pick one is difficult, but all the work that’s out there about how much more memorable you are when you give your information in the form of a story and how much more the person listening to you connects with you.

It ties into all this stuff about interviewing in terms of telling your behavioral stories because it’s true. If you talk about your strengths in a more generic way, that’s all well and good, but if you tell a story, you’re inviting the person to imagine you, to picture you, and to really feel like, “Yeah, I have a sense of how that person works. I could see myself working with this person. I can see how this person approaches a problem.”

A lot of really interesting research on storytelling and the power of storytelling. I nerd out with all of those medi-books and studies that are you there on the different aspects of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh great. Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Pam Skillings
A couple that I’ve been thinking about that apply to my work and I read a lot. I read a lot of fiction as well. But Daniel Pink’s Drive is something that has really resonated with me. Just thinking about as a coach, as someone who’s trying to teach and motivate people and even motivating a small child has a lot of really interesting insights about what motivates people and why people do what they do.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Pam Skillings
Well, one thing, thinking about an app or – Zoom is something that I use with my clients and it’s something for anyone who is having meeting and Skype is lovely too, but Zoom is a similar video conferencing tool. I have all of my video coaching sessions with Zoom so that’s something that I use every day.

I just feel, yes, phone coaching can be great too, but there’s something about having someone – being able to see someone, having them be able to see you, and also being able to record everything so that they can go back and review their practice interview, review the advice, brainstorm so that I would say is something that has really helped make my life and my work much more efficient and effective.

Pete Mockaitis
I love Zoom as well and I’d love to get your professional take, do you believe Zoom has superior audio quality over Skype?

Pam Skillings
I think so and certainly in terms of reliability. I think that’s one of the things, aside from the video component and the ability to record in a reliable way, I find that the sound fades out and does weird things less often.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you.

Pam Skillings
How about you? What’s your take on that?

Pete Mockaitis
I think that the video quality is better with Zoom. I think it’s an interface I enjoy using more. I find that I guess – I’m on the fence right now in terms of should I jump on over and use Zoom for my podcast interviews. I certainly love it with coaching environments. I’m still deciding.

Pam Skillings
Yeah, let me know how you go because I haven’t used it a lot for sort of recording things that are being shared with lots of people like a podcast would be, but more for individual’s use, so yeah, I would be curious to see what your experience is if you test that out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, certainly. Can do. Do you have a particular nugget that you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Pam Skillings
I think on the subject of interviewing, I think one of the things that resonates with people, this idea that interviewing is a skill. You get people who feel like, “Well, I’m bad at interviewing,” or interviewing is awful and interviewing is something that you’re either good at or you’re not good at. It absolutely is a skill.

I’ve had people who were objectively terrible and getting that feedback, were bad enough that people were saying, “You really need to work on your interviewing.” That’s how people find me sometimes.

It really is a skill like a lot of things that you can work on. There are actionable steps that you can take. I think that’s something that makes people feel a lot better. “Okay, I’m a quick study. I’m someone – if you tell me what I need to do and walk me through the steps, I can do it.”

If interviewing is one of the things that’s in the way between you and your dream job, it doesn’t have to be. You can definitely improve your skills no matter what level you’re at the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool, thank you. If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Pam Skillings
BigInterview.com is our site. That’s where we have all of our information. I do coach people one on one. BigInterview.com is our self-guided learning platform where people can check out video lessons, the practice tool, all kinds of things like that.

Our blog has tons of free information, lots of articles on things like that, three-part model, and how to approach behavioral. I’ve got all kinds of articles about all the different pieces of the interview process. If anyone is interested in learning more, that’s probably the best place.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Pam Skillings
Well, this is something that goes beyond interviewing. It’s something I’ve been saying for a while, which is I really feel like people should look at managing their career the way that they would run a business.

Really being proactive and being a good interviewer is part of that, being able to speak about your strengths and your experience, being able to connect with people, to find opportunities, but thinking about it in a very entrepreneurial way as opposed to sort of letting your career happen to you.

I’m sure that’s something that the people who listen to this podcast already are kind of thinking along those lines, but I think it’s important. You never want to be powerless and at the mercy of other people. You want to always be improving yourself, learning new skills, developing yourself, and positioning yourself for the next opportunity, whether it’s your current job or somewhere else.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Pam, thank you so much for taking this time and sharing these perspectives. I wish you and Big Interview and all you’re up to lots of luck.

Pam Skillings
Thanks so much and you too.

Pete Mockaitis
Matt, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Matthew Abrahams
Thank you. Really excited to have this conversation, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me, too. And I was also intrigued to learn, as I was learning a bit about you, that you have a test coming up for your fifth-degree blackbelt. Now, help me think through this, sometimes like with degrees, more is higher or more is lesser, like a first-degree burn or third-degree burn, business first class. And so, what does it mean, first of all?

Matthew Abrahams
It means I’ve been doing this for a really long time is what it means.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, all right.

Matthew Abrahams
So, in this case, the higher the rank it means the more experience you have and, in theory, the more expertise you have. But as I go through this readiness process, I’m being challenged on that expertise part for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, how does one pass a fifth-degree blackbelt test? What goes down during it?

Matthew Abrahams
Well, I think it means I can walk out of the room and not know. There are several things that I’m expected to be able to do both physically and, at this level, some mental stuff as well in terms of just being able to focus and manage multiple distracting things at the same time. So, it’s a grueling process but I love it and, for me, the martial arts have always helped me center myself. And what I learned inside the dojos seem to translate into my life, and sometimes it goes the other direction as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. So, I’m intrigued, so what physical tasks are asked of you? Is it like crushing ten boards? Or what is it?

Matthew Abrahams
Well, in my earlier days that was important but as I’ve gotten older it’s really a combination of movements that you need to do that are quite lengthy, things are formed together, movements are formed together into things that are called katas, or forms that I have to deliver, and present several of those in terms of very specific requirements. And then some physical sparring and working with other individuals to demonstrate the ability to protect myself, and that can be pretty grueling as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, have you ever had to use these skills under high-stakes circumstances?

Matthew Abrahams
I use them on a daily basis in terms of the ability to focus and feel confident in my ability. If you’re asking if I ever had to physically use these, the answer is no. There’d been some times where I’ve used my mouth instead of my fists to get out of some tricky situations but I attribute that to what I do for a job but also what I’ve learned in the martial arts.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, awesome. Cool. Well, I want to talk about what you do for a job, and so you’ve got a recent book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out which is a great title. So, tell us, what is that about and what is sort of distinctive about it?

Matthew Abrahams
Well, thank you for the opportunity to chat about it. So, the book is really designed to help people feel more comfortable and confident when they present, and to deliver presentations that are more compelling in nature. So, I, for years, was looking for a source to send my students and the people I consulted with to find techniques that could help them feel more comfortable and confident when presenting.

Most of us, 85% of us, research says, get nervous in high-stakes speaking situations, and there’s really no one stop-shop for learning techniques that were academically verified beyond practice, breathe deeply, and just do it. I call that the PB&J approach. So, after being frustrated for a long time, I went out and actually did some research, and pulled forward research I had done in graduate school and created this book which, really, is a very short book that’s designed for a student to read in a course of a week, or a business professional to read when he or she gets on a plane in San Francisco flying to New York to deliver a big presentation.

So, it’s designed really to help people get very practical skills to help them be better and more confident in their speaking.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, just to be clear, if they were flying from San Francisco to Chicago, where I am, they wouldn’t quite have enough time?

Matthew Abrahams
They could get through the whole book but maybe not the appendices. How’s that?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. That works. I just want to remind the world that we’re here, that we matter.

Matthew Abrahams
Absolutely. I was just recently in Chicago, had a great time. Took my kids, we made up our own Ferris Bueller’s Day Off tour and saw the sights. It’s fun.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. Well, so now, I’m so intrigued. Now, I have read a number of books that have good solid advice about formulating and delivering speeches. I’m thinking about Dr. Nick Morgan’s work in particular Give Your Speech, Change The World, and we had him on back in the day. Awesome dude, awesome guest.

And so, but you’re saying that you zeroed in right upon the nerves matter – and Nick Morgan is 41, if anyone is curious, episode 41 – but you’re talking specifically about the anxious nervousness dimension. And so, can you share maybe some of your big findings that we won’t find in many other sources?

Matthew Abrahams
Well, thanks for asking, and Nick is a great guy. I’ve actually had him guest speak in my Stanford Business School class. A sharp guy and he does really, really good work. The whole effort I’ve put together here around speaking out without freaking out is driven by my students who, they would leave my classes years ago, saying, “This is all great stuff. We’ve learned how to communicate strategically and persuasively, but we’re still nervous about it.”

And that used to eat at me that we have all these tools but people weren’t feeling that they were equipped to use them because anxiety got in the way. So, this was a labor of love but also of very practical application for my students and the people I consult with. So, in my work, what I find is you have to attack anxiety with a two-pronged approach. You have to look at both the symptoms, and many of us experience many symptoms around speaking anxiety and then, also, the sources, what causes those.

So, we spent time talking in my workshops and my classes and my book about how to manage both symptoms and sources, and I believe that’s a different approach than I found elsewhere and people really resonate with it and it helps them get better. Ultimately, my goal is that everybody creates what I call an anxiety management plan, an AMP, so they get amped up about communicating rather than feel burdened by the pressures of communicating.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I like that. So, in an anxiety management plan, what would be some of the most critical components to round it out?

Matthew Abrahams
Great. So, I’ll share some with you. So, symptomatically a lot of things happen to us physically and mentally when we get nervous around speaking. For example, if you’re like me you might blush or perspire a lot, other people shake, other people’s voice gets quivery; those are symptoms. And then for others, the source of anxiety has to do, for example, with feeling like you’re under the spotlight and everybody is evaluating you.

So, in an anxiety management plan, I have some very specific techniques that I can use for myself when I am getting up ready to speak. So, for example, when I know that I will be perspiring or perhaps blushing, simply holding something cold in the palm of your hand before you present can actually reduce your core body temperature which is really the cause of that perspiration and blushing.

It’s like when you have a fever and you put a cold compress on your forehead and that reduces your temperature. The palms of your hand work the same way, and I bet you, you in Chicago, even this week, have done this on a cold morning perhaps holding a warm cup of coffee or tea, you felt that it warms you up. We can work that in reverse, holding something cold reduces the blushing and the sweating. So, that’s part of my anxiety management plan that deals with the symptoms.

For the source of me feeling evaluated, there’s several things I can do. One that I really enjoy doing, and I encourage everybody to do, when you start a presentation, a webinar, whatever, start with some kind of interactive activity. It serves not only to get your audience engaged but it actually distracts them from focusing on you.

And in that moment of distraction, you can take a deep breath, you can look around the room and find friendly faces, there’s lots you can do, so take a poll, ask a question, show a short video. All of that serves to get your audience engaged and take their focus away from evaluating you and be on the task that they’re working on.

So, that’s an example of what an anxiety management plan is, a set of techniques that address both symptoms and sources to help you feel better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I really connect with that idea of giving folks something else to do because it kind of lets you take a breath such that, and say, “Okay, that’s the crowd. I’m right in front of them.” It sounds like you’re just getting sort of acclimated, like, “There they are. Here I am.” Things are happening without you being on the spotlight with the pressure to do something. Like, they’re talking amongst themselves or watching the video so that’s good.

Matthew Abrahams
That’s right. And the other thing I would just add to that is when they come back after doing whatever that task is, your role is different. You’re not the presenter but you’re the facilitator now of the experience that everybody just shared. And for many of us, being in that facilitator role, even for a brief bit, makes us feel more comfortable, so it’s an on-ramp to the presenting piece.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fantastic. And I know you were just offering one example as a tip, but I got to go there. When it comes to the holding something cold, is it beneficial to hold it in anywhere particular? Like, could you strap a frozen gel pack to your back, or your thigh, or your…?

Matthew Abrahams
No, it’s very specific to the palms of your hands.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Matthew Abrahams
So, the palms of the hands are much like the back of the neck and the forehead are temperature control setting places for the body. So, think of them as thermostats. And, in fact, the research that I did to find this particular technique comes from athletics. One of the things that degrades athletic performance is the athlete gets overheated.

So, if there’s a way you can cool down while you’re doing your sport, you’ll actually be able to persist longer. And so, that got me thinking, “Well, a lot of athletes, what they’ll do is they’ll hold something cold in their hands, and we can do the same in speaking.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. To recap, we got the palm, the neck, and where?

Matthew Abrahams
The forehead.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Palms, neck, forehead.

Matthew Abrahams
But you’re not going to strap an ice pack to your head, Pete, when you’re giving a presentation, but you could hold a glass of water before you start speaking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you could have a subtle something on the back of your neck, you know, if you’re not turning.

Matthew Abrahams
Well, with all the high-tech microphones and stuff, I would worry about shorting out, and that’s electrocuting and stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, man, there’s a nightmare that we’ve just planted in everyone’s psyche. Oh, boy. Okay. And so, then, now more so than the wrist because I’ve seen that they’ve even made some high-tech device that kind of chills your wrist. Do we count that as part of the palm or is that separate and different?

Matthew Abrahams
I didn’t know we were doing anatomy here, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I would go there, Matt.

Matthew Abrahams
But if people can find the tool that works for them, and it’s on their wrists, I’m totally cool with it. But what I’m hoping people would do is find some things they can do to help reduce some of the physical symptoms that they feel but also that they show to others. And it’s typically easier, I think, to hold a cold bottle of water or a cold glass of water than some high-tech gizmo on your wrist. But if that gizmo works, go for it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Yes. So, those are a couple of examples then in terms of handling a source and the symptoms. So, I’d love it if you could share with us sort of like the 80-20 or the greatest hits in terms of common sources of anxiety and pro tip solutions to address them. And then, after you hit the sources, let’s hit some more of the symptoms.

Matthew Abrahams
Sure thing. I’ll give you one more of each, and if you want more I’ll give you more. One of the things that makes people very anxious has to do with, and this is a source, is that we’re worried about the potential negative future consequences of what we’re doing. Let me break that down. When you give a presentation you have a goal in mind.

If you’re one of the entrepreneurs I coach or teach, you want funding or advice. If you’re one of my students, you want a good grade. If you’re a manager in an organization, you’re worried about not getting the headcount or the support for your task at hand. If you’re a community member, you might have a strong position you’re bringing up at some local governmental event, and you’re afraid people won’t hear you.

So, what makes us nervous is that we won’t succeed in the goal we’re trying to achieve, so we’re worried about a potential outcome, negative outcomes that’s in the future. A great way to counteract that is to become very present-oriented, in the moment. You and others might have heard of this notion of flow experience or wrapped attention. It’s when you’re in the immediate present. And when you’re in the immediate present you are not worried about the potential negative future outcomes.

And there are lots of things presenters/communicators can do to get themselves in the present moment. Everything from taking a walk around the building, moving your body gets you out of your head, you can count backwards from a very complicated number, so start at a hundred and count backwards by 17s, that’s challenging. It forces you to be in the present moment.

Listen to a song or a playlist like athletes do, that gets you in the present moment. Or do what I do. My favorite way to get present-oriented is to say tongue twisters. The only way to say a tongue twister right it to be immediately focused on what you’re saying. So, the source has to do with worrying about potential negative future outcomes, and the way to manage it is to become present-oriented, and that helps a lot of people.

Now, in terms of other symptoms that people experience, a lot of people get shaky before they speak. That’s the adrenaline from the fight or flight response that’s coursing through our bodies. And if you start your communication with big broad gestures, nothing that looks over-theatrical but just big gestures, like, “Welcome, people,” and extend both your arms as if you’re welcoming somebody into your home.

By using those big muscles you actually allow that adrenaline to dissipate, and you stop shaking as much as you were. So, that’s a symptomatic relief, whereas where I stated before about becoming present-oriented, it relieves a particular source of anxiety.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, got you. Thank you. Well, so now, we talk about big sweeping gestures, I got to get your take on power posing. What do you think?

Matthew Abrahams
So, power posing is really, really interesting stuff and, in fact, Amy Cuddy, who’s been the biggest champion of that, has the third most popular TED Talk ever talking about it. There is some recent debate in terms of how it actually works and its efficacy, but I’ve seen it work with many people I’ve coached.

So, just to review, power posing is this notion of taking a big balanced still stance, Amy Cuddy refers to the Superman or the Wonder Woman pose, with your hands on your hips, and your legs splayed out a little bit. And the idea is that when you take a big stance, not only does your audience see you as more confident, but you yourself begin to feel more confident because you’re releasing testosterone and other hormones that make you feel that way.

So, I’m a proponent of that. Again, you don’t do that necessarily in front of the audience. You might do that in the privacy of a bathroom stall or cubicle or office, but that can really help. If nothing else, it helps ground you and helps you focus on what you’re about to do, and there’s evidence that that helps people feel more confident too.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very cool. Well, so then, I’d like to maybe zoom out a little bit. We talked about having the anxiety management plan associated with sort of right there, sort of in the heat of the moment, or just before the moment. I’d like to maybe go back a tiny little bit farther in terms of if folks just have some negative or disempowering self-defeating beliefs or habits or behavior that you see that are problematic and troublesome. What are some of those things that we can stop doing or start doing sort of well in advance of the clutch moment in order to perform well?

Matthew Abrahams
Let me share two answers in response to that. The first it has to do with procrastination. A lot of people procrastinate around presenting because it makes them feel bad, it makes them nervous, so they think, “Why should I feel nervous in preparing and worrying about this presentation? So, I’m just not going to do it.” And, clearly, that sets them up for failure or at least mediocrity.

One of the problems of procrastination is it has a built-in reinforcement. If you procrastinate and then give a poor presentation or run a poor meeting you can always say to yourself, “Well, if I just would’ve spent more time, it would’ve gone better,” so it builds in this validation of it. So, the best thing to do when it comes to managing procrastination is to publicly commit to a schedule, and then build in rewards for yourself as you achieve those milestones.

So, you would create a plan for yourself and publicly commit to it. That could be posting it on your Instagram feed. It could be putting it on the family refrigerator, or posting it in your cube at work so other people can see it. And that public commitment tends to lead people to achieve what’s on the list, and then reward yourself.

So, as you succeed in those steps, give yourself some kind of reward, perhaps it’s listening to your favorite podcast, or perhaps it’s eating a bit of a chocolate chip cookie, or whatever. But as you achieve those steps, reward yourself and that makes it self-reinforcing in a positive direction. So, one bad habit people have is procrastination, and the way to manage it is public commitment and to reward or reinforce when you succeed.

The other thing that people tend to do is they tend to envision communication as performance. I bet you your listeners, and, Pete, yourself, you’ve probably done one of these four things. You’ve probably done some acting, singing, dancing or played a sport, and most of the people listening in have done one or more of those.

And in each one of those activities, it is performance-based. There’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. If you’re an actor and you misspeak your line in the wrong way at the wrong time, you screwed up, you did it wrong. If you’re an athlete, and you don’t do what your sport requires at the right time or the right way, you’ve done it wrong. In fact, some sports keep track of the mistakes you make.

We bring that same mentality, that same approach to communication, to presenting. We feel like there’s one right way to do it. I’ve been doing this work for a long, long time, over two decades, and I’m here to tell you and everybody listening, there is no right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways. So, if we can lose that view of communication and presenting as performance, it can actually help us.

And one great way to do it is to see communication not as performing but as conversation. Most people are not nervous when they converse. If you can envision your speaking as a conversation it can really help. So, procrastination and this performance anxiety really do weigh heavy on people and negatively influence their ability to communicate.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, performance anxiety, that’s intriguing. So, you’re saying that that will spiral into creating more anxiety because it’s like, “I have to do it this precise way like my favorite TED Talker does.”

Matthew Abrahams
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed. And so, that’s what’s intriguing there is that you say there are better ways and there are worse ways, and I think that it’s sort of like, I guess, there are some universals and then there are some pieces that work better for some audiences instead of others. And so, I guess, I’m thinking there are some levels of black and white, I would say, and lots and lots of grey. Would you agree with that? Would you say, “No, there’s no black and white, Pete”?

Matthew Abrahams
I would frame it differently. I would say that there’s some fundamentals that everybody needs to learn. And these foundational pieces of advice or guidance hold true in a vast majority of situations. And then once we understand those fundamentals, it’s all about choice. It’s about choosing to comply with them, or conform with them, or deviate from them, but what I’ve seen in my work, in my teaching and in my consulting, is that people often communicate out of habit and not out of choice.

So, what I see my job being is really helping people understand what these foundational ideas are and then helping them make choices based on their goal and the audience they’re speaking to and the modality they’re communicating through. Is it a webinar versus in person, etcetera? So, if we’re saying the same thing, and I fully agree with you. If what I said is slightly different then perhaps I disagree with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, I think we’re on the same page there, and I’m buying that. And it’s intriguing, I’m thinking back to we had Anshul Bhagi in Episode 24, and he helped co-create Ummo, this voice-coaching app which is pretty cool. And so, he was saying that vocal pauses can be a deliberate choice. For instance, I thought that was really intriguing in that if a person has zero vocal pauses, the uhhs, ohhs, uhms, then that can almost seem freakish and unnatural and rehearsed and robotic.

Like, “You’re not a real person, and we’re not really having a conversation because real people don’t talk the way you’re talking right now, free of a single uhm to be had.” Which I thought was pretty intriguing because in Toastmasters and other context, it’s like, “Oh, we count them and we want to eliminate them.” But that’s a place where there is room for deviance and maybe a sweet spot. I just did one. Hopefully, that seemed natural.

Matthew Abrahams
You seem so natural, Pete. It’s amazing. We know now that you’re not a robot. That’s good.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m not a robot. Cool. So, I dig that. And then, understood. But just knowing that there’s a wide latitude of right and good I think is so handy. And I’ve seen that when I’ve coached, say, people who are prepping for strategy consulting firm case interviews.

Matthew Abrahams
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’ve seen sort of a similar view in terms of they get so freaked out, “I want to do it just perfectly because this is my career dream.” And I say, “Well, really? We’re sort of assessing how well you think and communicate, and there are many right ways to do that, and there are better ways and there are worse ways, and in over-fixating on using ‘perfect’ structure or framework to start the interview, you’re not going to do so well because you freak yourself out and don’t let your natural brain do its thing.”

Matthew Abrahams
Absolutely. There’s a wonderful saying from the world of improvisation that I like to share with people, and I do this with my MBA students at Stanford, and I suck the air out of a room when I say it. But in improv they have this wonderful saying, “Dare to be dull.” And I get up in front of a bunch of Stanford MBAs and proclaim that, and they’re shocked because they’ve never heard that in their life.

But the motivation behind that statement is we put so much pressure on ourselves to be great that we actually preclude ourselves from actually achieving greatness. And if we just target getting the job done, just focus on the task at hand, that frees up all of those cognitive resources we’re investing in doing it right and doing it great to actually achieve that greatness.

So, I love this notion of dare to be dull. Do what’s needed, get it done, and when you put yourself in that mindset you can actually then achieve great things.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good. Well, now, let’s get your view of maybe you are feeling nervous but you just don’t want other people to know it. So, are there any particular sort of non-verbal things that one can do to seem like you are confident and feeling awesome?

Matthew Abrahams
There are several things we can do to portray confidence even if we’re not feeling that way. So, let me suggest a few and we’ll start at the bottom of the body and work our way up and, don’t worry, we’ll skip certain parts. But one of the big signs that signals anxiety is random or spurious movement; rocking, swaying, shaking.

And so, it’s all about being still. So, it has to do with your foot position very simply. A lot of people, when they stand to speak, they rock or sway side to side. In fact, it’s very self-soothing. You know how little kids suck their thumbs? Adults sway side to side to help calm themselves down. And if you and your listeners don’t believe that’s true, I challenge you to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office when it’s very busy and everybody is frustrated being there, you’ll see them all swaying and perhaps swearing under their breath.

It’s a way that we calm ourselves down. But when somebody sees you swaying and rocking and shifting, they see you as somebody who’s nervous, who doesn’t want to be there, who’s very uncomfortable. So, if you can still yourself, and we do this in many ways, by lining our body up properly. If you put your feet so they’re parallel underneath your shoulders, rather than splayed out to the side like many of us stand, it actually roots you to the ground better and you actually will sway less. So, one thing we can do is really still our bodies.

The other thing that we need to do is, when it comes to our gesturing, we need to make sure that we have our arms in an open position rather than crossed in front of our chest or up high with our elbows pinned close to our body. That looks very defensive. Nervous people make themselves very defensive. If you watch your most favorite keynote presenter, a TED Talk speaker, whomever, you’ll see that their gestures are expanded and that they’re very open, and that’s a way of signaling confidence.

And then, finally, it has to do with eye contact. Our eyes dart around a lot when we’re nervous. There’s been some research that says one of the thing we’re looking for is exits so if things go bad we know how to get out. But we need to focus our eyes, and I don’t mean stare, and I don’t mean glare, but if your eyes dart around a lot, if there’s a way you can slow them down and focus on a few other people in the room or even a few quadrants of the room, if you look at the room and divide it into quadrants, look in the back corner or in the front center, whatever, that can help us well.

So, those are some things that we can do so that we appear more confident. Confident people do those things. They stand in a balanced way without spurious movements, they gesture in an open fashion rather than closed, and their eye contact is connective rather than disjointed and distracting.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now, I want to talk about eye contact because this gets so tricky, I think, for folks, and I have heard a number of recommendations associated with you want to make X seconds or half a sentence or a full sentence of eye contact with a person, and then move on. And so, if you’re thinking about, well, maybe take two contexts.

One, a big old presentation with 80 people in the room and, two, sort of a more intimate conference room with eight people in the room, and you’re presenting. What would be your take on, is there an optimal amount of eye contact to make with the person before moving on? Or how do you think about doing that just right?

Matthew Abrahams
This is the second most prevalent question I get asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, intriguing. Well, you know the question I’m asking next, but let’s hear the answer first.

Matthew Abrahams
Yeah, yeah, well, I set myself up for that. So, I have a completely unsatisfactory answer for you, Pete, and I’m really sorry. But the answer is this, you want to look long enough but not too long.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, perfect.

Matthew Abrahams
Because it really depends. It really depends. When you look at somebody too long, you know; they turn away, they blush. Others in the room might start shifting and moving because you’re not paying attention to them. It’s more art than science. I work with a lot of technologists, a lot of scientists, and they want me to say, “Look at people for 1.3 milliseconds each, and then you’ve done your job.” And it’s not that way.

In a smaller venue, you should look at as many as the people as you can in a non-pattern way. I am not a big fan of the one-phrase one-person mentality because your phrases aren’t all of equal length and then it becomes patterned and your keys become rhythmic because you’re shifting from one person to the next. That’s not how we converse.

In a larger venue, this quadrant idea I mentioned earlier works best. So, I don’t look at everybody in a particular region or quadrant; I look at one or two people. But by virtue, in a larger room, of looking at everybody on one corner, or in front of me, it gives everybody that love. It’s connective with everybody in that area.

So, the idea is to make it as natural as possible. If you would watch how people, and there are people who do this with retinal scanning behavior or machines, watch people at conversations. It’s not patterned, it’s not equal time. We’re trying to mimic that kind of behavior. So, I wish I had better, more specific advice, but the best thing to do is to not be patterned and to really try to connect and go with the feeling you get when you look at somebody and you feel like, “Okay, I’ve made that connection. Now I’ll move on.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, not as satisfactory, I’m with you. I like that it’s paradigm shifting, in that sense it is satisfactory. But in terms of pinning it down to a number, yeah, I’m with you there that it’s not as satisfactory because there is no perfect prescription. Nonetheless, if I could press you a bit, if you would say, “Hey, Pete, most of the time the eye contact amount is probably going to be more than X sentences or words and less than Y sentences or words. Very roughly most of the time exceptions abound.” What would those numbers be?

Matthew Abrahams
I’m not going to let you put me in a corner, Pete, because I don’t know those numbers, and I don’t know that anybody does. What I will tell you from research is, and this is in an interpersonal setting and you can extrapolate perhaps to larger venues. In an interpersonal setting, when you and I are speaking face-to-face, as the speaker, I look at you roughly 40% of the time. You, as the listener, are expected to look at me roughly 60% of the time.

So, that is to say, if you are listening to me, and we’re face-to-face, and I don’t look at you for at least 40% of the time that we are talking, you will think I am distracted and not connected to you. Similarly, while I am speaking, I am monitoring, you’re looking at me. If you’re not looking at me roughly 60% of the time then I’m going to feel that you’re not listening and we’re no connected.

So, those are numbers that have been borne out in research and I’m happy to share with you. How that translates into when you’re in an audience is two-fold. One, you don’t need to be looking at your audience and staring at people 100% of the time. However, you will need to do it more than 40% just because you’re not one-to-one face-to-face. Hope that helps. I can’t tell you the number of sentences or words to speak while looking.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, no, it’s all good. I love that you’re a man of integrity holding to the truth. And so, well, here’s, I guess, in my world that’s kind of – I just want to get your reading while I have you here – it tends to be somewhere between, for me, half to one and a half sentences, it just feels about right in terms of it might be. And so, that works for me.

It’s interesting because, you’re right, I think it really does vary even person by person in the audience in terms of how much eye contact they can handle, in terms of like three seconds freak some people out, like, “Whoa, dude.” And then, for others, it’s almost like you’re disappointing them when you move on so soon. And so, I mean, I know I played hardball trying to pin you some numbers but I’m right with you in that I see a whole lot of variability.

Matthew Abrahams
Right. And what I have found is if you give people heuristics like that, they end up fixating on the number of words they’re speaking and they’re not worried about, they’re not actually connecting to the audience, so I’m not a big fan of 30 seconds per slide, two sentences per person, because what you get, especially with very technical scientifically-oriented people, is they’re counting those things, and when they’re counting they’re not connecting, and they’re worse off than had they just done what came naturally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, I love that we went there. It’s such a depth. That’s cool. I don’t get to do this with very many people in very many context, and maybe you don’t either because of the soundbite culture we live in, so I enjoyed that detour. Hope you did as well.

Matthew Abrahams
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’ve got to ask, what’s the number one question you’re asked most often?

Matthew Abrahams
What do I do with my hands? That’s the number one question.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, what do you do?

Matthew Abrahams
So, let me give two bits of advice – what to do with your hands when you’re not using them, and then what to do when you are using them. So, when you’re not using your hands, we want to see them. We don’t want them in our pockets, we don’t want them behind our back. If we’re sitting at a table, we want them on the table not under the table.

But simply down by your sides as you would stand perhaps, if you went to the tailor and they’re trying fit a jacket on you, not when you splay your hands out like a T, the letter T. But when they’re down by the sides, that’s a great relaxed position and it’s a very confident position because you’re very open.

The other place where people feel most comfortable is just lightly clasping your hands in front of your abdomen, right in front of your belly button, just loose and low, that’s fine. We don’t want to go below the belt. That turns into what I call figgly thing and that makes you look a little nervous and uncomfortable. So, those are two great places to rest your hands when you’re not using them; down by your sides or right in front of your belly button.

When you gesture, the rules are really simple; gesture beyond your shoulders. A lot of us when we gesture, we gesture with our elbows tight to our body, and our hands in front of our chest. We look like T-rex dinosaurs and we look very defensive. If you can extend your arms just a little bit, just beyond your shoulders with the palms facing your audience, you look much more open.

And then the other gesture is when you refer to your audience, the people you’re talking about. Do a forward extension towards them. When you say words like us, you, we. Having your hands extended forward really makes you look like you’re connecting with and talking to your audience. So, again, I’m about frameworks and fundamentals. I’m not about scripting a gesture here or there because it looks artificial and, again, it distracts you from connecting with your audience if you have to think, “On this word I must move my hand in this way.”

Pete Mockaitis
Totally.

Matthew Abrahams
That’s the advice I give to people, and people really grasp onto it and begin making decisions that show their body posture as being more open and confident.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s great. And what’s interesting for me is I notice when you put out those two postures to go with, I find that I most naturally put my hands in front of my abdomen, and in a way it really is kind of soothing. And I don’t know if there’s some primordial stuff about that being a sensitive part of my body or an attack might get me hurt or what.

So, I do find that more soothing. Whereas on the sides is just a little bit more nervous when you’re staring down hundreds of people. And so, I don’t know where I heard this but I heard that if you have anything like a lectern, podium – I always get them mixed up and so the rest of the world – or your hands in front of your midsection, then that creates a bit of maybe a subconscious signaling of protection or kind of there’s a barrier in between audience and communicator.

Do you buy that? And do you think like the other stance of hands to the sides is, if you could muster it, superior to hands in front of your abdomen?

Matthew Abrahams
So, I think either can accomplish the goal of helping you look confident and helping many people be comfortable. I believe that when your hands are down by the side, you’re actually more exposed. And, by virtue of being more exposed, or willing to be more exposed, in front of others, you actually display more confidence so that’s why I don’t like lecterns, podiums because they act as a shield for you.

Confident speakers are willing to stand in front of an audience with their arms down. Now, I’m not saying you stand there rigidly for a long period of time, but if you’re being introduced, or if somebody is asking you a question, and you’re waiting for that question to come in, placing those arms down by the side just make you look so confident.

That said, putting the hands in front of the abdomen, personally I don’t feel diminishes your confidence that much. I know of no research that focuses on the relative difference between these two postures. These are usually the go-to postures. They are recommended instead of being defensive or behind a lectern and podium.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Matt, this is so much good detailed stuff. Tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Matthew Abrahams
So, just a couple things. We’ve talked a lot about nerves, and we’ve talked a lot about what we can do. I’d like to just mention something that is very, very critical. And that is, as a communicator, your job is to be in service of your audience. You’re there to help them, to provide them with information, etcetera, so one of the things that can help you become more confident and comfortable is just remind yourself that you’re there for them.

It’s not that the audience is there to judge and evaluate you, but you’re in service of them, so you really have to spend some times doing some reflection and reconnaissance to best understand what your audience needs from you. So, all effective communication, I believe, starts from this perspective of you as a communicator, be it a meeting leader, a manager, a keynote speaker, whatever, is to be in service of your audience.

So, that’s one important point, Pete, that I think really underlies all of this when it comes to becoming more confident in your communication.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Matthew Abrahams
So, the first time I heard this quote, and I have to admit I’ve been lazy and I don’t know who actually said it, but I heard it in the movie Buckaroo Banz ai, so I am now dating myself to let everybody know how old I am. But the quote is, “No matter where you go there you are.” And that quote, to me, is really impactful because part of what we need to do in any communication – and I would argue in our life in general – is be very present.

And it’s very easy in this age of technology and over-abundance of information to get very distracted very easily, so that quote is really important to me. No matter where you go, there you are. Make the best of it. Be present and attune to what’s going on around you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m sorry. What did you say? I had a text. Oh, just kidding.

Matthew Abrahams
It was me texting you. Be present.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, be present. That’s good. Cool. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research, something you really jive with?

Matthew Abrahams
So, I have two favorite research studies. I’ll share one and if you want me to share the other I’ll share it as well. So, it has to do with the power of language and how framing things in a positive way is much more motivational and persuasive. They went to two sets of people exactly identical, and they said, “We’re very sorry to tell you, you have a very bad disease, and the outcome is not likely to be good. We happen to have an experimental treatment that has a 67% failure rate. Would you like to take it?”

They immediately went to another group of people, exactly the same like that first group, and they said, “You’ve got this terrible disease, sorry to tell you this. There happens to be a potential treatment. It has a 33% success rate. Would you like to take it?” Doing the quick math, you’ll understand very quickly they said the same thing mathematically.

However, the people who heard it framed as a success rate were much more willing to take it than the people who heard the same thing as a failure rate. I find that fascinating that linguistically, the words we use to describe things can influence people very, very easily. So, that’s one of my favorite studies.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, that was so good, I do want to hear the other one.

Matthew Abrahams
So, the other one has to do with non-verbal persuasions. So, they called people into a lab and they said, “We’re testing your auditory acuity, in other words how well you hear. Every time you hear one beep, nod your head up and down. Every time you hear two beeps, nod your head side to side.” What they then did, that wasn’t the study. What they did is varied how many one beeps and two beeps people heard.

The subject came outside of the lab, sat next to somebody they thought was going into the lab next. It turned out that person sitting next to them was a confederate of the experimenter, and that person asked to borrow some money of the subject. The subjects who heard one beep, in other words nodded their head up and down, much more frequently gave them the money for the soda than the people who nodded their head side to side. In other words, if we can get people to change their non-verbal behavior, we can actually influence their willingness to behave in a certain way. I find that study fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that is fascinating. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Matthew Abrahams
Oh, I have so many favorite books. My favorite book, I’m thinking what’s on my nightstand right now. It’s a book on improv, and what I like about it is it really relates to how we can just apply improv skills to our daily life. It’s by Patricia Madson, and it’s called Improv Wisdom. And I’m a big fan of improvisation because of the communication skills it teaches, and her book does the great way of applying those skills just to day-to-day life, so I’m a big fan of Patricia Madson’s Improv Wisdom book.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s so interesting, when I was researching on Amazon, it is frequently bought together with your book.

Matthew Abrahams
Yes, it is. And there’s a reason for that. So, I co-teach a class at Stanford with an improv expert, not Patricia herself, but somebody who studied under Patricia, and his name is Adam Tobin. And Adam and I teach a class where we actually apply and we use improv to teach tricky communication skills, so our students tend to buy those two books together.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there it is. Yeah, now we know the rest of the story behind the Amazon recommendation. Cool.

Matthew Abrahams
And going along without getting into too much detail, Pete, there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like it. Okay. Cool. And how about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Matthew Abrahams
A favorite tool of mine. So, on my cellphone I rely, beyond relying on my scheduling app, I have several apps, you mentioned one, Ummo, that help with my communication skills. So, there are several apps that help with communication in terms of just fluency, vocal variation, etcetera, and those tools really help me personally but they also are very useful for the students I teach and the folks I consult with.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, please share names. What are the other apps?

Matthew Abrahams
So, there’s one called Orai, O-R-A-I, and another one called LikeSo, because so many people say Like and So when they communicate. But Ummo, Orai and LikeSo are apps that I use a lot and I refer people to all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. And is there a particular nugget that you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks and they play it back to you often?

Matthew Abrahams
Beyond the anxiety management plan, and I have had students come back to me from 10, 15 years ago, telling me they’re still using their anxiety management plan. One of my mantras is that communication is goal-driven, and you need to make sure you understand your goals in any high-stakes communication. And, to me, a goal has three parts: what do you want your audience to know, what do you want them to feel, and what do you want them to do. And I have students, consulting clients all the time come back to me and say it’s all about the no feel and do. It’s a very important mantra and very important bit of advice.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And do you have a favorite habit?

Matthew Abrahams
My favorite habit, since we’re ending our interview, I’ll bring us back to the beginning. I have a very short tai chi set or routine that I do every morning when I wake up and it just helps me get focused and gets me ready for the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, Matt, where would you point them?

Matthew Abrahams
I would point you to two places. The consulting practice I run is called Bold Echo, I co-founded this a number of years ago, it’s B-O-L-D-E-C-H-O.com, as well as a website I curate called No Freaking Speaking, and that website is designed to help people feel more comfortable and confident in their communication. So, again, it’s No Freaking Speaking and BoldEcho.com.

Pete Mockaitis
No Freaking Speaking reminds me of like a plumber commercial. It’s like, “Faucet leaking got you freaking?” And so, free associating.

Matthew Abrahams
You know what, Pete, you’re going to be my new PR, my new PR department.

Pete Mockaitis
“Your speaking got you freaking? Call Matt.” Cool. And, speaking of marketing, do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue here to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Matthew Abrahams
I do, indeed. I believe everybody has something important to contribute, a story to tell, advice to give, and we have to feel comfortable and confident with our communication in order to do that. So, I challenge everybody, as we speak we are before the New Year, take on as a New Year evolution, or resolution, whatever you see it as, as really addressing any issues you have around communication by addressing anxiety, by practicing and honing skills you already have. You can contribute to the world by sharing your story, sharing your information, and you’re going to have a lot more fun doing it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, fun, indeed. Yes, Matt, this has been tons of fun. I wish you lots of luck with your courses and your work and your clients and improv hilarity and all that you’re up to.

Matthew Abrahams
Thank you so much, Pete. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you so much.

Pete Mockaitis
Grant, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Grant Baldwin
Pete, it’s like Christmas morning waking up, looking at the calendar and saying, “Today I get to talk to Pete,” and it’s here, the moment has arrived. And it’s like accepting an Academy Award or something.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you probably say that to all your interviewers.

Grant Baldwin
You know what, you can go back to all of them. I don’t know that I’ve ever said that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat with you, boy, because we met years ago when you generously volunteered to speak at my HOBY, Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, seminar back in Champaign-Urbana, and I’ve just been watching you from afar.

Grant Baldwin
How many years ago was that?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it is in the ballpark of ten.

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I would say eight to ten.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, so I’ve just been watching you from afar with your podcast and what you’ve been doing, and I said, “Well, hey, wait a second. I think there’s a fit here.” So, I want to dig into a lot of the learnings that you have developed and shared with all of your clients through The Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin
Okay. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Before we do that, I just did a quick search. I couldn’t help myself. June of 2009.

Pete Mockaitis
2009, yeah.

Grant Baldwin
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Eight and a half. Wow. And good organization.

Grant Baldwin
Well, I remember it’s a fun event.

Pete Mockaitis
Plus, the title is a pretty searchable keyword that won’t trip too many other things.

Grant Baldwin
It’s in the archives.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, yeah, I want to chat about some of your insights discovered and shared with your Speaker Lab clientele. But, first, I thought every speaker has a pretty wild story when it comes to their travel and their mishaps. Could you share with us one of your most hilariously awesome tales or a tale that comes from one of the speakers you worked with?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, so I’ll give you both. I’ll give you both quickly. So, one that happened to me, I remember, several years ago was I was speaking at an event in Colorado and flying from Denver to Chicago, and then was going to, once I get into Chicago, had something like a two-hour drive into somewhere in Illinois or, I don’t know, what would that be, Eastern Iowa.

And so, I was in Denver and a big blizzard, snowstorm or something comes blowing in and it’s just dumping snow and we’re on the plane, the plane is delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. So, they’re finally get ready to take off, and at this point it is something like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And so, by the time I land in Chicago it’s like 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, got to drive a couple of hours, so I haven’t really slept.

And I remember just being in a daze of driving a couple of hours, getting to the venue, and I remember being like delirious, like brushing my teeth in the parking lot of the venue where I was getting ready to speak, and just feeling trashed and exhausted, and just feeling like, “You know, this is the glamorous life of a speaker.” So, yeah, a few of those type of war stories have happened a few times.

Pete Mockaitis
But, if I may, I got to push for the ending. How did the speech go? And what did the clients say? And did you collect your money?

Grant Baldwin
It went well. It went well. In fact, I was supposed to give two talks, and there was something of a break in between, and so I asked, I said, “Hey, if it’s okay I need to go back to the hotel and just zonk for a little bit, and then for the second talk I’m going to be in much better shape,” and they generously let me do that, and it went great. Yeah, it went fine. It worked out well.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Heroics when it comes to the toothbrushing in the parking lot? It reminds me once I was doing some consulting and we were eating cereal from a vending machine out of a Styrofoam cup with a plastic spork while wearing a hairnet in a cookie factory, I’m like, “This is the glamorous life.”

Grant Baldwin
This is the life. Exactly. This is the part that nobody gets to see.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Okay. So that’s yours. You said you had one of the clients too.

Grant Baldwin
Yes. This wasn’t a client but a friend of mine, but they’re speaking at something and they go to check in at the hotel, and I guess there was some type of a guy on the hunt, manhunt going on in the area for some criminal for something. So, friend of mine checks into the hotel, and he looks like the dude apparently, whoever this criminal was.

So. gets to his room, a few minutes later the phone rings, and it is the front desk, or, no, excuse me, it’s the police, and they’re like, “Hey, it’s the police and we’re outside your door. You need to come out.” And he’s thinking like, “Yeah, whatever. It’s a joke. Someone is pranking me.” Hangs up the phone. A couple of minutes they call back, and they’re like seriously come at the door, people were banging on the door.

He opens the door, looks down like each end of the hallway is SWAT team, barking dogs, guns drawn, like the works.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes.

Grant Baldwin
And just total case of mistaken identity there, but he’s just like, “I’m traumatized.” So, there’s that side of it, too, which seems much more mentally and emotionally damaging thing than having to brush your teeth in a parking lot.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Thank you. You really delivered on that. I thought, “Okay, I hope we have a good travel story.” And I cannot conceive of a better one.

Grant Baldwin
It’s pretty rough.

Pete Mockaitis
SWAT teams and being surrounded beats, “I was really delayed on a flight, and it was bad.” So, thank you for bringing that. So, now, can you share with us, okay, The Speaker Lab, what’s it all about? What are you trying to do there?

Grant Baldwin
So, I was a full-time speaker for about seven, eight years or so, and a lot in the education space was doing anywhere from 50 to 70 events a year, and had a lot of people who asked me about speaking. A lot of people were intrigued, “Hey, how do I become a speaker? How do I get into this?” And so, we started doing a couple of different online trainings around this subject and topic, and just found there’s a lot of people that teach the art side, the presentation side, “Here’s how you put together a good talk. Here’s how you make a good presentation. Here’s how you put your slides together and all that stuff.” But there wasn’t a lot of people that were teaching the business side.
Yeah, but how do you actually find a gig? How do know how much to charge? How do you know how to take care and work with a client? And so, we started to put together some trainings around that, and that’s a lot of what we do today is we do a free podcast and then we also have various trainings and coaching opportunities, and basically just help people create and build a plan and a step-by-step system for how to consistently find and book speaking engagements.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool. Well, so, and I would like to dig into, in fact, the art of speaking itself more so for this conversation as it’s applicable to our audience of professionals employed in various places. So, I guess I’m intrigued to see, when you’re working with folks, what do you see most commonly as the differentiator between someone who is like, “Okay, yeah, they’re decent at speaking,” to, “Oh, I’m looking at a professional here,” when it comes to their delivery? Could you sort of paint that picture for what makes the difference?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I think one of the big things that makes a difference, and something that anyone could do, is a lot of it comes down to the preparation and the practice or the rehearsal that they put into it. And I think oftentimes there’s this misconception that the best speakers in the world just get up on stage and they just make it up and they just wing it and shoot from the hip, and it all just naturally comes out, and you’re like, “They’re just naturally good.”

And, yeah, there are some maybe level of natural charisma that some people may have, but at the same time the best speakers on the planet spend an enormous amount of time really going over the material, really learning it, refining it, and practicing it, and rehearsing and preparing so by the time they get up on stage it looks natural, it looks like they’re just making it up, it looks like they’re just winging, when it’s something they’ve really spent a lot of time on.

So, I think that’s an easy thing for anybody in any type of context, whether you want to be a professional speaker or someone who, “I’ve got to give two or three presentations a year in my company or my business or some type of local organization or civic group,” just spending the time to really work on your material and to practice it and go over it makes a huge, huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Now, what comes to mind for me is a comedian. They make it look so natural, “Oh, they’re so funny. They just have all these jokes that are great.” But behind the scenes they’ve been testing them and used many jokes that didn’t work and bombed and embarrassed themselves at smaller venues. And so there it is, the practice and the rehearsals happening behind the scenes.

So, I know the number is going to vary wildly but maybe just if you imagine a context in which, “Hey, we’ve got this professional who has maybe a 30-minute chunk of an important presentation to be delivered in a conference room maybe to a combined set of stakeholders from some executives to some partners that the company works with.” Could you maybe lay it out for us, like what is the price of excellence? Is it like for an hour? Or is it 50 hours? Is it 500 hours?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, so one of the things that you touched on there is some of it depends on the stakes and the context of the setting, meaning that, let’s say, for example, you’ve got to give a 30-minute talk to some friends and it’s kind of a casual type of setting. Yeah, you’re probably going to spend less time on it versus like you’re pitching some type of business or idea or opportunity, and this is like make or break for your career, you’re probably going to spend a lot more time on it.

So, I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong answer, but typically the higher the stake the more time you’re going to put into it. So, I can kind of walk you through, this will be helpful, like how I would go about preparing for something like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, let’s hear it.

Grant Baldwin
The bigger the stakes for the type of event, I typically start with, well, I’ll do a couple just for some more context. If I’m speaking at something, I typically want to use material that I’ve given before, that I’ve used before, that I’ve told before that I know that work. Let’s say, for this context, like someone has never given a talk before, they have nothing to pull from. In that setting you want to be really, really clear about what’s the point of the presentation, what’s the point of the talk, what’s the main idea that you want to get to.

So, there may be talks that we’ve all sat through and listened through that you’re just kind of be, “Yeah, it’s interesting or it’s good or entertaining or whatever,” but like, “I’m not really sure what the point of it was and I’m not really sure where this was going.” So, are you trying to get someone to take action? Are you trying to convince someone? Are you trying to persuade someone? Are you trying to inspire or motivate or encourage? Like, what’s the point of the talk? So, being clear on that.

From there you can kind of reverse-engineer or work backwards. So, what I would do is once you kind of have that main idea is then you can just kind of brainstorm and come up with anything related to that idea. So, maybe it’s a story, maybe it’s a stat, maybe it’s an image, maybe it’s a video, maybe it’s a point, a principle, a quote, just anything you can think of, no filter, just brainstorming anything you can think of related to that topic.

From there you can start to put together a bit of a skeleton outline of, “All right. If I’m going to make this key point, then what’s like the natural progression that I need to follow in order to take the audience to that place?” And then you can kind of put together an outline and kind of fill in some of the meat from there. So, what I would do, personally, is I like to manuscript it out, and I manuscript it not from the standpoint of, “Hey, I need to have a script that I’m going to remember and memorize word for word.” That’s not the point of it.

The point of it, though, is I really want to take the time to get like all the thoughts down on paper to make sure that it all naturally flows well together. So, Pete, if you were to ask me, “Tell me about whenever you proposed to your wife.” Like I can tell you that story off the top of my head because I lived it. But I bet if I sat down and really took some time to, “Okay, let me think about the day, let me think about the weather, the context, what happened, who did we call, who did we talk to, what happened next, how did we respond, how did she respond, how did I respond.” All the details of it, my guess would be a much, much better, more compelling, more interesting and engaging story.

And so that’s kind of the point is you’re really just trying to like get down on paper everything related to that topic, the point, the story, where you’re going with it so that by the time you’re ready to tell it there is more structure, there is more meat to it. And whenever I’m working on, in terms of practicing and rehearsing and going over it, I’m not trying to go over from the standpoint of, “Here’s a script that I have to memorize, that I have to know word for word.” I want to make sure that I understand the gist of it, the idea of it, the essence of it of where I’m going with the presentation and with the talk, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be this word-for-word script that I’m trying to memorize.

So, if you’re in front of an audience and you are singing some popular song or the national anthem, and you screw up the lyrics, like everybody knows it. But if you’re giving a talk or presentation, and like, “Oh, I forgot my line,” or, “I told the story out of order,” the audience has no idea, like it makes no impact, it makes no difference to them.

So, you’re not trying to memorize a script where you’re like, “I need to know every single word of what I’m saying,” and it becomes this robotic regurgitation of words, but I just need to know where I’m going, and I need to know how I want to tell this story or make this point so that the talk is much more prepared and practiced or rehearsed rather than just getting up and winging it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, when you say manuscripts, so then you’re saying that, in fact, you are writing every word but you’re not worried about saying every word. Is that fair?

Grant Baldwin
Correct. Exactly. Yup, so I would type, and I think, I mean, everybody’s different but I think, for a lot of us, we write or we type the way we would speak. So, I’m trying to, as I’m typing something out, I’m typing it out like thinking through, like, “How would I actually say this? If I’m standing in front of an audience, how would I actually be communicating it and making sure that I’m writing it in that way?”

Now, again, it’s not from the standpoint of, “This is exactly how I must say this.” Now, there’s going to be a couple key things, maybe a key point or a real main idea that you’re like, “These are the 10 words in this order, and I need to say it this way because, hmm, that works.”

Pete Mockaitis
“Ask not what you can do…” Oh, listen up already.

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, you got to know that stuff but for the most part, most of the pieces within the talk you need to know the idea of it and the essence of it without feeling like, “I need to know verbatim, word for word, how to tell this seven-minute story.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I dig that. So, you’re actually typing as opposed to recording and transcribing.

Grant Baldwin
Correct. Yup.

Pete Mockaitis
And so that’s just kind of your flavor, and that works for you, and that’s helpful. Thank you. So, what I like there…

Grant Baldwin
Yeah. Well, let’s just say I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to go about either. Like that’s what I do, whereas I know some people who, they prefer to handwrite things out. Like, you mentioned, some people like to transcribe or some people like to have bullet points of an outline, and that’s what they go off of, and they kind of fill in the blanks as they go. And to each their own. I think that the more you speak the more you kind of figure out what makes sense and what works for you and just your preference and your style.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, it’s going to vary how much time it takes, but as you laid it out there it’s like the level of thought you’re giving it is the level of the individual word as opposed to, “Well, I’m going to kind of talk about point one, then point two, then point three. Okay, I’m ready.”

Grant Baldwin
Correct, yup. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, then, it sounds like there’s a wide variation in terms of just how much prep is enough prep. But could you give us, I know numbers are hazardous but I want to hammer home the point that I think is in your head. So, if it’s moderate stakes, 20 minutes of talk and new content, how much prep is like the bare minimum you think a person should invest?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, if you’re doing 20 minutes of content, I mean, from I just found out I’ve got to give 20 minutes to giving the presentation, I’m probably looking at maybe five hours’ worth of just like really… again, it depends on the stakes of it, but anywhere from three to five hours, I would say, because it takes time to really… it’s not like you’re going to sit down and you’re going to type for 20 minutes and it all are going to naturally come out, and then you’re going to go over, time to turn it, it’s ready to go. It just takes time to go over it.

I think, also, the more often you are speaking and the more that you’re generating content, or the more that you’re learning new material, the quicker and more efficient you get at it. The first time you do anything is not nearly going to be as efficient as the time when you do it the hundredth time. So, the more you do something the more comfortable you’re going to start to feel with it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Perfect. So, I dig that. So, then, that ratio that’s like nine to 15 times or so of prep time to content time, and I think that’s just handy because I’ve been in a position where the team works long and hard on the underlying backend data and the slide creation and locking down the deck just perfectly, and then very little time on, “So, how are we going to say this if we really want to be persuasive or inspiring?”

And so, I think if I could touch upon that for a moment, how does one be all the more persuasive and inspiring? Because, in some ways, I think speeches are easier if your goal is to like, “I’m going to inform them about this. By the end of the speech they will now know about this thing that I’ve told them about.” I think that’s kind of an easier hurdle to clear or goal to hit. But when it comes to like human beings having their hearts stirred and wanting to take action, boy, what’s the secret sauce to making that happen?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say this, I think that motivating other people to do something is very, very difficult. Like, at the end of the day, I can’t make someone else do something. So, one thing that I think is very powerful and effective that I think anybody can use is stories, and ideally first-person stories. So, that’s something that I tend to use a lot of whenever I speak is first-person stories, stories that I’ve actually lived.

So, yeah, sure you can tell, “Let me tell you about this story from the 1930s, and here’s this person who overcame this thing, and here’s how it all worked out in the end.” Like that’s great and there’s a place for that but, at the same time, saying, “Here’s something I experienced, something I lived, and something that I did.”

And, you know what, sometimes we think like it has to be some crazy, impactful, like, “I climbed Mt. Everest blind in shorts, and I lived to tell about it.” It doesn’t necessarily have to be that. I think, again, that’s kind of a misconception with speaking is that, “I can’t become a speaker because I haven’t done or overcome some crazy obstacle.”

So, like in my case, I’m a white male from the Midwest who’s had a pretty normal life. Like, on paper there’s no reason I should be a speaker. But the funny thing is you don’t have to overcome some crazy obstacle in order to be a speaker. Just you sharing your own personal experience, or sharing life from and sharing things that you have learned can certainly be valuable to an audience because your audience, most people haven’t climbed Mt. Everest blind in shorts.

Most people are just, they’re normal people going through their daily lives. And hearing someone else is doing it and hearing someone else has overcome something or accomplished something can be extremely impactful for them. So, using stories is really, really, really powerful, and stories can be used in a variety of different ways. But from just motivating and inspiring and connecting with an audience, just as human beings, like we’re really, really drawn to stories, so I highly recommend that as a tool for any speaker.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I like what you said, and earlier we had Dr. Carmen Simon talking about what makes great stories memorable. And often, she said, them being relatable is what trumps being sort of dramatic with regard to their emotions. So, what makes a story good then? It may not need to be super epic tales of Everest, but what sort of separates a great story from an okay story?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would totally echo the relatable part. So, I’m thinking through several of the stories that I tell on a regular basis. So, stories like the skydiving and just the funny experience that happened with that, or going to Disney World with my daughters and how funny interaction that we had, or as a teenager, toilet papering a friend’s house and getting busted, or my very first car and all the problems that I had with that.

None of these are just like, “Then I met the President and this happened, and then I was on the secret ops mission, and then this happened. And then I won the Olympic gold medal.” So, it’s like this is normal human everyday stuff. Like anytime I tell a story about my first car, anybody in the audience has had a first car and they can relate to it, or something that’s gone wrong.

Even like you mentioned the travel thing at the beginning, is like those are just relatable normal, like human things that we have had, “Oh, let me tell you my travel story. And here’s what happened to me.” Just relatable human stuff that people can connect with. I remember hearing General Colin Powel speak several years ago, and it was great. He was a phenomenal speaker. And I think, at the time, or maybe he had been the Secretary of Defense, I believe, something to that effect.

And so, he’s telling a really cool story about being on Air Force One, and on and on, and you’re just like, “That’s pretty cool, but, like, I’ve never been on the Air Force One and I don’t see that in my future anytime soon.” So, it feels like there’s some level of disconnect, versus like, “Hey, let me tell you about my first car,” and you probably had a similar thing.

Or, “Here’s a funny experience I had with my kids,” and you may have experienced something similar. Or, “Here’s something that happened in a restaurant,” or traveling, or whatever, that is just a relatable type of thing that a high percentage of the audience is going to be like, “Oh, yeah, totally understand that, totally get that, and I’m with you as you’re telling the story.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Yeah, I dig that. Thank you. And so, now, I’m wondering a little bit in terms of thinking about you in the audience of another speaker. It just makes me wonder, given the eye and the ear that you’ve developed by beholding many a presenter, can you share, are there a few things that are sort of like, “Dude, or lady, cut that out. This is an annoying suboptimal habit or thing that presenters do that has just no place and needs to stop”? Are there a few like top pet peeves in the Grant no-no list?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, like one that comes to mind is having a huge dependency on your slides. So, here’s one way to approach it, and I rarely, if ever, use slides. They have a huge value, there’s a huge place for them to be used, and they can provide an impact that your words may not be able to provide. But what often happens to speakers is they are more fixated and focused on the slides than on the audience and the presentation itself.

So, as a good kind of barometer here is, think of it this way. If you’re getting ready to give a presentation with slides, and your slides go down, or they don’t work, or the technology breaks, if that were to happen just five minutes before you’re supposed to speak, can you still be ready? Are you still good to go? Because if you’re someone who is like, “Oh, I can’t even function without my slides,” then you’re not ready, like you shouldn’t be up there speaking.

So, I’ll give you an example. My wife is attending a conference a couple of months ago, and she texted me, and she said, “Hey, I’m in this session that was supposed to start 15 minutes ago, and the slides aren’t working, and the speaker just told the audience they can’t speak without the slides.” I was like, “Then you shouldn’t be up there, you shouldn’t be speaking.”

So, I think just like one of the things I always like to say is that your slide should be an enhancement not a replacement for your talk. They shouldn’t be a crutch. So, if they break, you’d be like, “Oh, that sucks,” but your talk should still stand on its own. It should still be solid. Even the other day I was, a couple of weeks, I was at a conference and I was backstage talking with one of the other speakers. And they were going over their slides, slides, slides, slides, just their whole head was absorbed with the slides. I was like, “Dude, get out of it. Like, forget the slides. You have to connect with the audience.”

Using your slides as a cheat sheet or as a guide, or as knowing where to go, like I get some of that, but you also need to know your material. You need to know where your presentation is going without just having to, “I’m just going to throw up a bunch of bullet points then I’m just going to turn and read.”

I mean, if you’re just going to do that, like what’s the point of you? Just give the audience your outline and leave. There’s no point in you just reading stuff and regurgitating stuff to the audience when they’re fully capable of reading. So, slides are good, use slides but just make sure that they’re an enhancement not a replacement for your talk.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s the top pet peeve that leapt to mind. Any others?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say, you speak a lot, I speak a lot. I don’t know about you, but I’m not really overly critical with speakers, in part, because I know most speakers haven’t done as much speaking as you or I may have done, Pete. So, it’s not fair to look at someone and say, “Okay, this is your first presentation so let’s just go through every single thing that you did wrong here.”

I remember speaking at a conference and had a friend of mine who gave me a nice compliment but a humbling compliment. And I spoke at this conference, and it’s like the fourth or fifth year of the conference, and I gave a closing keynote, and it went really, really well. And the client came up afterwards, and said, “You’re the best keynote speaker that we’ve ever had.” And I was like, “That’s awesome. That’s so cool.” Well, most of the keynote speakers they’ve had are people who give a few talks here and there but not to the level that I’ve done in terms of just the number of engagements, right?

So, I told a friend this, I was like, “Dude, check this out. He just said I was the best speaker they’ve ever had.” And he’s like, “You’re a professional speaker. You should be the best that they’ve ever had. If you weren’t you’ve got a problem with that, right?” So, the point being, if this is your first time speaking, like I don’t want to be hypercritical of those who are just getting started or only have done a couple things, but the slides should be one thing, using stories should be another thing.

The other thing I would say, too, going back to what we talked about earlier that I think any speaker at any level can do is really spending the time to practice and go over your material. Again, just don’t get up and wing it, don’t just get up and make stuff up, don’t just shoot from the hip           . Like really spending the time to go through the material, know the material, and it makes a huge, huge difference.

A good exercise to go through with this, or maybe a little homework assignment, is to go on Netflix and look up the documentary called Comedian. Have you seen this before?

Pete Mockaitis
Is this Jerry Seinfeld?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah. It had been a DVD for many, many years. I’ve got the DVD, but actually, like recently, within like literally the past few weeks came out on Netflix. It is a great documentary. And the nutshell of it is basically it was filmed in like, I think, the early 2000s. It was right after the show Seinfeld wrapped up, and it’s following Jerry Seinfeld around as he’s doing his standup comedy.

But, really, he’s working on new material, so it shows him getting up on stage and he’s bombing, or he’s forgetting the punchline, or he’s being heckled. And he’s at the top of his game, like he’s one of the more recognized people in entertainment, and yet, here he is showing like, “I’m trying to work on this craft, these jokes.” It’s not just, “Oh, Jerry Seinfeld is funny,” so he just gets up and talk and it all just works out.

It just shows him behind the scenes of how this comes together. So, you watch a special on Netflix or HBO or Comedy Central or whatever, and you think like, “That just happened.” It just doesn’t work like that. They just spend so much time behind the scenes going over and over and over their material so that they feel confident, they feel comfortable, and they feel prepared when they get up and speak. So, I think a speaker/presenter at any level can spend time practicing and preparing and it makes a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, perfect. Thank you. Well, so then, I’m curious to hear, as we kind of transition a bit, of all the suggestions that you have offered a number of times, what do you believe is sort of the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to, over the long term, improving your speaking presentation skills? Like, if there’s one thing you would have people do regularly to get better, what would that thing be?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I mean, practice would be definitely up there on the list. I think a couple other things that would come to mind would be to get feedback from not just respected people that you know who have a lot of speaking experience who can give you specific feedback, but also from peers and colleagues who may be other speakers as well.

So, getting that feedback, I think makes a big difference. Working with speaking coaches, again, depending on if you’re just like, “Hey, I give one talk a year, and it’s not that big a deal,” it may not be necessary. But if you’re someone where, “Hey, I give a lot of presentations, they’re very high-stakes presentations,” getting that outside feedback from a speaking coach or from a professional speaker who can go through and can really help you on that content of what you’re presenting but also on your presentation style, your presentation skills, can make a huge difference.

Another simple thing that you can do is just recording yourself and watching it back which, for most people, could be brutally painful. But, oftentimes, we can identify things that maybe we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. So, maybe there’s some type of a filler word that you use regularly, or maybe there’s something you do with your hands, that you’re like, “I didn’t even realize I did that but once I watch it back I see how distracting that is.” Or, “Here’s something every time I tell this story, then this part isn’t funny, and I think it’s funny but now that I’m watching it back, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no flow.”

And you’re kind of just trying to pull this, like have this out-of-body experience where you’re going back and going through the material to figure out like what’s working and what’s not, and just kind of breaking it down in that way. So, recording yourself, going back, reviewing it, watching it is another good exercise that any speaker can do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Grant, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Grant Baldwin
I don’t know what my favorite things are so I’m excited about that. Let’s get to that.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s do it. Okay. Could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Grant Baldwin
One of my favorites quote I like to share is, “Who you are is more important than what you do.” Meaning, if you’re a great speaker, if you’re a great employee, if you’re a great entrepreneur, if you’re a great fill in the blank, but you drop the ball as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father, if you’re just a shell of a human being, that’s just not worth it. So, that’s one I try to remind myself of regularly, “Who you are is more important than what you do.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Grant Baldwin
Let’s see here. I’m just looking at what I’ve got on my desk here. A lot of times I think it’s kind of depends on your current situation or what you’re chewing on. There’s a book I read recently, or I actually read it a couple of years ago but then was re-reading it recently called Built to Sell. And it’s not necessarily, like, yeah, it’s in the context of if you want to sell your business, but it’s also in the context of trying to build a business that doesn’t depend on you. And so that was a really good one that there’s a lot that could be pulled from.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And, tell me, do you have a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Grant Baldwin
I use Slack constantly with our team, with communicating with others. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s like a modern-day instant messenger tool, and so there’s a lot of different functions and uses to that. But, yes, Slack is something I use super regularly. I also use a tool called Evernote a lot. It’s kind of my digital brain of any ideas or projects or tasks, or any type of thing that just something I want to save I could keep in Evernote. So, yeah, both Slack and Evernote are pretty common ones I use.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a favorite habit that helps you be effective?

Grant Baldwin
One thing that I would say would be very critical would just be exercise. And I know this is something that’s thrown around commonly but you’re only as good as the body that you have, and that you’re taking care of yourself. So, I just regularly exercise. I do a couple of things. So, there’s a strength-training class that I go to three times a week. I think going to an actual class, for me, personally, has made a big difference because there’s kind of a built-in accountability of the peer pressure of being around other people who can encourage you, that can support you.

That, “Man, I don’t want to get out of bed this early but I know that they’re going to be there and they’re going to give me grief if I’m not there, so, all right, I’ll just get up and go even if I’m not feeling like it. Or those guys are pushing harder so I’m going to push a little bit harder.” So, being in a class setting, for me, for my health, has made a big difference.

So, I do that three times a week and then usually several times a week I will do biking. I’ve done that either outside or we recently got a Peloton Bike so I do these indoor spin classes and those things kick your butt too. But, just bottom line, just taking care of yourself doing something makes a big difference to your ability to focus, get stuff done throughout the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a particular nugget or piece that you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients, sort of a Grant original that gets them taking notes and saying, “Oh, yeah”?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say, like from a speaking standpoint, like if you want to get into like professional speaking, if that’s something you want to do more seriously, then a big thing I would say would be to make sure you’re really, really clear on who you speak to and what you speak about. And I think this is where most speakers have a difficult time is they try to speak to anybody and everybody about everything and anything and nothing all at the same time. But, as counterintuitive as it feels like, the more narrow and focused you are, the easier it is to find and book speaking engagements versus just trying to appeal to anybody and everybody which just doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And, Grant, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Grant Baldwin
We’ve got a podcast ourselves over at TheSpeakerLab.com, and if people are interested in learning more about how to find and book paid speaking engagements, we’ve got a free training that people can check out over at FreeSpeakerWorkshop.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I would say the big thing would just be to take some small step of action. And I think that that’s even going back to if you’re working on your talk or your presentation, thinking it through the lens of, “What do you want the audience to do as a result of this?” So, taking some small step of action. If you take the time to listen to this podcast, or any podcast, or read an article or a book or a blogpost or whatever, and you don’t do anything different, like what’s the point of that? So, any little nugget of thing that you want to just take and apply and implement, just taking some type of action makes a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Awesome. Well, Grant, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your perspective here. I wish you and The Speaker Lab tons of luck, and success, and gigs, and all the good stuff.

Grant Baldwin
Thanks, Pete. Appreciate you letting me hang out with you, man.