157: Creating a 3-Minute Speaking Masterpiece (ft. Simon Trevarthen)
We get so excited about the work that we do, that we miss the mark on communicating our value to our audience. Sometimes we're just too close to our content to communicate it effectively.
In today's episode, Simon Trevarthen joins us to talk about how you can take your message, and make it bite-sized without losing the impact. Listen in as he highlights how to build your talk, think about your presentation in threes, and communicate your message in three minutes or less.
If you loved this episode and it motivated you to work on more polished presentations, I’d love for you to leave a review on iTunes and tell me about your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @jessicarasdall.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Meet Simon Trevarthen
Simon T. (Trevarthen) is a premier speaker on resilience, inspiration and innovation. As a presenter, Simon has the rare ability to energize audiences while delivering personal, professional and business growth insights.
Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer of Elevate Your Greatness, Simon focuses his energy on helping others find and ignite their passion for achieving their greatness.
Simon has facilitated hundreds of sessions and sparked energetic conversations about innovation and business transformation. An international keynote speaker, Simon has addressed over 50,000 people at conferences, training seminars and workshops.
A storyteller, strategist and business coach, Simon has lead and consulted on change efforts in the public, not-for-profit and private sectors.
Global in viewpoint but local in impact, he has been an executive, consultant and speaker in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Simon has also worked as a journalist and international spokesperson for major humanitarian organizations in conflict zones.
If you're not already a member of the academy, we'd love to invite you to apply to join The Speaking Strategy Academy. You'll get instant access to our A-Z speaking training system with video lessons, transcripts, scripts, templates, and more.... access to our live group coaching calls, personalized 1:1 feedback on your work from me, and an opportunity to present your work live in front of our community for hot seat coaching and feedback. What are you waiting for, friend? Apply today!
Becoming an Exquisite Speaker
Many of us are in the business of speaking, but even if you're not in the industry, that doesn't limit you from working on your public speaking skills. The thing that sets an average leader apart from an extraordinary leader is their ability to master the art of the spoken word.
This concept was what catapulted Simon's desire to hone in on his craft for speaking. Now he's focused on becoming a better speaker, communicating his message, and making an impact on others.
Through his experience, he's realized the importance of presentation, along with a few speaking trends that he believes others should be aware of.
Speaking Trends to Be Aware Of
In the public speaking industry, you'll find common trends on the stage that aren't serving speakers well. Let's dive into what these are and how you can ensure you're not falling victim to the trend.
1. Powerpoint, Keynote, & other programs are not presentations, they create documents.
Speakers across the board think that if they spend a ton of time on the document, then they have a presentation. This means they're heavily relying on the slides to guide them through the presentation, which makes for a really rough experience for the audience. The worst case scenario is when people actually read the slides versus presenting the content.
2. Prepare to Speak on Your Subject Off the Cuff
If you're not an expert on the content you're presenting or have practiced the audible component of your presentation enough, there is room for improvement in your presentation. You need to be able to speak on your subject off the cuff, because you never know what will happen to your slides—they could be formatted wrong or not work. Technology will fail you.
3. Be Prepared to Condense Your Subject by Thinking in Threes
If you're speaking at conferences and events, the schedule is a huge component of every presentation. That doesn't eliminate the unfortunate situation where your time may be impacted by another speaker and you have to condense your talk. The simplest way to do this is prepare your talk to be condensed into three key points (ex: Market, Segment of Consumer Needs, and Your Solution).
Ways to Think in Three’s:
Thinking in three’s will guide you through your talk and allow you to condense it into three primary points to fit any timeline you're presented with in a pinch. Here are a few ways you can approach your talk by thinking in threes:
1. Selling a Product: Market, Segment of Consumer Needs, and Your Solution
2. Speaking in Time: Before, During, After
3. Causation: This impacts this, impacts this, impacts this.
Use Jargon that Elicits Emotion
The English language is full of jargon, which essentially is the bane of corporate and business life. You'll find that there are common everyday words, then larger words that are used less frequently in the English language. It's important to use words that elicit emotion.
Imagine how you communicate on a daily basis—now replace those common words with bigger words that express a level of higher education. Does it feel right? For example, rather than saying, "I went to the gym today and sweated," you could say, "I went to the gym and perspired."
When you use the word sweat, you can smell it. This elicits emotion and is why it's more commonly used. Data is a grounding point, but emotion sells people. Use words that have color versus black and white.
Approaching Speaking In-Person vs. Virtual
There is a loss of human connectivity when we move from in-person to virtual events. A large portion of presenting your talk comes from reading the faces of your audiences. This is somewhat challenging—but do what you can in virtual.
In order to push through to your audience, you need to supersize and amplify your energy—even and especially on virtual platforms.
Additionally, with virtual speaking opportunities, you need to focus on how to best present your talk. This could look like the following:
Shrink your virtual talk to 15 minutes to ensure your audience gets the full message
If you go longer than 15 minutes, think about having an inter-activity or exercise often in your talk.
A benefit to the virtual platforms is expanding your reach globally while remaining in your home. This opportunity will now impact events long-term—creating hybrids long term. Hybrid events are not going away.
You can still create an experience for your audience through your visuals as well—especially if you're wanting to demand a higher price tag. This could look like hiring a film crew, renting a space to present on film, and providing a high end presentation for your audience (and your paying clients).
Delivering Your Performance is Stage Craft
If you want to go the extra mile, you know that your talks is a performance. There is a craft to performing on stage as a speaker.
Your job is to command the attention of the audience on the stage so they'll focus on you. This could simply be walking into the middle on the stage or moving around on the screen.
Your presentation isn't about the slides, it's about it impact you're conveying.
Speaking in Pauses
Written word is fundamentally different from the spoken word. Most people write in long sentences, because you can read without catching your breathe. Spoken english is less than 15 words per sentence.
If you're looking to add powerful impact to your talks, learn to speak in pauses. Mark Twain said there is nothing more powerful in speech that a rightly timed pause.
Pauses allow you to stop and take a breathe, adds gravity to what you're saying, and allows the audience to take in your words.
Silence gives gravity to your words.
Speaking Rituals
As a speaker, you likely have a ritual or you're unknowingly developing a ritual with every talk. This comes with the last 5 minutes before your talk.
A ritual can be your individual strategy to get you on your game.
Pump up playlist
Self Talk
Wonder Woman Pose
Yoga + Breathe
Prayer
Develop a routine that seamlessly takes you from ordinary life to being a presenter on stage. This will also clear your mind and allow you to efficiently communicate your presentation.
When you're on stage, you're focused on one thing only—influence people.
Catch the Show Notes
About Simon & His Speaking Journey (4:45)
Three Trends that Speakers Should Be Aware Of (5:52)
Ways to Think in Threes (11:19)
Cutting Through Industry Jargon (13:13)
Approaching Speaking In-Person vs. Virtual (19:01)
Speaking in Pauses (25:42)
Speaking Rituals (31:44)
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Review the Transcript for this Episode
Transcript for Episode 157:
Jessica Rasdall 0:00
As a fellow business owner, I know that sometimes we get so excited about the work that we do that we miss the mark when it comes to communicating our value to our audience. Whether we're looking for partnerships, collaborations, investors, or new customers, sometimes we're just too close to our content to communicate it effectively. On today's episode of the podcast, we're talking about how you can take your message, make it bite size without losing the impact.
Jessica Rasdall 0:45
Welcome back to another episode of the speak to scale Podcast, where we're helping small business owners just like you grow and scale their companies by speaking on stages, podcasts, webinars, and more. I'm your host, Jessica Rasdall. And after doing this speaking thing for 15 years, I got to say business owners are my favorite people to partner with. Because you know, your craft, you know, your message better than anybody else. You've been in the trenches, pouring in blood, sweat, and tears to bring your vision to life. But sometimes, we're just a little too close to that work, to communicate it effectively from the stage. In fact, that's why I got into the work that I do today. I was attending my first industry conference speaking on this stage. And, you know, I had been speaking for over a decade at that point, but I was a new to the entrepreneurial space. And I quickly realized that these incredible business owners that I idolized, they could be making such a bigger impact if they knew how to package up their presentation, and deliver it in a way that had a clear path, to get their audience from meeting them for the first time, to being a raving fan and a purchasing customer, all in the matter of that, you know, 20 to 40 minute keynote. Now, over the last, what, six years of doing this work, I have had the honor of working with just the most incredible business owners, but I know that sometimes I'm like your mama bear. And when I tell you something, you just don't always want to listen to me, right? You're like, just I know, you say this all the time. So today, I brought in my friend Simon T, to break this down with me and have a great conversation about how we as business owners can shorten our presentation without minimizing impact, how we can really infuse our presentation with powerful storytelling and eliminate industry jargon. If you don't know Simon already, he's the founder and chief inspiration officer over at elevate your greatness and he focuses his energy on helping others find and ignite their passion for achieving their greatness. He is a storyteller, a strategist, a business coach, and he's been speaking all around the world, leading conversations and consulting business owners on change efforts in the public, not for profit, and private sectors. He's had experience in all different industries, and all different countries. But the one thing that he has found across the board is that we as leaders need to master communication. And in today's interview, you're going to hear Simon and I discuss some great strategies that you can apply to your business, to be a better storyteller, a better communicator and a better leader overall, let's dive in. listening to the podcast is a great first step. But I want you to go take action. So if you are ready to apply everything you've learned here on the show, listen up, we took all of our best resources, like our plug in play crafting your story workbook, or how to select your speaking topics, workbook, resources on crafting your talk, finding and pitching events. We put them all together inside of the speak to scale vault, and we put them in order so you know exactly what to do and when to do it. to scale your business with speaking, ready to unlock the entire vault, head on over to speak to scale vault comm or click the link in our show notes. But be sure to use the code podcast for a special discount from me. So before we get into strategy and tactics, give us a little bit of a background on how you got into speaking yourself.
Simon Trevarthen 4:45
Oh, well, I would say I'm a recovering executive. And I have literally sat through 1000s of mind numbing business presentations and some of them Honestly, I told myself, don't Walk into the light, it could be dangerous. And they're stuffed full of jargon. So one of my passions has always been, how do I actually become an exquisite communicator, because what separates average leaders from extraordinary leaders is their ability to master the art of the spoken word. And so through that passion, I became a speaker. And I've learned my craft and tried techniques to improve my craft.
Jessica Rasdall 5:28
I love that. And when you know, coming from recovering executive here, speaking to a lot of our business owner, friends who I know are listening, when you think back through some of those presentations, that you're like, Oh, I gotta get out of here, where there's some common trends that stood out to you things that people kept doing that you wish they wouldn't things that maybe we could avoid doing ourselves. Yeah, there's
Simon Trevarthen 5:52
three, I would say three key things to think about one, PowerPoint, keynote, all of those programs are not presentations, they have what they produce is presentation documents. And people I've seen in organizations, big and small entrepreneurs, startups, all the way through to big corporations, they think if they spend all the time on the document, they have a presentation. In fact, you have something to speak about. And they spent so little time thinking about what they're going to say about the document, not the document itself. And so the worst case, I'm sure your audience has seen this sin is where people actually read the slides to you. Because they assume you must be functionally illiterate. The words and that it tells you one thing, the presenter doesn't have a presentation, they have a document.
Jessica Rasdall 6:48
Absolutely. And you know, I'm sure you've experienced this. But if you've been speaking long enough, you know, there's going to be a time when your slides won't pull up, like there's going to
Simon Trevarthen 6:58
be a time where tech will fail, you can't rely on that, I always call it you will always lose page nine. And it doesn't matter if you're on a podium, it doesn't matter if you're on a pitch to investors, or even like even in an interview, you're always gonna lose page nine. So you should be able to speak about what you were going to talk about off the cuff, you should know the subject again, one of the real sins in many organizations is the presentation is written by others, and the leader delivers it. And so they've normally not even read the thing they're going to speak about. So if page nine disappears, they're completely fumbled. So you should know the essence, the seeds, the core of what you're going to talk about, because that allows you to not only add live, improvise, but also crush that time down into something remarkable.
Jessica Rasdall 7:54
Absolutely. That's a great one. Now, while we're talking about that about crushing it down, I know before we hit record, we were talking about this a little bit, but how so often we can prepare for these large presentations, these 30 minutes, these 60 minutes, these big keynotes, these pitches, and then an event happens, our timeline gets adjusted things get cut, somebody runs over. What do we do in that situation? How do we know what to do? And again, assuming that we have not broken these Cardinal sins in the beginning, right, that we actually know our presentation well enough to be able to make this adjustment. But how can we come down our big talk our big pitch our big presentation? And is something that's memorable and impactful. But concise?
Simon Trevarthen 8:42
Jessica? You're absolutely right. It happens all the time. The investors, the group, whoever you're speaking to, so you've got 60 minutes, oh, but the agenda slipped, you've only got five or three minutes. So one way to think about that is say to people, listen, there's a document here, you can read it. However, think in threes. Think in three buckets, three steps, if you're going to sell, let's say you're trying to sell a product, you could talk about the market, what is the market doing at this time? And then what is a segment of the consumer need at this time because all business is about solving consumer needs. And then what is your solution? So you're going from the big to the small the market to your solution, and the power of threes. And by the way, Steve Jobs in all of his presentations when he marketed the iPhone, all of them were based on threes. Three points is memorable. And if you think about it, you've got three minutes, a minute a point. If you really want to supersize that and have amazing impact. The great bookends to your three minutes. Is that the front end share your passion your why why you think this product or service is exceptional. And at the end of that the book end have a call to action. What do you want people to do with it? So is it Are you looking for funding? Are you looking for a sale, or looking for a partnership? What do you want people to do with it. But again, you can repeat three statements. And to keep you on track, you can literally have three fingers behind your back 123 to keep you on track. Or you can have a big piece of paper with three words on it, market, customer product, and it helps you create something that you're passionate about, you're enthusiastic about. But most importantly, you saturate emotion with data, which makes the most compelling case,
Jessica Rasdall 10:44
I think that's such a great one, I love that you broke it down into three points, because I'm also a big fan of three points. I feel like anything after that you're going to lose me. But what a great way for especially for business owners over the last year, who have spent a lot of time shifting to getting onto more podcasts or doing bite sized live streaming ways to take this incredible content you've already been delivering in person and chop it down into something that's going to catch their attention and make an impact in a much shorter timeframe.
Simon Trevarthen 11:18
Yeah, and there's different ways you can play with that mixture of three. So we talked about going from big to small, you could also use that on a timeline. Let me talk about what the company did before the pandemic, what we did during the pandemic, and what we're going to do after the pandemic, that's a using it as a timeline. You can only use it in terms of causation. This impacts this that impacts this. And it's a simple way for your audience. Because after all, it's not what you say. It's what your audience comprehend, and listen and actual retain that matters. It's an easy way for them to understand the three points. So what did that leader say? What does she say? Oh, she said A, B and C. There is nothing worse than someone getting up there and say, I'm here to talk about the 170 recommendations we have, you will see breath of that it's like the zombie apocalypse people don't want to be in that room.
Jessica Rasdall 12:15
I I've seen it even even what floors me is what I even see it in like the title of a presentation at a conference. I'm like, who okayed this, the 12 things to not do to Xyz? Who thought this was a good idea. I'm I'm overwhelmed and I haven't even sat down. So if we are okay, let's say we're ready. We I am a business owner who is like I could do that I know exactly what's going on in my industry. I know our audience and our consumers like the back of my hand. I can do this. But what about the fear of being too close to our subject matter where we're going to speak in industry jargon where maybe we're afraid that I could do this off the cuff. But maybe it's something that only my team is going to understand? How can we convey that in a concise manner? With still being able to cut through our industry jargon?
Simon Trevarthen 13:13
That's a great question. jargon is the bane of corporate and business life. What is jargon? It's a really simple thing, just a tuck bars. The English language is actually two languages bolted together. There's big words, Latin words, which is all the educated the smart people speak. It's why you hire lawyers to interpret contracts, which are written in Latin that you don't understand. And then there's guttural words, more Anglo Saxon words, which actually have a lot more kind of power. So most jargon is actually to obscure meaning. Most clear words are actually there to understand me. So when you come home from the gym, do you say, God, I sweat it today? Or do you say, I perspired? The class The thing is sweat. You actually smell it? It means effort. It means thing. I saw a presentation with Oprah Winfrey. And it was a talk she did. And she was talking about when she was doing The Oprah Winfrey Show. Very successful billionaire businesswoman. She talked about how every day after that show of 14 hours of work, she will crawl home on the highway. Well, I very much doubt Oprah was actually crawling down the highway. what she meant by using the word crawl is exhaustion. And if you really want to connect with your audience, use words that elicit emotion that have that power of elicit emotion. It doesn't mean you disregard data data is a grounding point. But emotion is what sells and influences people. So choose words that elicit emotion and tie them to the data that's true, but use those words that are actually speaking color rather than black and white of jargon. Do you have an example of that of one that you've used? Yeah, I mean, the the easiest way to think about this is, it depends what your your industry is. Let's say you're in the food industry and your food on terrific. I love food. I'm here. Yeah, let's do this. So you could talk mechanically about food and food production. But who cares? The reality is, What does it taste like? What does it smell like when you bring it out of the oven? What is what does it actually what's the texture? What does it actually taste like when you get into it? What all of those kinds of senses that sells the product, and then you can talk about the market and the consumer. But you're using language that fills in all five senses. And we know from research that people buy on emotional, and data reasons. So even if you're selling, I don't know, hydroelectric pieces, you can talk about what it looks like, what it feels like the sounds, that technology, it's emotion, mixed with data.
Jessica Rasdall 16:10
That's fascinating. I love this idea of injecting all five senses in to the way you're communicating this. What do we say to somebody who's like, Well, my industry doesn't use all five senses, I do something digitally, right? I do SEO or I do web design. Nobody's smelling that, like, how does somebody combat that objection?
Simon Trevarthen 16:33
You know what, I've worked a lot with lawyers. And I tell them work a lot with lawyers who are about to be partners of their firm, because they have to go from being a lawyer to being a partner, who has a public standing in the firm. And let's be honest, no one will hear a lawyer speak legalese. Nobody wants to hear an IT person speak it language. The great it people, the great lawyers, the great digital people are able to translate that complexity to the rest of us. So that we understand. So the digital world is around senses. people interact with technology, they touch their screens, I'm looking at you through a screen, we see people, we connect with people, we hear people through technology, we buy through technology, and ultimately, even if you're an online business, what is the service like when the person gets it in their hands? If it's a tangible product, explain that. Because one of the things this pandemic has shown us is we've gone from clicks to delivering a second. But ultimately, you don't care about the clicks, you care about the product in your hands on your doorstep. So what is the experience of opening that product? Those are all things to really add color. It's like going from black and white TV to high definition TV and the way you speak. And that gives the audience transports them to your world, your business world, what you're trying to sell, but also the kind of company and culture you're trying to create.
Jessica Rasdall 18:06
I love that, I think focusing more on the the impact that you're making for your clients for your customers, rather than just the experience behind the scenes developing it that such a great shift. So as we're talking about things being more digital these days, very curious for you like how has that impacted the way that you're delivering presentations, from speaking in person to now probably doing more stuff online? Have you shifted the way you approach speaking and I know you have you have a pretty amazing studio. I know our listeners can't see, but I see it. Have you? Like what thoughts have gone into developing your virtual presentations? How have you made some shifts to make sure you're still hitting all the senses, you're still making, having an impactful presentation, even though you're not there in person anymore?
Simon Trevarthen 19:00
Yeah, there's no doubt being virtual means the human connectivity, or part of that is lost. When you actually in a live audience. You read people's faces. And by the way, you should always be reading people's faces. If people get it move on. If they're asleep, they need a jolt of something something different. So definitely, that human connectivity is much more challenging online, you can somewhat do it by proxy, but it's not there.
Jessica Rasdall 19:30
I that that is probably the biggest pushback we get from our students. So that you know when you're talking about this is the idea of like, well, I don't know if it's landing like I don't know, I can't see them. So that's a great point.
Simon Trevarthen 19:42
So in my humble opinion, you have to supersize and amplify the energy. All of these mediums we use zoom teams, etc. It's a very small box and let's be honest, we're very fatigued of them. So I think as a presenter you grew up bring immense amount of energy. to captivate your audience, there is ways to bring in technology to assist that. But I also think you have to shrink your content down into really tight succinct buckets. And what I mean by that is no more than 1015 minutes, we've seen that revolution before the pandemic with the whole TED Talk phenomena. And if you're going to go longer than that, think about after every 1520 minutes, having some sort of interactivity and exercise. And that's a way to kind of help people jolt out of that static state sitting down in their rooms on the positive side. And this is the true opportunity. I've done presentations, keynotes for clients in Europe sitting in North America, I've done presentations and keynotes for people in Australia and Asia, sitting in North America, in my home studio. Previously, I'd have to get on a plane, there would be two days of jet lag for maybe a two hour an hour talk or a little bit longer, and then back on a plane again. So the ability to be global, while remaining in your home, is an immense opportunity, which I don't think has been fully mined. And here's my humble opinion. Again, I don't think we're going back to last February, the future will be a hybrid of what we did before. And what we've learned on this journey.
Jessica Rasdall 21:27
And salutely, the the amount, like you're saying how we're able to reach so many more people, the increased accessibility, I know that the speaking engagements I have to the rest of the year are all hybrid, if not virtual, like none of them are solely in person. I don't have a single contract yet. That is solely for an in person event, all of my in person speaking is hybrid. I'm with you. I don't think it's going anywhere. Not anytime soon, I think we have opened a new door. I
Simon Trevarthen 21:56
don't think this was happening this year, I think people's comfort level with being in a large kind of conference room. But I have seen some some colleagues, some speakers of mine who've done some interesting thing, because here's a great opportunity in saying your audience might want to think about is a lot of these conference and theater spaces are empty. So you can book them with a camera crew, and do a virtual session in an auditorium size, because they've got all of the technology to do something impressive. And you can project from that there's a cost, obviously. But it can make an exceptional presentation and highly engaging.
Jessica Rasdall 22:34
Absolutely, that's the thing we talk a lot about in the academy. That if you are somebody who is wanting to do more virtual speaking and you want to be commanding the same price tag that you were for in person that you can expect that you know propping a laptop up on your your bed in your room, that this is going to be the same experience that there's so much value in renting out an auditorium rent, renting out a co working place renting out a studio to be able to deliver your best performance. I think we often forget it's a performance. It's not like you said it's not a PowerPoint.
Simon Trevarthen 23:18
No, I mean, it is stagecraft. And it's important to understand if you really want to, like kind of go the next extra mile, you have to think of it as stagecraft. I mean, here's a really interesting point around this whole PowerPoint stuff. If you go to most conferences, they have a whopping great big screen. And the podium is this microscopic box to the normally to when the audience is right on the stage is to your left. Now, I personally think that podiums look mostly like coffins, and they should be avoided. But what is interesting about that is it tells the audience that the screen is important, not the speaker. And so an easy technique you can do is simply walk away from the podium and command the center of the stage. It tells your audience that you're being more vulnerable, because you have no notes. And you're kind of doing off off the cuff. And by the way, they will be much more receptive to you. But also, they will be much more forgiving. Because you haven't got those notes. But it also means you can still have projections behind you. But it says, I'm taking a risk. And I'm trying to connect with you. I'm physically walking in an old theater style into the middle of the stage. Even virtually you can do some of that. By understanding the presence in that little screen. You can walk around if you have a small studio and act like that. It isn't about the slides that documents it's about the words you convey meaning, influence and the impact you're having. That's key
Jessica Rasdall 25:00
And I wish that more especially in the business space for presenters when they are crafting that presentation from the very beginning, that they would think more intentionally about the delivery of it. Because I think so often they sit down and they write this presentation. And it's words on paper, and then we build the slide. And then they're trying to figure out how can I deliver this? Well, but what you wrote in there didn't create space for a performance. I think it's such a great point that you're bringing up now. Like, how are you going to deliver that on this stage? And how can you keep that top of mind when you're crafting those points.
Simon Trevarthen 25:41
So the simple way to understand this is the written word, written English is fundamentally different to the spoken English. fundamentally different, great speech writers do this by really well, that's that profession. But the written English is very fundamentally different to the spoken, why most people when they write sentences, particularly if they're educated, or assume they're educated, right in long sentences, because when you read, you can read 30 words and not have to catch your breath. Spoken English is less than 15 words, a sentence. More importantly, if you really want to have incredible impact with your spoken word, learn the power of pauses. Mark Twain said there is nothing more powerful than speech that are rightly timed pause. And after every major point, pause, and if you're going to write it out, literally write in caps, pause, pause, pause at the end of the sentence, you're not going to read it out. But it enables you to stop, take a breath, refill your lungs, it adds gravity to what you're saying. And enables the audience to absorb the words. And if you read pause, pause, pause three times or five times if you want to put it in there. It gives you about two or three seconds of silence. And as I said, silence gets gravity to your words. And
Jessica Rasdall 27:17
if especially if you're new to speaking, and you have or maybe you've spoken but you've never watched yourself on video speaking, which I feel like we all need to do that. I think so often, when you're on that stage time moves at a different speed. You feel like it's going so slow. But I want to I haven't done it in over a year. So it's a little sad. But I used to be one of my favorite things was going to watch my clients or students speak in person, like being able to be the dance mom in the back of the room cheering them on. But so often, I'm like, making these big gestures to slow down because on the stage, we feel like we're talking slow. But when we get nervous when we get anxious, we speed up, we talk faster. And that pause might feel like it is so long. But in reality, it's not for our audience. And I would just challenge everybody to take some time recording yourself speaking, watching it play back and really put yourself in the audience's shoes. And could you even add a little bit more time to that pause?
Simon Trevarthen 28:24
Absolutely. If you look at really great speakers, think of the Obamas or a clip of Bill Clinton. These are known as great speakers in our modern times. literally go on YouTube, watching Obama's speech. He speaks not slowly, he has a cadence to the way he speaks. And so you'll notice he goes faster on the filler words, but he slows down on the most important words. And so his speed goes up and down depending but he freezes on the point he's trying to drive home. But overall, he speaks much slower than normal conversation. And if you really want to take this to town and do something really dramatic, particularly if you're going at a business conference, the chances are and let's be honest here, the chances are the person who just spoke was utterly tedious, full of jargon, a terrible presentation. And now people in so and so's, let's say Catherine's coming up to talk about her new company. And the reality is people are on their phones. They're wondering when lunches, they don't care. You know, and they introduce you and that everybody's mumbling away. A great technique and this is by the way, take them from great orators of old is when you are they say and now Katherine will speak. Silence try. Fifth Dean seconds of silence because what will happen is people will say, well, what's happening? What's happening and people will start, you'll see them in their body language, they'll start moving forward in their seats, because what are you going to talk about? What are you going to say? Because they will put down their phones and they'll reengage as an audience, they're literally captivated by you. And all you've done is put 15 seconds of silence at the beginning, you command the stage, you command their attention, and you begin with the leader you should be.
Jessica Rasdall 30:30
And that is such a great tip. Because when I first started speaking, I started speaking with high school students. And if you've never spoken in front of high school students, they're a difficult group tension, because they've been sitting in classrooms all day, and now they've been put into an auditorium with all their friends. And they get to sit with their friends. And they're very excited. And they all want to chat with each other. But that right there is how I was able to get them to listen. And I didn't put as much of a long pause at the beginning, I did. But I said, one question. And then I said nothing for, like 1520 seconds, and all of a sudden you see them like, wait a minute, I thought she was talking what happened. And it was the perfect way to get them all they're expecting to be talked at, I think, as students from their teachers, and then for a moment, somebody's just standing in front of them, and they start questioning what, what am I supposed to be doing here? And that's just such a great tip. I love that.
Simon Trevarthen 31:34
But you know, the other thing, Jessica and i, you probably do this as well as I is what is your ritual, your last five minutes before you go onstage? My partner, I were watching this documentary on pink the star, right. And if you look at documentaries about her go on stage, she makes a point of making doing our own hair, and our own makeup, because it gives her 20 minutes half an hour to get into the mindset of being the the world class performer. She has a prayer with her dancers and stuff beforehand, again, to kind of rise the adrenaline to get into that mindset. So one thing your audience should always do, regardless if it's a business presentation at conference presentation, or a keynote presentation is what is your individual strategy to get you on your game? And by the way, this is true of an interview. I mean, it could be your rock star playlist, what is that three tunes that you listen to, that really gets you pumped up ready to go and get your heart racing, it could be that self talk, you're going to be amazing, Catherine, just you're going to be amazing. Just hold on, you're gonna be amazing. It could be a Wonder Woman pose in the bathroom. If you're more contemplated, maybe you do a yoga pose somewhere, and breathe. And breathing is really important. And it could be if you're more spiritual, maybe I say a prayer, it doesn't matter have a routine that helps you get into that incredible leader you can be because it is a transition from ordinary life to being on stage and having that commanding presence.
Jessica Rasdall 33:14
Great. And I do the exact same thing every time. Every single time, no matter what it's just, it helps me. And again, I that's understanding that it's not reading a PowerPoint, it's a presentation. It's a performance. And you've got to turn the switch and really get into performance mode. I, I'm with you on all of that. Yeah, I
Simon Trevarthen 33:43
mean, here's the humble thing. Every time you open your mouth, to speak as a professional, a business person or an entrepreneur, you're trying to do one thing and one thing only influence people. That's it. Trying to influence a sale, influence your staff, motivate them, inspire them, influence new partners, it doesn't matter. You're trying to influence people. So the key here is to understand when you want to speak effectively new master the art of the spoken word is to inspire people with a belief, something they can believe as well. Your confidence in that belief, product service, whatever it may be, but then have them a way in which they can be involved a call to action, a decision that they can be involved in that in what you're trying to say. Because ultimately, you're trying to influence people.
Jessica Rasdall 34:34
Absolutely, especially as business owners like our we're trying to drive change, whether that's getting them to take the next step and become a partner in our company, to purchase our products and services to get involved in a mission that's near and dear to our heart. Like we want them to take action because we're not in the business of speaking at people but delivering real change and transformations. I cannot thank you enough for joining us today and sharing all of your wisdom with us and all of our listeners. So for our listeners who are meeting you for the very first time, where is the best way that they can connect with you that they can learn more about you after they finish listening to today's show?
Simon Trevarthen 35:17
Yeah, absolutely. So as I said, my name is Simon Travon go by Simon teeth a lot easier. The best way to get hold of me is through my website, which is elevate your greatness.com but also available in all the various social media platforms, which I'm sure will be on on the episode.
Jessica Rasdall 35:35
Yes, we will link everything in the show notes for you guys. So just go click and binge all things, Simon. I again, I can't say thank you enough. This was wonderful. I've loved this conversation.
Simon Trevarthen 35:48
Thank you, Jessica. It's been amazing.
Jessica Rasdall 35:51
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