The podcast interview I mentioned has dropped already. If you want to check it out, pour a coffee, relax and enjoy... 😉

Tomorrow morning (my time) I am being interviewed for a podcast - From Page to Stage, which is for authors who want to promote their book. When it is published I will share it here, but these things may not publish for weeks... But it made me think: -Are podcasts something you want to know more about? My friend Steve Brossman is THE expert in this area and I am sure I can do an interview for the community if it is something you are interested in. I have a podcast. But it isn't the traditional sort, I don't have guests, and we didn't start it to help a business or to make money, we did it for fun! (I know, weird right?!). The Chris and Sam Podcast has been going for around 11 years, with 559 weekly episodes. I don't usually 'advertise' it, because it is for fun, and it certainly isn't for everyone. But it does mean I have some experience in the podcast world. In addition to TCASP, I have been interviewed on other podcasts, maybe a dozen times? I have also been a speaker on many virtual summits. So if any of this is interesting, let me know what you are curious about, and I will see what I can organise for you.

Picture this: You are on the stage. The room is silent as they listen to you in rapt attention. You are not anxious because you have rehearsed for this so much you were getting sick of it. But now the moment is here. There are nerves, you can feel the electricity of them running through you, but it makes you feel alive. You know your talk so well you can almost go through it backwards, but this means you don't have to worry about it at this moment, you are fully present with your audience, with the subtle cues they are giving you as you go through. You can adlib, in order to increase the impact of what you are saying, and to meet the feedback of your audience. This is the benefit of being totally present in the moment. Time telescopes. You feel like you are on that stage for an eternity, yet it feels it is over in the blink of an eye. As you accept the standing ovation and walk from the stage you understand what people mean when they say 'walking on air' of 'my feet didn't touch the ground', as you feel like you float from the stage. Already excited to do it all again. This is an experience I have had several times. It is an experience I feel everyone should have at least once in their lives, and I have been fortunate enough to help many people to experience it too. That is why I do what I do. It is why I volunteered for TEDxRuakura to coach speakers for free, and it is why after a decade of doing this I am still doing it for speaking clients, business clients and other events.

We're taught that the best decisions are logical, unemotional ones. But neuroscience tells a different story. Neurologist Antonio Damasio studied a patient, "Elliot," who lost his ability to feel emotions due to a brain injury. Elliot was a successful businessman, husband, and father. After a brain tumour was surgically removed from his ventromedial prefrontal cortex, his life fell apart. His intelligence, memory, and language skills were completely intact. He could solve complex logic puzzles and discuss the philosophical implications of various scenarios. But he lost the ability to use emotions to guide his decision-making. He became pathologically indecisive. Elliot would spend hours deliberating over simple decisions like which pen to use, what restaurant to eat at, or which socks to wear. He could list the pros and cons of every option rationally, but he had no internal "nudge" telling him which one was better. He was stuck in an endless loop of analysis. Damasio developed the Somatic Marker Hypothesis from his work with Elliot, which suggests that emotions serve as a biological value system. - When facing a decision, our brain rapidly associates past outcomes with emotional signals. A gut feeling, a flash of fear, or a surge of excitement. - A negative feeling steers us *away* from a potentially bad choice. - A positive feeling draws us *toward* a potentially good choice. - These emotional signals act as a mental shortcut, allowing us to make efficient decisions without having to painstakingly re-analyse every single variable every time.  They are the mechanism that "tells you when to stop thinking and act." The lesson here is that emotions aren't the opposite of rationality; they are its essential partner. They are the value function that tells us when to stop thinking and ACT. Too often, I see business owners, founders, or academics who believe that adding an emotional element to their talk is window dressing. A nice-to-have. In reality, it is essential if you want any action to be taken as a result of your talk.

I have a different take on this. - DON'T! I was recently reminded by a great speaker coach, Miriam Chancellor (whom I met several years ago at the New Zealand Public Speaker Association, where I was presenting). Miriam suggested that focusing first on Effectiveness is far more important than focusing on Authenticity. I agree. But I would go further. As long as you are focused on your message and not trying to be someone else, you never have to think about Authenticity. You may have heard that writers take some time to find their 'voice'. -That is how they 'sound' or feel in their writing. Are they being inauthentic because their writing doesn't match their day-to-day speaking voice? Not at all. We all have different voices in our lives. We have our work voice, our sports voice (for whatever pastime you pursue), our family voice, our Zoom voice, our big occasion voice, our intimate voice. And yes, our stage voice. We will talk a little differently from the stage than we will in other contexts. That is to be expected. And that voice we use is still our voice if we are true to ourselves and our message and we are not trying to be someone else. The fact that we each have this multitude of 'voices' does not make us inauthentic. It makes us versatile. - Go have a great day. 😃 And see how many voices you use over the course of the day.