Welcome to new members @Lara Knutzen and @Yvonne Lines! 👏🏼😃 Yvonne and I will be doing a LinkedIn Live in a couple of weeks on the topic of using slides correctly for presentations. We will add the recording to the Expert Resources library, but if you attend live you can get your questions answered through the chat! -Details to come. I am also working on a couple of collaborative workshops, one on Influence with @Hanna Kinez (my job this week is to come up with a name for this workshop - no pressure 😉). And @Dani Rosenblad James and I are looking to collaborate on a workshop as well. I will keep you posted with the times and dates of these as they are locked in. 😎 That has kept my week busy... Comment below with how your week is going.

I'll call him Stephen. He'd written books. Run corporate workshops for years. He knew how to command a room, or so he thought. Stephen was selected for our TEDx event because he had a powerful idea backed by a compelling personal story. But when he delivered his first draft, none of that came through. It was too corporate. Too plastic. Written to project authority rather than create connection. 𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗶𝗴. I pushed back. Hard. I told him the techniques were fine, but the talk had no soul. He needed to bring in his own story. Show some vulnerability. Let the audience see the human behind the expertise. This was uncomfortable for him. He'd spent years building an authoritative persona. Letting that guard down felt risky. But he trusted me. And he did the work. The final version opened with a personal story—relatable, vulnerable, real. Within the first minute, the audience was with him. Not because he dominated the room. Because he invited them in. The talk was a success. Afterward, Stephen thanked me and said it would change how he approached every talk and workshop going forward. Here's what I've learned coaching speakers: the ones who try to project authority often create distance. The ones willing to show humanity create connection. Polished delivery without genuine connection is just performance. And audiences can feel the difference. As Eckhart Tolle put it: "𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘩." Real authority doesn't come from dominating the room. It comes from serving it. Are you trying to impress your audience — or connect with them? 😉

Most speakers want to start by introducing themselves and their topic. "Hi, I'm Emma Nicholson, and I'm a volcanologist. Today I want to talk about sustainable mining..." 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀. Instead, I tell my speakers to do one of two things: 𝟭. 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆. Emma's actual opening: "I'm crouched in the ice and snow on the side of a mountain with two delicate pieces of scientific equipment, desperately wishing I had a third arm. This was a bad time to discover that duct tape doesn't work in sub-zero temperatures..." You're hooked. You don't know who she is or what the talk is about yet—and you don't care. You're on that mountain with her. 𝟮. 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗿𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. Emma could have started: "Mining is one of the most wasteful, inefficient processes on the planet. Tonnes of waste rock, massive energy expenditure. But what if we could suck the metal straight out of the magma—creating no waste, with far greater efficiency?" Now you're leaning in, wanting to know if this is even possible. Here's why this works: 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟱 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Starting with credentials or topic explanations is like starting a movie with the credits. Nobody came for that. Story or question. Middle of the action or the tension of possibility. That's how you earn the next 14 minutes.

Okay, this is a bit of a personal post. I just came out of a meeting at my day job with Epic Learning, and my role has been disestablished, along with the majority of the rest of the team. 🙁 -Or to be more accurate we are in the 'consultation period'. While it is not a huge surprise, work has been sparse all year, it is still a punch in the gut, and the team is pretty gutted. We all worked really well together. It was one of those teams that if we were all in the same place we would 100% meet up and spend the afternoon together (we are a remote company spread around New Zealand). I had only just signed a new contract with them at the end of last year with more responsibility and a pay rise... A big part of the problem is the low demand for educational services this year due to AI. We were an early adopter of AI and were using it at the cutting edge in our industry for the past couple of years. But now people feel that they can get what they need from AI directly, I guess.🤔 Anyway, I felt I should let you know in the community what is going on. It should not change anything with this community. I am still committed to growing this community, and helping people with their talks, presentations and pitches (which is different from what I was doing at Epic Learning as an instructional designer). I recognise I am only one person being affected by the current economy, and there are many others worse off, so I am not hunting sympathy, just keeping it real. 😉

I don't mean by literal footwear failures (although that does happen), but I mean by someone asking you something you were not prepared for... What are some catch-alls that you can share with the community that might help? 🤔