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How to Stop Performing and Actually Connect With an Audience · The Expert Method

• speaker-0: There's something wrong with you if your palms are sweating or your heart is beating a little faster. Being intellectually with you is very different than being emotionally with you. speaker-1: Is there anything other than you know, repetitions and practice that you can do to kind of train to become a a better connector as a speaker? speaker-0: Give the talk that only you can give. speaker-1: A lot of the talks and presentations that I give are about artificial intelligence. And when I prepare for them, my main focus is on getting the information correct. What do I need to explain? And how can I structure my points as logical arguments with a series of premises leading to a conclusion? And what is my offer to these people going to be? Afterwards, I usually get compliments, but not much engagement. People seem to like the information, but few buy the offer, ask questions, or come up to continue the conversation. So what am I missing? How do I build a talk that connects with the audience and gets people to act? To help answer that question, I'm excited to be joined today by Lori Smith. Lori helps speakers and leaders connect with the room through their voice, body, and presence, rather than simply getting through the information. In our conversation, we discuss how to shape a talk around what the audience is feeling and help the message land. If you're a coach, author, or speaker of any kind, you're going to want to listen to this episode. And if you get value from it, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Lori Smith. Lori, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Thank you for having me, Ian. speaker-1: Absolutely. So Lori, a lot of your work is about helping leaders stop performing when they're up on stage and when they're giving a presentation or when they speak and start actually connecting with the room, right? That's through their voice, their body, their breath, and the energy that they bring to the space, which if you've done any speaking, you know how important that is. If you see a good speaker versus somebody who's not so great, you know, the great speaker can come in, lift the entire energy of the room and just completely connect with the audience. So when somebody actually knows what they want to say, and maybe they're even excited about the idea of getting up there and speaking, but they still aren't connecting with the people that are listening, what is usually getting in the way? speaker-0: Most of the time they're still too focused on what they're saying. So in theater, there are three jobs. There's a playwright who writes the play. There's the performer who gets up on stage and does it live. And then there's a director who looks at it from the outside and helps to shape it to take the audience along the ride for the journey. And most speakers are trying to do all three. And our inner critics only understand what am I going to say? What am I going to wear? What am I going to put in my slides? And they're not trained. So they're not giving attention to the performance and kind of coming back to what's the why that's bigger than what you're saying, which is I usually advise them to set an intention for the emotion or the energy that they want to create in the room. So that there's a left brained what is the information that I'm sharing and a more emotional or right right brained journey that's going on and they work in parallel. If we don't give any attention to the intention and the emotional ride, the audience is gonna go on one of their own. And it might be ⁓ I gotta pick up bread and juice on the way home instead of the ride that we're designing. speaker-1: Mm, that's fascinating. So how can the speaker actually facilitate that emotional ride that they take the audience through? speaker-0: Yeah. First setting the intention for where do you want them to be by the time you're done talking, and then the whole time treating it as a conversation where you are inviting them into that emotional or energetic state. And the paradox about it is when we step up there to speak, they often look like the complete opposite of what we're hoping that they feel by the end. Because they need us. They need our message. They need our information. So it's looking for signs in their facial expressions, signs in their body language, and the feeling in the room, looking for signs of that shifting from wherever they start to the more that we want, which really means that we'd be connected to them and watching that nonverbal half of the conversation instead of in our heads worried that we're gonna forget something. that we're passionate about. There's a message that we're passionate about. But it's far more effective to have an emotional ride than to get it quote unquote word perfect. speaker-1: Hmm. I think that's an important insight just to underline there that your audience, where they start in that left brain, like where they're starting, is going to be or it should be very different if you did your job, right? It should be very different than where they finish. Right. So maybe almost when you're designing your message, when you're designing this presentation or this ⁓ speech that you're going to give, right, you almost need to take into account, okay, where am I going to be meeting them? And then where do I want them to ultimately end up? And then how am I going to facilitate that? Both by the things that I actually say. But then I would imagine that a big part of facilitating that energy, if you will, in the room has a large part to do with how you say it. Is that right? Yeah. speaker-0: Absolutely. And to me, because of what I do, how we say it is even more important than what we say. And my favorite way of illustrating this is to ask people to imagine the Martin Luther King Junior I Have a Dream speech. speaker-1: I have a dream. speaker-0: And then to imagine that instead of Martin Luther King junior it's being spoken by Richard Nixon. speaker-1: I have a dream. speaker-0: The words were beautiful. They were incredibly impactful and powerful. And part of what makes it one of the greatest speeches of all time is that he had both. He had his own flavor of charisma, which we can talk about. It's not one size fits all. I'm not saying go imitate Martin Luther King Jr. He was himself. He was connected to the crowd. He was even holding the crowd in the vision and the energy of that dream that he was talking about. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Richard Nixon, given that I have a dream speech, would be a a much different a much different ⁓ experience for sure. So, you know, I feel like every every answer is is given something to dive deeper into. So you talk about you can't like pretend to be somebody that you're not gonna be, right? You can't put on some facade. Although maybe, you know, your background as an you know, the work that you've done as an actor, maybe you could ⁓ kind of get through like a thirty minute presentation. But for most of us average folk We're not going to be able to pretend to be somebody that we're not. You kind of have to step into you have to be authentically you. And I guess like how do you find that? Like how do you know like what is authentically you, your style, and how you might deliver a message? speaker-0: Yeah. One of the best ways is to start recognizing anything that isn't you anything that somebody told you you had to be or we grew up with the impression of what we had to be or even parts of ourselves that we've hidden behind because they keep us safe. We a lot of times have the impression that charismatic speakers have to be high sensation-seeking extroverts. And not all of the greatest speakers, not all of the people on the planet with a message that's worth hearing, have that style. So if you're trying and it feels like a lot of work and you feel tired afterwards. There are probably some things that you're doing because you think that's what a speaker is, or you think that's what a leader is, or possibly some of the industrial training programs out there have told you. You need to smile more when you speak. You need to be funnier. Well, my response to that is no, Ian, if humor is not one of your innate values, you don't need to be funnier when you speak. If it is one of your values to the point that the humor is part of what you use to take the audience on that ride, then by all means, that's a clue that humor is part of your innate style. But if you're doing it because you feel like you need to have the laughs in order to earn their attention, that's very different. speaker-1: Yeah. I love what you said there. And this is common in a lot of different areas where if you're trying to figure out something, it's very easy sometimes to figure out, okay, what don't you want? Like maybe in the in the realm of, you know, setting your goals, right? Okay, that can be kind of tough to figure out. Well, let's just start by figuring out what you don't want. Like what do want to avoid? Right. And then the same thing can be applied. There's a lot of those fun little like universal ideas that show up in a lot of different places. And the idea of like, okay. trying to find your unique presentation style, speaking style. Well, you just kind of gotta start, right? You gotta start and you're gonna try to a bunch of different things and just start and be intentional and be aware of the things that just really felt forced or you felt uncomfortable with or, you know, you feel like you've been told that you have to do, ⁓ and just kind of question those and just take note of those. Okay, that's not me. ⁓ and then over time you'll cut out enough things and you'll be able to make a pretty solid educational, educated guess on what is What is you? So ⁓ I'd love to go back to the idea of taking the audience through an emotional journey, right? Like for me, that is not something that I've ever considered when I've given presentations, right? In the I definitely give more presentations in like the business arena, right? Like I work in AI, so I'm giving a lot of presentations on artificial intelligence. And even as I'm like saying this out loud, I'm like, okay, if I were to take into consideration the emotional journey that I might want to take my audience through, right, ⁓ most of the people that I'm speaking to are probably scared of AI, right? They're very skeptical of AI. They've tried a bunch of different things. So I can kind of pretty easily, you know, in the first 30 seconds of thinking about it, get an initial understanding of where the emotional starting point for most of my listeners might be. And then, you know, you have this idea that you want to finish with some kind of emotional. feeling, like what are the emotions you want to finish with the with the audience? So how do you how maybe you don't have to use me as an example, but like how do you actually sure okay. So like how would you, you know, advise somebody to to guide them through that emotional journey? Like how could I take like what would I even consider? Like this is all so new to me. Sorry for an open question. Yeah. speaker-0: Some of the clues which is actually kind of hitting on the last thing of what is not you and can help amplify the voice of what is you. What are the things that attract you to AI? Why are you why do you care so much about it that you're speaking about it? speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, for me, the part about AI that I'm speaking about is actually what I'm working on, which is this idea that like I've always been a voracious reader. Never had any issue reading books, highlighting, bending page corners, taking notes, all that stuff. But I would always struggle when it came to the moment in time where I had to like at the end of a chapter, it says, Okay, now go do this thing. You just learned how to do that. You learned why it's important. Now go do it. I'd be like, Yeah, it'd be great if I did it, but I just keep reading. I'm like, I'm just gonna read the book because that makes me feel productive. I'm not actually gonna do any of the work. So what gets me excited about AI is something that I'm working on to actually help solve that problem, where we build a ⁓ AI companion for the readers that guide them step by step through doing the work that a book tells them to. Like that was initially what lit me up entirely about artificial intelligence, was just this idea. Like we spoke before we started recording that I'm kind of a biography nerd. So the idea of like taking the biography of a person, loading it into AI, and then being able to like chat with that book just kind of like excited me. So it was just the ⁓ speaking about just like a little niche use case of artificial intelligence that just genuinely excites me personally. Yeah. speaker-0: So as I'm watching you, there is a lot of energy and excitement, and it's like the energy in the room between us is shifting as you're talking. And depending on how long you're talking to an audience, the emotional intention, emotional or energetic intention that you set could be something like moving from fear to curious, fear to open. All the way to if you're talking longer, someone might move from fear or skeptical all the way to being excited with you and ready to buy your product, lean in and say, like, is the product ready? Can I buy it now? Can I invest in the product? So depending on the length of how long you're talking, if it's a 10-minute talk, it might be, hmm, I'm gonna aim for curious here. And it might depend on where they actually are when you start. If you walk into a room that's just a little resistant, that might be different than if you walk in and you're actually getting antagonism toward you. And aim high and stay in that energetic conversation of watching their face and their body language because you'd be surprised sometimes when people are the most resistant. They'll actually they can change the quickest in ten minutes. speaker-1: Hmm. Interesting. And I would love to explore, you know, those kind of palettes of emotions. I don't know if you've I'm sure you have, like, spent time really breaking down, like, okay, here are like the different the palette of emotion, like the here's the emotional range that somebody can have when they're potentially receiving your idea, like all the way from completely unaware to bought in and like ready to buy. Like I'd be really interested to kind of dive deep into that spectrum. But ⁓ even before we do that, I want to finish this idea here. So again, in the short 10 or so minutes that we've been talking, like you're kind of completely changing the way that I think I'm gonna approach preparing for these presentations that I give. Like tell me if this sounds about right. So like I think, okay, you have a seat of an idea, right? You kind of have a knowing, like you know a bit about what I'm gonna talk about and kind of maybe what the end outcome I want to be, like again, logically. So then I historically have spent all of my time just thinking about the logical way about how I would structure and explain this idea in a way that makes logical sense. Right. Like I love like you'd laugh. You'd you'd look at my presentation and you'd see, like, I took one philosophy one ⁓ one class in in college, and I'm like, ⁓ I know what a logical argument is. I'm gonna try and structure my presentation that way. ⁓ but the new way that I'm gonna approach this, okay, I have this seed of an idea, I know what I want to talk about logically, but then I need to take time to really consider the emotional journey that I want to take people through. Like what emotions do I want to invoke in the audience? Where are they gonna start? Where are they gonna finish? And then that is going to inform the things that I actually say. Is that right? speaker-0: Yeah, the structure that you put it in. So the and both are happening. So what do you want them to know that they didn't know before or be capable of that they were not before still exists. And sometimes the order that you put it in shifts when you start taking the emotional half into consideration. Things like disrupting the audience somehow can be very helpful to include at the beginning. So something that shakes them up somehow, especially if they're if you feel like there's going to be resistance there. Something that shakes them up a little bit, turns an idea on its head, does something to their brain or their body is helpful at the beginning. And you might find yourself including more stories so that you're not just pleading the case like a DA on law and order. That case is there and it's heightened with either your personal journey of what became possible for you, which you kind of actually told me when I asked you what you loved about it, or clients of yours that have experienced something that made their lives better because of AI, because of what you are passionate about and creating. speaker-1: Hmm. I love it. I'm excited. I can't wait to get to work on it. I was literally working on a presentation today. I'm probably gonna you know, I don't have to scrap everything, but there's definitely a a big change that needs to happen to what I have planned. ⁓ and I'm excited about the new version of it. Cause again, I don't know, I'm just like seeing myself kind of slowing down. Like I think the big mistake that I made with all of my presentations is not really taking into consideration where people are starting. Like I don't even think I thought about that. It's like Yeah. I just kind of maybe assumed okay obviously pretend people know nothing about what I do because nobody really does. Like I haven't had anybody ever come to me and ask for what I'm looking for. ⁓ it's mostly been me having to kind of educate and explain it. But again, that's only logical thinking. Like I'm just thinking about the fact that they don't logically understand or know, they're not aware of it. But it's I didn't take into consideration the emotional feelings that people have. So taking the time to really just connect with that emotional, like where they're starting at the beginning is gonna be a big addition for me. speaker-0: Yeah, and you mentioned slowing down. It's a great thing to accompany, like you said, how do I how do I do that? Well, you're watching their facial expressions, and I love for people to use both strategic pauses and intuitive pauses. The strategic pauses would come in anywhere that you're introducing a new idea or you're changing topics. It's almost like a new scene in a movie. Movies don't do hard cuts where it just goes from this scene to the next scene. They take the lights down and then up on the new one. Some of those you'll know ahead of time. The intuitive pauses are the ones where you're noticing. Looks like half the room needs a moment, so that they're intellectually with you, and then the moments of pauses that you give them allow them to emotionally process what you're saying. I worked with someone, an experienced speaker on her talk. The day before we worked together, she got four signups, and that's why she came to me. She was over the years they just started going down and she didn't know why. I watched her talk like a theater director, and noticed that there were a few emotional moments that she was rolling past a little too fast for me. I pointed those out. She slowed those down. The next day she got 28 signups. All from being intellectually with you is very different than being emotionally with you. People love to say that we make decisions with our rational minds, and there are studies out there that say, nope, we tend to make them from an emotional place. And then our rational minds come in and justify that decision or back it up. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. I mean, first off, rewind that back thirty seconds to see a really excellent example of the use of story and a client result in proving a point. ⁓ so I love how you weave that in there. And then ⁓ the yeah, I mean to underline that point about like if you read any human psychology book, it's pretty evident that we are not rational beings. Like we definitely make decisions heavily based on emotion, right? I think if you just do a simple thought experiment of Okay, if somebody has a decision that they're making, logically they're bought into it, but emotionally they're completely against it, that person's probably not gonna make that decision. But then if you flip it, if they're emotionally bought into it, but maybe not logically they haven't quite gotten there, it's way more likely that person's gonna be. Like if you're super enthusiastic, you're like, I don't really understand it, but like I'm in. Your emotions just kind of take over in that decision making process. Yeah. speaker-0: Or they will come forward and ask you more questions. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Still have nagging thoughts. They'll lean in and they'll ask you for more information. I have a question about this, I have a question about the other thing, rather than going, Cool. Yeah. I understand what he just said. Bye. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, right. Like I just need to internally I just need to get away from this. Right. That's just that emotional feeling that you'll have because I I know I've been there before. But another thing that came to me while you're talking is an interesting idea that might that we can kind of dive into a little bit, but your unique slant or tilt, as Joe would call it a previous podcast guest, ⁓ but you Explain a lot of things through the lens of theater, right? Like you use the term as a director, right? You because that's your background, right? That's w ⁓ your background. And we talked about earlier kind of how can you find what's authentically you. Mm-hmm. And it seems like a big part of that is probably, you know, your background, right? What is authentically you is your background, your story. Right. So use you in your explanation, in your talk, right? Use who you are, your background. Do you have any teaching on that or any ideas on that? And like kinda how you can find your authentic, unique style to you. speaker-0: Yeah, I have a ton. One that you just made me think of is that I've never put together in exactly the same way before. When you're in a playwriting class, I was in a playwriting class when I was nineteen years old. The one that I remember the most, it was someone who had written for the TV show Northern Exposure, and he said, Write the play that only you can write. Earth Shattering at the time, because that's not what we were all doing. So give the talk. that only you can give. Another parallel to theater is I want for speakers to do almost everything that an actor does before they start layering the character in. So if I'm gonna go on stage and play the Queen of England, what I don't want to do to go play the Queen of England, I have yoga pants on on the bottom. I have a sweater and a t-shirt on on top. I don't want to just layer the crown on top of everything that is Lori in her yoga pants recording a podcast with a sweater on top. Because that creates Friction for the audience. You will not believe me as much if I do that. So we do a lot to kind of release all of our protections to get emotionally and energetically naked so that we're almost a clean slate that can then go put on the robe and the crown of the queen and play it in a way that you believe me. For a speaker, It's identifying what are all of those shoulds that actually aren't me or aren't fully me. Sometimes it is something like, I like to think that I'm fairly intelligent, although it's actually more emotional intelligence than I realized when I was younger. But if I'm only showing the world that, that's not the same thing as if I'm allowing all parts of me to be there when I'm connecting with the audience. So it's not going to the point of acting like a character that we're not. I don't even do that. Like you said, I could probably when I'm speaking. And I don't think it would be as effective to actually share my message, the things I'm passionate about, to put on a character and then do that. I think people would still kind of be sitting there going, something feels a little funny here. That is part of what helps. Those are two of the thoughts that popped into my mind immediately. And there's probably ten thousand more in there. speaker-1: Yeah. A lot of it is like an unlearning or a shedding, right? Like you're shedding all of these things that you feel like you should be doing and a and a lot of a big part of like, you know, growing up and stepping into who you are authentically in other arenas of life outside of giving a talk or speaking is a big unlearning process, like an unwinding of all these things that happened to you as you were growing up, all these things that you subconsciously have picked up and just started to, you know, put on because you thought you had to. Yeah. Is that Directionally correct? speaker-0: Absolutely. It's unlearning. I've been calling it untaming. That's my theme this year. I changed the name of my podcast to Untamed Leader, because that's the one that speaks to me this year. I can't guarantee that'll be the name in six years. And another one of the ways that feels really important that we know certain people in theater know is how vibrant and alive a performer is. So if you think about watching people play sports. There's a zone of, you know, if they're not really energized that day, they're going to be a step behind everything and they're probably going to lose the game. If they're too tight, too nervous, I hate to bring up things that just happened, but USA World Cup soccer last night, everyone was way, way, way too tight at the beginning of that game. And they lost. There's a sweet spot of aliveness in the middle that athletes have when they're in the zone and that actors, particularly in live theater, have that people can feel when they're in a live space. That's also really important for speakers. speaker-1: Yeah. And I'm probably gonna struggle to articulate this, but we're just gonna let it fly. And this is something that I thought of earlier on in our conversation. But a lot of what you're talking about, kind of that that balance of kind of letting it go, especially in the moment of performance, it all sound it's very artistic, right? It's very artistic where you're gonna do the work in preparation to train, to practice, to to learn different things, gain inspiration, but in the moment of performance. It's very much just like a letting it a letting go. Like if you're very cerebral in your performance, you know, whether that's on the golf course, in a soccer match, when you're on stage giving a presentation, when you're in a podcast like this, if you're too cerebral thinking about the next question I'm gonna ask, what's the next slide gonna say? You know, what do I need to do? You know, if I if you're thinking at all about like your jump shot or your backswing, right? Like that's where things all go wrong. So it is yeah, and it's is something that has kind of struck me over the last couple of weeks of the art in many things. ⁓ it's amazing. It it's it's really cool. And yeah, that that the what you were sharing there at the end made me kind of think about okay, this is really sounds like there's an art to this. And I again there's the performance of art very much is just an authentic of letting go and an authentic expression of who you are. But that's not to say that there's no work to be done outside the performance that can help prepare you for that moment of performance. speaker-0: Yeah, like musicians who eventually play jazz, they've they've played the scales, they've learned the songs, and then it's from that that they are able to just let it go and sometimes play notes that they've never played before. The athletes who a lot of them that, you know, that have won championships, someone will say, How did you make that shot at the end? I took the shot I've been taking my whole life. And there's a Bruce Lee quote: I did not rise to the occasion, or we do not rise to the occasion, we fall back on our training. I actually think it's it's both. That we have the training, and then the rising to the occasion is the kind of letting it all go and trusting in it. And at times the body will do a move. That it's never done in exactly that way before, or it will do it in a moment where the greats. It's like, how did you wheel the ball in to the net from where you were? Well, I had a lot of training and I also just kind of surrendered and believed it was gonna go in, or knew it had to go in and took the shot. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of work that goes into that surrendering, right? You kind of have to get over again, you just need to get out of your own way, right? And a lot of that in your own way comes to just being super nervous. Like I I've been in moments where I've like getting ready to get on stage or, you know, give a talk of some kind. And it's just like the nerves are inevitable, right? They're inevitable. But I guess I mean you could probably st speak better to how to kind of get over that. Like how do you kind of coach people through kind of getting over the The stage fright or the or the nerves that come with speaking. Yeah. speaker-0: I would say that the nerves are actually part of your charisma and that Western world doesn't understand energy, doesn't know how to study it. So it's been telling you that good speaking is calm speaking and that there's something wrong with you if your palms are sweating or your heart is beating a little faster. I think it needs a reframe that your heart should be beating faster. Because this moment is not the same thing as sitting on your couch watching Netflix. And rather than thinking of it as a problem, if an Olympic athlete were going to go swim, hopefully their heart would be beating a little faster. They don't try to shut it down and swim the race. So as a speaker, can you tell yourself, I'm excited? Or one of my favorites is to call it nerve-sided or scare-sided. So if there is a part of you inside that's going, No, I'm not excited, I'm I'm terrified right now, you're saying, Well, let's just make up a word. I'm scare sighted right now. That plus the intention for what you want for them, and strange as it may seem to actually look at the people that are creating the fear and connect with them and have a conversation underneath the conversation, it's like going through the fire. And I've experienced it and a lot of my clients have said it was terrifying at first, but then instead of spending the whole time resisting that, it's a few seconds, like 30 seconds of whoo, I really felt like I was walking through fire. And then it just felt amazing. So it's to go through rather than avoid it or sidestep it. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. And that rhymes with a a core principle of mindfulness, right? Like when you practice mindfulness, you know, one of the practices that they'll have you do is invoke an emotion or just notice the emotions that you're feeling now. And then instead of suppressing it, trying to push it away, just really step into it and feel it. ⁓ and then you'll find very quickly that it it just dissipates, right? The half life of that emotion, if you really step into it, acknowledge it, allow it to happen instead of trying to resist it, it will dissipate much quicker. And then one thing that's helped me in those moments of being really nervous is using it as a signal, which is kind of like a buzzword to say nowadays. But when I am nervous, like it's just an indication that I care about this thing a lot. Right. It's I I really care, you know, and I'm gonna grow from this moment or something like that. But it's just really a if you're ner if you're not nervous, you probably just don't care. Right. So I think being nerves is natural being nervous is natural. It just shows that you really do care and you're gonna do something that, you know, you don't do too often, which is a cool Cool thing to do. ⁓ yeah. And then going back to the idea of training, right? Like you do this training, you do this work to prepare yourself for that moment of performance where you can step out of your own way, kind of get out of your own head and just allow your training to go to work, right? And just kind of be there in the moment, in the moment of performance. What is that training that we can do? So obviously, you know, the logical side of me, you know, if you want to practice being a better speaker. I'm gonna rep the presentation, I'm gonna, you know, study, I'm gonna try and memorize as much as I can, that kind of stuff. Obviously memorization's probably not the best, but I'm just gonna you know, I'm gonna prap practice rep. Is there anything other than, you know, repetitions and practice that you can do to kind of train to become a a better connector as a speaker? Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I would say making sure that you're doing the reps out loud and on your feet if that's where you're gonna be. So that your body is getting to actually go through it. Like actors don't go from sitting at a table reading a script to getting up on a stage and doing it. One that is my favorite is to actually do it in front of some people. So in theater we have a scene partner that we do a scene with and then eventually we invite an audience in. For speakers, your audience is actually both your scene partner and your audience. So doing it in front of a few people as you practice. And then part of how you practice, it's very different when you are remembering I've got this intention. I want to take them on a journey. I'm seeing test audiences going through that journey, even if it's one person on a Zoom or five people. And then for that aliveness to make sure that we're breathing deeper breaths than we might on a daily basis, and allowing that breath to support our voice, and we're allowing our energy to expand out. Those are some of the ways to be ready for the moment. And picturing it, like you said, taking a moment to picture. a huge audience and take a mindfulness moment leading up to it, even the day of, so that we're warming up our body for the experience like an actor would or like an athlete would. Rituals. I'm in San Francisco, Steph Curry is still here. His warm up ritual is something that people come to see from far away. Right now it's honestly probably more interesting than a lot of the games because we're not very good anymore. They really help the body start to understand, ⁓ I'm going to do that thing again. I did this warm-up last time, it went okay last time. So I'm gonna do this warm-up ritual beforehand again and again and again so that the moving through happens before or part of it happens before we ever even step out on the stage. speaker-1: Mm. That's a really interesting insight. I never thought about having like a warm up routine for for giving a talk. Do you have any examples that you might be able to share of what that warm up routine might look like? speaker-0: Yeah, there are s I used to have a warm-up builder. So, ⁓ connecting to the intention. Something that makes your body feel grounded, gets your breath moving, and expands your energy. I do things with clients like having them breathe like this. Zzz, where you're making sound with air flowing in and going out. And I'm a big fan of people doing what helps them ground. Let's say you're a runner and you experience that timeless, infinite space in the zone when you go for a run. You could go for a run the day of a speech. And then keep that grounded, expansive, really present feeling alive as you move to go speak. speaker-1: That makes sense. That that breathing exercise is super interesting. It actually reminded me of an idea too, going back to like tactical things that you can do to practice. I remember reading in a book when you're doing your reps, you know, doing it standing up as you had mentioned, but somebody actually ⁓ recommended doing it on a treadmill if possible or doing it while moving to elevate your heart rate a little bit when you're practicing because you can anticipate that your heart rate's gonna be pretty elevated when you're out there on stage in front of people. ⁓ so that might be another fun idea. to try and practice. I love it. Well, Lori, thank you so much for the time. I have one final question for you. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest. But before we get to that, how can people get in touch with you? speaker-0: My website is the best place to get in touch with me. It's voice hyphenmatters dot com or voice dash matters dot com and then the socials that I'm on and YouTube and all of that, it's the hub where they can get to all the other places. speaker-1: Love it. We'll have the links to everything in the description. Real quick before we get to that final question, would love to have you back because I think that this ability to connect with people on an emotional level, both in s is is such a meta skill, right? It's obviously super critical and important in the realm of speaking and giving talks. But I can imagine that that skill and that ability goes well beyond just that domain of of of talking and giving presentations. But everywhere in your personal life when you're trying to build a connection with somebody, you know, your family, a partner, whatever that may look like, but then in the business sphere as well. Just I think a lot of what you're saying in how I just never considered this idea of emotional connection to the idea of giving a talk and presentation. But we've had people on the podcast who have talked about came in and dropped a lot of wisdom related to sales. And a big part of it was them talking about the importance of being able to connect with the person that you're selling to, kind of put your arm around their shoulder. ⁓ so we'd love to have you back another time. Cool. So Lori, my final question is a recurring question I ask every guest. But Lori, if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why? speaker-0: Oof. So my mind went back to the title of my last book, even though I'm writing another one now. That's what I saw in my mind, which is your voice matters. And I think it has expanded over the course of many years to the world has a lot of strife in it right now. A lot of tumultuousness, people trying to find solutions. And one of the things that has gotten us where we are that I see is I feel like not every voice is in the conversation. Not every voice is speaking full out. It's almost like humanity is one big orchestra, and the drums are banging harder and louder, trying to get us to some new solutions. And the entire string section has gone silent. Dr. Be string sections. So really understanding that your voice does matter, almost to the point of in any room that you're in, see yourself as a co-leader of that room. Clear away all of the stuff that is not you so that when you're motivated to speak, it's the, you know. Fall back on your training and rise to the occasion, that will actually help humanity find harmony together, which is not the same as two people singing the same note. It's two people who might not agree coming together and finding a third way. speaker-1: Yeah, and I would agree we need that more than ever now. And I and I think we need to encourage the people, including, you know, I can speak from my own personal experience. It's really easy to just get completely dejected and just like see all the problems that we have and just see the mess that exists out there. Just be like, I mean, how do we even and then if you do a little history you can just kind of see we don't maybe don't need to get into all of this, but just like how corrupt the system seems to be, it's just you can it's easy to get dejected, but you know Nobody's coming to save us. It's on us to ⁓ to fix it. And every voice matters and if you want your voice to be able to resonate, your message to resonate, you gotta do the the work, everything that we talked about here today. But your voice matters. I love it. Thank you, Lori. speaker-0: Thank you, thank you so much for having me. speaker-1: Thank you for listening. The main thing I'm taking away from my conversation with Lori is that I need to think about the emotional path my audience is going to take during my presentation. How do they feel about the subject when I begin? In talking about artificial intelligence, many audiences will be skeptical, nervous, curious, or maybe potentially already interested. And once I understand how the audience is feeling about my subject before I begin, I can speak to that feeling instead of jumping straight into the information. Then I need to ask how I want them to feel by the end. Maybe I want them to feel more open, more confident, or ready to take the next step. I don't know exactly how I'll build every talk around this idea yet, but I can already see how those questions and just thinking about this intentionally will change the stories I tell, the points I emphasize, and the order in which I say things. The emotional path should help shape the presentation from the beginning. If you want to get connected with Lori Smith, you can find the links to her website, podcast, and social medias in the description of this episode. And if you're on a coaching program course or you're an author of a book, And you want to make it easier for your clients and readers to engage with your ideas. Download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It'll show you how to install what I call execution infrastructure so clients can follow through, do the work, engage with your ideas, and get results. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.