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From Fear to Presence: Speak on Stage with Confidence · Radiant Voices

• speaker-0: Speaking is like ⁓ a flag on a pole, right? ⁓ And when the wind is blowing, that's you speaking, right? And if you see these flags that blow majestically, right? ⁓ You could think it's the wind, right? But part of what makes them blow majestically is that there's a very steady pole that is grounded, right? If the pole is shaky, if it doesn't have strong foundation and grounding, the flag is all over the place and you don't want to look at the flag. So that's the same with the material that you have. speaker-1: Hello Radiant Beings! Welcome to the Radiant Voices podcast where we talk about all things communication and this is really all about being comfortable in one's own skin and liberating our voices to be able to stand up in front of one person, a thousand people, to express ourselves, to speak clearly, to overcome anxiety and overthinking and really just be able to show up in the world with confidence and ease. able to shine our light, to let the world see who we really are, and to thrive in the world. Today I've got a wonderful guest, this radiant being here, Matthew McConey. Matthew is an emcee and public speaker. He is also a Toastmaster of Renown. How much of a Toastmaster are you? What happened? speaker-0: Hi gentlemen, thank you so much for the kind welcome. I consider myself a learning toastmaster. Even with these many years of speaking in front of small and big crowds, I've learned that you can never get to the mountaintop of speaking. And every day is a lesson and I'm hoping that this session as well will not only be an interaction but a lesson for me as well. speaker-1: And for me too, yeah, this is in fact the first podcast that I am shooting in person with you today. So we are learning as we go. I'm curious, we've got lights and a camera. We've got JC sitting over there. This could be considered a pressurized moment. How are you actually feeling? Like for real, how are you feeling in this moment? speaker-0: Well, cheat code. Because of COVID, ⁓ we had to do a lot of this. I remember we had about a year and a half period where we couldn't meet in person and we all had to communicate either via Zoom or we had to actually send out materials to either our follow groups or circles of people that we mentor and we had to have lights and mics and so forth. And at the beginning, it was very, very scary. We had to do takes and takes and takes and takes. But I think with time and with practice, you learn to slow down and not to speak faster than you're thinking and that helps you to calm down before the cameras. And then last thing, the guys can always edit and cut and clip. So that makes you feel a little bit better about yourself. speaker-1: Yeah, that is one of the beauties is that we can fail, we can lose our words and it's all going to be OK. We can just start again. And how are you actually feeling on the inside in this moment? Are you feeling completely relaxed? Do you feel exactly the same as you would in your lounge at home, cuddling with a kid, one of your two wonderful children? Or do you feel any sense of activation given that there's a camera and this moment playing out? speaker-0: I think it's different from sitting at home on a lounge with my kid. because when you're sitting at home with your lounge with your kid, I've got very active, attentive children and you almost always have to be careful about what you say to them because three months later they'll be like, but dad, you did say that on this day. So you pretty much almost have to be very careful with this session. Obviously you and I prepared for it. So a lot of the things that I'll be covering today is things that I've thought about, read about things I've sort of done and practiced in real life. And so I'm a bit more confident in the material that I'm going to give because it's material. Whereas when with children you're just like you're off the cuff, you're building, growing, supporting them on a daily basis and you just need to be on the top of your toes. speaker-1: I get it, I get it. Yeah, so I mean from a technical point of view, just for the audience, when we are at home with our children, from a nervous system point of view, we describe that we're in what's called our ventral vagal, or rather we have a ventral vagal dominant state, which is one of connection and ease and interrelatedness and calm and grounding in our nervous systems just feel good. The moment we public speak, some kind of activation happens or what would be called technically a mobilization in the nervous system. Some of the sympathetic nervous system, a little bit of fight or flight. But when we feel comfortable, we have a combination of this ventral vagal calm with this mobilized, like I'm ready to do things, even a sense of play perhaps or excitement. And we want to feel excitement when we're speaking, right? Correct. And do you have any perspectives on The difference between anxiety and excitement when you are standing up in front of a speaker-0: Yeah, I think for me, familiarity usually is the barrier. I've had situations where I'm having an event. as an example and I'm speaking to the event coordinators and I'm trying to get material on the corporate and what the event is about and I don't have a lot of time to become familiar with it because we'll send you an email, we'll send you the playbook, we'll do this and then you go online and you don't really see much, you try and watch some videos, you don't really get much and then you get to the conference and there's like a thousand people, right? You have no idea who's who and what they're trying to do and then speaker-1: That sounds so scary. speaker-0: That is, and then you stand up there and you are almost trying to feed and gather information from the few people you'll talk with just before the event starts and from what you're seeing. That is a different situation from you've been given enough time, you've met the principals, you know what the company is about, you know what the values are, you know what they're trying to get out of the conference and you've had time to talk to the speakers and when you introduce them you almost feel like you're part of the organization and there's a certain level of calm and relaxation and just excitement that look I know what I'm talking about. But I think being a balanced speaker is being able to do both, right? Being able to still deliver with information without information, with preparation without preparation. You still should come out the same way and the person in the crowd who's listening to you shouldn't tell the difference. At the end of the day they should go out, that was well delivered, that was well executed. They don't know the mechanics behind your preparation. speaker-1: Wow, that sounds like a lot though, those ones where you're underprepared and they haven't fed you all the info. We're going to talk a little bit more about preparation later, but that's very interesting. I haven't finished introducing Matt, who is a Toastmaster, but he is also a father and a husband to two beautiful children. He also works with Amazon AWS between Cape Town and Hyprobad, Hyderabad in India as a fraud prevention lead. Am I correct? speaker-0: Hydroman. slightly. speaker-1: Sight lead. Okay, gotcha. Well, thank you for that. So Matt, you've got an interesting story. You live in Cape Town, but you're not from Cape Town. Would you just give us a little backdrop on how you came to be sitting in this seat in three minutes? speaker-0: I can probably do it in less if you'd like. But grew up originally from Zimbabwe. I learned in Zimbabwe, did my high school, tertiary education as well. Started working in Zimbabwe. So my background is actually banking and finance. So my undergrad is actually in banking and finances. Some of you might know around 2008, 2009, was a mal-done in the banking sector in the country and banks went under curatorship and that was sort of the plummeting or the turning point of my career. At that point, I was also getting married and we had to decide where do we start our family? And as it may, ended up in Cape Town and when we got to Cape Town my first job was actually to work for American Airlines and I was a call center agent so you can imagine going from banking and finance and doing treasury and things like that and answering phones. Welcome to American Airlines, speaking to Matthew. How can I help you today? Oh, you lost your baggage? You know, so that was my life for a while. But because I had this banking and finance background, Amazon was starting their support service center here in Cape Town around 2011. And they were setting up their back office and the back office needed someone who had experience with retrocharging. and things like that, bank reconciliations. And so I got head-hunted for the role. Got into Amazon, it's been a very, very long journey with them. ⁓ Moved from the customer service and back office side of things on retail, ended up with Amazon Web Services, now which is the tech side of the business, and currently looking after fraud prevention for the Cape Town site and for the Hyderabad site, which also rolls up to me. And we are the guys who try and make sure that everything on your device doesn't get stolen. speaker-1: That sounds like a good and important job. I'm so curious about, if you were just to give me a brief overview of your family life. but from a communication point of view, all families are a little different. Maybe dad and mom speak, maybe only dad is allowed to speak, maybe children need to be seen and not heard, or were all voices welcomed? Did you guys sing as a family or was there no singing? Just what happened with your voices as children in your family? Was there a lot of communication or was communication shut down? What was your family environment like for that? speaker-0: I think we come from a mixed bag in terms of communication. We have a lot of musical people, people who write a lot of music, people who can sing, play instruments. I can't play any instrument at all. They tell me if you can drive a manual car you can play drums, but even that doesn't work with me. However, my dad was a bit of an orator because he was in leadership. When you look at leadership you have to be able to communicate the vision, the plan, you need to be able to have quick conversations, slow conversations. You need to be able to raise your voice so people can hear you. You also need to be able to pull people aside and hear them. I think I inherently ⁓ got that part from my dad. My mom was more of a listener. And it's quite interesting because my wife is a listener as well and they say you sometimes get attracted to people who are like your mother. My wife was a listener and I think besides the speaking which came natural to me, I also had to develop the listening. Because if you can't listen to people, people won't listen to you. I know this adage that says people don't care how much you know, they want to know how much you care. And that's something I had to learn and to grow over time. That as much as I have a natural speaking voice, I need to develop the ability to listen to other people before I speak. speaker-1: ⁓ that's beautiful. I remember you telling me a story about a moment at school when you had, I think you might have frozen or there's a different. Can you just tell me, because a lot of the people who watch this podcast have some level of anxiety about speaking. Most people are afraid of public speaking and you had this moment. Yeah. speaker-0: And this is my origin story. I tell my friends and my friends still chuckle about it. I grew up a sports person. So I was in school, I did basketball at my height, ⁓ swimming, track and all those things. I was not involved with cultural sports at all. anything to do with culture, debate, public speaking and so forth was not a thing for me. And then one day we were having an inter-house competition. sports and all that and so we've done the sports side of things and now we're going to the culture side of things and so my friends and I, we're a very noisy bunch, we go into the school hall, so this is like 600 kids, right? And then they're like, ah, the person representing this house didn't come to school today, can we have someone to come on stage, right? So we're coming from a sports field, I'm thinking it's something to do with sports and my friends are like, Matthew, you go, you go, you go, you so I'm like. Well, this, yeah, so I go onto the stage and there like six or seven other people on the stage and I'm sitting right at the end. And then they're like, okay, now we're going to do the prepared speeches. Am I going to draw from the hat, which house is going to go first? So they do their little thing and then they pick the house and like, ⁓ Kent is going first. Right. And I was in house Kent. So I get up and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. And then the timer starts. They ring a bell. ⁓ So I'm waiting for instructions. I'm thinking they're going to ask me a question or I'm going to be asked to stay. I'm just standing there and the time is going. So about 30 seconds into it, everyone starts laughing. And I'm looking there like a deer looking at headlights. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And so the time runs out and then I sit down. people cannot stop laughing. Right. And this is like the most embarrassing moment for, you know, my whole school career. So I'm sitting there, then they call the next person. Next person goes up. Hi, my name is so-and-so. My speech is called this. And then they talk for that three, four minutes. Next person, I'm sitting there like, huh, I could have done that. Right. So now I'm sitting there and I'm like, I could have done that if someone had told me. And then someone stands up with that judicator and says, ⁓ the next round is impromptu speeches. Right? Because Kent went first, Matt you're going to go first. So I stand up, right? Now I'm thinking, okay, so if I had to prepare the speech, and then they tell me you've got a minute or two to speak, right? Like, okay, I need to come up with a speech for one minute. Okay, I can do this. And then your topic is, and they gave me the most difficult topic ever. Now I need to think on my feet because I've been preparing myself for and then I've got a topic that's, know, and so again for another meter to two, I look like a deer staring straight into headlights. And so I had the walk of shame of walking back into my seat without saying anything. speaker-1: So you didn't say anything the second time. speaker-0: They didn't say anything. It was embarrassing because I had this, you know when you're a sports person, you've got this big ego, you're great at this sport and that sport and so forth, and then all of a sudden you're useless at this thing, right? And I sit there and then again the next person goes, they get a different topic which is easier than mine, and I'm sitting there and I think, I can totally do this, right? speaker-1: How are you feeling at this point? speaker-0: But when I got off stage and at the end of the day, I was like the laughing stock of the whole school. And my friends are like, oh, we can't believe you can't speak in front of people. Oh, dude. Oh, man. And I was like, guys, I promise I can do that. They're like, no, you're frauds. They're like, I just didn't have instructions. They're like, oh, dude. Next year, I'm signing up. I can totally do this. And that's how it started. I actually started public speaking as a way of trying to prove to my friends that I'm not a freezer. speaker-1: That's amazing. That's amazing that you managed to, I mean, I think the really interesting word in your language is even as you were sitting there, a part of you was saying, I can do this. You know, I work with a lot of genuine fruit, like real freezers who really will go into a shutdown and freeze that will be filled with shame and embarrassment, but it'll also be a nervous system freeze. And in that state, their brain will be thinking, I can't. And there was something in your, call it conditioning or programming or upbringing that just said to you, know, I can and I will do this. And that's amazing that you were just signed me up for the next one. And so after that, did you begin public speaking or doing some learning? speaker-0: Yeah, so I did. I started public speaking and ⁓ it was quite a revelation for me because I thought I was good at sports. I ended up finding that I'm actually great at public speaking. Wow. Right. ⁓ And that's because I was an avid reader. Right. And I keep saying to my friends that you you can't be a great speaker if you don't deposit material into yourself. Right. And the analogy I use is speaking is like ⁓ flag on a pole, right? ⁓ And when the wind is blowing, that's you speaking, right? And if you see these flags that blow majestically, right? ⁓ You could think it's the wind, right? But part of what makes them blow majestically is that there's a very steady pole that is grounded, right? If the pole is shaky, if it doesn't have strong foundation and grounding, the flag is all over the place, and you don't want to look at the flag. So that's the same with the material that you have. when you read a lot, when you listen to other podcasts, when you take time to develop just your mental capacity and knowledge on different types of things and areas and so forth, when you speak, it just bursts out of you. when I started read, when I started speaking, because I was a reader, people were so amazed that I was able to quote things. I was able to to link ideas to things I'd read and things that I'd seen in movies and series and documentaries and so forth. And That was captivating for lot of people. ⁓ I found out what I'm not only good at this, I'm quite great at this. And I remember I had the guts to go and compete. ⁓ These national public speaking competitions also still in school. And so this is two years before my metric, right? And ⁓ I was competing in the metric class. I'm like 14, I'm competing with 16, 17 year olds, right? And we have this national competition and in the whole country, so you first compete in your same way with Toastmasters in your district, then sort of in your region, then if you qualify there, then you end up doing this at a national level. And I remember that my very first national competition, I came third in the whole country. ⁓ Again, when I came third, there was a little bit of disappointment, a little bit of shame, but still that silent voice kept saying to me, I can totally do this. everyone here that I'm competing with is two, three years my senior. I can do this. Two years later, I was the national champion. Right? And so again, it started from being in that moment where you have to tell yourself you can do it. ⁓ You know, it feels bad at first, it feels terrible and people have different experiences. Some may be not as embarrassing as mine. Some it could be just failing to communicate with one person. Some is just choking at a birthday party. Some is, I don't know, whatever that situation is and you're sitting there and everything in you like you're saying is locking down in your whole body and you're sweating like I'll never do this again. You have to find the little voice that tells you you can actually do this. And then you figure out how to get to doing it. speaker-1: That's exactly it. That's such a powerful story. Thank you for sharing that. I really love that analogy of the flagpole and the foundation. A lot of the people that I work with have a more severe anxiety response. You're a really interesting case because your public speaking conditioning that you, from your family environment, is very unusually good. In other words, I think you inherited a really good foundation from your father, for example. that most people don't have. A lot of people I work with perhaps might have a very angry father or mother where using their voice was even dangerous in their family. In other words, if you raised your voice, you'd be shouted at or punished or so on. And so they developed a really serious freeze or anxiety response using their voice, being seen in a group environment is very scary. And so what's so interesting to hear you speak as you talk about that foundation is that when you have that foundational, I'll almost paraphrase you a bit, and you've got this foundation of a lot of different material, it just flows out of you. It just comes, as you say. And most people who are anxious speakers lose their words. They lose all access to their knowledge. And really what I just want to share with the audience is that healthy conditioning looks like what Matt is describing here. when you are regulated or in yourself or your system believes it can, then it has access to all your knowledge. And it just miraculously pulls it out of the filing cabinets in real time and it just pours out. And that's what we're capable of. If we can just, first of all, practice like Matt did a lot of practice. was obviously many steps along the way. So. do a lot of it, but also release the anxiety response and just move into a body and a brain and a being that says, can. Right? Does that sound a little... speaker-0: It does. does. And I want to quote one of my favorite books. It's called The Best Salesman in the World. So author is Og Mundina. He's an old author. So a lot of your audience, you might not know this guy, but you can Google it. You can find it. on Amazon. You can get the audio book. It's very short, right? But it tells the story of a salesman, a cowboy called Hafid. And he's sitting at the feet of this really rich merchant. you know, the rich merchant is coming to the end of his tenure. And Hafid has these big dreams of of trying to get into the sales world and also making it in life. But he's coming from a position of disadvantage, right? Almost like someone who is afraid to speak, someone who doesn't have a voice, someone who feels like I lose everything when I have to speak in front of people. the merchant doesn't perform any magic. So there's no magic to speaking. There's no going to a deep sleep, say these three words, and drink a latte in the morning, and rub the little kettle, and Bob's your uncle, you're going to be able to speak. But he gives him these 10 scrolls. And he says, read these 10 scrolls, and read them one at a time. And by the time you get to the 10th, you're going to be an amazing salesman. And one of the scrolls that I really, really love was, I think it's the 7th or the 8th. about increasing your value with time, right? And it says there's a process in which you start off with a little seed. and you nurture it and you build it and you increase the value, right? And that's the same thing with speaking, right? First time you lock yourself in a room, no one there, and you say, look, all I'm doing is I'm giving the vote of thanks at my nephew's wedding in a month's time. I'm going to write it down word for word, and I'm going to put a mirror there. And I've been given five minutes to speak and no one listening. I'm going to give it a go. And you're standing there and you're shivering, speaking over yourself, forgetting this line and so forth and it's terrible. And then I'm going to do this every day. And then your confidence and your value, in a week's time you can say most of what you've written down without even looking at it. And then next step is, you know what? I'm going to call someone I trust. someone I know will, it's not gonna laugh the moment I start speaking, right? And I tell them, look, I've never done this before, I'm gonna do this in front of 400 people, ⁓ you're going to my audience of one, right? The person sits there, this time I'm gonna do it as if there's 400 people, right? T.D. Jakes calls it speaking to the trees, like going to the woods and speak to the trees as if they're people. And by the time you're done with that one person, she's like, you know, you're mumbling over your words, you're speaking too fast, slow down a little bit. Why don't you sound excited at the beginning and you get a few tips and then you're comfortable with this one person giving you feedback and then when you're happy, a week or two later, do you know what? I'm gonna get two or three people I might not be comfortable with. My kids will probably laugh at me, right? But do know what? They're going to be sitting in the crowd as well, right? And then you increase your value with time. So what you do is you practice, you practice, you churn, you churn, you become more and more comfortable and before you know it, you're actually standing in front of 400 people and it feels absolutely natural because you've done it a thousand times before. speaker-1: I love that exactly. If you don't begin a process and I love the steps that you outlined there and just speak regularly and slowly but surely increase the intensity or the apparent scariness of it, but you're climatized to each step. then eventually you find yourself, as you say, in front of 400 people feeling comfortable. You know, it's so interesting, even with singing, for example, do you sing? speaker-0: in the shower. Does that count? It does. speaker-1: If I sing the note, can you sing the same note? speaker-0: Probably not. I might just blow up the mics. The sound guy will be like, look, we were doing well. We were actually doing well until the guy blew up the mics. speaker-1: And did me asking you to do that, did that bring you up any fear or anxiety in your body? speaker-0: Not really. I felt more like I'm going to spoil the podcast. speaker-1: Like I won't push you on that. It's interesting though, with singing for example, some people get told when they're five or six years old, ⁓ stop singing, and then they do. And instead of making those small little gains as you said, or adding value to your voice and singing across a lifetime, someone stops singing at six years old and of course they never learn. My experience is that anyone can learn to sing in tune, no one is tone deaf. And it's just a question of showing up, much like public speaking. I wanted to ask you a little bit about preparation. Do you have any tips around preparation that you'd like to share? How do you prepare for a public speaking or emceeing event? Let's talk public speaking rather than emceeing. speaker-0: So this is a discipline. Let me start by quoting King Solomon. One of things that he says is, the race is not for the swift, the battle is not for the strong, nor does food only come to the wise, but time and opportunity is given to everyone. Another thing that he also quotes and he says, and I'll quote him, says, a live dog is better than a dead lion. because anything that has got life still has hope. Now, no matter how hopeless you feel you are, in terms of, have to speak for 20 minutes, I've got an hour presentation I need to do, right? And you feel like, I'm like that hopeless little live dog. You're better than a dead lion because the lion's not going anywhere. You're still this little dog that can take the steps to get ready, right? And you've been given this opportunity that other people do not have. And so there has to be a process where you get yourself there, right? And so I do what is a simple gap analysis. Whenever I need to do a keynote somewhere, try and understand gap. What do I have? Where do I need to get to? And what do I need to do? And that takes preparation. In the time that we are, people do not have the discipline to prepare, right? Because people want things very quick. I'll just chat GPT it, you know? I'll use an app, but there is... good discipline in sitting down and doing a plan. Okay, I need to speak for 45 minutes. This is the topic. And then you do a gap. what are my problems? I don't know anything about the topic. Okay, so my first thing is I need to go and get the material, right? I have no idea about the setting. Okay, now I need to understand, will I be standing? Will I be sitting when I'm speaking and so forth? need to understand the setting. I have no idea about the technology. Well, I have a mic or not I have a mic. So there's a lot of work that you need to do. Then once you have all these little pieces, then you start the writing. Writing is such an amazing skill that we're losing today. You are better speaking on things that you have written than things that you have Googled. Believe it or not. you Google a speech and try and learn it and then speak it in front of people, recite it, you are less comfortable than you actually are writing it down, whether with a pen and paper, whether typing it out, and it's coming out of you onto a manuscript. Because remember, it came out of you onto the manuscript. When you actually speak it, it's coming from that manuscript and from you into the audience. So there is a process where I am actually a writer. I sit down. I will write from the very first word, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is my most esteemed honor and pleasure this evening to be delivering your keynote. My name is, I'm writing all of this, I'm even writing my name is Matthew Makoni, da da da da da da. Right up until the end, it has been an amazing pleasure ladies and gentlemen. And remember, whatever is my tagline, I write it as time wasting as it sounds. I need to put all of that into something that I can read. Then the discipline of actually reading it, read it over and over again. speaker-1: How many times will you, for a keynote or a 20 minute speech, how many times will you read through before you move to bullet points? speaker-0: Rule of thumb, rule of thumb is at least try and read the manuscript uninterrupted at least seven times. So this is not I'm reading it and I'm on my phone. I'm reading it whilst I'm having dinner. is I'm reading it for the 45 minutes is if I'm delivering it seven times. And some people you might need more. Some people might need less, but seven times is a good number. But the time you read it the sixth time. your brain and you might have a nice term for this, an intelligent term for this. Your brain now knows the material so much that the words disappear from the page. You're starting the sentence and you're no longer looking at the words at the end because your brain knows how the sentence ends. When you get to that place where you're just starting the sentence and you know how it ends, you know, I can now do bullet points because my brain now knows the material. And then now with the bullet points, again, it's practice. So that's the process that I've. speaker-1: And roughly how many go-throughs do you aim to do with bullet points? speaker-0: Bullet points I try to do three because at that point what I'm now practicing is not capturing the information, it's now speaking to the audience because no one likes to listen to someone who's not looking at them, right? And this is something I've had to learn with my children. Every time I try and give them instructions and I'm not looking at them, they're not listening, right? But when I say, PlayStation time is now over. He knows PlayStation time is now over. When I say... MK, can you put away your PlayStation and go and take a shower? I promise you, 15 minutes later, the little guy is so... So same thing with delivering a speech. When I've now got bullet points, I'm now practicing material people, material crowd, material pause crowd. And you need at least three. Some will need four, but I use three. speaker-1: You know. Look, mean, just side note to the audience, I require a bunch more than three. I've got a terrible memory, so I do have to go through it a lot more. I'd also like you just to discuss a little bit about your performance notes. Do you write performance notes into the script, or do you just remember, for example, your body movements, or how you might move across the stage, or any interactions? Do you script that stuff, or do you just let it happen naturally? speaker-0: Before I used to, I used to do it naturally. Right. The more experienced I became as a speaker, I started realizing that everything that you do when you communicate with people has to be intentional. Right. Because you are dealing with cross-cultural crowds. You're dealing with people who come from different backgrounds. And sometimes through your body language, through a gesture, through something that you use as a prop, you might end up offending people. You might end up turning people off and so forth. And so you have to be quite deliberate. If there's something that you do in your speech, it has to be thought through. Right. I remember speaking to ⁓ one tenured speaker and he was telling me about when you go to TOS Masters meetings, as an example, they tell you, do not stand behind the lantern. Make sure that you know you are two steps to the right and two steps to the left. And then we get get so in love with moving up and down. Right. When you read the room. Sometimes you realize that you might have people with physical impairments in the crowd who are not able to. And so when you're going up and down, up and down, you have to realize that I'm a bit too much. I'm losing some people in the crowd. Right. And so it's things like that where you have to be intentional. I love to actually, whenever I am speaking somewhere, I like to get there early. I like to go and see the room, ⁓ have a self rehearsal. So if there's something that I planned that I'm going to go and stand over here and shout, whatever, I want to have a look at the room and say, if I do this, do I lose people on that side? Right. And that helps you to be able to do things. But I've made this a rant, but be intentional. ⁓ As you start off, might things, do things off the cuff. But eventually when you become more developed as a speaker, everything you do in your speech, you try and make sure it's rehearsed, except for very experienced speakers who are able to pick things from the crowd. I saw one experienced speaker the one time, someone stood up in the middle of their speech, in the front row, someone stood up in the middle of the speech and they kind of stopped, right? And they threw in a joke, ma'am, I'm not done. I know you're afraid about traffic and parking, but I promise I've got five minutes to go. And you know, people laughed and things like that. And then they carried on. So you can do little things like that. ⁓ But I think the safest thing is just make sure you've practiced everything. speaker-1: That sounds good. That sounds good. So if you were to give someone advice who is just beginning a public speaking journey, is there anything in particular that you think would be a good tip for them? Just a behavior or a mindset? speaker-0: Mindset. So I'll go again to Ogmendina. This could be his fourth or fifth principle in the scrolls. And it's don't take yourself too seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously, especially at the beginning. And I know the words that we speak have power, they have influence, and we're able to sway people's opinion. We're able to build our own personal brands. We're able to get jobs and things like that. But when you start off, you are not performing brain surgery. When you take yourself too seriously at the beginning as a speaker, you're more likely to give up when you make a mistake. But if you're able to laugh at yourself, so that's the term he uses, it's called laugh at yourself. If you're able to go back and say, that was terrible. I can't believe I forgot that line. I practiced like 10 times over and I still forgot it. You're not going to go into a pity party by yourself and cry overnight. Because if you do, you're not going to speak again. But if you come back and see the lighter side of it, like, I can't believe I practiced five times and I still could not pronounce that word. Right. Okay. Next time, no big words. Mr. Makoni, no big words for you. Let's keep it simple. Use simple English words. Right. You laugh at yourself. Right. And then you build from there. It's a great mentality for not giving up. Right. As you get better and better, obviously the stakes of your speaking get higher and the influence of yours get higher and it gets a bit more serious. But at the beginning, don't overdo it. speaker-1: Yeah, I love that. think being prepared to fail, being prepared to play, taking it lightly and just learning to enjoy ⁓ being in the public domain, being heard, being seen and overcoming anxiety, fear and especially self-criticism is actually a really fun journey. And I think it's one of the most important journeys we can have if we want to actually thrive in the world and in the public domain. Matt, I've got one of those put you on the spot questions. Yeah. So you might find your solar plexus contracting at the thought of this next question, which was, if Matt was a perfume, what would it be called? speaker-0: thoughtful spice. speaker-1: Love it thoughtful spice is a great one. Yeah, okay. can I can smell that that's good And my next one is really just a question about you What lights you up in your life just in general what it what what lights you up? What makes you feel good? What do you prioritize in your life? speaker-0: love great writing, right? So I go towards anything that is well written, whether it is screenplay, whether it is a book, whether it is a series, anything where people have taken the time to express their thoughts using really rich language and gravitate towards. So I know there are... A lot of people who are like, don't watch Game of Thrones. It's horrible. It's a horrible show. I totally get it. But George R.R. Martin, especially with the first couple of books, was an amazing writer. And one of my best quotes from the Game of Thrones is Tyrion Lannister. says to his companion, the mind needs books like a sword needs whetstone, where you sharpen your sword. My mind loves to read because when I read, I hear people's perspectives and I love it when it's expressed in rich language. And so you often find me ⁓ at home with a book in my hand or listening to an audio book as I'm sitting in traffic or watching some well-written ⁓ documentary. So as much as I know, people may be like Marvel fans and they want to see lights, camera, swords, superpowers. I love to see. the writing and the conversation behind all of this because I think that makes me a better speaker and gives me a lot of content. speaker-1: That's really beautiful and it shows in the way that you speak. You spoke earlier also about speech writing and I think speech writing is one of the most powerful liberating things we can do. And most people don't consider themselves speech writers. And I do have on the website a speech writing PDF, like a how-to, that demystifies how to approach structuring a speech. And as we both know, there's a best practice. There's a structure. There are incredibly inspiring tools for approaching writing a speech and when you stand up with a well-written speech, it's like half the job is done, don't you think? True. Yeah, in other words, when you deliver world-class content that you've written and you know is well-written, it diminishes nerves. You can instantly see engagement with people. They'll start leaning into the story that you're telling because you've put it right up front and you're telling something gripping and filled it with that. juicy details that people can follow. Yeah, I found learning how to speech write one of the most powerful things I've ever done and I'm sure you do too. speaker-0: Yeah, and I guess the last thing for me after the speech writing is challenging yourself to what I call stuffing your weaknesses. So when you start speaking and you eventually have gone past the, I'm afraid to stand in front of people, I'm a little bit more confident now, now I can write a speech and now I can deliver it, you will start to realize the things that you do comfortably, or the topics that you can speak comfortably about. The beauty about growing as a speaker is looking for the things that you are bad at, the things that you are uncomfortable with. It's those things that you want to stuff, you stuff your weaknesses. I remember when I joined TOSmasters as an example, because I'm an extrovert and so I naturally speak to people and I talk to people and so forth. And my mentor had actually said, join TOSmasters. And I couldn't understand why, because I was like, just talking, I can talk. At that time, my mentor said, I've noticed that whenever we give you a structured presentation in the workplace, you tend to veer off. And so you need to go somewhere where there is structure, there is something you need to say, and you need to stick to it in the time that has been given. And I remember when I did my icebreaker was easy, which is like your introductory speech, just talking about yourself. That was easy because I was just talking about myself and it just kept going on and on. And then when you get into the pathways, you start to have more structured speeches. And I remember my most difficult one, I needed to talk about water desalination. And I needed to explain why the Western Cape in South Africa is surrounded by so much seawater, but at that time we had a water problem. And how do you explain that to a lay person? Why don't we just take water from the sea, boil it or whatever it is, and drink it, right? And so I had to do a lot of research. It was a bit technical, a bit of science, a bit of costing and so forth, and things outside my area of comfort. But how do I give a technical speech which makes sense to lay people but also ticks all the academic bits without veering off into unicorns and wishes, right? And so I realized I have a gap here and this is something I need to work on. And so that would be my advice to anyone. You sometimes we get so comfortable when we become speakers that we only start working on the hands and forget the leg day, right? And so if you've got legs like mine, you want to have your leg day. because then you become an all-rounded speaker. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. That totally makes sense. And so did you find that you were better at spontaneous speaking or better at prepared speeches? speaker-0: I naturally was better at spontaneous speaking and terrible at prepared speeches. speaker-1: And what do you like at ⁓ a work social event? Let's just say it's a mixer networking event and people are standing around eating their canapes. Are you good with unstructured social conversation? Is that easy or hard? speaker-0: That comes easier for me ⁓ than actually having a seven page PowerPoint with five minutes and I need to make sure that every single point on the PowerPoint is covered. Because naturally I veer off. And so I've had to hone myself in and say, look, maybe at the beginning of the PowerPoint, I'm going to say something really fun and so forth and get all my Matthew juices out. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: and then stick to the PowerPoint, and then at the end, I can get a few more Matthew juices out. If I try and do it in between half the content that everyone needs to get, they won't get any more. speaker-1: That makes total sense. know, it's interesting when I run my courses, I have a course, for example, Awakening your radiant voice and it attracts both under speakers and others, people who tend to shut down and we sometimes call those two little voices. And then I have my ramblers or what it would be called too much voice. ⁓ speaker-0: I am your captain, Remla. speaker-1: ⁓ Exactly. And I've worked with severe ramblers, so severe ramblers who cannot concentrate a single idea into two or three sentences and it will become a 10 minute monologue. You are a much milder case than that. You've obviously learned how to craft it and work with it. Do you have any advice for people who are over speakers how to learn to concentrate their message? speaker-0: Kiss. Keep it short, sir. So if that means on the lengthen, you write a little acronym and you put it there, K-I-S-S. If it means in my case, what I used to do with my wife, she sits in the front row and we had a signal. And if she just went... I know, I'm rambling. I need to turn back. speaker-1: Right. Ha speaker-0: So whatever mechanism you can put to help yourself come back, which is visual. Things that are visual help you because they communicate directly to you that you you are veering. Another thing is you get more developed is understanding the cues from the crowd. Yes. So when you're speaking to the crowd and you're looking into the crowd and you start to see that people's eyes are no longer fixed on you, or you start to see a little bit of rambling, speaker-1: What kind of cues might you see? speaker-0: or you start to hear a little bit of noise, those are cues that you are rambling on and on. When you are still giving very good content, very captivating and so forth, you can actually hear people breathing because people are listening. The moment people are not listening, it's usually a good sign that you're not rambling. speaker-1: Yeah, and it's one of the most powerful things as a speaker to have the audience with you and to really be looking at the whole crowd and watching and looking at them and have eye contact and have rapport and connection with your audience. And as you say, sustaining awareness of that and noticing when they start to drift away is really important. A lot of people who are very anxious will be hypervigilant though, and that means they'll have a negative bias in their perception, and they'll look across the audience and they'll perceive threats that aren't there. Because they've got a lot of anxiety, you could say that they're in what would be a brain state that would be amygdala dominant, threat focused, they'll actually see people judging them or rejecting them that aren't actually doing that. They'll kind of make that up. But we want to read the cues hopefully accurately like you do or have your wife in the audience doing special signals. I love that. love that. Matt, is there anything else you'd like to share? speaker-0: Yeah, I think speaking two decades ago is very different to now in that you have to embrace technology and the pros and cons of technology. I'll start with the cons. The cons of speaking in today's age is that you can record a podcast. as an example, a short clip where you're saying something and put it on your Instagram or your Facebook and so forth. And if you make it public, high chances are in the comment section, there will be some trolls that will say, hell, this was not good or this is not correct or I don't agree with that and so forth. And so there is cons in that speakers are not very safe. I saw something on LinkedIn last week where one of these big tech giants that just laid off some people and a coach went on to try and give the people who had been laid off some some advice on how to just get yourself together don't let this define you start to work on your resume and things like that and you might get a better job and this and that and people started battering him like you know don't give people false hope you know people have responsibilities and so forth and he giving such a positive message uplifting message but technology opens the door sometimes to some really bad type of feedback. But when you go to places like Toastmasters, when you speak, you get what is called constructive feedback. People are giving you feedback, which is honest, but not to break you. They want to tell you, hey, Jeremy, ⁓ great that you know all these big English terms. But half the people are still writing them down. Say them slowly, spell them out so that people can Google them later, or whatever it is. constructive feedback helps, ⁓ but technology does not filter that for you. So be careful when you put things online. You can understand I'm not going to make it public. If I make it public, I'm not going to over-endow myself in reading people's comments because that can actually destroy you as a speaker. The good side of speaking is with technology. Many, many years ago, you'd go and you'd do your speech and Only the people that were there will tell you, ⁓ that was great. You could not go back and actually listen to it. Or if someone gave you feedback and said, hey, you know the way you started, you were a bit nervous. You were shaking your hands a little bit. Or do you know every time that you speak, you've got your hands in your pocket? And it comes across a bit rude. Or do you know you do this thing when you speak? You keep saying so and so. And so is your crutch word. Now with technology, with recordings, You can actually go back and play it and watch yourself and say, I do say so a lot. Okay, I do do that thing with my hand. And then you can practice and you can get better. And so we are privileged to have technology and we need to make the best use of it. Get good mics, get a good camera if you can, use your phone. A lot of these phones are really good. Put it in your room, put it on a stand, do your 45 minute presentation, your 10 minute presentation, your five minute photo thanks. And then go and watch it. And say, look, if I was sitting in a crowd and I was looking at Matthew, I'll say, yeah, he's doing a good job. And make you suffer. speaker-1: Yeah, I love that Matthew. You know, I think a lot of the people that I work with need to be visible in the world and technology can be scary and appearing on video for many people is absolutely mortifyingly frightening. As you said, working with some nice camera gear or even just a good phone and walking that journey of filming yourself and allowing yourself to be seen by the internet, learning to overcome the fear of people's criticism and opinions and learning to embrace being visible in the world to propel your career or share your art or be an activist or socially engaged in the world. I just think it's really powerful for us to unleash our voice, to liberate any blocks that prevent us from speaking up, being seen and heard, and sharing our heart with the world. I'm so glad you are here today. Thank you so much, Matthew McConey. You'll find Matthew at MatthewMcConey.co.za. That's Matthew with one T. You'll find that in the show notes. Matthew, thank you so much for coming here today. Thank you so much for sharing your radiant voice with our audience from across the world. speaker-0: Thanks Jeremy, it's been an amazing pleasure and I hope you picked some nuggets from this little section that I've participated in. And again, remember, ⁓ first step, that little voice inside your head, you can do this. You totally can do this. speaker-1: Dear Radiant Beings, please like and subscribe this episode, whether it's on Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite streaming service. It helps me get the word out and helps get this message across the world. Thank you so much Radiant Beings, sending much warm feelings and love and see you on the next one. speaker-0: you