2 Minute Talk Tips

2-Minute Tip: Be Authentic   Present in a way that is true to yourself. Your content needs to resonate with you first, or it won't resonate with your audience. When you can share a message that you are on board with, you can convincingly tell your story and you have the best opportunity to move your audience to take the action you want them to take. And isn't that the point of all this?   Post Tip Discussion   A lot of my guests appear on other podcasts -- shocking, I know. Every show and host has their own perspective and the conversations are often unique. A couple months ago. I listened to some other shows an upcoming guest had been on, and I realized I needed to up my game and energy level to impress the guest. So I tried.   And it went -- okay. The guest was happy, and after editing the episode was solid. But it wasn't as good as it should have been, and I felt it at the time. And I was a little embarrassed at the end because I knew I didn't do as well as I could have. Because I wasn't myself.   I share

2-Minute Tip -- Tell a story to Open   The beginning of a talk is when you have the maximum audience attention. Don't squander it welcomes, thank yous, and introductions. Instead, tell a story to engage your audience at the very start.   Think about a band coming out on stage. They don't start with banter. They go right into a big opening number to get everyone excited for the rest of the show. Try the same thing with your audience.   You can come back to introductions 3 or 4 minutes in.   Post Tip Discussion: Speaking and Preaching with Dylan Dodson   Whether you're speaking in the secular world or the religious world, the principles behind effective public speaking are the same -- define your message, prepare and rehearse your talk, and connect with your audience to ensure the message lands. That's never more clear than in this conversation with Dylan Dodson.   As a pastor, Dylan delivers a different 30 minute sermon every week. To do that effectively takes disciple and a process. He shares his content deve

2-Minute Tip: Increase Attendance Retention with a Take Away   One challenge with webinars and live sessions is keeping folks around until the end, especially if the material is on the dry side. To help folks stick around, let them know that at the end you'll have a give-away for them.   It could be something as simple as a collection of other resources or websites. Maybe it's a how-to document. Perhaps it's a list of key email addresses.   It could also be something bigger -- like an eBook or downloadable PDF. You can offer attendees who stick around a special link to get that content for free. When they follow that link you can also ask them for an email address so you can add them to your newsletter.   Now, they've gotten value because they got that freebie and because the attended the whole talk.   You've gotten value because you were able to share your whole message with the attendees and you have more subscribers to your newsletter, which can be valuable in the future.   It's a win all around.   Post Ti

2-Minute Tip: Go the Extra Mile   To create the life you want, go the extra mile every day in 3 separate ways.   First, go the extra mile for your health. What can you do today to live a more healthful life that you might be inclined not to do? Is it eating less junk? Getting a little more exercise? Tending to a nagging health issue you've been trying to ignore? Do this every day to help make sure your body can take you where you need to go. Getting healthier gives you more stamina on stage and makes it easier to control your breath.   Second, go the extra mile for someone else. It could be a friend, colleague, or relative. How can you help them in a way they did not expect? Can you help someone else with their talk? Or can you help them find another speaking opportunity?   Third, go the extra mile for your purpose or mission. How can you drive your personal mission forward? How can you get closer to your dreams? Make a little progress every day. What steps can you take to get closer to the speaking lifestyle

2-Minute Tip: Make Eye Connection   Look them in the eye and make strong eye contact. It helps to make the audience feel more comfortable. To make that connection, though you need to hold the eye connection for 4-6 seconds. They will feel you are conversing with them rather than talking at them.   Pure Mind Magic   A few months back, German podcaster, magician, and mindset expert Victoria Mavis joined me to talk about the intersection between public speaking and magic. You can find that interview at 2MinuteTalkTips.com/magic.   During December, I had the pleasure of appearing on her show, Pure Mind Magic. We talked about speaking, sure, but much of the conversation was about my stroke story and the power of mindset in recovery. You can listen to it here or subscribe for free to Pure Mind Magic in your favorite podcast app.   Post Tip Discussion     I spoke with George Hendley from The Speakers Academy in Dallas. It was a great conversation about speaking, training, technology, and the way the field has chang

2-Minute Tip: Watch Yourself on Fast Forward   I met speaking coach and entrepreneur Emily Messner (AKA Sleevs) on the JoCo Cruise earlier this year and she told me about this tip.   Gestures are a complicated thing for many folks. Your gestures may or may not feel natural, but it's hard to tell how they look. We're not watching ourselves while we speak; we have higher priorities. So if we want to evaluate our gestures, video becomes our friend. With the proliferation of camera phones, there's no reason not to record more of our sessions. Of course, you have to actually watch the video you record to get value from it.   When it's time to evaluate your gestures, watch that video on fast forward. You'll see repetitive or annoying gestures really pop out in an almost comical way at high speed. They'll be obvious in a way that they might not at normal speed.   Then, with that information, you can make an educated decision about what to do.   Post Tip Discussion: Resolutions for Speakers   I'm posting on January 1

2018 has been a great year for 2-Minute Talk Tips, and I got to talk with some amazing people from around the world for the show, This week, I pull together the initial tip from each guest into a single episode. If you want to listen to the whole episode each tip came from or explore the guest's background, click in the link below.   Episode  Guest Tip 62 Iszi Lawrence Tell a story 66 Mario Porreca Practice in the shower 68 Melanie Childers Raise Your Energy 69 Pradeepa Narayanaswami 3 Tips for stage comfort 70 Melissa Bird Find Your Fire 73 Catie Harris Connect with your audience 75 Victoria Mavis Write down your thoughts 76 Louise Brogan Make eye contact 77 Patricia Missakian Influence one person 78 Hilary Billings Focus on feeling 79 Denise Vaughan Know you can do it 80 Diana Wink Thread a story through your talk 81 Bilal Moin Be alive 87 Scott Charlston Choose your headline 89 Andr

  2-Minute Tip: Greet Your Audience   A lot of speakers pace back stage or pound coffee or try to deal with nerves in other ways before going out to speak.    Instead, go out into the audience as folks are arriving, and greet audience members. Have a brief chat to get to know folks. This accomplishes a few things.   It gives you something to do and gets you out of your own head It gives you information you can leverage in your talk to better connect with the audience while you speak It gives you a friendly face to look out at from the stage It let's an audience member feel heard and gives them a favorable impression of you     Post Tip Discussion: Meet Dave Jackson   About 10 years ago, my team and I were looking at ways to integrate this brand new podcasting thing into our corporate training and brand evangelism efforts. I was already a fan of the medium, so I started listening to podcasts about podcasting to figure out how we could do it. Ultimately, I turned most of that project over to Tim Garber who ap

  2-Minute Tip: Describe your Audience   Back in 2008,  Best Buy described 4 personae who represented their target customers. The even started designing different stores to appeal to Buzz, Barry, Ray, or Jill. They had detailed descriptions for theses archetypes.   I'm not sure if it's the best approach for a big-box retailer, but it can help your talks.   It's important to understand your target audience. Start by describing the one person you wan to reach. Who are they? What do they do? What do they wear? Where do they work? What is family like? Why do they need to hear your message? What will happen to them if they don't heed your call to action?   This exercise provides a useful framework for understanding your audience and tuning to message to maximize it's effectiveness. After all, it's hard to tell a story when you don't know who you're telling it to.   Post Tip Discussion: Meet Phillip Andrew   Phillip Andrew is a speaker and TV producer with a special interest in the youth market. And he is a deligh

  2-Minute Tip: Get on Stage More   Ultimately, the most important way to get better as a speaker is to speak more. Find more stages and get on them. Reach out to local clubs and service organizations who are always looking for speakers in your community. Theses gigs may not pay anything, but especially when you're starting out as a professional speaker, you need to get in the stage time. And then you need repeat that. Get more stage time to refine your craft and develop your skills.   Post Tip Discussion: Meet Success Coach Donnie Boivin   My conversation with Donnie covered a huge range of topics, including things like defining success, the power of having a podcast, and how to treat chickens with birth defects. What really comes through is the intense, joyful energy Donnie brings to everything that he does. It's a bit of a long episode because every time I thought about cutting something, that conversation would quickly veer into a delightful or fascinating area.   I think many of the things Donnie said wi

2-Minute Tip: Practice in a Mirror   The key to success on stage is to practice as much as you can. Prep by using a mirror to give yourself an audience to impress. And often the person in the mirror is the toughest to impress.   Practice with your notes at first, and get good enough so you don't need them. Once you don't need your notes, that means you're protected against something going wrong. When it's time to actually present, though, have your notes available to give yourself that extra little bit of confidence     Post Tip discussion: Meet Andrew "Mecha" Davis   Andrew "Mecha" Davis is a regular at anime cons around the country. He initially fell in love with the genre well before he was 10 years old and it stuck with him into adulthood. He's turned his passion for these multi-faceted Japanese cartoons into a series of presentations at fan conventions, a YouTube Channel, a podcast, a website, and the PopAnimeComics brand. Along the way he added interests in wrestling, comic book investing, Cos-players,

2-Minute Tip: Thank your Hosts   Putting together an event is a lot of work. Sometimes even putting together a short internal company meeting is a lot of work. Coordinating peoples' schedules and even finding an available conference room is way more complicated than it ought to be. So thank your host for inviting you. They took care of logistics and are giving you the audience's most valuable assets -- its time and attention.   So thank the host after the event. Send them a note letting them know you appreciate the work they've done. It may even make it more likely you'll be invited back. Everyone likes to be appreciated.   Post Tip Discussion: Tips for Speakers During the Holidays   It's the Holiday season in the US. We start with Thanksgiving on November 22 and goes through New Years Day on January 1. In the tech industry some folks would say it goes through January 11, 2019, when CES ends.   That means folks may be distracted either because they are so excited. Folks may be recharging with family and frien

2-Minute Tip: Choose Your Headline   As you frame your talk, make sure you choose the headline for it.  Flip through a newspaper or magazine and look at the headlines. Their job is to give you a little bit of information in a way that is compelling enough that you want to read more. They have to be short. They can be funny, But when you define the headlines for your talk, you also need it to get people to come see you and give you their time.   Think about your headline as the kind of thing that might be the subject line of an email or go on a poster advertising your talk. If you already know your goal for the talk and what you want people to take away from your talk, you should be able to develop the headline easily. If you can't, then maybe your talk isn't quite ready yet and you need to review your goals again.   Post Tip Discussion: Meet Scott Charlston   I first met Scott through a professional job hunting workshop where we are both looking for our next adventures. If you're looking for a great PR or med

2-Minute Tip: Incorporate, Don't Emulate   A movie that's inspired by a true story takes elements of that story and creates its own thing from it to move the audience. It doesn't attempt to duplicate the original story itself because that would be a documentary and not a theatrical tale. Both the original story and the entertaining film can be excellent things, but they are different things.   When we try to be more effective speakers, one thing we do is watch excellent speakers. That's a good thing. Watch as many excellent speakers as you can. Just don't try to be them.   They got where they are with their own unique combination of practice, training, and life experience.   You got where you are with your own unique combination of practice, training, and life experience.    Watch those excellent speakers and think about what they do well and why. What specific behaviors or techniques to they use to get their message across. Is that a technique you can use in your talks? Give it a try.   Here you are trying t

  2-Minute Tip: Take a Beat   Have you ever noticed that a speaker will step up to their speaking spot (fancy technical term there), look down, then up, scan the room silently, and then start speaking? They're taking a moment to prep themselves for the talk they are about to deliver. While that whole ritual may be a little much, there is value in taking a moment to take a breath and plant your feet before speaking.   It gives you the opportunity to shift from prep mode into speaking mode. When you are prepping for a talk, you are reviewing what you want to say, making last minute adjustments based on the audience, double-checking your gear, reviewing site lines, going through sound check, turning off your phone, emptying your pockets and more. When it's time to speak, prep time is over. You have to put aside all the to do items of prep and now let their value come through. It's time to focus on delivering your message.   Taking a moment at the very start to clear your head and change your thinking allows you

2-Minute Tip: Control the Lights   An important part of room setup is the lighting. You want folks to see you and any visual aids you are using without straining them selves so lighting matters. What does good lighting look like? Well, it depends.    If you are using a data projector, you likely need to minimize sunlight and dim the lights near the screen while keeping the rest of the room well lit.   In an auditorium, you may get better results dimming the lights above the audience to focus on the stage.   If you ask your audience to do something during your presentation, you may need to bring the lights up for that activity and dim them again when it's time for you to be the focus again.   While the details will vary, the important thing is for you to make deliberate decisions about the lights during your talk to make sure they support your goals.     Post Tip Discussion: 9 Ways to Get more Speaking Time   The best way to become a better speaker is to speak more. But you don't have to just wait for opportun

2-Minute Tip: Note Something interesting Everyday    It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking we are not creative. Or that we have nothing to say beyond the basics of our message. Or that writer's block is impenetrable. Or that we are just going to bore our audience.   That can happen because we take our own experiences for granted. We think our lives are just boring or normal. The reality is we all have a unique assortment of experiences -- some big and some small. We just forget about them or write them off as they pass, and then we forget about them when they could be helpful to us as speakers.   Back in Episode 024, I challenged you to take 5 pictures a day to flesh out your personal library of photos to use in future presentations.   This week, I say write down something interesting that you saw, did, or learned. It doesn't have to be a big deal or something anyone else would care about. Just do it daily. at the end of a year, you'll have hundreds of theses observations and tidbits that you can incor

2-Minute Tip: Act as If   When you are nervous, or think you don't see,m confident, don't tell yourself not to be nervous or just be more confident. That rarely works; it usually just makes things worse. Instead, think about other speakers you know who don't appear nervous (they might actually be). How do the act? Can you adopt some of those behaviors? Try to act like you're not nervous. The more you act like you're comfortable, the more likely you'll feel comfortable.    The brain wants consistency. If your physical mannerisms say you're not nervous, your mind will make you feel less nervous. Act as if you're not nervous to in fact become less nervous.   Post Tip Discussion   Often in my life life, I've felt like a fraud. Like I was about to be found out or caught. That I had no business teaching people or speaking to an audience or managing a million-dollar-plus budget for an organization. But you know what? That was just my own brain messing with me. I learned to accept that. The doubt was always going to

2-Minute Tip: Be Alive   When giving a talk, focus less on scripted words, especially those scripted by someone else. Speak instead from you mind, from your heart, and from your soul. When you do that you can fully engage the ethos, pathos, and logos you need to make a compelling argument.   Post Tips Discussion: Meet Bilal Moin   Bilal Moin is a 16-year old student and entrepreneur from Mumbai. He is the founder and CEO of 2 companies, one called The MUNkey Business and another called Metamorphospace.   The Munkey Business is a partnership between avid Model UN competitors (MUN’ers), experienced delegates and aspiring students with one simple goal: making MUNs simpler for all. The organization offers one of India's most expansive Model United Nations training and support program for aspiring delegates by providing online training sessions, research documents and oratory training. The MUNkey Business also pioneered conference promotion packages in India, providing advertisements services to reputed conferenc

  2-Minute Tip: Thread a story through your talk   Figure out how to tell a story in your talk. Story telling is a powerful tool and is a great way to engage your audience from the moment you step in front of the crowd. Don't stop at opening with the story, though. Weave that same story through your talk and keep coming back to it, either to reference it or to advance it. It provides a simple, entertaining way for your audience to remain engaged while you speak and to better understand the context of the various points in your talk.   Post Tip Discussion: Meet Diana Wink   Diana is an author and a coach who writes dystopian novels set in Scotland from her base in Germany while helping folks around the world learn the crafts of story telling and creativity. She studied film making in school, but ultimately made her initial career in writing due to the economics of the fields. Ultimately those 2 media are just different takes on her core passion -- story telling.    There are  lots of compelling lessons in this