Remarkable People Behind the Podcast HOW TO WRITE A SPEECH

Foreign.

Hello? Hello. It's a guy kawasaki. I am in santa cruz, california. The rest of the Remarkable people on the Remarkable People staff, which is Peg and Jeff. So it's all three. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. The whole team is here. Mo, Larry and Curly.

That's right.

This week's guest was. Or is. Is. What speech has had the most impact on you? Send that comment. Send the comment. What speech has had the most comment on for you, on you and where you are located? Because we like to know where we're talking to. So, you know, half of you are in India. I know that. So. So, pig, what have you got to say about this week's episode?

Ah, so interesting. You know, honestly, I can't imagine being a writer and having a president, like, standing next to you while you're writing, trying to get the ideas out there. So the. The amount of pressure, I think that any White House position has. Of course, the president has so much pressure, but I think it's amazing the work that people do when they're there. So I have a lot of respect for what Cody did, because that would take steely personality, I think.

And the. The funny thing that was brought out in this episode on that subject was that Barack said, yeah, I'm a good speechwriter. Like, you know, I'm good. It wasn't like, you know, he needed him to help. He was like, I almost like, I really don't need you, but you're here. I mean, you know what I mean? It was like he would tell them.

Yeah, I wrote this one by myself, you guys. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a lot. I mean.

Yeah, you know, and I love the part, although.

Right. But also they worked on them for so long too. Like, the whole process was so interesting. So maybe he rehearsed for an hour, but they were writing it, the team was writing it. He was revising it for so long.

Yeah.

So I think it sounds like.

Sounds like there's literally thousands of person hours in A1.

Can you imagine if you had a team of people writing your stuff? And can I write your next speech? That would be great.

Sure. You know, I only need 10 points, right?

Hey, I have made your presentations before and those were pretty good, by the way. Back in the days when canva, you had to do it the hard way.

Yeah. You mean PowerPoint? You know.

No, I mean when I had to design all the elements separately and then download them and then upload them. Because I insisted I was going to do it that way. So I did.

You know, I have quit PowerPoint cold turkey. I only use Canva for presentations now.

Canva is amazing for presentations. It really is. I mean, and going from a blank screen, which is where I used to create presentations from to now, you can go in and there's like templates in there that you can use or just. And the download. If you guys haven't tried Canva for presentations, you can download it right into the PowerPoint format. And it's not a static slide, which is what you used to be. The hard part for me, because I would have to change each element. Remember that, Guy? I would be like, making the dots, and you'd be like, nope, I need a different one. And I would have to design the whole thing again and download it. But now when you download the presentation, it actually gives. Puts all the individual elements into PowerPoint or Keynote. So you can move them around, which is amazing.

Also, you can download. You can do picture in picture. So you could have your presentation as the background and. And you could be your face download that. So now when you send people your presentation, you can actually be giving the presentation. You're not just depending on them clicking through slides.

And if you want an example, you can go check out Guy's YouTube channel.

There's a typo in that one. Shit, there's a typo in that. God, I don't know how I didn't see that typo. That really pissed me off.

You got to give that up. You have to give it up. Okay, this is what guys working on this week. If you have a mistake, you have to let it go and you have to move on as a content creator. And Rich Benoit, who was a previous guest, said he's like, I don't care, man. I just move on. So that's Guy's new mentality, and he's having a hard time.

Okay, so here, I want to know what. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.

Okay, quick one. So, okay, now here's another question for the audience in the comments. I shot a video that's about three minutes long explaining the 10 slides you need in a presentation. And one of the slides has a typo in it at the headline level. Okay. It has two eyes instead of one eye, in a word. So here's the question. Should I go and reshoot that video or do the PEG method and just keep looking forward and forget it? It's, you know, just don't even bother. So fix it or not.

And the number one way to get engagement on any post is to have a typo in it. So, yeah, that way you can say it was strategic because everybody goes and.

Has to comment on it. Yeah, exactly.

When you guys find the typo, leave a comment on the video and say, oh, I found it. Or if you didn't even see it, just say, I didn't even notice because you were listening to Guy.

It's the Where's Waldo typo is what we're going to do.

Yeah, where's. Where's the typo?

So I wanted to know this question. Guy is like, from the icebreaker, from, from your point of view, what is, like, your speech that has made an impact on you? Because I know you speak all the time, but when you look at other speakers, is there one that you went, this guy is really good. I really like it.

Well, okay, this is. I'm going to regret telling you the truth here, but. Well, okay, if the. If the question is which speech had the most impact on me, probably it was Steve Jobs announcing the Macintosh in 1984. But I will tell you that as a speaker, and I used to speak pre pandemic 50 to 75 times all over the world for, you know, huge audiences, I will tell you that I almost never, ever watch another keynote speaker, because I figured out if I watch another keynote speaker and the speaker sucks, then I wasted my time. And if I watch another keynote speaker and the speaker is great, that is better than me, then I'll be depressed. So there's no upside in me watching any other keynote speaker, which makes sense.

I will say Ariana Huffington, though. I think you have seen part of hers before. You've done Fireside Chats with her before. Ariana is very inspirational. And I love. I mean, she's just. She is truly a. An amazing woman. And she's done so much in her life. So her speeches. And she's so, like, uplifting and positive. And so she is. And she's so funny. So she is someone who. She does a great speech. And Brene Brown, I saw Brene Brown at Inbound, and she was amazing. I wish we could get her on the podcast. She. She's really also good, and she's not comfortable speaking, but now she's amazing at it because she started out with her TED Talk and she did it thinking, no one's ever going to watch it. She was like, no one will ever see my TED Talk. It's not a big deal. And then, you know, millions of people have seen it. So she's adjusted her scientific research background into, you know, writing. And then speaking kind of goes with writing these days. So Brene is very good. She's really interesting.

So David says, I loved Admiral McRaven's UT graduation make your bed speech. So that's a good point. So I know you do research for people that you have on the show, Guy. Like their TED Talks, if they've done one. Do you watch TED Talks just for your. Other than doing. For the. For the podcast. You just watch them just for fun or do you. Is it always for research?

Everything is. I'm like, I have singular focus. So, you know, right now I'm preparing for interviewing John M. Chu, the director of Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights. So I watched his TED Talk. So only time I watch TED Talks is when I'm reviewing a potential guest.

Gotcha.

I have to say his TED Talk is the only one I've ever watched. I literally got teary in his TED Talk when he was talk talking about his family. It was just. And what pride means to him. It was very touching. TED Talk. Did you feel that? Did you think it was? I mean, not that you cried, but did you feel the emotion of it though?

Yeah, yeah. Plus I ate at his father's restaurant a lot.

Very cool. So that's cool.

Maybe he.

Maybe he bust my tables.

Oh, wow.

Maybe I'm gonna ask him.

He's probably got home video of you.

Eating the chicken salad at Chef choose was amazing.

That's funny.

Probably still is because he's still there.

Yeah.

So, by the way, we need to take this time to thank our sponsor, Restream, because that's the way we're able to go live everywhere, bring everybody's comments in. You can, you know, like we. We can tell where they're coming from. We have a lot of LinkedIn people, we have YouTube. We can go to all these different places and bring them in and talk with you. So you can. If you want to find out more, the link is in all the descriptions. I believe that you guys can go check out Restream. So do not forget.

And a new thing this week is that we are streaming to some of some of my social channels and Jeff's. So if you are on. Yeah, that's a new Restream feature is that you can stream to the guests channels as well. So if you are coming from my channels, please say hi in the comments and say I came because I saw Peg's post or Jeff's post. So say hi to us because that is a brand new feature with Restream that not only streaming to the host, which is Guy, but also your guests. So Imagine that is guy's huge social channels plus mine and Jeff's which, I mean, come on. It's not like it's as many, but it still is exponential people when you're adding more. I have some people it people.

I, I, I hope people truly appreciate how powerful that is because I mean if you had a really famous guest who had 25 million. Yeah, yeah. If you had somebody with 25 million YouTube. Yeah. You know, followers and you're live on your YouTube channel and their YouTube channel. Holy cow. That is a big freaking deal. So, so. And is, is, is. I, I think restream is the only way you can do. You can be on your guest channel too, not just your own.

Right. I think it's the. I don't know of any other one that does a feature like that. So yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing. And among us being able to share people's audiences is huge for growing a live show anything on social but being able to. It's just amazing. So we also.

If you're a twitcher or a YouTuber.

Yeah.

You know, if you're though if you're doing games and you can any channels that you're doing, it's amazing to do that. Imagine if it was Google. That would be like amazing.

And also.

What's Google?

Oh my gosh. I read a book about it once. Yeah, I read a book about it.

What the.

Plus and don't forget about the guys. Ohana too that you guys get reminders about the show. That's one of the things that we found that Peg and I have talked about a lot is that, you know, getting through these algorithms and being able to be reminded about shows. So if you want to know about this show where we talk about behind the podcast, make sure you text guy here. And it's, it's a pretty cool little service.

Yeah. Did you come here from a text? Did you come here from a text? Also say that in the comments. Let us know. Yes, I'm a text friend because that's awesome.

Yeah. We have more questions. So let's, let's see what makes a good speaker? Guy, what do you think makes a good speaker?

I think by definition a good speaker is a good storyteller. If you're a good storyteller, that's 90% of the battle.

Mm. That is true.

So what do you guys think in the comments? What makes a good speaker? You know, is it, you know, you think of the TED talks. What are they? 15 minutes a that how the length.

Of the 12 minutes.

12 minutes. 18, 18, 12.

He must have gone fast. So here's the interesting thing about that comment though, Guy after. So for a little background story, way back in the day, Guy and I did a tour of South America working with Motorola and Guy did speeches all over. So I got to see Guy present like a lot of times in one month. So I got to hear. And I already. No, it was as a. As a speaker. It helped me a lot. And one of the things that I re. I noticed is your stories, because you are a really great storyteller. Like, in conversations, your stories are always funny and they're really good. And when I talked to you about it after, it was one of the things when we were flying home and I said that you didn't feel like you were a good storyteller, but you are a great storyteller.

Well, thank you.

But do you feel like you are now, though? Like, I'm just asking, like, because at the time, like, you felt like you were like. I don't know. But I mean, that's what people love is your stories.

Well, I've gotten over that.

So now you feel like you can tell a story?

Well, let's just say that imposter syndrome is not one of my problems.

It wasn't that. It was. I don't know, I had some. Something that I was thinking I was going to write about you being a storyteller. And I actually just found it in a journal, which is weird. I was taking. It's in my Motorola Journal, which is in the other room.

You know. You know, my. My best memories. This is the Pagan Guy South America tour. We must have gone to every purse store in South America. Seriously. We went to a lot of bag stores.

Guy needed a new purse. Is that what it was?

Well, that's. Got some new purses.

Yeah, we would. It would be like, you know, some people buy. I don't know. I don't know what they buy. We bought purses. We bought purses in every country in South America.

Yeah. And some of. One airport. One airport had great purses, so. Except for. Except for Mexico. I got a shawl that's a silk woven shawl with butterflies on it. And Jean Goodall has the same one. No, she wears it also. It was really. It was. For me, it was a big splurge because it was. It's like. It's velvet on the inside and silk. But I figured that's like a once in a lifetime purchase.

That was the first guest. Jane Goodall was right. When she. The First. And she's the only one who's been asked, well, no. Bob Cialdini, who's been twice, too. So we asked this question, what makes a good speaker? And we have some people who have answered. And Catalina says, knowing your audience empathy, which I think that's true. And someone else says, someone who keeps the audience interested. A good speaker connects with the audience. But this was a good question from Moeth. He goes, do you still feel crowd anxiety, Guy? Do you get nervous anymore before you speak?

Well, I do use the bathroom right before I go on stage every time. But am I nervous in the sense that I'm throwing up and I'm, you know, peeing in my pants? No, I don't get me wrong. It's not anybody, any speaker who tells you that they're not nervous or they're not a little anxious and they're worried about how it's going to come out and tells you that's not true of them. They're freaking liar. They're either a liar or delusional, Right? So it's just. It comes with the territory. I mean, I'm sure that, you know, before Tom Brady goes out, right, Takes the first snap from the center, he's nervous. I mean, that's just a lot of pressure on you.

There's a lot of things that you don't realize is when you want to be a speaker, though, like, there can always be tech problems, right? So you always have to have your own stuff. Because I have fixed my own tech. 50% of the time, even though there's professionals there, like, something's wrong with the presentation. The fonts don't load in because they want to move it on a different computer or just there's so many things that you can't ever just go somewhere. Plus, you're rolling up, like what guy does when he travels all around the world. You're literally getting off plane, going somewhere. You don't know anyone at all. You've probably emailed them. You roll up to this location, there's all these people you don't know that are there. But the biggest thing that I've always found as a speaker is that everyone there wants you to succeed and wants you to. To be interesting. So you have to, like, take that pressure off yourself and say, okay, just take a breath. You know, you're here. You don't know these people. But then you have the other scary factor where, you know, people are, like, taking video and taking photos, and you have to, like, turn that piece off, too, because it's weird to think about.

All those things when we were interviewing Cody. I completely agree, Peg, that when you are speaker, everybody wants you to succeed except in politics. Right? So.

Right.

You know. Right. So, you know, when you're. When you're making a State of the union, 50, one of those senators want you to screw up. They want you to fail. They want you to say something stupid. Right. They want you to fail.

And.

I mean, you know, some of those videos where you see what's the guy. What's the former speaker of the House from Minnesota or Wisconsin. That's. I mean, that's.

How long ago are you talking about?

You know, before. Before Tipper. No, no, no, no, no. Recent. Anyway, so, you know, can you imagine? I think that's one of the hard jobs of a politician, is the opposite party's president is giving the State of Union. And you're sitting there and you gotta act like. Well, you don't want to act happy because it's the enemy. And you don't want to act disinterested because CNN will say, look at him, he's picking his nose right now.

He's texting.

His hair coloring is starting to drip down his. His.

Yeah, well, there's that.

I love the meme of Hillary, though, when she's, like, looking at her phone and she's all like, that one was funny.

So.

Yeah, go ahead.

I was gonna say we got some more comments I want to bring up. Elise Emeritus says a good speaker thinks about the audience instead of themselves as a bonus. That helps with nerves. Yeah, that's a great point. We have another question, though, is this is a good one. How long should speeches be? Like, in today's day and age, is it going to change after Covid?

Yeah, I think a virtual speech limit is 25 minutes.

Mine are always as long as they tell me to make them. They say the hour ones are harder, though. Like when you have. And you have to. I've done it. The last one I did was an hour and it was pretty good when I had. I had like 60 slides because I.

Had like, oh, my God.

And it was good. People loved it.

This is the 60, 60, 30 rule of pig, not the 10, 20, 30 rule of guy.

Well, you tell stories that I did learn how to do that from you, though. I did learn how to do just one idea and then you say all the stuff and nothing is on there. But if you're teaching technical. Mine, mine was about Instagram, so I had to show examples and stuff. So that's a little.

So you had you had real content?

I had some content. It wasn't just stories, but I also told stories.

So Elisa said she remembers. She goes, oh, my word, Peg, I remember the time your slides didn't work at all and you hardly missed a beat. That was. I remember I was in the audience in that one, too. You just went, all right, this is what is going to happen.

90 minutes. I did a 90 minute workshop with zero slides.

Is this social media marketing world?

Yeah.

South, Southwest. Where was it?

No, it was social media marketing world. Yeah. I did a whole. It was an hour.

It was a workshop. Yeah. That's crazy.

It was still good.

So Carol goes, what was your biggest aha moment as a speaker? Like, was there something that you went, oh, I need to start doing that now, or, oh, you know, I went too long. Was there any for you, guy? When was the. Your. Is there an aha moment you had?

Well, I don't know. This qualifies. But once I was speaking in Kansas City, and right before I went on, I got a migraine headache. And this migraine headache, this was not just, you know, the oral visual stuff. This was, you know, head splitting, pounding a nail in your head, migraine. And so I couldn't even stand up. So I got a chair and I gave the speech. And I learned that even with a migraine, the show must go on. That was an aha moment for me.

It's true. Because you. You're paid and you're there. You got to do it. The show must go on, as we say in theater. And it's true. My favorite speaker moment was I did a conference called Bark World, and it was dogs. It was all dogs and owners, people who want to be pet influencers. And I had a goal. I had dogs in the audience that were listening. And I was like, wow, even dogs are listening. It was so cute. There was like a gold retriever. It was just sitting there, and it was like learning how to use Instagram. It was amazing.

Wow.

It's true.

That's funny.

It is funny.

So what do you. This is a great one from Catalina says this. What do you do when you actually feel like you're losing your audience? That's a great.

I never. I never lose my audience.

Well, for us mere mortals. Peg, what do you do?

I can't relate to that question.

I have had. I have had times when, you know where it happens at conferences when they book things too close together and you see people looking at the time to get up and leave. It's really hard. And you're like, maybe they're really interested in what you're saying. I try not to take that personally because they know that they paid a lot to be so they paid a lot to be there and they're trying to rush to the next thing. So I try to like, not take it personally and I thought of a better answer. It is hard. Okay, okay.

So the question is, what do you do when you feel like you're losing the audience? My new answer is I tell them I have a migraine. How's that?

Okay. Then they'll be like, me too, I gotta go.

What the hardship?

I mean, we've all had that happen though, where your book conference is really booked. Maybe you haven't Guy because you're keynote, but even at the big ones, sometimes people are getting up to run out.

When I gotta tell you, if, if you are, if you have any say in the decision about the logistics of a speech, the worst thing in the world is to have a room that's, you know, 50, 60, 70% empty. So, you know, I would rather have 3,000 people in a 2500 seat auditorium than 5,000 people in a 10,000 room.

Seat all the time.

Right.

It's the percentage. You want the room to be crowded. You don't care what the room size is. You just. The percentage is what matters. Because I got to tell you, as a speaker, when I look out and freaking, half the seats are empty. That definitely affects me mentally, even if it has, you know, even if there's 3,000 people. But if there's 4,000 empty seats, it's just. It just. It's hard down. Yeah.

So I have another great example for this. The way before we move on. Jeff. One time when Guy were and I were at south by Southwest speaking, a fire alarm went off in the middle of our presentation. And so what it was like, should we leave or should we not leave? And the their audience, we had a huge pack. I mean, it was packed and people were like, we're not leaving, we're staying. So we kept going. And some people did leave, but we kept going anyway. And it was fine. But people were like, we don't want to lose our seats. What will happen? Because you do get FOMO with those kind of events. So when. When there's a fire alarm, maybe it's not the best advice, but we kept going.

Yeah, that's probably safety first right there.

Yeah.

So this is a great one from Connie. She goes speaking right before lunch. Oh, my. So that is true. Like keynotes, you don't usually have to deal with that. But that or even right. The first session after lunch when everyone's.

Sleeping, two o' clock in the afternoon after lunch has hit in and people have been running around all day is like the dead zone.

What's even worse than that, I think is, and I had to do this a couple times, social media marketing world is be the last session before the keynote because everybody gets up and wants to get a good seat for Guy speaking. And you're like. And the door goes bang bang right when they're leaving. That's not good.

I would say even worse is the last speech of the last day. Oh yeah, because you know, half the audience. Yeah. People are wondering, oh man, am I going to make my flight? And you know, all this kind of stuff. And I, I, I tried to implement a policy where you have to pay me more to be the last speaker on the last day. Because a lot of events are trying to say, okay, Guy, we want to save you for the end. So people stay and we end on an up note. But oh my God, last speaker. Last day is the toughest slot. Easiest slot is opening speaker, opening day. Because everybody's all hyped, right. And they're not hungover yet.

So yeah, that's what I was going to say too. Hungover day two and day three. Some people look at conferences like, as they're at the pool drinking all day. Like, I've seen that. I don't know who those people are. I don't know who's paying for their conferences, but I go to as many sessions as I can. Even as a speaker. I'll go. But yeah, it's, there's a lot of tough spots.

We've got a lot of great questions from the audience. I want to make sure we try to get some of these.

Do you see how much better this is with three of us?

Okay. How does a typical 30 minutes before a pitch or a speech look like? What does that look like for you, Guy? Are you like, do you listen to rap music and like, are you like, you know, kind of doing some airboxing? What is, what does it look like right before a speech for you?

I'm checking email and using the bathroom sometimes at the same time.

What about you, Peg?

Way too much information now. I hope I never get email before you have a speech.

I'll take a selfie.

No, thanks. I'm usually, if it's a, usually getting the tech set up, there's always that tech, you know, making sure. And then as a female speaker, you always have that awkward time when they're trying to put a microphone up your breast, which is. I'm dating several sound people around the country. Am I dating now or is. Do I get dinner?

Easy there.

I'm never gonna wash that microphone.

You should see, it's not very comfortable. I mean, you know, it's weird. It's a very weird part of being a speaker that guys don't have to deal with, so.

But I noticed something Peg did and I started copying for all my. My talks is I go before the presentation starts. I got already mic'd up and everything. And you're usually just sitting around waiting. Is. I go and talk to the audience. Like, I'll go for every single section. I learned that from Guy and one. It makes me feel comfortable. And then it also makes them. Those are people I can look at during the. Because they're usually smiling because they feel like there's a connection and there is a kid. So.

Yeah, I have said what you just said word for word to people. I think that is great advice. And you know, the people who take themselves way too seriously as speakers, and these are the ones who have a personal assistant and their personal assistant has a personal assistant and their security. And there's a PR person and there's a PR person for the PR person. So they travel with this entourage. And there are some people speaking agreements that says that, you know, you cannot make eye contact with the speaker and you cannot speak to the speaker. Like, what kind of bullshit is that? Literally. Literally, the contract says you are not to talk to, you know, whoever. And. Yeah, and I am this such a dumbass bullshit thing.

It is.

Yeah.

But going back all the way full circle to the podcast episode that dropped today is he was. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff in that episode. Like, you could tell that he loathed writing the State of the Union because of all the work that he had to do and locked at the different versions and stuff. But he was. He is a very cool, laid back. It seemed like in the interview, it was just really, really cool. So it was a good. It was a good interview. And there's a lot of insights for speakers in this episode as well.

Well, I mean, if you're gonna listen to somebody about speaking and speechwriting, Barack Obama speechwriter would be a good place.

Right?

I mean, you know, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be trying to figure out who Donald Trump's speechwriter is.

I loved that. I loved when Cody talked about how President Obama, when he was at the Beginning of his politics took. He got, he worked with someone on giving speeches. Yeah, yeah, that's something that you wouldn't necessarily think of. But he's so smart. He's very strategic because, you know, you gotta be good at it.

So, so Daniel, I mean Daniel asked this question guy, he goes, how long do you typically prepare for a speech?

Well, I hate this question. Okay, so if you, the honest answer, if for a particular speech, 15 minutes. But, but, yeah, but wait, but wait, there's more. But the, the true answer, which is what he's getting at, is more like 30 years. So because I've been doing this for 30 years and I really know my subjects, I can do it in 15 minutes. So it's 15 minutes and 30 years. And I'm also, you know, I'm only, I'm only, I'm only giving one of four or five speeches.

Right. That's what I was going to say. Like you, you have a certain group that you do, and then you customize them. So you might be giving the Art of Innovation, but then you're going to be talking in North Carolina. So you always add some North Carolina.

Things and not unless they anymore change their bathroom policy.

Okay, well, New York, you're going to New York and just saying like you have, you customize them. But there's the initial work. I, I think people underestimate how long it takes. Like when someone hires you to do a 30 minute or 45 minute speech. There's a lot that goes into that, especially if it's when there's travel. So you're traveling. So that's two days of travel time. You have to get there the night before you're there the day of, and then getting everything ready, getting the tech ready, checking everything. For me, it takes a lot longer to make them.

But plus it is literally the 30 years. I mean, this is like saying to, you know, an ophthalmologist, well, you know, why is it so expensive to get Lasik? It only took 15 minutes. Okay, so, you know, go get some asshole on the street to cut open your eye. I mean, you know.

Yeah, so at least it says that she goes, I learned that from Jeff, who learned it from Peg, who learned it from Guy. So this is about talking to friends. The thing that I, you know, talking about how long it takes to put something together is that like, because a lot of times when you're not doing a keynote, when you're doing, you have specific topics you're talking about. And so like one of the good things is the Collaboration. Like, I will send my slides to Peg. Peg will send her slides to me. We'll look over them and she'll go like, cut that out because that doesn't make any sense. Or that looks horrible. Or I'll say, hey, add this joke that was really funny over there. And so having those. Yes, you do. When you have the, the, the group that you can bounce stuff off of, it makes a big difference, I think, in your speech.

Yep.

I know you guys are going to find this hard to believe, but I have to leave to give a speech. I'm giving a speech in 20 minutes for rack Space.

Okay. Yeah.

So, yep. Thank you very much for. You guys can continue on. So remember this.

We can wrap the questions up. We'll wrap. We'll wrap the other questions from the audience up.

Okay. So Cody Keenan, speechwriter for Barack Obama. And this live session is sponsored by Restream, which now you can access your guests followers, which is totally wonderful. Yes. And so I must bid you a fond farewell because I'm going to give a keynote speech for Rack space right now. So take care, everybody. Bye now.

I don't have any more questions. Jeff, are we done with that?

We pretty much. I mean, let me, let me pull them up here. Let's see here. I guess we're still. Let me see if I can. I can hang up right here. Let me see what happens. Okay, let's go to this. And then I will come and I will be added to. Nope, that didn't work.

So this is. There's a good question here. Ebenezer said, how do you deliver your speech when earlier speakers seem to have partly taken the wind out of your sail? So that's an interesting one. When you are speaking at a conference. I've also had somebody say, contradicting information from what you're saying.

I remember when you.

Sorry, if you could say here's after. So if you give a speech and the earlier speakers kind of took the wind out of it, it. If you know that and you saw theirs, maybe you can adjust yours. Or sometimes I'll just refer to it and I'll say maybe you saw so and so speak earlier. And he mentioned blah, blah. And I just want to reinforce that. I also. So just kind of like acknowledge the other expert and keep going. So you don't have to be the only expert in the room. I think people who try to be the only expert set their themselves up for failure.

So I remember one time when you were speaking and you know, you do Q and A at the end A lot of times and somebody got up and remember it was. And they almost went to pick a fight with you and you were just like, I'm not gonna answer this right now. We can talk about it in the howl but you need to be ready for. I remember that.

I know, I'm trying to think. It was a Pinterest thing, I think.

Yep. But then they were trying to get up and like it was very antagonistic and you know, they were trying to pitching and she pitched.

Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was something. And I can't remember something I really disagreed with. And I was like, nope, nope, nope. Okay, well I'll talk to you after. But yeah, sometimes you do get those people. I mean that's the thing is about social media or innovation or technology is everybody has an opinion. So, you know, so I agree with you.

Let me run through the other questions. Oh, I gotta take this off here. When he disappears, it throws everything off. So he asked how long should speeches be? The other one was. We talked about this a little bit. How should you use slides and presentation? I am not as anti slides as guy. I use mine to tell stories and have funny things that hit the audience. But I think the point of not relying on your slides is a big deal because you had them not work but you're still able to go forward with it.

But I really did need them for that. It depends on if you're doing a TED kind of talk. If you're doing like a inspirational thing, you know, and you can just have up a few slides and then do all the talking. You never want to read off of your slides, but sometimes you need examples. So depends on what you're doing. If you're really, you know, teaching something and you need examples and people want to see examples, then that's different. But if you're just doing storytelling, it's actually really great just to like have a slide come up. The bark world one, for example. I think I mostly just had like a. A photo up and then I just talked about the thing. And then when you have just a few slides, it just keeps your stories on track. If they're little place markers for your stories.

So Valerie asked this question, will this be recording stay on or as a link on LinkedIn? Yes, it will still it stays on all the social channels and we are using Restream to go out everywhere to YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. What else did I miss? Is that it? Okay, yeah. So those. That was that question. Do we. So how long should your slides. And then this One was, what do you do with your hands while you're talking? I really want to know what. What Guy was gonna say about this.

One, but he talks with his hands a ton, so he probably doesn't pay attention to it. And he'll also lean on the podium, and he does all kinds of stuff. He's very. He's very animated. And I know that because I'm always trying to, like, take a picture or it's better to make a gif of him because he's always moving and stuff. I use my hands a lot. And Jeff likes to take my photos later and make, like, sparks coming out or spells or things, because I'm always like. And, yeah, blah, blah, blah. So in case you guys didn't know, Jeff and I are both theater people, so. Yeah.

So this is a great question from Daniel. In your earlier days of speaking, how did you manage the rush of emotions that blocks your thoughts? I don't think Guy ever had that, but he did. Did he. Did he have, like.

Yeah, he had to learn how to be a speaker.

Right, Everybody.

In the beginning. Yeah, in the beginning, you know, and then he. And he wanted to. You know, everybody was watching Steve Jobs, who was like, the greatest, you know, product launcher of all time. So there was a lot of pressure. So Guy did have that in the beginning, but he worked. He worked on it. He's been giving speeches for so many years now.

Right.

That he worked through it.

And I think it's what you have to learn to do, because I. And like I said, anybody who tells you they don't get nervous before, even for these live shows, we get nervous before we go on, but it's being able to channel that pressure into performing. And it's just like.

And preparing. Yeah, honestly, it's preparing to, like, really knowing your content. Like these people who show up to a conference and did their slides the night before and are still working on it right before. I'm sorry, but there's no way that their presentation is going to be as good as somebody who made theirs weeks ahead and has been rehearsing it. Maybe there's a super fresh on their mind and everybody works differently. I totally get that. But if something happens to your slides, how are you going to remember and do it? So I say at the beginning, when you're learning, just really prepare. Don't prepare so much that it's stale. Because I worry about that sometimes. Like, if I go over it too much, I get kind of bored with the content, if that makes sense. I feel like I'm on my, you know, 10th year of doing Cats on Broadway or something. I don't know. You don't want it to be stale, but you want to just make sure you really know it and you're comfortable.

Yeah. You don't want to be up there acting like you're reciting, you know, like the Gettysburg Address that you had to memorize when you were a kid or whatever you want to have, or reading.

You don't want to read off your slides. So if you're nervous, use that little speaker view and put notes that the audience can't see and practice using that version of Keynote or PowerPoint when you can have the slide, but you can have a little note on there. So if you're nervous, write it in there and then be really sneaky and write yourself little notes like, take a breath right now. Actually, taking a breath and drinking water are two really good things to do if you're feeling nervous. Did you ever do that, Jeff?

Yes.

Jeff was nervous to answer, so he coughed.

I coughed. So, no, I won't drink anything. I'll drink water stuff, but I won't drink anything until my thing is over. Like, even if somebody offers me wine or something before the show, I'm like, no, I don't. I just. That's a rule. I don't do it until after my point is done. The other thing that I do that's been super helpful is that I go and I record my talk audio. And I use an app called Overcast is how I listen to all my podcasts. I'm able to upload to Overcast, and then I'll listen to it over and over and over as I, like, I go to the. On the plane or whatever like that. So I'll listen to it in that way. So that helps me get comfortable with the speech, how I want to tell a story, that kind of stuff. So that's how I use it to prepare.

Yeah, it's good to. It's good to. And then you can time it out, too, depending on where you are. I don't know who just put that.

Long thing in there, but, yeah, it is really long. I don't know what it is, but.

Somebody says, deleted for that, buddy.

So Carol says, it's not a speech, it's a story. I love the way. I love that. That's very, very true. So, yeah, at least it says she doesn't have any caffeine, so I think we'll see. That was. We'll do with your hands.

Some people hype it up with caffeine. And that's.

I don't get jittery.

I don't do that either.

Yeah.

And the last question is how important is entertainment speech. You said you don't ever have jokes, which I know is not true because you've had some good stories and there that you've told.

Yeah, but I make those up on the fly. Those are always like.

But it's still entertaining. It's still entertaining. So for you guys in the audience, how important is entertainment in a speech? Like not haha, stand up comedian, but do you want a, like do you want to have that peaks and valleys, which I think makes a good speech is not just flat the entire time, not just giving information the, the entire time, but like some of our comments before is like, you know, it's a story, it's storytelling. How important is that?

So entertainment's so important. It needs to be educational, it needs to be funny, endearing and you need to show your personality. There's a lot that needs to go into it. So I think entertainment is very important. You can even look at different SNL openers. Like some guests are so good and some people are so nervous that they. Yeah, I mean that's, that is a really hard gig to, to get up there you are on live TV on the. One of the most popular shows. So that, I mean that would be scary as heck. But I'm available, Lauren, if you need.

You can be on Schmigadoon. Carol says I presented as the, as the audience was drinking. I never knew I was funny until then. Yeah, you become a riot when everyone's drunk. Yeah, it's very funny.

That is funny.

So that's pretty much all our questions. Do not forget this week's episode that dropped this morning of the Remarkable People. The podcast@remarkablepeople.com it's Obama's speechwriter. It's amazing. Tons of behind the scenes stuff, how he writes, even like his tools that he uses. We didn't even get into like what he uses to compose his speeches on how he does it. They're not going to. Yeah, they have to listen to the podcast. So make sure you guys go do that, share that to a friend, somebody who is into speaking or into, you know, writing. This is a great episode to listen to. Do not forget this ohana guys. Ohana at one, which means family in Hawaiian. That's right. I watched Mona 831-609-9062. I know, that's why I said it. To see what you do.

I would correct you that's what I was. So hey, you guys, thanks so much for all your questions and comments. Super awesome. And let if you have more, we'll I'll check stuff out later. I'll put links. But you could check out the podcast@remarkable people.com and thank you, of course, to the sponsor, Restream, for letting you stream all over the place. It was pretty cool to to test it streaming in lots of places.

Yeah.

And with that, we'll see you guys next week. Bye, everybody.

By Sam.