WIN 51 - How to Be a Successful Speaker with Etiquette Expert Margaret Page

Welcome to win the Women Investing Network, the podcast where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, business leaders and real estate investors who are winning in business and life. Learning from others is the fastest way to grow your skills, gain knowledge and avoid pitfalls so you can win. Join our hosts, Elizabeth Embry and Jason Hartman. Elizabeth is a seasoned real estate investor, experienced corporate executive and skilled mentor. Jason is a self made multimillionaire investor, entrepreneur and highly acclaimed thought leader. Together with their successful guests, you'll get the tools you'll need to win.

Today. My guest is Margaret Page. She's an etiquette expert, coach, investor and she's also the Toastmaster International director of Toastmasters International. Margaret, welcome.

Delighted to be here. Elizabeth.

So when we spoke with you, this was now several months ago, we spoke about some tips and hints for when you're engaging with people, both on the phone and when you're in person and you're thinking about the lost art of etiquette. So I wanted to dig into. You left us with some gems when we last talked about, you talked about being fully present, having auto manners and also shining a light on others about what is right. And so I wanted to dig into those three topics. Maybe I got them not quite right. And then I also wanted to talk about doing presentations and some of the tips and hints that you might be able to share. Because I know when I do a presentation in front of people, I've got quite a bit of nerves and so maybe how can you help people be prepared when they're about to do a presentation?

Sure, I'm happy to talk on all those. Where did you want to start?

So let's go back to those top three tips that I'm sure that I mangled. Can we go into those a little bit?

You caught the essence. You did a great job.

Thank you.

So the first one was about being fully present. You know, in this day and age we have so many activities, we have community contributions, we have our investments, our career, our children, you know, in our education. Now we have to personal development in order to keep pace with what's happening in the world. We have so many things that are demanding of our time that sometimes when we have conversations, we're not right there because our mind is going in a lot of directions. The interesting thing is that our bodies of course can only be in one place at one time. But our minds can go into the past and race out into the future. The but we need to bring it where our body is. And so a good way to be fully present is to look at your feet or grab your hands, touch your hands. That's sort of that touchstone thing that can bring you into your body. So it's about doing something physical and bringing your awareness to that and then connecting with the individual that you're speaking to. And we spoke about, when last we chatted, we spoke about making eye contact. And one thing that does when you make eye contact, eye contact to the point that you understand what color eyes they have, not just blue, but what subtle essence of blue, it releases a hormone in the brain which is called phenylethylamine, which is used for what happens after childbirth and areas like that where we're bonding. So it's a bonding hormone. And that's a good place to be when you're building relationships with everyone. Because really in life there's two things that sort of the big umbrellas. It's about results and relationships or people and performance. And you can't have one part of the equation without the other. Well, rarely you can, but not as fulfilling. So it's really about those fulfilling relationships.

And that's really interesting. So what you're saying is when I'm really connecting with somebody, then my body is having a chemical reaction. Do connecting with that person?

Yes, it's excreting a hormone. And you know, you have to do it for a matter of seconds. It's really interesting. And you know yourself when you're talking to somebody. How many people do you go by in a day that are non persons? You didn't even know you passed them by in the street?

Tons.

Tons. Tons. And so it's about bringing your awareness back into your body. And so which sort of leads into auto manners, if we can go there for a moment, because I talk about automatic manners, that you know, the right thing to do at the right time so you don't have that little sweat going down the back of your neck. Oh, am I supposed to stand to shake hands? Am I supposed to, you know, what am I supposed to do? You don't have that anxiety. So you know all the rules of the road, of the boardroom, the dining room, the networking room, but that you do it with some awareness. So if I'm opening the door for someone, it's not that I'm just holding the door and that non person is going through. I'm holding the door and I'm actually looking them in the eye and smiling, making them feel like they are a person as opposed to a non being just going by another non being.

So, Margaret, these things seem like common Sense. Why do you think we've lost that connection? Why do you think that we've lost that ability to really see. See individuals particularly. I can tell from your accent you're Canadian. And here in the US we've just gotten to the point that we. We've lost a lot of civility, so to speak, and everybody seems to be that other, as opposed to my fellow human being. Why do you think that is?

Because of technology and where we are in the world. We have so many things to do. You know, decades ago I saw something recently. I don't know if it 100% true, but it said that in order to maintain, keep up to date on things, you need to spend 12 to 15 hours a week on personal development. Well, that wasn't the case decades ago. And now we have, you know, our communities are far more sophisticated than they were before and there's contribution that needs to be made. Governments used to be able to do things for us and create social change. They no longer have the ability to do that because the media are on them all the time. So they can't make any mistakes. They can't afford to. They can't try different things out. So it's left to communities and foundations and people that are socially aware to create those kind of changes. So all this adds up on time demands. Time demands. And then of course, there's TV and entertainment and we all have to exercise now and we all have to eat healthy and all these things are so much more time consuming. And so when you're focused on all these, we've lost that connection with the people around us because of the demands that we place on ourselves or society's expectation.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's funny because, you know, when I was thinking as I was listening to you talking about the fact that we have to make time for exercise, we have to make time for eating healthy, and those things used to come more automatically when we had less product. I mean, it's like the world has really evolved. And I love the idea that thinking about etiquette actually is a forcing function to actually connecting with your fellow man. I think we're all going to be. We're all healthier mentally if we're nicer and more polite to one another. And so your third gem was shining a light. Why do you want to shine a light?

Well, my belief is that most people spend a lot of time beating themselves up and telling themselves that they're not good at something. They're, you know, too large, too small, too old, too young. Too female, too male, too whatever. And that prevents them from stepping into who they're fully capable of being and the difference that they can make in the world. And often those around us, our children, our spouses, our mother, our father, will share with us what we're not good at and remind us over and over and over again, but what we often don't hear. And maybe more so in Canada because we're more conservative than Americans, but we don't get to hear what we're good at. And I just think it's good for ourselves as well as the gift that you give to others of shining that light because you understand yourself a little better. Oh, that impresses me. Oh, I'm fascinated that they have the ability to summarize everything in that fashion or whatever it is. So it helps you build analytical skills, helps you realize who you want to be in the world and build that skill. And it helps the other person step more into who they are fully capable of being. And that's what we need to do in this world, help others to get where they want to go. I think Zig Ziglar, that was his statement. Help enough people get where they want to go, and you'll get to where you want to go.

You know, and this just makes really good business sense, too. If you're connecting and you're not giving people compliments just to give them compliments, but you're actually identifying the unique thing that actually makes it nice to interact with them. Fun. You know, something that's positive that, you know, helped you or that you see helping others. When you're interacting with people at that level, you're automatically identifying ways to make better business transactions to make life just more pleasant as you're interacting with these people, I would assume.

Right. But, Elizabeth, here's the little. I'll ask you this question and see what you say. Now, if I say to you, wow, I just love your radio program, your podcast, they are so wonderful, are you going to feel compelled to give me back a compliment?

Well, yeah, I would think so.

Yeah. You see, that's one of the challenges that women have, is we don't hang on to a compliment or own it. We have a tendency to. It's like a basketball someone gave us or potato someone give us a compliment. And almost the first reaction, rather than owning it, kind of bathing in it, is to send back, send back. And so my encouragement to all women, and I hope you'll encourage others to do the same, is to resist that, wanting to immediately give a compliment back to Another woman or a man for that sake, but just owning that compliment for about 24 hours.

I love that idea. You know, there's a gal, I was helping her with her. Her real estate empire that she's trying to build, and I knew her from working in it together. And she'd come up with a real. She's a product manager, and she came up with a really brilliant idea that the company is going to be implementing. And she was like, oh, you know, it was no big deal. It's just what I do. And I yelled at her. I mean, I had a visceral reaction. I was like, don't do that. You have to accept the compliment. If you don't accept the compliment, then people are less likely to compliment in the future. And what you determined, you know, the idea you came up with is actually incredibly valuable. Isn't it funny that we, as women, we just have a hard time either accepting or, as you're pointing out, not automatically, you know, responding with yet another compliment back to them.

But we do have that ability. You know, we could be talking multimillion dollar deals or investments or whatever, and then at the end of that, we can turn around and say, oh, by the way, great shoes. Where men never do that. So we do that ability to get to, you know, some lightness about things and some real. And some. Some personality in that.

I think women just have more fun in business, right. I think that they just know how to relax a little bit more and have more fun, you know, once they get past the big negotiation.

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

So I know in my professional career, both, you know, in the technology phase and in the, you know, real estate phase, I have to stand up in front of 2, 3, 400 people and talk about a topic. Either I'm training them on a topic, or I'm sharing my insights, or I'm presenting an idea. And I have a fundamental fear of speaking publicly. And I had learned that people would literally rather die than speak in front of others. And so, as somebody heavily involved in Toastmasters, you know, where does that fear come from? How do we get rid of it? What are we doing, you know, when it starts swelling up within us?

Yes, it happens to so many people. And yet we speak every day to other people all the time. And all speaking is public speaking, except for the internal dialogue that you have going on. But we do it all the time. But when we communicate with others, it's like a basketball or a volleyball. You know, I volley to you, you volley to me, I volley to you. That's a sense of a normal conversation where public speaking is different, although it is shifting and changing because we're now in the era. If we just stand in front of our audience and don't engage them with questions or activities, you know, that's not the sign of our times. The sign of our times is carrying on a convert, more conversation with them. But one of the key ways is something we've learned from the Navy SEALs is, you know, when they go into battle, they have that fight and flight mechanism going on. And that's what people that are going about to speak often will have that. You know, our reptilian brain is sending out the signals and our heart is racing and a whole host of other things are going on. But the Navy SEALs teach deep breathing in order to calm that heart rate down and bring that under control. So it's learning those deep breathing exercises so you can prepare as you go along. And even all it would take is four or five deep breaths. So into the count of four, hold for 16 and out for eight, and then you can work on that. That's also the focus of meditation, isn't it, is on the breath. So bring it back to the breath. And if you work on that on a daily basis of that meditation and you focus on your breath, if you can do that before a speech, that really, really helps get you to that calm space. So when you go out there, you know, it's about the audience. It's not about you. It's about the audience and what value that you have for that audience. As you know, decades ago, they used to talk about picturing someone naked. Well, if I picture people naked, that doesn't put me in a calm spot. I don't know about you.

It usually makes me start laughing ridiculously, you know, and they're going, why are you laughing at me?

I don't get it.

It's funny. I love the fact that you're talking about the fact that it's not about you, it's about them. I do find that when I stop focusing on myself and I start focusing on making the other person comfortable, sharing information with them, making sure that they actually are receiving things of value, it becomes automatically, you know, my anxiety level automatically starts melting away. It's really magical.

It is. There was a voice coach a number of years ago from the uk. She's still delivering programming around the world, but she would take Shakespearean actors, and they had the same lines, each of them had the same lines. And she thought, wow, what is this? That some really just can connect with the audience, and some do not that, you know, some rise to greatness as actors and others do not. Yet the lines are exactly the same. And she came up with this philosophy of three circles. When people speak in front of others, they are in three circles. So circle one is where you're really timid and you're afraid of the audience. And so you kind of go inward. You deliver what you have, but you're inward. And then circle number three is where you're really bombastic, is you. You know, you're kind of that motivational speaker, but without the 30 years of experience that you're kind of just spewing things at people and hitting them in the face with it. And. But circle number. That's where you're connecting with people. And the richness of what you're saying is not in you and not in the audience, but it's somewhere in the middle. So there's this depth of the experience in circle two. And it's not that you need to do spend your entire time speaking in circle two, because sometimes it's good to be in that timid moment, and sometimes it's good to be. You know, this is the strategy for success. But it's understanding that there's those sorts of levels and where you want to come from and where you want to come from most of the time, and that's where you can really connect with the audience. I like to also think of speaking. We speak to people all the time as we've just spoken about, but I speak to one person at a time in the audience, but those around them feel good about it. And because it's a deeper. Because I'm speaking to one person at one time, the entire audience feels good about it. So I might say an entire sentence to one person. It's not three to five seconds because then I can't tell if they've got it. I want to say a sentence, and I want to see in their eyes that they've gotten it, and then they move to the next person and the next person. But you have spoken to people your entire life, and it's the same thing. You will just speak to one person at a time, but there's others listening. Yeah.

No, I like that because you create that intimate connection, and you're making sure that. I mean, because at the end of the day, the reason why you're doing a presentation is you want to make sure that whatever you're saying is going to benefit these people somehow. And by focusing on that one person, then you're actually making sure that there's, you know, that your message is actually landing with them, that there's life in that message.

You've got it.

So let me ask you a question. I've seen styles of presentations dramatically change and I realize that it's, you know, it might be your presentation in a 2,000 person auditorium might be different than in a, you know, a three person boardroom. But just in general within the, my professional, you know, it side of the house, so to speak, I've seen that presentations have gone from data rich, lots of facts, lots of figures, lots of graphs to almost evolved to just color splotches or pictures where people then tell a narrative around those things. The styles over the last 20 to 25 years seem to have really changed. When we're actually trying to create a presentation for people, is that just something that's specific to the IT industry or is that more universal?

That's universal. That's everywhere. And of course TED talks have really helped in that regard as well. And technology too. Where we once were, perhaps we could only put tech stuff. Now we can put images, animation, so we could capture concepts. But also the studies that they have about brains from MFRI's and understanding what sticks, the research and studies that have gone on. We know that stories stay with people. They remember them, they can share them. And too many statistics, too many facts just kind of go over people's head. They don't stay with them. And so we're moving in the right direction. Very, very different than decades ago where someone stood with a typed up piece of paper and read from. And that was eons ago. New world where information is being passed in a deeper, richer way.

You know, it's interesting, I saw I belong to a professional organization locally and most of the presenters are really pretty crisp and energetic and really connected to the audience. And there was this one woman who literally was president of this organization and even if she were just to give of, you know, things to people, she would read off of a page and it just seems like one. It was very old fashioned. But too, it's like, you know, my thought, my immediate thought was doesn't she care enough about the audience to memorize a few things to say thank you about? I don't know, it just, it was, I found it really off putting.

Yes, yes, it would be. But it also shows you her confidence level in herself, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that this is where, you know, you've talked about the fact that it's a big evolution, you know, 15 years ago, I really probably wouldn't have thought much of it. Today I'm like, gosh, what the heck are you doing? So styles change. What other trends are you seeing when it comes to people presenting either in conferences or people in, you know, just general business related presentations? Are you seeing any other big changes starting to evolve or emerge?

Well, as we spoke about earlier, now you must engage the audience in some way with an activity, answering a question or responding to you in some way just to stand up there and give content. People aren't interested anymore and they want to be part, they want to be part of the discussion, they want their questions answered. And I think there's even a new model for women out there to, you know, just come together. And we all just, instead of having one presenter or one that we all have wisdom to share and each of us would like to share it in a unique way. And so I think that's going to be more that the audience is sharing much more. Because how we've evolved from that Sesame street generation, our attention spans, we don't want to sit long periods of time listening to people and we have something to contribute as well.

Yeah, yeah. And well, this also goes back to the need to be heard rather than listen. I think that there's, it's kind of this tipping point. But I really enjoy when I see a panel of experts talk versus a single presenter. I love when there's an opportunity for the audience to ask questions of a panel and there, there's this natural give and take. It just seems like you're left with such a rich, warm, you know, uplifting piece of information that you've learned as opposed to seeing a single presenter up there. One of the things that I really enjoyed when I worked at Amazon, we would have these all hands meetings. We would have these, they call them fireside chats where you know, a regional expert or you know, Jeff Bezos or whomever would be on stage and then people would ask specific questions that the audience had pre populated in a way to capture all the information. And so rather than person just speaking and giving a presentation, they were asking specific questions of the audience. And that just seemed like a really neat way to convey information.

Yeah, I would agree. It's a great way. And giving people what they want and need. Right? Yeah.

So another topic that I was wondering about with presentations was hand movements. I remember back when I was young, back in the day, they would say, don't move around so much, don't move your hands so much. It's really distracting. To the audience. But more and more, I'm seeing people with really specific gesturing, movement. They're walking, you know, even into the audience as a way to connect. Is that the new standard, if you will, more physical engagement?

Could be. But we also. There's two things happening simultaneously, you know, because of the jumbotrons and people going to large events. When you're on a jumbotron, there isn't the opportunity to move all over the stage because it's very difficult for the camera men to know or women camera people to know where you're going, which direction you're going, and to keep up with you. And so you just don't look like this person rushing around the stage. So there's less movement because of jumbotron. So we've become. And, you know, we watch a lot of TV and broadcasting and everything, and the broadcaster stands still. So too much movement on the stage is not good. Going down into the audience seems to be acceptable, even desirable. So it just depends the size of the audience if you're being captured on video or not. But anything that's contrived, anything that isn't authentic, just will not fly. Yeah. So very staged movements don't do it. There's the difference between natural body movement and staged gestures. Right.

Authentic seems to be the Authentic and connection seem to be the two big takeaways that I'm getting from our conversation.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Margaret, is there anything else that we have not yet covered that you wanted to make sure that our listeners knew about?

Well, as far as speaking, though, we spoke about authenticity. But I really feel it's important for people to script their speeches at first. I'm not saying you have to memorize it word to word, but you do have to plan the time out, plan it out well, what you're going to say, those examples and everything, so you know them when you're delivering. And it doesn't have to be delivered word for word, but to be respectful from the audience. I always think, you know, if you have 10 minutes and you have 200 people there, well, that's 2,000 minutes of life you're taking. So be respectful, plan your speech, have the timing down, and deliver a great message with great value.

I love it.

I love it.

Margaret, how can people reach you?

They can reach me@margaretargaretpage.com and happy to answer any questions they may have.

Great. And so your website then is margaretofhage.com correct?

That's correct. Thank you.

Awesome. Well, Margaret Page, etiquette expert, coach, investor, and ex presenter extraordinaire. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Elizabeth.

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