124: How to Speak with Impact: Tips for Commanding the Room with Allison Shapira

When you see a person speaking on stage or standing in front of a room, a microphone in hand, ready to speak, in the seconds from when they look up to the moment they speak their first word, you immediately know whether that person will own the room or whether the room will own them. Welcome to the Confident Communications podcast, where we help you find the right response at the right time and and deliver it in the right place. At the end of this episode, I promise you that the next speech you give in front of an audience or speak in front of a room, you will be giving the best speech of your life. A tall order, I know. How can one podcast episode almost guarantee that your next talk will be your best? Well, because after listening to this week's guest, I'm confident that the tips you learn in this episode will help you find your powerful voice by knowing what to say and how to say it. Allison Shapira, owner of Global Public Speaking and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, is an executive communication coach for leaders from Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and nonprofits around the world. And now she will coach you, the listener. She provides her clients with the right advice to find their powerful voice by knowing what to say and how to say it so people will listen. So listen now as Alison takes us through the process of preparing, writing, practicing, and delivering your next best speech or presentation. Take a listen. Alison, I am thrilled to speak with you on the podcast today, yet a little intimidated because I'm speaking to a public speaking expert, but welcome.

Thank you, Molly. Well, we're both communication professionals, so I think we're in good company today.

We are, and I am thrilled to speak with you because we met through a mutual connection in Boston and your background is so fascinating. Fascinating. So I have to start there. Tell the listener briefly what you're doing now in terms of your business, but I'm dying to know how you got there because that certainly ties into your talent.

My company is called Global Public Speaking. We're a training firm that teaches public speaking and presentation skills for some of the largest companies in the world. My background is rather unique. I started out as an opera singer, so I trained in classical voice and always wanted to be a professional opera singer and then decided it wasn't quite the life I had wanted and so pivoted into diplomacy and then into communication and wound up launching my own company, but taking a lot of those musical concepts I had learned in opera, from breathing to non verbal communication, and was able to bring that into the practice of public speaking.

So I have to Ask the question, how does someone go from singing arias to diplomacy?

It wasn't something I had intended to do, but the opportunity presented itself in this diplomatic organization. And I found out on that first day I would have to give speeches on behalf of foreign policy issues. And all I really knew how to do was sing on stage. And I had some familiarity with those issues. So I was able to take what I had learned as a singer, and. And then I had to learn the art of speechwriting and messaging, which, as singers, we don't spend a lot of time on the messaging. We spend a lot of time interpreting what someone else has written hundreds of years ago. But the idea of crafting the messaging itself was completely new to me.

Well, here's the intersection with your work and my podcast, Confident Communications. It's having the confidence to speak well. And also, I wanted to talk about your book, you know, Speak with Impact. How to Communicate man the Room and Influence Others. So it sounds from your early days in speaking, Alison, would you say that you were confident on stage, but you didn't. You hadn't gained the confidence yet to know how to be a good speaker?

Sure. I would absolutely say that I was confident. I was comfortable being on stage with all eyes on me. I was more comfortable singing because I had prepared and I knew what I was doing, but I was more comfortable singing than speaking. But now, years later, I feel much more comfortable speaking on stage than singing because I have a much more thorough process that helps me prepare, and that's what I write about in the book.

So if I were to ask you to sing an aria right now, you wouldn't even be prepared to it? Like, is your voice gone from singing?

No, I would be able to. I don't know if you'd want to hear it, but I could probably do a quick snippet of opera right now.

Could you do it?

Let's give it a try.

Yes. Okay. So let's hear something. Oh, my. That is singing with impact. I have chills. Oh. But, Alison, even watching you, only people are hearing us right now. I see the confidence, how it exudes from you, from your talent, that you are comfortable singing. But people may not share that right when they speak.

That's so interesting. You use the word talent. You. You use the words comfort coming from talent. And I think it's important to address and unpack that, because the comfort doesn't come from the talent. The comfort comes from the years of practice and study and polish. And the talent is something that I had in a certain. To a certain extent, but then I built on through practice and study and, and that's something that's, that's more important in singing than it is in public speaking. In public speaking, certainly there are people who are natur more talented at it than others. However, I believe that public speaking is fundamentally a skill, not a talent. And it's so. So it's something that every single one of us can learn and become comfortable and therefore confident in through practice and feedback.

Oh, that is. Well, that is good feedback. In your opinion, are most people not comfortable speaking in public?

Yes, I believe most. I believe I have found through my work that most people that I come into contact with are not as comfortable speaking as they would like to be. Now also there's a self selection that happens. If they were comfortable, they might not come to see me. But I also find, and I travel all over the world working with professionals from different industries, different countries. I remember a couple years ago I was in Marrakech doing a conference with women from all around Africa and a woman from Mali was sitting across from me at breakfast and she said, oh, you teach public speaking? I'm terrified of public speaking. And we immediately found common ground through this particular skill set. And I share this anecdote because it demonstrates how it doesn't matter what country you live in, what language you speak, the fear of public speaking, and therefore the recognition that it's important are universal.

Well, it certainly is important, especially in an age of greater need for communications. And I don't look at it as that. Leaders, communicators need to be as skilled as they think they need to be sometimes. The raw, there's a power in the raw because there's an authenticity behind it. But I want to go through your book as quickly as we can through the podcast. But of course we want to encourage everyone to purchase it. And I have a link in the show notes. Speak with impact. Give me. Before we start, I'm going to go through 10 tips. I'm going to grab 10 tips that I found in the book that I think would be helpful for our listeners. But who, in your opinion right now speaks with impact as an example?

That's such an interesting question. A lot of people ask me that question hoping to find a particular world leader or business leader who speaks with impact. And there are plenty of examples of that. I tend not to point to those individuals because by way of their position, we then think that. That we have to speak like them or that only a leader at that level can speak with impact. And what I have found is the people who are the most impressive to me are the ones who are uncomfortable with it and yet who do it anyways and have the courage to share their voice, their authentic voice. And those are people you won't have heard about, but they're in our organizations, they're in our associations. And those are the people who give me the greatest inspiration. Not the ones we expect to be good, but the ones who wouldn't necessarily have the opportunity but still take the courageous step to speak up.

Oh, my goodness. Well said. Even though I wanted you to tell me who you thought was a speaker with impact, but I see your diplomacy background coming out. Okay, so let's just jump into the tips right now, but I'm going to start here at number one. And you're not prepared for this one. What is the best way to prepare for a talk or a presentation?

The way you prepare for a talk depends on two main factors. The first is how well you know the subject matter. And the second is how important is the occasion. So based on the answers to those two questions, you decide how much time you're going to spend. A lot of time or not a lot of time. And then I walk you through a process in the book of defining your goal and your strategy, and then brainstorming some of your messages, then writing them out, then condensing them and summarizing them. And then the one area that I'll comment on is I always want people to read their message out loud before delivering it because it sounds different for the ear than it does to the eye when we're writing it.

Oh, what a wonderful tip. I did you mentioned about your frameworks, which you have a lot of frameworks in your book, which is incredibly helpful because some people, I think when they look at how to prepare for a speech, they might jot down some notes or they might think that we're going to wing it, but really winging it. People who truly succeed at winging it, in my opinion, or say they can wing it, are people who are actually not winging it like they've prepared it or they're just. It's like a misdirect. They want people to think that they can. But you even have a framework for how to write a speech in 30 minutes. And what I take away from this is you still need structure. There is a process to building a speech. So could you condense, you know, the. In 30 seconds, your how to write a speech in 30 minutes?

Sure. I start with the three questions that you always ask before you write A speech or presentation. Who's your audience? What's your goal? And why you. Which means why do you care about your subject or about your audience? And that's the. The first step is to ask those three questions. Then I like to come up with that one main message of the speech. If the audience leaves and goes into the elevator and someone says, so what was their speech about? What's that one sentence main message you want your audience to repeat? And you'll want to. If your message is going to be persuasive or informative, then I want people to brainstorm everything they could possibly say. Simply write it down, get it out of their head and onto paper, take a break, a breath, walk around, then come back and start to rearrange and edit it and tease out your main messages. This is where you take the chaos and you create structure, then read it out loud. Make sure, as I mentioned, it sounds good to the ear. It doesn't just look good to the eye. Then reduce it to bullet points. I don't want people to bring a script to a presentation. I want them to have simple bullets, phrases that summarize their main points. Read it out loud from those bullets and then you're ready to go.

Oh, fabulous. Now, that main message. When constructing a main message, do you tell people to think big, think impact? I mean, we speak with impact. Are we thinking like TED Talk main message, where, like, you're the only one with that main message? Or could it just be like a universal neutral statement? I mean, in other words, that main message, I get the feeling that people might get hung up on, well, is my main message even worth it? Like, what's the point? How do people dig inside and find themselves to come up with a true main message that resonates?

You bring up a really good point, Molly, which is that we tend to overthink that message. And it's. It might be a TED Talk or a TEDx, in which case it is going to take you a while to come up with that main message, and it should. But if you have to give a pitch to a prospective client tomorrow, or if you're the communication officer working with a principal and they have to give a speech tomorrow, then the main message is in line with what you want the audience to do or think or feel after the speech.

Right.

Do you want them to vote for you? Do you want them to adopt your proposal? Then your main message is going to be in line with the goal of your presentation.

Oh, that is, that is an excellent point. What is the objective or what is the problem and how you are going to solve it? In other words, you're going to bring it to the end. Oh, that's wonderful clarification on that. So let's talk about the speech. You've already prepared the speech. How do you not open? And I like this. In your book, how not to open a speech. What is that?

There's one particular phrase a lot of people, I find a lot of business professionals casually will open and close a presentation. Oh, no, hold on one second.

I'm worried that it's something that I've done. So. Okay, let's hear it. Let's hear it.

I'm worried you have not done it to open a speech. Don't worry.

Okay.

The phrase is so, yeah. Oh, a lot of people will open their speech with so, yeah, let's get started. So we all know that it's really important to come together. And then at the end of that speech, when they're done, most people don't spend any thought or any time on their conclusion. So that all of a sudden they're done talk and they go, so, yeah.

Oh, Allison, I love that so much. Of course, I talk about filler words a lot. You never want to open a speech with a filler word clearly because it doesn't show any clarity. But you are hitting on probably my one pet peeve. And I know I've mentioned this on the podcast before, in the opening seconds, when someone is not in control of their message, you feel as if you've already given too much of your time. Like, you know, they're not going to contain this message and they're not going to stay on time. There isn't going to be structure to it. But it sounds like you're saying how to open a speech. That first statement out of your mouth is going to be a controlled statement that's going to grab someone. So what is the opposite of how not to open a speech? How do you open a speech?

There are a few different ways. And I should start by saying it depends on what works for you. I don't like the old adage, start with a joke. I don't like jokes in public speaking. I do like humor, but jokes and humor are not just a joke is one type of humor. I like to use situational humor instead, which is a lot easier to use and usually a lot safer to use. I like to start a speech with a personal story. The why you? That I mentioned earlier. Why you? Why do you care? I follow that with and when was a time in your life that made you care. And that answer usually brings out some personal connection to the subject matter, which becomes a powerful way to open even a business presentation. I also like starting a speech with a visualization.

Oh, tell me more.

Let's say you're in the banking industry and you're talking about long lines at a banking branch. Imagine you're walking into your favorite branch, you know your banker by name, and you're used to that person saying hello to you every time you walk in. Maybe you wait a couple of minutes, but then that person is ready to welcome you. But now imagine you walk into that branch and you have to wait in line for 20 minutes. Nobody says hi to you. And when you get to the teller, they can't even spell your name. Team, let's talk about our client satisfaction results because we've got some work to do. Yes.

So the same is. Is the same applies to a speaker on stage or someone in the front of the room delivering.

Absolutely. You could. What I'm saying is that's a story you could open with in the banking industry.

See, I'm so drawn in. I'm like, really? Oh, I see what you're saying. You leave them to the moment.

Right, so.

Well, it's. What you just did to me right now, I'm just listening to. You got drew me in so much to your story. I'm like. And Right. Okay. That's a wonderful device to use, is you want them to know that you're in control with something, but you need that device whether it's a story or. I like that. Humor, not a joke.

That's right. What you're doing is you're emotionally engaging your audience. And when you do that, you activate their brain. You actually connect with them and transport them into your story or into your visualization. And when you do that, you start to build trust. And when you do that, you engage them. And the number one question that I'm asked repeatedly is, how do you engage your audience? One of the ways you do that is by telling some sort of story or visualization that creates a feeling of emotion.

Oh, that is an excellent tip. Okay, when you said you're telling a story, what about showing the impact? Let's talk about these onstage tips. Language, body or body language? How you're. Yeah, let's talk about the non verbal first. What are you doing non verbally to engage or to draw people in?

As a speaker, I like to focus on three movements. And in the book, I talk about the three questions that I mentioned earlier. And then the Three movements that you make to make the speech come alive. And these movements have a place in both in person and virtual communication as well. So the three movements, the first is with your eyes in person. I like to speak to one person at a time, complete a full thought and then move on to another person. And this keeps me grounded and focused and keeps me from rushing virtually. I need to look right into the camera lens the whole time in order for you to see my eye contact.

You never come off to look at a person or get any feedback. You just stay on that camera.

When I'm not talking, I will glance down. So my camera lens is part of my laptop. It's not separate or when I use a webcam, it's on top of the laptop. And then I'll have my audience in gallery view in a virtual setting. And so when I pause in between phrases or sentences, I glance down to see people's reaction, but then come back to the camera lens to continue speaking. So I'm mostly speaking while looking into the camera lens. I'll pause to look down at people's reactions.

That is a very good tip and it's one that I use as well, so you and I can both share. It's not easy because unlike speaking in a room, you at least if you're. I assume that you're like me, you get the energy from looking at people in the eye. You know that instant feedback when you're doing it virtually, you're looking at a little dot at the top of your desktop or a camera and you don't get that immediate feedback. And so is there any type of other skill that you've noticed in terms of the virtual environment, any non verbal, anything else that you're doing that would help that environment?

You're absolutely right that we don't get the same energy back when we're in a virtual setting and there's a delayed feedback loop in person. We would immediately. I would see. I can, I can immediately see your head nodding when I'm talking. And that head nod gives me energy because it validates what I'm saying. And we've all been in that situation on stage looking for someone to smile and nod their head in order to give us that encouragement. And when we don't have it, we start to, we start to second guess ourselves. Am I really saying something worth listening to? Am I accurate? Do I know what it. Am I going against what someone else believes? Virtually the delay in getting that feedback is fatiguing, which is why we're so tired on Video. And then not having it at the end of a presentation leaves us with this sense of letdown, letdown that happened to me last week. Usually I always have a chat box where I can see people saying, thank you so much, this was great. Last week I did this presentation and for specific reasons, we weren't allowed to use the chat. And I did my presentation. We took questions, but they were written. And then afterwards I'm in my home office looking around thinking, I have no idea if they liked it or not. There weren't as many questions as I thought, did I do okay? And what I've realized is it's important for me to have someone on my team listening to the presentation to immediately.

Debrief with, oh, that's a good tip.

And we can all do this whether we work with a team or not. We can always have either a friend or a colleague be part of a presentation and then afterwards jump on a quick call with them and say, hey, what do you think went well? What didn't? What can we do differently next time? And in last week I thought I made a really big mistake and I was kicking myself for it. And then we finally had a debrief with the client this week and they're like, oh no, that wasn't such a big deal. It was great. I loved the presentation, I learned a few things myself. And here I have been freaking out over the past week, feeling like I let them down and I hadn't.

And there's a lot of inherent pressure there when you're there to help people become public speakers and then you feel that you let yourself down as a public speaker. I can definitely appreciate that. Also another element of public speaking that I do virtually now too, and I don't know if you've come across this, I'm sure you have a lot of these meetings, these annual meetings, they're pre recording the presentation. So not only are you not getting instant feedback, you're getting zero feedback. You're just talking to yourself.

That's right. The benefit of that is that you can record the video multiple times and edit it to make sure you got it right. And in fact, another technique that I recommend for virtual and in person presentations is what I call speaking with intention, which is a particular technique that helps people unlock the power in their voice and in their gestures. We've been teaching it in person for years. It's even more important virtually because you're not getting that energy from the audience. You need to craft it and manufacture it yourself in order to transmit it through A camera lens, and then you're not getting it back from the audience.

Well, I'm not doing a good job naming the numbers, like calling out the numbers as we go. We're on number six and we. I was going to ask you about the power of story, but you've already mentioned it. So now I'm going to slip in. How do you speak with intention?

Intention is about focusing all your energy, all your intentions on what you're saying. So it's a particular physical activity that you do, not an. It's not an intellectual activity. Imagine you were going to the gym and you were working out with zero intention. How effective are you going to be at building your muscles? Not very. But if you go to the gym and you work out with 100% intention focused energy, now you're going to start to see results. You're going to start to build muscles, burn fat. It's the same thing when we speak. We can speak without intention or we can speak with intention. And that's what you hear me doing right now. There's a precision, there's an energy in my voice because I'm focusing my energy on speaking. And that's what transmits across a camera lens or simply across a microphone as well.

It certainly does. There is a cadence to your voice when you are honing in on an area. Are you doing this throughout your speech or presentation or just in key moments?

I do it throughout the presentation, especially to your earlier point when I start, because that's what captures people's attention. It doesn't matter what I'm saying. I could simply pause and breathe and say good morning as opposed to morning, everyone. Let's go ahead and get started. You know, we've got a lot to cover today. We only have four hours, so let's dive in. In.

Oh, well, okay. Now I. I have to ask you this question. Would you start a speech with morning with like a salutation or would you start with a already predetermined line? Or is there one best way to do it? Are there multiple ways?

Usually I like to dive in with a powerful opening line, but sometimes I want it to be more casual. And when I say good morning, what I'm also doing is giving people a chance to respond. Testing my microphone, if I didn't have a chance to test the microphone and establishing rapport and connection. So I have no problem with saying good morning. It's great to see everyone. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you speak it with intention. What I don't normally like Doing is starting a presentation by thanking all of the organizers.

Oh, the worst.

Because you lose all of your momentum. Yes, thank people, but thank them at the end. Or thank them before your conclusion, before I bring it to a close. There are a lot of people who worked really hard to make today's event a success. Want to thank. A, B, C. And let me leave you with some final words. And then you go into your conclusion. That's how I like to do it. But in the beginning, regardless of whether it's a story, a statistic, or even a warm greeting, start with intention.

Okay, well, my lack of intention here, my questions are now all over the place because you're leading me down this path. You're triggering so many other ideas and thoughts in my head of other speakers that I've seen. You just talked about the open. Let's talk about the close. Well, you mentioned a close. How do you botch a close?

So, yeah, yeah. But also.

Yeah, that was fun.

Yeah, that's one open. The. Whenever I'm listening to my students or my clients giving presentations, I. I can usually tell when they've concluded, but they haven't realized it yet. So I hear this wonderful conclusion, and then they just keep going, restating, adding extra thoughts, and I'm thinking, no, no, no, you. You're done. You can stop talking now. And because they don't intentionally craft, they're closing with an inspiring message, a call to action, or even next steps, they simply keep talking. And then they're losing the attention of their audience. They're losing their momentum, which means they're losing the impact of the presentation.

Yes. And they're losing the reviews as they go down. They were a great speaker, and, yeah, now they're not so great. You're right. A lot of speakers lose it in the closet. So what you're saying, and this is something I do too, is if you. You have to have a call to action, you're telling someone to do something, and that's a good way to give yourself that hard stop. Correct. Like to train yourself for the hard stop. Oh, that's wonderful. Now, you also mentioned this earlier, and it's on my list. You talked about the use of humor. So no jokes, but you can use humor. Do you have some insight or tips for how to use. Well, cleverly use humor? How do you make it work for you? Because it's not easy.

It's not easy. It's also not my professional skill set in that I find that I. I'm good at situational humor, throwing things in that. That works for me. I. I also have kind of a sarcastic sense of humor in from my family that I have to bite back sometimes so as not to. To offend anyone. But there's one of my colleagues in the speaking industry, Judy Carter wrote the Great Comedy Bible. I think it's something like the comedy Bible. It's a great book. And she talks about the rule of three in humor. And you have serious, serious, funny.

Oh, tell me more.

So you have a list of three I'm going to give you. There are three things that you should never do on stage. You should never. Or let's see, there are three things you should always do on stage. You should always have your notes, you should always have your reading glasses, and you should always have an escape plan in case you accidentally hit somebody in the middle of your speech. So that was. I'm so glad you laughed because that validated me.

I was going to be sarcastic, but.

I didn't want to. Yeah, serious, serious, serious, and then funny.

Oh, that's good.

And ideally, you'd pause in between. Now, that was me attempting huge humor on the fly. And let me explain very clearly, I don't recommend doing humor on the fly because it's a. Humor itself is a skill. It's about the pacing and the pausing, and it's also about making sure you do not unintentionally or even intentionally offend anyone. And I always recommend people think about that in advance, run it by someone, make sure it's appropriate. Humor is also very cultural, so you want to make sure that. That what's funny in one area will also be funny elsewhere. That's why I broke that rule by doing impromptu humor. I probably could have been funnier if I'd had more time to prepare.

Okay, it wasn't a humor talk. However, now we are veering into my lane because I notice the people who make the mistakes when they speak. Either trying to use humor, speaking off the cuff, or stepping into areas of just concern and crisis. Like, for example, last week. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but the CEO of the Seattle Mariners, the baseball team, he was caught speeding speaking at a Rotary event, and he made derogatory comments about his players. And when you read it, you can just assume he was in a intimate environment. It's a Rotary meeting. You know, everyone is there. They're all your fans, so to speak. They want to hear from you. But off the cuff, someone probably asked him a question and then he goes off. Are there any tips that you provide to help people kind of keep those guardrails in so they don't become a crisis. Like create a crisis by saying something and speaking you. Because I know that you work at Harvard. I remember, and this is off the top of my head, it was a speech at a Harvard graduation where one of the speakers made fun of the band and, and like female band members or something like that. But it caused a problem and it was from that off the cuff kind of just rhetoric and speak. So what guardrails can people put in place?

It's a general best practice as a leader, regardless of the number of people you're speaking in front of. A leadership best practice is to not put down your team in public.

Right.

It's okay to give someone personal feedback. One on one feedback is really important. But putting down people, I don't like to put down anyone in public. If I have an issue with them, again, I deal with them one on one. But having that, that kind of language is something I like to avoid as a leader and I like to recommend other leaders avoid. It's also important to recognize there are no more closed doors.

Oh, that is so true. So true.

Now these days, maybe 30 years ago, there were closed doors because you weren't bringing, I mean, you weren't bringing phones to record with into the room. Certainly someone could have always slipped in a tape recorder and recorded a session. But now we must assume, especially those of us in the public eye. But even not, someone driving a shared driving Uber gets angry and says something and the passenger is recording or the passenger hasn't had anything to eat that day and is angry and it says something mean. And the Uber driver's recording it because they're recording everything for their own safety. And then they put that on YouTube. So it's the cost of saying something you either shouldn't have said or didn't intend to say. Say is much higher than it has ever been. And that's why anyone speaking to another person needs to recognize that what they're saying could be heard by people outside of that room and act accordingly. And as leaders, we always need to be cognizant of that.

Oh, absolutely. That is terrific advice. And speaking about leaders, so I. We're at the end of the list here. You do speak about executive presence in your book. So tell me what that means to someone presenting either on stage or virtually.

Executive presence, as I define it, is a way of speaking and acting that makes others take notice and listen. And when I say acting, I don't mean play acting or pretending I mean, taking actions, speaking and taking actions that make others take notice and listen. And the word executive is a little bit of a mix misnomer, because it's not about your title or your position of authority. It's really your professional presence, how you hold yourself, how you speak, and the actions that you take that impact others. And that's something all of us can build. And in my book, I talk about five different components of presence, and I break them down so that you learn. Well, if you're falling short here, here's what you can do. And you can do a self assessment of your presence to see where you're strong and where you can improve. But it's not about your title or years of experience or industry. It's about what you do or say and the impact it has on others.

That is such a good point. People, it's true when they see even the word executive, they are picturing a CEO at an annual meeting, giving an address, but it's really having ownership or being the CEO of your idea of your goal. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, Whatever you're trying to accomplish. Is there anything for this last tip? It's for the every person who is speaking, and I did see it in your book, but is there something that every person who is aspiring to be an impactful speaker before they walk out on stage, or before the camera goes live, or before they're standing up in front of a room to present, or even if they're speaking at town hall, all what are they thinking about in the first 15 seconds before they even open their mouth?

What are they thinking? Or what should they think?

Should they. Ah, good point. Very good. You're very good at what you do. You probably know what they're thinking. It's like, oh, crap, what should they be thinking?

I like to think there are two things that I do. First, I pause and breathe. I pause and breathe before I open my mouth. And in that moment, before I go on stage, before I log in, I repeat to myself why I care about my audience, about the subject I'm talking about, about the work that I do. And I think about the impact it's going to have on the audience. It's not about me as the speaker. It's about my audience and the impact I'm gonna have on them and they, by extension, are going to have on others. And I'm insp. Inspired by that impact. That's what I remind myself while I pause and breathe. Then I smile because it makes me feel better. And I start to Speak, Alison, I.

Feel so good right now because I do the exact same thing. I even. I learned it on the podcast like two, two seasons ago. That the breath, not only does it control yourself, but if people visually see you take a breath, they do the same. And the way I always get rid of any nerves when I speak is always remembering why I'm there and who I am serving. You can always come in with confidence, and you can always speak with impact if you know you're helping someone when you speak 100%. Allison, is there anything else you would like to add? What did I miss? There are so many tips in your book, Speak with Impact, how to command the room and influence others, and it's one of my favorite. Like, I like how you laid it out because. Because it's filled with easy to read tips and graphics like you can go in and out. It's like a speaker's bible. Anything I forgot to ask you, anything that could be helpful.

I want people to take away the power of authenticity over perfection because we don't relate to perfection. And certainly when technology, where technology is concerned, there is no perfection. Something will always go wrong in any situation. It's. And it's not about what goes wrong, it's how we handle it and how we adapt in the moment. So I want to underscore for everyone that when you're able to tap into your own authentic motivation and sense of purpose, then that animates your voice and your body. It helps you find language that's. Excuse me, authentic and simple is what I'm trying to say.

And.

And then that then engages your audience and helps them see themselves in you, connect with you more effectively. And that's what lets your message have maximum impact.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful words, Alison. If someone wanted to find out more information about you or potentially work with you, how would they do that?

They would visit my website@globalpublicspeaking.com and they can actually get. Get a free chapter of the book that way. There are actually more resources@speakwithimpactbook.com that they can learn as well. And I would love to hear their feedback when they buy the book, read it, and then use it. I'd love to hear how it impacts them and I hope that they will take advantage of it.

Oh, I hope they do as well. And they don't even need that first chapter. They need the first book. So anyone who speaks for living and really is. And that, all of us. Your book is a good book. It is a. It's like I said, it's like a bible to help you in easy to understand tips to help you kind of tap into that authenticity. Allison, thank you so much for joining me today. I know you've helped people on this podcast.

Thank you Molly for everything that you do. Such a pleasure to talk to you.

Thanks. Didn't I tell you? Amazing tips. Use them and you will give your next best speech. My thanks to Allison for sharing her practical and thoughtful tips for helping you, my listeners, become not only better public speakers, but more impactful ones. You can find a link to her book Speak with How to Command the Room and Influence Others in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast this week. If you if you want more public speaking tips from Alison's book, I'll be tweeting them with the hashtag responsetip on Twitter. Each week I tweet three extra tips from the podcast. That's not an easy sentence to say, but I just sat through a session with Alison so I could rip it out. You can find me on Twitter. Molly McPherson, thanks for listening. I'll see you again again next week. Bye for now.