Nathan BarryFounder and CEO, Kit · Founder and CEO at Kit

My Speaking Coach Tears Apart My Keynote

17 Jul 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:04

In this unique podcast episode, Nathan Barry invites his speaking coach, Mike Pacchione, to dissect and roast the Craft Commerce keynote he delivered. The conversation provides real‑time, candid feedback on Nathan’s performance, highlighting common speaking mistakes such as awkward pauses, mismatched hand gestures, and over‑reliance on storytelling. Mike offers concrete coaching advice and references specific presentation tricks—like the Stephen Colbert slide‑joke technique—while Nathan shares chaotic backstage moments that most audiences never see. The episode serves as a behind‑the‑scenes case study, showing listeners how expert coaching can transform a talk and revealing the hidden logistics of delivering a large‑scale keynote.

This is the most unique episode I've ever done on this podcast. I brought in my speaking coach, Mike Pacchione, back on the show to roast the keynote that I gave at Craft Commerce.
Why did you have that big pause there?
I'm not sure.
Okay. A lot of people fall into the trap of both hands have to do the same thing. In this episode, Mike doesn't hold back. This is actually a little bit of a miss. It doesn't end up mattering, but Seeing a talk critiqued in real time with commentary from an expert coach will help you learn what makes a great talk in a whole new way. Your instinct is to make a story here too, but it's like you can only have so many stories. I want the audience to forget that it's a speech. Little things like the Stephen Colbert move where you show the joke on the slide but you don't say it out loud.
In the moment I was like, oh, maybe this will get a laugh, and then it didn't. You also get to hear about some of the chaos happening backstage that nobody knows about. They have their hand out and they are stopping me from going on stage. So join Join me for this behind-the-scenes look at the biggest keynote I've ever delivered.