In this episode of the This Moved Me podcast, host Sally Koering Zimney opens with a candid update from a hotel in Omaha, explaining why she is moving the show from a twice‑weekly to a once‑weekly release schedule. She attributes the change to listener feedback and a desire to devote more time to new community‑building initiatives, including limited‑capacity in‑person “lab” experiences, a parallel YouTube channel, and a series of mini‑courses for deeper online learning. Sally invites listeners to stay informed by joining her mailing list at www.thismovedme.com/tmmjoin. The episode then transitions into a “Mini‑Moved Me” segment where Sally discusses the importance of surpassing audience expectations. Drawing on Blue Ocean Strategy, she encourages speakers to differentiate themselves by creating a “blue ocean” of unique value rather than competing in the crowded “red ocean” of conventional talks. She offers concrete advice—such as avoiding the use of PowerPoint slides as speaker notes—to help presenters exceed expectations and keep audiences engaged.
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¡Hey, Movers! It's Sally. Oh my gosh, it's the first time I've spoken today clearly.
Woo!
Oh my gosh, I am sitting here in a hotel room in Omaha talking into my iPhone, which is why this maybe sounds a little different. And I'm down here for an event I'm helping produce and write and coach, and it's one of my absolutely favorite things to do. And I had some time and I thought I want to give you a little context, let you know what is happening here on This Moved Me before we dive into the episode. Because maybe you've noticed I've changed my publishing schedule just a bit. I'm no longer doing twice a week, I'm going back to once a week. Why? Well, because I— because of you amazing people and the connections and the relationships I've built from this show that I love so much. And What's happened is I've got a bajillion ideas to grow the community and to deepen the connections because I've heard from some of you that there's more that you want, which is awesome. And I want to make really clear, I love doing this show. It's not going anywhere. I'm just— you'll see me a little less frequently, once a week, which really is fine. I mean, I know there are some of you out there who are like, "Twice a week, keep going!" And hey, go back and listen to some old ones. I bet there's 100 episodes out there. It's crazy. You know, if you really have a hankering. But for most of you, once a week is great and enough to keep up with. I know myself, I'm like a podcast junkie, and sometimes I'm like, "Whoa, I've got so much I need to catch up on." So going to once a week and giving that a go, and I'd love to hear your me your thoughts on how you feel about that, if that's, um, seems right to you, or if you think I should be doing something different. I really appreciate all your thoughts about this. Um, but here's the deal, I'm making room for some new things to continue to serve you. This is really all about you, and I've got a lot of really cool stuff on the horizon. Some things I talked about in the 100th episode episode, which ended up being the 102nd episode. But some of the things I'm so excited about are some in-person, personalized, really transformative lab experiences for a limited number of people. More on this soon. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. I'm playing with taking this whole thing over to YouTube and doing both. YouTube and a podcast. Oh, uh, that'll be a free resource so you can see what my crazy face does when I talk. That'll be fun. I'm creating some mini courses for this deeper online learning and engagement. I'm super pumped. That's on the horizon. So here's the deal: if you want to be in on the loop on what's coming down the pipeline in terms of these offerings Here's what I want you to do. Head on over to www.thismovedme.com/tmmjoin, and that will keep you in touch with me, keep you in the loop on what's going on with the show, but also what's going on outside the show and everything, uh, that I have just mentioned here today as it's coming down the pipeline. I'm I'm so excited. Join me there, will you? See ya. Thanks.
Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking. Because a good Good talk can move the world. And it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful, that's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh. Just waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey movers. Hey, it's Sally, and it's time for another Mini-Moved Me. And today I want to talk about expectations, our audience's expectations, and our job as speakers to surpass them. Now, because let's think about it, if you want to move your audience, right, if you want to take them from one place to another, if you come in and do the same old, same old as everybody else you're not gonna move them. In fact, they're probably not really listening to you. They're on their sheet of paper, they're writing down their to-do list and counting the time before they can get out of there and move on to the next thing in their lives. You are sucking up space and wasting time, and nobody wants that. But let's be truthful here. Too many times our audiences walk in the room and with fairly low expectations because we as speakers, for those people who don't do this for a living but they do it as part of their job, they do it because they have a message they want to share, which I know is so many of my listeners, I love you. We can do better. We can invest a little more time and energy to surpass people's expectations. So I want to talk about the book Blue Ocean Strategy. If you haven't read it yet, Go read it, there's some really interesting things in there. And one of the most valuable things I got out of that is mapping out your blue ocean strategy. So the idea is there's this red ocean of blood, of competition, where everybody else is living in that space doing sort of the same thing and competing by doing the same thing. And that You as a creative, you as a speaker, you want to live in a totally different ocean, the blue ocean, all right, where you distinguish yourself with your excellence and with your commitment to doing things in your own way. You're not even worried about what's happening over there in that bloody red ocean. You are really focused on the blue ocean. And I find this a really compelling thoughtful exercise for us as speakers. When I think about events, when I think about even workshops, when I think about a keynote speech, there is sort of the standard fare, right, that people are thinking about when they walk into that situation. It's like, oh, this is generally how it goes. All right, it's good to keep those in mind because you don't want to freak people out too much by going way outside people's expectations. But there are things that we can do to raise people's expectations, right? To say, "Oh, well, that's thoughtful. That's a really great way to do this." So here's a really simple example that I see happening over and over and over and over and over again, and that we can do better and we can do differently. Let's imagine that you have a workshop to do at a conference coming up. All right, you're really excited that your proposal got accepted. You want to go in there and share your expertise, your ideas, your message.
Awesome.
This is great. Do not, do not do what 95% of people do in that situation. They share and offer the PowerPoint slides. As their notes. Oh, you're killing me, people! Please don't do that. Please don't do that. It's too easy. And furthermore, I don't know what you want me to take from that. Okay, your PowerPoint deck should not be your notes. They have a completely different use. There's so many problems with this besides it being really like shortcutty and not in a good way. And that's not what slides are for, and we can do better. Next time, let's change people's expectations on that by offering a totally different alternative. Get out of the red ocean of people handing out crappy PowerPoint notes as their takeaway. And go over to the blue ocean and think of something creative. Think of something that is purely you. Think of a takeaway that encapsulates your main idea, that people will walk away remembering what you talked about, remembering what's important. Get out of the red ocean and situate yourself in that blue ocean by doing something different. Surpass their expectations on the things that you know we can do better at. And you be the one to do it. That's it for me. It was a mini Moved Me. It moved me. I hope it moved you. And see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of This Moved Me, a mini Moved Me here on this beautiful rainy, rainy Wednesday. It's rainy where I am. Is it rainy where you are? It's raining where I am. I'm so thrilled to have you along for the journey, and I want to point you to this cool thing that a wonderful designer friend of mine made, taking some of the most amazing quotes that we have heard here on the show in the last year and put it in a beautiful downloadable free PDF, and it's lovely, and I'd love for you to have it. Go to thismovedme.com, scroll down a little bit, and there's a little section that says freebies, and there's some things to choose from, and one of them is this quote book. It's yours. Go enjoy it. Thanks for listening. This moved me. What moves you?
