7 Apr 2017 · 8 min
Sally Koering Zimney argues that perfection kills connection in public speaking. She shares a story about walking through the wrong door at an audition, laughing it off, and creating genuine rapport with the panel. Audiences remember and connect with speakers who embrace their imperfections, not those who perform flawless expertise.
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 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, so we're waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey movers, it's Sally and it's time for your Speaking Truth number 2. Oh, we are on kind of an adventure advanced schedule as we do this over the next few weeks because there are— how many Speaking Truths are there? There are 7. There are 7 Speaking Truths. And so instead of just like draining this out and really like, "Brrr," over the next— you know, guys know what I meant by that, right? "Brrr." Instead of doing that over the next few weeks or few months, because, gah, that's kind of taking things over. I thought we would just, whoop, kinda combine it, fast forward it just a little bit. So we will do these speaking truths and I hope that these are just reminders for you, help empower you in your work as you are creating talks that can move the world. If you want the email version of this email course, yeah, 'cause it's an email course so it's an email version, check it out over on my website, thismovedme.com, and you can sign up. Then you also become one of my subscribers and you get all kinds of good stuff and discounts on my coaching work. My quick coaching as an email subscriber, you get $20 off of that, which I think is pretty awesome. So, um, let's dive in. Speaking truth number 2: if connection is the point of speaking, then you must know this: perfection kills connection. Ooh. I used the word kill. That is not a word that I like to use very often, but I think it's true. Audiences want to know who we are and really relate to us. So if we just share all the wisdom we have instead of like the rough road we took to earn that wisdom, well, my response as an audience member is honestly like, yay for you and your perfect life. Meanwhile, I'm over here sucking it up big time. So 'Clearly our lives are very different and you don't have anything to offer me,' which is not true. Of course you have something to offer them, but they need to connect with you first, relate to you first, even if you're seemingly very, very different people. Connection is how we do that, and by showing our imperfect selves, that is actually the thing that connects— our foibles, our I love that word, foibles, and our follies, the stuff that we are sure are the things that we've been hiding, that we've been pretending didn't happen. Those are exactly the things to mine for because there is wisdom in there. And our humanness is what connects us, which brings me to this moment. In my life. I was practicing an audition in front of this panel of people and this director that I admired so much, and I was looking for their feedback. And I really, really wanted to impress him and do an awesome job, of course, as would anybody in that situation. So it felt like kind of a big deal. And I remember I did the monologue and it went fine, and then I turned around and walked out this back door. And just like that moment in American Idol, if you, if you remember that show and ever watched it, I, I went to the wrong door and I couldn't open it. Um, and they're all watching me, and I turned around to the panel and I kind of laughed, hahaha. And then I had to take this long walk back across the room to the other door while they all looked on. But we laughed together. We sort of— I turned it into a thing. I mean, I was mortified. I, I was so embarrassed. I was like, oh, well, I just screwed that up. I just ruined that audition. But my director said this. He said, no, you didn't, Sally. We won't forget you. That moment was so genuinely human. That moment will help you stand out. And I feel like I got to see more of you in that way. And that stuck with me. In fact, I think it's a really powerful lesson. How many talks does an audience take in in their lifetime? A lot. And how memorable are they? Mm, generally not very. I mean, even for an excellent talk, we have to be so thoughtful about how we get our ideas and our presentations to stick. What's gonna stick? Well, one of the stickiest things we can do is to mess up and share our mess. And live theater offers up so many opportunities for us to be human and imperfect and just embrace it and kind of live in that moment. There's nothing that will bring an audience in more if you can embrace it and not turn it into an awkward thing that you wish didn't happen. So instead of working so hard to erase those imperfections, we have to fight really hard against that instinct and embrace them. So when you, uh, trip, forget, uh, when we're digging deep as we create our talks, it's time to be human up there. Your audience will feel more connected to you, not less, if you can embrace those beautiful imperfections, which is of course the trick. So some questions for you to ask yourself: when you have an imperfect moment, how do you respond to it? Is your instinct to just like run away or hold that moment and soak it in? And I think this is just a moment for us to check ourselves on our perfectionism, which is a real thing and can be toxic. So where are you at with perfectionism? Give yourself just a minute to kind of, mm, Check in with yourself on that one. All right, that, that is it for Speaking Truth Number 2: Perfection Kills Connection. Next up, Speaking Truth 3: I Want You to Be an Unspeaker. Hmm, what does that mean? I don't know. I'll tell you about it next time. Some extra special, extra special goodies come through on the email course of this, just so you know. Similar messages, but there's some really fun visuals that you guys are missing out on that I'd love for you to see. So if you want to join in on the email course of this, go check it out over on the website, thismommy.com, and you'll see it there. Thanks, team. See you next time. I don't remember what I was gonna say. What was I gonna say? Oh my God, I seriously have no idea.
