In this episode of the "This Moved Me" podcast, host Sally Koering Zimney guides listeners through the second step of refining a presentation after completing a "shitty first draft." She opens with playful banter and references to writers Anne Lamott and Anaïs Nin, framing the first draft as a permissible, even cathartic, act of swearing and raw expression. Sally then explains that the next crucial move is to literally walk away from the draft, giving the work creative breathing room. She draws on insights from her husband Andy, a creative‑productivity specialist, to describe how the brain needs distance to assimilate ideas and allow new connections to form. While stepping away, she encourages continued idea capture—jotting down thoughts that surface and seeking inspiration from fields outside one’s own expertise. The episode ends with a celebratory affirmation of the listener’s bravery in completing the first draft and an invitation to return refreshed, ready to integrate fresh, cross‑disciplinary insights into the talk.
Chapters
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 Koering Zimney, and I'm back again for step 2 on creating your best worst draft of your presentation or your talk. Otherwise known as a shitty first draft. Gosh, it's kind of fun when Anne Lamott gives you permission to swear, right? She's a godly woman, I'm swearing. I love it. Okay, so last time we talked about the 5 pillars of approaching that first draft. What you need to be thinking in your mind, right? What you've got to have in your heart, what you've got to be willing to do, and what it should look like. It's gonna look like the kitchen sink. It's gonna be dizzy, right? You're not editing yourself. You're tasting life twice in the process. Thank you to Anais Nin on that one. Love it. Okay, the step I'm gonna talk about today is after you have that first draft, step 2, what do you do with that first draft? Okay, what do you do? Today's mini move to me is like mini mini. Because here is what you're going to do. You are going to walk away from it. Haha, what? That's it, yes, you're going to walk away from it. You're going to leave it be and get some creative space from it because you have just poured yourself out into that and you should just pat yourself on the back That is a huge accomplishment, getting the first shitty first draft done. Whoa, that is awesome and big right there. And now you need to walk away. Okay, if you remember back to the creative process series I did with my husband Andy, who's like a creative productivity guy, right? It's all about creative leadership, and he talks about the brain space that your brain literally, in order to assimilate everything that you just threw in there, In order for something to coalesce together and become something else, you have to step away from it a little bit. You're gonna keep dreaming and thinking and doing, and whatever seems relevant and awesome, write it down, okay? Because you will come back to that, okay? But right now you need to give it space. That is your job as you are working on this, is to give it space. Can you do that? I totally know you can. That's it. Okay, so whew, congratulations, you wrote a shitty first draft. Now you're gonna walk away. Go take a walk, do something that has nothing to do with your topic, listen to something else, right? Because it is when we can connect the dots to things outside of our genre, outside of your expertise, that's when things get interesting. That's when we can bring new insight and to an already rich body of knowledge that you have there. Okay, you want to bring some outside expertise into it. That's what makes it interesting, I think. So, phew, you walked away. That is awesome. Okay, that's it for me. You were brave in your exploration. And here you go. Off you go, movers. Woo! That's what's happening in my house all the time, of course. So, um, I don't remember what I was gonna say. What was I gonna say? Oh my God, I seriously have no idea.
