In this episode of This Moved Me, host Sally Koering Zimney (Speaker A) walks listeners through steps 3 and 4 of her "shitty first draft" method for building compelling presentations. Step 3 focuses on sharing the rough draft with a thoughtful listener—a coach, partner, or friend—who can listen attentively and provide clear, honest feedback. Sally outlines the key questions to ask the listener (what stands out, what’s most compelling, what can be cut) and stresses the importance of choosing someone who truly listens rather than merely nods. She advises listeners to weigh feedback against their own gut instinct, warning not to discard ideas solely because one person dislikes them. Sally differentiates between feedback that is honest but unhelpful (to be discarded) and feedback that is helpful but not fully honest (to be treated cautiously). She emphasizes that aligning external feedback with internal reactions strengthens confidence in the draft. Step 4, briefly introduced, moves into editing and structuring the talk, hinting at outlining and the author's personal love of structure. The episode ends with encouragement to keep creating and sharing "shitty first drafts."
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. Alright team, we are on step number 3 of how to create your best worst first draft of your presentation. Okay, how do we create that shitty first draft so it is starting us off on the right foot and we can rock it? We're gonna kick butt on this presentation, you really are. Okay, so you have created a shitty first draft, you have walked away from it, and now you're going to share it. That's your job. Step number 3 is you're going to share it with someone. Okay, you're going to send it to somebody, you're going to share it with a coach, you're gonna talk it through with a partner, you're gonna go have coffee with somebody and talk it out. So who, who do you share this with? My thoughts for you on this are that you share it with somebody who can mostly be a great listener and reflect back to you the things that she or he is hearing. I don't want you to share it with somebody who is not a listener, let's put it that way. You want somebody to really, who can listen thoughtfully and carefully so that you can ask some of the questions that you've been wondering, like, what part stands out to you? What do you think is the most compelling piece of this? What don't I need? Those are the two big questions that you want to find out at this point, is like, what are this part that, what was the part that they were like, oh, that's really interesting, What was the part they're like, eh, I don't think you need that. That's all the information you want at this point. Now the conversation may revolve around some other pieces and that's great, like naturally is there some form and function that is climbing out of this, right? Like could you put it into a 5-point outline? And if you want to know more about that, I've got another episode around that, so if, if that is starting to come to life, awesome, okay? Because that is a pretty important step. But at this point, you're just trying to get a sense of what's interesting and what's scrappable, okay? Most importantly though, I want you to pay attention to your own gut on this. What is your gut, your instinct telling you? Because this is just one person's opinion. Okay, so if they're telling you something and your internal reaction to it is like, hmm, ah, shoot, no, no, so there's more there for you. Don't let it go just because this one person says nope, don't do that. Okay, that's my advice for you. And of course, whenever you're sharing your work with somebody, if their thoughts are both honest and helpful, great. If they are honest without being helpful, I say discard it, right? If it's helpful but not honest, well, I guess you don't know. As long as it's helpful, that's a good thing, okay? I do a lot of talking with people about things because just like in my writing, that's how I figure things out, that's how I get to clarity, and it's also how I hone my own internal instinct on what feels right. Like, "Nope, I don't want to let that go yet," and "Mm, there's some still something here." And if it— if people confirm for me what my instinct is also feeling, I take that as a really strong sign. Okay, so you— this is your voice, your thoughts, your words. So it's really essential that you have a strong connection to it because it was pretty kitchen sinky And as you share it, you're gonna have a pretty strong reaction to it too, like, uh, nope, or, oh, that's interesting, or, oh my gosh, this is a little scary, I can't believe I'm sharing this, right? All of those, pay really close attention to it. And remember, you're getting towards it, you're getting close to it when it does feel a little scary, okay? That's how you know that what you're sharing needs to be shared. So That was step 3, you shared. And step 4, you guys, step 4 we've already talked about, and that is how to edit. So if you go back a few mini moved mes, you're gonna find that. So your shitty first draft, I'm proud of you, you're there. Now we're gonna start getting technical about how to create a draft and put some structure around this talk. Because I love me some structure. It's really weird. It's like the Virgo in me finally comes out when I'm putting together a talk. Otherwise, she's pretty quiet. All right, team, I gotta go. Uh, hope you are out there exploring, creating. Let's make some shitty first drafts, huh?
