325: Speaking and the Body with Erika Biddix

Hey movers, it's Sally Z with Be Moved. Let's go create some talks that will move this world. We're gonna talk with amazing speakers, share tips, tricks, resources, and we are going to be moved so that our audience can be moved. This moved me. What is moving You. Hello team. In just a moment, the awesome Erica Biddix is gonna be joining us to talk about the body, which seems like a big topic. This is a big thing, but we are talking about the body today because we are speakers and not writers, and to our own detriment, we sometimes ignore the body. Erica's going to come join from Autrepreneurs. Hopefully she'll be here in a moment. So glad to see all of you.

Yay.

There she is.

Hello.

Hello, my friend.

Okay.

Are you ready to talk about the body?

I don't know what we're talking about other than that. So let's do this.

So Erica and I just spent this past weekend at a retreat. Together working on our businesses. So Erica, why don't you start by telling people a little bit about who you are, what you do, what your business is, and then we'll dive in.

So I am the owner of a company named AUGHTE, A-U-G-H-T, and we are on a mission to change lives in local communities through female entrepreneurship. So we support women with community coaching and coworking space.

Love it. So exciting. Last night I was at the Twins baseball game and I was telling my husband about you. And part of what I was telling him was the reason why I was like, Erica and I need to get on a live and talk about this is you are a very kinesthetic person.

Which I did not know until I spent this weekend with you. Yes. I've never been told that before ever in my life.

Wow. That is shocking to me because you're the star.

Yeah.

Do you, okay. So you were like, I don't know what that means. So my assumption is that there are people out there who also don't know what that means, which is totally fine. It's a big fancy word, but really it just means you're a very physical person. The body is, um, is especially expressive. Like it's how you Yes. Is that one of the main ways that you express yourself? It's, you know, right? So just sitting next to Erica, sometimes I'm like, ooh, there's just so much happening. Now this is coming from, I'm also a kinesthetic person. The body and the words, to me, that's, that's the ultimate goal as a speaker and as a leader. Anytime you're stepping out in front of your audience, it's like the, you cannot extricate the body. From your words. So when I said you're a super kinesthetic person, we talked about a little bit, were you like, oh yes, that's true. Tell me about your reaction to that.

Sure resonated. It just was not— everyone always jokes with me about how I talk with my hands. Like it's actually dangerous to sit next, to sit next to me. Or if we're actually, I really don't care if we have just met. And this is a true statement. If I'm sitting at a choir concert next to another parent I've never met and somebody hits a like super high note, I'm the person I'm like, oh my God, you, or I'll like warn out if we're in a movie, you know, with friends, maybe I've never been to a movie before. I'm like, just heads up, if you're next to me, you're probably gonna get grabbed or smacked or all in fun. But yeah, it's just, I don't know how to talk without moving. I can't even imagine. Yes, I can. I do that, right?

Which is, I think, a gift. I just want you to know, I think it's, it's a gift. It, it, it can flip over to liability. I mean, besides like hitting the people next to you, mostly when I, when I think about the context of you stepping out in front of your audience and knowing that you're a kinesthetic person, like how can we tap into that for you as a strength? And a lot of people, and I've had this conversation with probably 3 speakers in the last 2 weeks who were like, I'm too much. I've gotta dial down my body. And I think it's rare for that to shift into liability. Every once in a while it might shift into liability, but mostly like it's such a powerful form of expression. And I think there's a lot of people who are like trying to stop the movement of their body.

Well, what do you think is too much? Like what would be a too much thing? How can you get to be too much?

It's a great question. So too much is based, a lot of it's based on context, right? So ultimately the, the bar is about distraction. So if you are The movements of your body, any, any quirks that we have, filler words that we use a lot, or yeah, like mannerisms or even content, anything that is distracting people and takes them out of the experience where they're no longer thinking about what you've said. Like they're, they're no longer experiencing it in the first moment. They're analyzing what you're doing. That pulls them out of the experience and now they're going, oh, interesting. This person does a blah, blah, blah. And the more we can embrace and say, even you saying like, I talk with my hands a lot, like that, it's now we're like, oh, this is who this person is.

Yeah.

So there's an acceptance that comes with that. But if it shifts into distraction mode, then They're, they're not experiencing what we're saying. They're analyzing you.

That makes complete and utter sense.

Yeah.

For instance, I play with my hair all the time.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a thing I do and I, because I'm on Instagram video stories, whatever, a lot. And I'm trying really hard not to do it because some people have pointed it out to me.

Yeah.

Is impossible. Because it's just, it's who I, if you were at dinner, probably shouldn't talk about food, but if you were with me regardless, I would just do it because I don't know. I just never had a reason for it until you said that to me the other, the other day, you know, like I recorded a podcast last week. I'm sitting right here and I've got a desk chair that moves. And we got about 3 minutes into the podcast recording and they were like, something's gotta give because You cannot be in a moving, in a moving chair. You're making too much noise. That's why that is there. I had to get a static chair because I was ruining the podcast recording. I moved around.

That's really good to know. Right. Because they know that, that, that reached the level of distraction.

Yeah, absolutely. So, and now it's just something, I think it's only however many days old since I've had this information. 5, 6 days, but now it is something I'm thinking about, right? As I'm recording new Instagram stories or just whatever across the board.

So here's what I think is really important and powerful about this brief conversation we're having about this is anytime we step up front, uh, in front of our audience and we're, it's a vulnerable thing to do because we are sharing who we are. I, to me and my approach as a coach is like, we want, we want you to maintain who you are, the spirit of who you are, how you show up. Like, I want you to show up and be a physical being in front of your audience because that is part of who you are. And there's more room for us to do that than we think. So I was, I don't know where I was. Oh, I was working with one of, one of my speakers in the lab. And she had been given the advice at some point along the way to not move her hands at all when she shows up virtually. And I was like, if we don't see your hands in some way, we're actually— it's a detriment. So there's these extremes that we've been coached towards, right? Which is like shut down all of the, these mannerisms or the filler words, all these things that kind of make us who we are, shut them down completely. And we end up missing who, like you, your spirit, who you are.

Well, that's funny. So as I kind of am going through a couple of things, so I've had two experiences speaking with microphone issues. So most of the time these days, I feel like you get a lav, a wireless lav most of the time, right? But a couple of years ago, I was speaking at a gala and I had to stand in one place. Plus I was wearing a fairly restrictive outfit. But one of my friends took a video of me because behind the podium, my foot, my back foot was just tapping the entire time. Nobody could see it. She was on the side of the stage, but she took a video. She was like, did you know you did that? I said, no, I didn't. But that was my way of being able to stay still in one place. And last week I did something and I a handheld mic, which is just, I did not know what to do with myself. And I mean that in a way that I was having a difficult time with some of the things I was saying because I couldn't use my hands the way that I normally would use them. So there's something I say where I kind of make a list with this hand and a list with this hand. And even that, holding that microphone, I was like, what do I do? What do I do?

And it.

It took me out of my, it took me out of my flow a little because I just haven't done it with a handheld mic before. I had to start tapping.

Yeah. We were doing a hot seat coaching session with my Signature Talk Studio people yesterday, and we were just talking about how important it is to as quickly as possible shift from writing to standing up and doing it on your feet. Before you're done, before you're, before you feel ready, because the body has so much to tell us.

Yeah, you're 100% right.

And, and what happens if we don't get to the body faster is we end up, you know, when, when we're standing up in front of our audience, even virtually, we end up, like you said, getting out of the flow, or it like truncates our expression in a way that we are, are having less impact than we could really have if we don't really show up in the body.

I'm gonna embrace it.

Embrace the body. There's so much room for you to show up as Erica before it flips into distraction.

Yeah.

But it does sound like you, you know, there's a, there's, there are the boundaries.

There are. Like if I was standing right now, because I had a real Would Sally want me to be standing for this talk, or would she want me to be— this chat, or would she want me to be sitting? And I'm standing, like, the chances of me knocking the phone over, pretty high. Because it's gonna get even bigger, you know, if I'm not contained to this seat a little bit.

Yeah. Yep. You are not too much.

Thank you.

You and your full expression of self. Is going to be the most powerful way for you to impact and influence. You're doing it. Would you—

I belong out front?

Yeah. Some might say, some might say that you belong out front, not in front of your house, but in front of your audience. That's like a little shout out to Angie, wherever she is. Okay. This was short and sweet. I just want to say thank you for offering a, a little bit of a case study of a kinesthetic person who's in the process of, of wanting full expression, authentic expression of self, and learning where those places are. Yeah.

Thank you for helping me to kind of understand it a little bit. Okay.

Before you go, where can people find out more about you?

So we are Autrepreneurs. It's A-U-T-R-E-P-R-E-N-E-U-R-S. It's A-U-T-R-E-P-R-E-N-E-U-R-S. G-H-T, then you have to find out how to spell entrepreneurs yourself. And we're all, we're all over social, primarily Instagram, a little bit Facebook, and then you can find us at entrepreneurs.com. Awesome. We'd love to welcome some new folks into the, into our community for sure.

You're doing amazing work. I'm so excited to be walking along that, like we're walking together. Thank you.

We're walking arms and we're just doing the thing.

Physically. With our hands.

Alright.

Okay, you're the best! Thanks, Erica!