333: How to Create a Pre-Talk Ritual

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 everybody. How's it going? So I wanna spend maybe 10, 15 minutes doing a little mini training for you about the pre-talk ritual and how we prepare ourselves to be really present with our audience and to do our best work and really show up and love them up. The best that we can. And it does take some preparation. And I think finding a ritual is really, really important. We are all dealing with real life stuff, and then we step out front. And I was thinking about how, how much do we bring of ourselves into the moment we have up front? Well, I think how we manage our, our pre-talk ritual actually helps us manage that. And ultimately the question is, what can serve your audience? Sometimes it's really helpful to compartmentalize a little bit, to put some things aside so that you can focus and serve your audience. But some things help fuel you in that service of your audience. And so we, we have to distinguish that for ourselves about what can really fuel us as we serve our audiences. But it's all about the pre-talk ritual, like what's going on up here, managing your mindset, your body. We are speakers. It is a physical tool. It's a physical experience, even when we're doing it virtually, right? What is happening in my body? You can feel, okay, not as much, but you can still, the energy is still palpable. And then of course, spirit, or another way to think about that is like your heart, where you are in your, your soul and how that really affects how we show up and what we can offer our audiences. So, you know, besides the obvious things that we do in those buckets, right? Your mind, it's all about mantras and, and being really careful about how you manage your mind and making sure you are managing your mind. Which I think is sort of a no duh. It's really important. But here's what I want you to be moving towards when you think about preparing your mind. We want to be moving our mind to a place where we can be clear. Okay? So we're moving towards clarity. It is an incredibly taxing mentally thing that we're doing when we get up to speak. It's taxing mentally. And so we have to have our mind in a place where we aren't distracted, where we aren't in a place of spinny self-doubt, where we are suddenly feeling like a 7th grader again, wondering what to do and who are we even to be doing this. Those do not help us show up and be clear and impactful with our audience. And so that's what I want you to be moving towards when you're thinking about what are the mantras that I need? What is the mindset that I need? You're moving yourself towards Clarity. Okay. And then with your body, of course, you're moving yourself towards health always. Okay. And part of the way that we do that is, is in the long-term, the everyday, that's part of our pre-talk ritual. Like, are you taking care of yourself? How are you eating? Are you exercising? It's not about the ultimate body shape that we end up with. It's about the internal health and wellbeing. And of course the mind and the body are really, really connected. All three of these areas of course are really connected. And part of the reason I work out has nothing to do with my physical health. It has to do with my mental health. Like I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I'm always in a better mood after I work out than before. So yeah, I would say that if we are moving towards health in the long term, that's one thing, but then moving towards health, like the day of your talk, you're doing it for the intent of getting all that extra adrenaline out so that you can really focus. Okay. So with our mind, we're moving towards clarity and with our body, we're moving towards health and wellbeing. Okay. And we're, we're really aligning our body so that it can be a tool we can depend on. And use so it can be really grounded and connected. Okay. And then our spirit, this third piece, where it's like, well, like really your heart. Where's your heart at with this? Where's your spirit at with this? And this to me is all about just shifting our heart's orientation to generosity with our audience, to really loving the people who show up versus coming at it with a little bit more of a defensive, closed-down approach. That's not very helpful, and your audience can feel that. It's very natural to protect ourselves because this can be such a vulnerable thing, but what we really are doing is we are focusing on a generous spirit we create out of love for our audience. Brad Montague said that— he's the creator of Kid President, and I've known him for a few years and he's just an amazing person. And when he and I had a conversation on the podcast a few years ago, he said something that really, really stuck with me. He said, we don't create so that people say, I love you. We create out of love, or our audience. And that shift, I think, is really, really important. It's not, I'm creating this so that you love me, but I'm creating this out of love for you. People can feel that difference. And so that little shift can really change the orientation of our spirit and our heart as we prepare. So a lot of people do this in lots of different ways. There's a woman in Movers U, I think it was Anna, but Anna, Anna prays. That is how Anna gets centered and gets focused on staying positive. But I will say Anna, it sounded like Anna's prayers were also like, oh, I hope this goes okay. Oh, which is a little different. It's a little different intention. And so praying, God, religion, it really has nothing to do with the orientation of the heart. I mean, it all has everything to do with it, but you don't need to be religious in order to, to talk about spirit and to prepare your spirit to be generous with your audience. It's about an openness and sort of a belief in our connection as human beings. And if you don't believe that we are connected as human beings, even if we are very different from each other, that we have this human shared experience, then I don't think the big things are gonna happen in your talk. We need a generous spirit in order for the big, beautiful things to happen in our talk, because we are inviting people in to our human experience and we want them to invite us into theirs. It becomes this shared co-creative experience together, virtually, in person, either way. The words that I'm saying reach out to you and it have different associations with your memories and your experiences and your life. And together we are co-creating a new other thing. Like it's metaphysical, crazy, awesome, weird, and I love it. I think it's wild. I'm not a scientist. I just know just a little bit enough. And I feel that you don't need to be a scientist to know it. Like, I really feel it. So the mind, the body, and the spirit. We talk a lot about mind and body. Most of us know, oh gosh, yep. I need to do something so that I'm physically ready and mentally ready. But what about the spirit? What do you do to help make sure that you have an open and generous heart with your audience and how we get there. And I think it can be a really— can take us a while to get there. When we really trust ourselves in the moment out front and we trust that we can handle what's coming our way, it's much easier to be a generous speaker and to have a generous spirit up there because we're no longer really thinking about ourselves. And I think the first chunk of rehearsal and preparation is very self-focused. It's like, oh, I don't like how this feels, I don't like this, and I feel weird, and I can't figure this out, and it's all I, I, I, I, I. But when we step out on stage, we really want to shift that focus to you, who you are, your experience, you audience, where are you at, how are you feeling, what's going on, and sort of bring each other to the same human experience. Love it. Thank you so much for being here. Talk to you later. Bye.