Ep. 115 High-Impact Speaking With Simon Bucknall

You're fine.

Gotta get my lips done.

Mark Brown getting his lips ready for this one. Cause this will be a lip smacker. All the way over from the uk. Get out your tea and crumpets because we are having one of our favorite friends, fans and colleagues. Simon, we are a fan of yours as well and just your delightful chop, if you will. And there is going to be some British humor because we are cheeky. And Mark Brown, your thoughts.

Listen, I am just thrilled we're gonna get to meet a good buddy of mine, Simon Bucknell. We've known him for years and I had the joy and privilege of spending time with him when he was competing in the Toastmasters World Championships a few years ago. Darren, let us do this. Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforget Forgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it. And Darren Lacroix.

And Darren Lacroix, stage time, Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, AHAs, let's dive right in.

For all of you who are in the uk, I'm going to ask for forgiveness right up front for my horrible British impressions and my definitions that are probably incorrect. But we are a friend and a fan for over a decade with this young man calling me old chap in the email. What?

What? Sweet of you to say so, Darren.

Yes, it was lovely.

Anyway, Mark Brown, welcome Simon Bucknell from Croydon in the uk. Is that right?

Not quite. Streatham Hill, darling. It's the Beverly Hills of South London.

Ah, all hoity toity then. I suppose. I'll stop right there. Simon, it is really great to see you again. We don't often get to have individuals who are international but whom we had a bond with for a while. And it's just cool to get to sit and talk with you for a while about your experience as a presenter, your life, your ups and downs and what's happening with you over the last several years since you've been a Totemus contestant and what are you doing now in your business. And we always ask Simon real quick to share with our audience where you reside now.

Well, home for me is Streatham Hill near Brixton in South London. So I'm about three, four miles south of the south of the Thames, darling, and this has been home for some time now. So yeah, it's London town And your.

First interaction with Darren and me came a few years ago. We want to share that story real quickly in a Reader's Digest condensed version.

I first remember meeting, well, Darren. It was in 2007, just before the Toastmasters World Convention. That year I was competing in the, as it was then, inter district World semifinal, and it was a three day program. Darren was running with Ed Tate and with Craig Valentine. And then, I seem to remember, Mark, you and I had actually met the year before in Washington, dc. You remember this? A drink or two. Just after I competed in D.C. in 2006. And I think. Now, who is it? I think our friend, the 1990 world champion, David Brooks, I think introduced us because he sat in on my competition. So it's been a few years. It was that 15, 14. 15 years ago, yeah.

Wow. Time does fly, right, Darren? Yeah.

We even met your mom.

That's a yes, indeed. Yes. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's an unforgettable mother. There we go.

Yes. Did I say that correctly? Mum.

Mum is mum. That's it. There's no O in Mum.

It's gonna be one of those days. Right? And of course, you also joined us on several of our programs over the years, and we really appreciate that. We found you to be quite the sponge, Simon. Always trying to drink things in and, you know, learn more and adapt to your international audiences, which is pretty cool, I must admit, so. But I know Darren has questions and our audience wants to know. So where did it all begin for Simon Bucknell?

The key moment for me, that made me think, wow, public speaking, the world of presenting. Something I've got to think about seriously. It came from a horrendous experience. I'm not sure how unusual this is, actually, but it was in my first job back in 2001. I can remember two things happening at that time. One was first phone call in that job. I was really nervous as my talking to someone senior and I wanted to say, hello, John, have I caught you at a convenient moment? And of course, under pressure? That's not what I actually said. I said, hello, James. Where have you caught yourself? Not a great opener. And. And we did laugh about it, thankfully, my colleagues and I at my leaving drinks from that job. And I had to give a speech at my leaving drinks. And I hadn't had much practice out of total panic. I was stressed, not because I hated doing it, but I. I just couldn't manage the adrenaline. I hadn't had much real. I certainly had not had any real formal input, any kind of coaching or anything. And remember thinking, this is really horrible. I cannot afford to feel like this. And so as a result, I joined a speaking club, joined a toastmasters club. And that's how it. That's how it began. Not because I wanted to go into professional presenting or coaching, although that's now my work and it has been for 13 years now. But. But I just thought I wanted to develop, wanted to improve. I wanted to gain confidence speaking under pressure. So, yeah, I kind of thought of it as like gym membership for speaking. So joined a speaking club. And then of course, some things happened with the world championships and other things that led to me then professional some years later. But it was never planned in advance.

Now, real quickly, for those of us who are North Americans or Jamaicans like me, this leaving drink sounds so formal and so fancy. Is that when you feel like a farewell party, when you're leaving a job?

Could you interpret for those of us who speak English?

Yeah, you mean American. You mean American.

Sorry, American now.

Yeah, it was. It was. It was 40 colleagues coming to make sure I actually left the company. I think security. Yeah, it was. It was literally on the office floor, open plan office. And it was kind of right, Simon, here's. Here's a nice gift. And. And off you go. And literally someone called out speech and I hadn't prepared anything. And yeah, that's. That's what it was. There's nothing formal. With hindsight, I. I realized all I needed to do was say that I've had a great time, really enjoyed my time here at the company, and let's go to the pub, the public house down the road.

Yes.

Yeah, there we go. That's. That's what a leaving drinks is. It was nothing. It was nothing fancy. There was no bow tie, bowler hat and umbrellas.

No bowler hats, canes, no cravats or ascots. It's getting worse.

I'm sorry, Darren.

Forgive me. You got me started and Simon just keeps the ball rolling. But, Darren, I'll let you go ahead.

Give us a little bit of. When did you realize, okay, I want to do this. This is fun. I can do something with this. I got some skills. Maybe I need to work on it. So tell us a little bit about that part of the journey.

I can remember very early in my speaking journey, long before I really started to think seriously about actually pursuing it professionally. I remember going to a conference in Ireland, in Limerick in West Ireland. First visit to Ireland, and the first time I'd gone to a conference where I was just blown away by seeing perfect People who had developed skills as speakers just ignite an audience. And I just remember thinking, oh, my God, I thought you had to be famous, you had to be a celebrity, you had to have done something heroic, you know, you had to scaled Everest, you know, without taking a breath, you know, and to see perfectly normal people just absolutely rock an audience, to me was a real eye opener. I thought, wow. I didn't realize that it was possible for that to happen, which is what inspired me then to enter the. The International Speech Contest the following year. Yeah, the following year.

So you realized it was common for even the peasants, that the commoners.

The commoners, yeah, well, something like that, yeah. I thought, well, if they could do that, well, maybe I could. Maybe. This is. This is pretty cool. And because I, at the time was in my. I was in my late 20s, and it had never occurred to me that this might be something one could do professionally and so on. So that was an important moment. And then what I found was that having been a member of the speaking club for a little while, I had a really good mentor who was. He become a very good friend. He's deeply inspiring, and he really challenged me and encouraged me to be vulnerable, to be willing to dig deep on personal experience. And so after doing a few speeches, challenged me. And I decided to put together a speech based on a very emotional story from my school days. This is, say back in this about 2005, 2006 time. And it was. It was about a boy that I really didn't get on with at all at school. We didn't really like each other and. And it was quite painful, the actual experience, the story, but important for me. And I put that into a speech and the reaction was stunning because I went into it thinking, oh, people will think this is a bit. I'm a bit soppy. They'll think, this is a bit weak. They'll think, oh, it's a bit emotional, It's a bit. You know, it'll be a bit. But it was true. It was honest. And I. And I wasn't quite sure how it would go down. And the reaction was extraordinary for people in the aud. And. And it was a real. Again, that was another real important moment for me to think, oh, my goodness, you know, that. That felt uncomfortable preparing. And yet just look at the return in terms of people's reaction, the connection they had with the story and the experiences. And I thought, whoa, this is. This is not something I ever could have imagined would be of such potential value and impact for people. That story was the story that I did use it actually in a speech that I gave in the final of the World Championships years and years later.

Do you remember any of the comments that people said where you realized, like, what was said to Simon that you're like, wow, okay.

So I remember one guy coming up to me because this was, if you like the story of, quote, unquote, sort of my school bully, if you like, but a boy with whom we became very good friends. So there's a real reconciliation in the story, which is what the speech was really about, about empathy and as we really came to understand each other. But I remember one guy coming up to me and he said, you know, there was a bully at my school as well, and you've just prompted me to think a bit differently about him. Thank you. You know, and I just thought, oh, my goodness, you know, that that has cut deep. And I remember somebody else just saying, you know, the moment is that there's a point where I have a letter in the speech and it's. And I sort of drop the letter and I could. And I remember a lady in the audience, when you drop the letter, goosebumps.

Wow.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And it was just. I thought, wow. You know, this is. This is. This is something. You know, this is something. I think it's. It's that the challenging part is the leap of faith you have to take to dig deeper and be willing to. It's not about bearing your soul necessarily. It's just about really connecting with. Honestly connecting with the meaning of an experience and what that meant and actually showing what that was like in a way that is meaningful for an audience. And it was. Yeah, it was. It was a big thing for me to come to terms with.

Before the show, when we were just chatting, you told us a little story, if you don't mind sharing that, that happened when you were really young. And then after your speech, this gentleman that you hadn't Talked to in 30 years, your bully at the time, reached out to you.

Yeah, that's right. So in the world final In Vancouver in 2017, the World Championship final, I gave a speech, an adapted version of that same story of the boy from school who we had punch ups and all this kind of thing, who became friends in this as a result of certain challenges and issues that I encountered. Anyway, yeah, we had not spoken for 30 years. Three weeks after the championship, I literally got a note on Facebook after no contact. And the boy's name, I changed his name in the speech, obviously, because this is going out worldwide. But in the championship. So the name I gave him is James Bullock. And I got a name from the actual boy, first contact. And it just said one line on Facebook, he said. And it just said, am I James Bullock? Oh, my goodness. He's seen it. He's seen it. Oh, my goodness. And I responded saying, I think you know the answer to that question. I wonder what you made of the speech. You know, not knowing because it's quite emotive, and he's really the hero of the speech, but still, there's some quite sensitive stuff in there. And he responded and he just said, oh, my. He said, I tried to forget what an idiot I was at school, but I remember it like it was yesterday. We spoke on the phone, we reconnected. I've seen pictures now of his family, his wife. He's got lovely daughters. And it's just amazing, amazing reconciliation meeting again after 30 years. He saw it by chance because it was circulating around on Facebook off the back of the championship. There's a lot of momentum behind some of the speeches from the competition, of course. So, yeah, quite a thing.

And I gotta ask you. So wait, you were talking about you've used that speech before and then you used it again in the World Championship and you made some adjustments, you looked at it. So my question, since this is unforgettable presentations, do you remember any of those adjustments you made? And because they're trying to give some strategies and ideas and techniques for people to look at their own speech, to reinvent them and take a story they already have, and how can I make it even better? Do you remember any of those?

Yeah, well, funny enough, there were one or two adjustments I made for the championship, which actually, I think took some of the impact out of the speech, actually, the best of intentions on my part. But there's certain things. There's one moment, for example, in the story where I literally smacked this boy in the face, which is a big moment of me stepping up. And unknown to me, the headmaster of the school is in the same room and saw it happen. And literally this did happen. The headmaster was there with his newspaper and he was watching me. And I turned around, I realized. And what he actually. His reaction, I was thinking, oh, my God, I'm going to get in such trouble. His reaction, of course, was. And of course, all it is, I show the reaction. I don't say, you know, good on your son or any of that. I think later he said to my parents, I think Simon needed to do that. You know, he kind of recognized he was Quite, quite a tough guy in lots of ways. But on that particular thing he really saw what was happening anyway. But in the championship I just fluffed, I rushed it and with an audience of that size, I realized when I looked back on the recording I could tell it didn't land on the day and I realized it was just too. I didn't, I didn't take your time enough, take my time enough and was not deliberate enough about that moment to let it really be absorbed by the audience. I think a lot of people just missed it because it, it's been such a big, a really big moment had a lot of impact in previous versions, but I've never given the speech in front of two and a half thousand people before, only in front of up to about 3 or 400. There's a big difference, I think. So that was one real learning for me, I think, I think there's something else to consider, which is that there's a moment, there's a reference in there, in the speech to religion. I don't mean kind of a comment on religion, but it's kind of acknowledgements of. It's a very Catholic school that I was at. And there was that moment of feeling, I've just hit this boy. Same time, just before the head master realizes where I kind of think, right, well, it felt like literally was a cross on the wall of the, of the hall, you know, in the, in the, in the dining hall where this happened. And it felt like, you know, God looking down saying, I forgive you. And there's that sort of moment which I took out from the championship because I don't want to be sent, I don't want to kind of complicate things and risk causing offense. You know, we obviously, importance of faith and so on. And yet ironically, when I'd previously given the speech some years before in Ireland, you know, the moments of my sort of worrying about what the divine might think of this thing I'd just done had gone down an absolute storm. Because it's human, it's true, it was what I thought. I felt terribly guilty for a moment and then thought, no, it was the right thing to do. And I took it out in the championship and I regret doing that actually, because I think, well, in the end there is a real humanity to me as an 8 year old boy worrying about bluntly going to hell as a result and actually think, you know, that surely I've been forgiven for this. And so I think, so I took it out because of some feedback I'd had, random, some Practices. And I think, well, do you know what, in the end you've got to trust what was true for you, your instincts. You know, you can have all sorts of well intentioned feedback, but just because someone advises, well, maybe you should consider taking that out or putting this in, that's their view, it doesn't mean that you should follow it.

Excellent, well said.

Two things real quick. For those who are listening to the podcast, that moment of silence was a wonderful face that Simon showed us, the headmaster, AKA principal to us North Americans, how he reacted when he saw Simon finally stand up to the bully. You expected to get a negative response, but his face told you, yeah, yeah, good on you, good on you.

Excellent.

And also I wanted to kind of go back to the process of making those changes because you did say trust yourself what is true for you and trust your instincts. But did you also rely on the wisdom and direction of specific people? Because we know everybody wants to help their district champion to be the best. And you get all these voices coming in. How did you sift through? What voices to whom to listen to.

What I found was that building or identifying a circle of trust was really important. And of course, Mark, you were with me on that journey in preparing for the championship and then there were four or five other people here in the UK that also were with me on that journey, I have to say, a couple of whom are not particularly public speaking experts necessarily, but I think it's good to have a small, close knit people, close knit group of people whom you know well and, or whose expertise you absolutely value. And I found, for example, that a couple of really important people for me within that circle, the two people I mentioned who are not, say, public speaking experts, but one has expertise in the world of singing, so he understands the world of performance and the other is experience in the world of theatre. But more important than that experience is that they both know me really well. They are school friends of mine whom I've known since I was in my teens. And one of them, I was best man for him at his wedding. I'm godfather to the others, one of the other's sons. And so as a result, when I was going through the speeches, there were a number of preparing a couple of the speeches for the championships, they were very good at picking up on areas where it just didn't quite ring true for them in terms of what I was wanting to communicate. And I think that was really valuable too. It doesn't have to just be about surrounding oneself with quote unquote, public speaking experts, although that is hugely valuable. It's also important to have people that really understand you as a human being and will. Will absolutely be able to give you that really personal insight and perspective as well.

Well, real quickly thinking about. You mentioned one of them had expertise in theater. How do you respond to the individuals who come and say, simon, can you coach people? I don't want to sound. I don't want to be too theatrical. Why would you need a theater coach to help you to be more natural and authentic? How do you respond to that dichotomy in people's minds?

Yeah, so it's interesting because, of course, there's different schools of theatre, aren't they? Will Rowe, the friend I'm speaking of here is he's not a professional actor now, though that is part of his background. He works in the world of recruiting. He, as I say, was pushing me hard on. That doesn't quite feel true. That doesn't quite ring right. I don't really feel that there was a lot of personal input, but from the theater point of view, if anything, he was trying to get me to be less theatrical. He was saying, look, he was saying, you know, he said, that's a bit. He said, remember, you're talking to me. You're not. Don't try and present at me.

That's a big one, Mark, write that one down.

Yeah, talk to me. And so he was very much of that. That kind of natural school of theater. And he was definitely not, for example, trying to coach me on gestures or any of that kind of stuff. It was more about the authentic voice coming through. And in the same way, actually, with a friend who's a singer by background. And his comment, and it was a real surprise to me when he talked this through, whether working with singers or with people in the spoken word, he'd say. He said, and he's literally a professional singer at the Royal Academy of Music here. He's a. He's an opera singer. You know, he's absolutely at the top of the top of his profession as an expert in that. And he said to me, he said, simon, in the work I do with singers on voice, he said, it's not about me trying to sort of plug techniques into their. Into their arsenal. A lot of it is about trying to strip out bad habits that have built up over years to allow the true authentic voice to come through. And he speaks of that in relation to singing. I think there's a lot of truth to be said for that in the spoken word as well. It's often about Peeling back layers and trying to get to the root of what's really going on. And that's not always as easy as it sounds.

Yeah. And Simon, you are obviously a friend of ours, an accomplished speaker, but you also help speakers and presenters. You teach high impact speaking as a skill and it can be learnt. But you have clients like University of Cambridge, London Business School, Academy of Engineering, ge. What are some of the presenting mistakes that you see a lot of people make? Like what are the common mistakes? Again, we're trying to figure out how to go from good to unforgettable. So when you're working with people, what do you look for and what do you coach them on?

Yeah, I think classic in the workplace, of course, is overcomplicating too much detail, too much complexity and stripping that out. And that is a real leap of faith, I think, for people where smart people with perhaps really quite literate, smart audience. I mean technically literate or professionally literacy within a particular industry. Industry. And I think it happened even earlier today. I was doing some sessions with some postdoctoral MBA and postdoctoral fellows in Oxford who are medical professionals looking to develop pitches to take potential enterprises forward for investment. And of course the complexity and the mastery of the detail they've got is extraordinary. The problem is in a five minute pitch, of course you just lose people. And the same is true of course, in the professional world with private equity firms, for example, that I've worked with, they get so easily bogged down all this technical or rational, rational detail. And, and it just doesn't. It, of course, as we all know on this, on this, this podcast, it just does not convert well through the spoken word. Fine on a page to read through, but not so cutting through complexity. Getting clear is, is key. And I know, I remember, still remember hearing you the, when you said years ago. Now, Darren, you know, clarity, clarity, clarity, that's absolutely central. I see that time and again as being a real hurdle for people. I think a second thing common, and I think this is absolutely a mistake is conf. Using the written word and the spoken word. I think too often people try to speak as they wrote and the problem is if it wasn't written in a way to be spoken, but instead written to be read, it won't sound right. And so people say I've got to prepare and they'll write scripts or detailed notes on their slides or whatever and they try to actually deliver them and it just sounds appalling or just dull. Just dull, you know, So I think the, I think that the challenge of figuring out how to ensure that it actually is a speech or you're talking to people rather than delivering an essay, I have to say. And that leads to one. I think one other really key thing which I've often offered as a tip for people in speech preparation is the value of conversations. I think when I often will ask clients that I'm helping, whether they are. Whether they are senior leaders in business or they might be practicing speakers, of course, professionally or other. How do you prepare? They say, oh, my preparation is really important. I spend lots of time doing this, this and this. Very often most of the time spent on preparation is in silence. And if there is anything out loud that happens, the out loud is to a bathroom mirror or it's, you know, it's talking to themselves or it's in front of the wall or to the dog or whatever, or it's. Or if there is someone else involved, it's a rehearsal, that's all fine. Obviously there is value in that, but it's very rare here. People say, yeah, I sit down and have a conversation with someone about stuff and talk it through. And I find that when you have a conversation, it's more dynamic, it's more engaging, it's interest, interesting. I say you buy them lunch if you have to, but sit down and have a conversation for 20 minutes with someone you know and trust about the topic. Don't give a rehearsal, but just talk it through and there'll be little gems there that you could use and then bring into the actual presentation. And you know, you know, it's authentic and it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than standing and speaking in front of a bathroom mirror. I know my bathroom mirror is hell on earth.

Oh my.

No, don't mind me. No, real quickly, Simon, my head is down. I'm taking some notes here because I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you back some.

Keepers at the very end.

So I'm not ignoring you. I'm trying to drink in the wisdom.

I feel I'll take it personally, but just on that point I remember I'm well aware of your, your expertise in the world of helping people with the humor, Darren. And you were in my mind a while back when I interviewed a female stand up comedian here in the UK on this is to do with bride speeches. And this particular lady, as a comedian, she had then spoken at her wedding and there's a cl, YouTube. It was hilarious. And I said, what's your best tip for developing humorous material for something like a bride speech or indeed a best man Or a groom or any speech. And she said, get a group of friends around, put some wine or coffee, whatever it is, on the table and start chatting. And sooner or later you'll start making it, trying to make each other laugh. And she just said, it's as simple as pay attention to what happens and log that and use some of that, because there'll be some gold. I thought just what a genius hack that is. You know, get some friends around, have a chat, booze if necessary. Good stuff will flow. And it's true. Yeah.

I would even say just record it. Turn on a little recorder for your own. Absolutely capturing it. Absolutely brilliant.

With permission, though, Darren, what you think?

Eh, Just kidding. Yeah, let them know. Let them know why. You know, they'll forget about it after a few minutes, but, you know, get it out of the way.

Simon, in having bridged the gap from. From your previous vocation, now you're presenting, you're teaching, you're instructing, you're guiding in terms of what Simon sees, not Simon says, but what Simon sees going forward down the road. Is there a particular goal that you have set for yourself within the arena of speaking and coaching that you can share with us, as in what's next for Simon Bucknell?

I don't. I certainly don't have a. Well, if and when I get to do that, I know I'll have arrived. I don't think that I do. I have really focused on one of the great joys of the now, say, 13 years I've been doing this. I launched in the middle of a credit crunch in 2008, and so it's interesting time to co independent as a speaker, coach and facilitator. But I really have tried to enjoy every moment as. As I've experienced it, rather than thinking I've just got to get to this stage because. And I think. I think that's when you know that you're really onto something professionally, whether it's speaking or something else, is when you know that. Well, as Ken Robinson says, when an hour feels like five minutes, you know that that's a good clue that you're onto something. If five minutes feels like an hour, then you've got a problem professionally. And so. So I think I really do embrace and seek to enjoy every moment. That said, what are the things ahead that. I think one of the key things I would love to do is to be involved in some kind of show or production or maybe it's a documentary or some kind of broadcast which seeks to reach a much wider audience. There was an attempt here in the UK a few years ago to run a reality TV show for young speakers, public speaking. And it just didn't quite click. It didn't quite work for a whole bunch of reasons. It literally went out on broadcast television and it said, didn't quite quite work. And there's a part of me that thinks there must be a way. Just as TED conferences have been such a massive hit, of course, over the years and have really worked, there must be a way to somehow bring help to shift public awareness or sensitivity to an understanding of public speaking. Because still lots of people still think it's this slightly, you know, arcane art. And yet on the other hand, say, well, yeah, I speak at a wedding and I think people realize it or people. So many people think it's. Yeah, it's something really quite niche and a little bit sort of artificial and it's kind of quite, you know, pompous and standing on a stage and, and, and with a lectern and. And of course, that's just not what it's about at all. It's much more real than that. And I think if there was any way in the future in which I could really get involved in something that that really did that, that for me would be very, very satisfying, personally.

So you don't consider the crown a real.

I wanted to quickly pick on something you said a little while ago, Simon, about what people's impressions are. And you've been blessed to speak at large corporations is right at institutions of higher learning. What have you discovered to be perhaps the most common misconception about the power of effective communication or preconceived ideas that are fairly common? I don't need this because. Or I need this because. But more in terms of negative preconceived ideas that you had to help people adjust to thinking about the whole idea of how will we communicate?

Who are in those environments, you mean? Yes, I think when in those environments, and it's true, I've had the good fortune to work with and continue to speak regularly in Oxford and in Cambridge, also with big corporations, as you say, and big private equity firms with billions under management and all this kind of thing. And I think it's. I think it's very common for folk in that environment to be either a little, especially if they're more junior and younger overawed by that, and therefore feel like they have to fit some kind of artificially conceived mold of how one speak, the received wisdom for how one speaks, which is typically quite formulaic. It's quite cold. It's quite transactional. It's to the point classic. Especially for folk in the first 10, 15 years of their career. It's like, I've got a place safe, I can't afford to screw up. I've got to, you know. And as a result we have a complicated. Too dry, it's boring, doesn't engage listeners. And feedback that comes through from often senior stakeholders who want me to work with those folk is they just need to be more engaging. I need them to just really grab me more. Or of course, sometimes further up the chain, people become institutionalized by that and feel they can't afford to show any real emotional vulnerability. They have to sort of. And it becomes self perpetuating. And so I think helping people to break through that and to take a little bit of frankly emotional risk is key. And it's very powerful when it happens. And we see examples of this happen. Hans Rosling, famous of course for that TED talk he did back in 2006. The best stats you've ever seen. An academic at the Karolinsk Institute, one of the top medical, if not the top medical institutes in Sweden, Sweden steps up and presents data and does a voiceover that makes it sound like a horse race. Now, okay, someone said, oh well, it says, you know, it's a TED conference and blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah, but he has some pretty serious people in the room. And by the same token, another example in private equity, I can remember doing an event some years ago on storytelling and there are about 40 really senior private equity professionals in the room and off the back of having done lots of sessions in schools over the years. And I know, Mark, you'll know this from your own experience, I'm sure, the power of getting good with names, to know people's names. I mean, with a group of young people, you've just got to know their name. And so I was in that habit. I'd done hundreds of sessions with young people in school, so I'd got pretty sharp at learning and remembering people's names. I thought, I've only got 40 private equity professionals here. About 10 of them know me, 30 don't. I'm going to have a crap beforehand of figuring out all their names without them knowing. And so I stepped up in front of this really hardcore group of people, said, right before we go into the storytelling, let me just check. I might make a mistake or two, but let's see. And I went round and just called each person out by name. And of course after the first five or six. You could see a few puzzled looks. By the time I got halfway around the room, there were a few people going, oh my God, this is actually a bit scary. And then people that had never met me. There are a few people that had come in late who I'd had to talk to the person next to me and say, who's that person? And jot it down, you know. And of course, for me to know their name totally blew their mind. So I went around 40 hardcore private equity corporate investing professionals. Thankfully I got them all right. But immediately the senior partner of the firm cut in and just said, look, sorry Simon, just stop for a moment. But wow. And led a spontaneous round of applause. And I thought, oh my goodness, you know, it was the whole energy in the room changed with something as simple as knowing their names. And it was quite. There was a bit of risk involved in that, of course, but I think, I think those sorts of things are people drawing on personal experience in an academic environment like Oxford, in the School of Government or the Business school, it's when it happens, it's gold. But there is quite a lot of institutional baggage that puts people off. They worry about saying the wrong thing.

But seeing that, knowing that and addressing that, that's what makes your particular approach and style unforgettable. And for our listeners, viewers, find a way to make yourself unforgettable in a good way. So when someone in charge begins to lead spontaneous applause in the first three minutes and you haven't even begun your presentation yet, that's wow, that's unforgettable. And we all have within us the ability to be aware and to be creative and that'll make us unforgettable.

Darren, that is so true. And I think what's striking to me, a key learning for me over the years has been this. You only need to have one moment like that for it to be enough. I mean, great if you've got more, but you might only have one moment in a half day workshop or a 40 minute keynote, if there's just one moment that is a real, as you say, wow, that's enough to make that will stick. That will stick. I think people sometimes think the whole thing's got to be fabulous. Well, great if the whole thing is fabulous, but by definition there's probably only going to be one or two truly, truly memorable moments.

You created that deep connection and that makes them more open to everything else you have to say. And I know, Simon, that you also teach online training and online presenting. What are some of the ideas that could Help an online presenter become unforgettable.

I think with online there's the obvious stuff, isn't there, of course, around things like presenting through the camera rather than looking at the screen and of course, being mindful of the energy and getting close enough to the camera so that you actually own the screen rather than sitting way back, so somebody. You can't really make eye contact. But I think with the camera there's a real intimacy to the medium, of course, and you are by definition speaking one to one, unless you've got 10 people huddled around a laptop, which is unlikely, let's face it. So it's such a one to one environment. I think, therefore, the power of. As they know, in the world of radio, of course, speaking to the audience as an individual and really seeking to either anticip or reach into what you as a listener might be thinking is particularly powerful online precisely because it's so rare, so many people are in broadcast mode and they just talk to this rather generic audience that they don't really acknowledge because they're distracted by the fact they're having to look at a camera rather than actually meeting people face to face. So I think it takes a little bit of care to. And it's quite a challenge, I think, to really think who is it on the other side of that camera and what might they be thinking at this particular point moment right now? Or are they making a cup of tea? And I think you can have some real fun with that. And no one will know, of course, whether or not you got it right or not, because you've got a virtual and therefore scattered audience. So I think that connection. I remember Terry Wogan, who's an Irish broadcaster, very, very well known here in the UK for many, many years on TV and radio. He closed his very popular BBC Radio breakfast show, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of viewers, by saying. Acknowledging it had been a. And he finished by saying, and thank you for being my friend. And I just remember hearing, I think genius friend, singular. It was just. And it was just so nice. You really felt that, you know, it was like it was a real, real long lost goodbye at the train station, you know. Yeah, that acknowledgement of what that relationship over the radio is. I think you can do the same thing with online presenting of as well. Nice.

Well said, Mark. Any other questions before we go to the famous question?

Well, I'm, I'm just getting my, my thoughts here for our keepers. Afterwards, I'll let you lead in my friend Simon.

One of the last questions. We like to wind it down with, let's say you're having a cup of coffee or tea. A spot of tea.

Okay. Okay, Darren. Pretty good.

I, I had to mute. I had to mute a second ago because a lorry was going by.

Oh, lorry, very good. Garbage truck was there.

So if you are sitting down having a cup of coffee with an eager presenter who is serious about becoming unforgettable, what best advice would you give them?

Talk to your nearest and dearest and. Or maybe it's one person, maybe it's two or three different people about moments that you remember. Remember and revisit them. Not relive them, but I think revisit them. Because we reminisce all the time when we meet up with friends and people we haven't seen for a while or even with people that we know well and we kind of say, oh, do you remember that time when I'd say, do a little bit of that and pay attention to either what comes up from that or what consistently comes up over a period of time, because there's the gold. I was as an undergraduate, as a student in Oxford, as it happens, back in the 90s and for 20 years afterwards, we as a bunch of friends, we meet up every year or two, six of us that shared a house as students and we would talk about all sorts of things we did as students and whatnot. And we used to tell stories about one of the professors that we had at the university who was a real eccentric Oxford academic. He's also, oh, hello university. It's wasted on the young, you know, he was that kind of real academic. And we used to joke about it and tell stories about how do you remember that time when all these things for 20 odd years, and it wasn't until after 20 years of doing this, swapping these stories, I thought, you know what, there's a story there I could actually use in the, in the semifinals of the world championship, which I did. It's not in the final speech, in my semifinal speech and it was off the back of countless conversations with friends. So it took me 20 years. I think if you sit down purposefully with some people that you really know and get yourself in a position where you can have a good time, you go to a restaurant, you have them over dinner, go for lunch or whatever, have a chat and notice what comes from that, that's where the gold is for unforgettable presentations.

Brilliant. And as Mark gets ready to deliver the keepers, Simon, how would anyone reach out to you or find you or get in touch with you?

I'M pretty active on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn is a good place. You'll find me easily on there and or my website is Simon Bucknell S.

I M O N B U C K n a l l.com Mark Brown what do we got for keepers?

I love this one. Be vulnerable and dig deep. Take a leap of faith and honestly connect with the meaning of every experience. Wow. Take emotional risks when you tell your stories. Trust what is true for you and trust your instincts. It is wise to identify your circle of trust whose expertise you value and they may not have to be speakers. All you need is one wow moment to be unforgettable. My favorite. Talk to me. Don't present at me. Love that. Giving technical presentations cut through the complexity. I love that. And don't confuse the written with the spoken. Enjoy every moment of your speaking career and have conversations in preparation to find out more about your topic. And if you really want to be unforgettable, start by revisiting your memorable moments because the cream will rise to the top.

Lovely Simon Bucknell thank you.

Gorgeous darling, gorgeous.

Very good.

Simon.

It's right.

There you go.

Yes.

Well Simon, thanks for joining us. Great to reconnect with you and thanks for sharing your wisdom. Mark Brown I know we say this for stage time, but maybe we add this. Mark Brown Finish this statement. I hope you join us next week because if you miss an episode, you miss a lot. See you next week.

Make sure you subscribe to our show. Remember to subscribe because if you miss a week, you miss a lot. If you like this episode, please leave us a review.

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Mark and Darren, check out stagetime University where they provide experienced presenters a proven path and world class feedback. To become the speaker everyone is talking about, go to stagetimeuniversity.com join us next week if you're going to take the time to prepare a presentation, make it unforgettable.