Eric Edmeades argues that face-to-face interactions (especially public speaking) create the most lasting memories and can transform business outcomes like sales, recruiting, and fundraising. He recounts his own fear of public speaking, reframes nervousness as excitement (difference is expectation), and gives practical techniques: create a positive expectation through visualization/meditation, use deep breathing to prevent tension, and tell emotionally evocative stories (using voice and facial expression) so audiences remember you.
Chapters
Scientific studies have shown that the deepest, most impactful memory that you can create in somebody comes from a face to face meeting. That's right. When you have a face to face meeting with somebody, it will really, really last. So how many meetings can you have in a day? There's one way to do face to face meetings with people that's even more powerful and that is face to faces. What do I mean? I mean public speaking. Now, hold on. I know some of you are thinking of clicking off right away because you're nervous or terrified or you don't feel very confident about public spe speaking. That was me. I was so terrified of public speaking. But I suddenly realized something. If face to face is the most impact I can have on a prospect, what would happen if I could speak to 10 people at a time or 100 or a thousand or 10,000? And so I decided I wanted to look into public speaking to see how I could use it in my business life. And it has completely transformed my business life. Now, if you're a little bit nervous about it or you're not really sure how to do it, I'm going to share with you some examples right now of how you can use public speaking to really transform your business life. Because I can tell you this, it helps in selling, it helps in recruiting and getting great people. It helps in raising money. It helps in every aspect of business. So let's start with this. Are you a little nervous of public speaking like me? Like, I was so terrified that if you asked me to do a talk on a Monday, you called me on Monday and said, eric, can you do a talk at our company on Friday? I would be, no way am I doing that. That's just too scary. No way. And then, even though I said no, I would not be able to eat for the next few days because I was so scared. And you know what? Why would I be scared because I said no? Well, I realized later it's because maybe I was afraid I might change my mind because on some level I knew that overcoming this could help me so very much. So I want to share with you one of the things you can do right now to feel a little bit more comfortable about speaking when there's two or three people or 10 or 20 people. Just in case you have a bit of nerves about that, here's what I want you to know. Nervousness and excitement are exactly the same emotion with one difference, and that is the expectation. Nervousness is just excitement with a negative expectation. Excitement is nervousness with a positive expectation. So One of the things that I like to do before I go to any meeting, whether I'm meeting one person, three people, 30 people, 300, 3000, it doesn't matter, is I like to go out in advance and create a really positive expectation of the meeting, to visualize it, to see it happening the way I want it to work out, the people enjoying it, the connections being made, and the laughter. I'll never forget when I first tested this in business. I was going to meet with a very senior director at a British company in London, England. And that is not one of the most warm cultures in the whole world, you might be aware. So I was a bit nervous about going to this meeting. Meeting. And that day, in the morning, I did an incredible meditation. I visualized it. I saw the meeting working out really, really well. I saw everybody smiling. I saw people signing stuff. I loved the meeting. And I drove all the way to the meeting, got to London, parked my car, went up the stairs, got to the meeting, and the guy that I was meeting walked right up to me. We'd never met before. He walked up to me and he didn't shake my hand. He actually gave me a hug. This is a director of a publicly listed company in London, England. I think he was as surprised as I was. But it's almost like by going out there and creating that positive expectation, I maybe just maybe bent reality a little bit. And you can do the same thing, whether it's one person or a thousand people. One more thing about this. Very often when people are asked to do a presentation, they stop breathing. It's like this. Could you do a little presentation for these people? They just stop. No wonder they're nervous. Everybody gets nervous when they're not breathing. And so if you take a few minutes and do some deep breathing exercises, you will calm yourself down, oxygenate your system, and really spark your brain so that you feel the very best way you can. Last thing I want to share with you about this, I very often hear from people that they like the way I tell stories. How do you tell stories so well? Well, before we even talk about how, we have to about talk, talk about why. And that is if you want to be remembered, you have to evoke emotion. Emotion is the glue that causes memories to stick. If you have an event with no emotion, you don't remember it. And so one of the very best ways to help people feel is to tell an effective story that gives them an experience and helps them feel. Then they will remember. And so how do you do that? Well, you make the decision that you're not just giving them the facts, that you're taking them on a journey. You use your voice, you use your facial expressions and really tell the story with a sense of emotion, and you feel it yourself. If you feel the emotion, then they will feel the emotion, and then they will remember you, and they will remember the story. And the next time they have a problem that they need solved, they're going to think of you.
