What Can I Do About My Nerves? How Do I Get Paid to Speak? Who's to Blame When the Audience Sucks?

My answers to your first round of questions

Rick Lewis archives - 1 800 Flowers Keynote - Caesar’s Palace Hotel, Las Vegas

This is going to be a new approach for me.

After writing 7 Rules You Were Born to Break, a book that served my speaking career very well by the way, my goal here is to follow just one rule.

To make this project to support your public speaking easy and fun.

For both you and for me.

If I start making things boring or complicated, just start throwing digital tomatoes at me and hopefully I’ll take the hint.

I want to get useful information into your hands and inspiration into your heart as quickly as possible, so I am going to work with a handful of questions that I have received in the 8 days since the launch of this Substack.

The picture above is me basking in the glow of a standing ovation at a keynote for the 1-800-Flowers corporation at the Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas. I’m sharing this moment for several reasons.

One, it’s “proof of work,” and is an easy way to let you know that I’ve paid my dues in the speaking game. But more importantly, this result occurred even though I started out with zero training, credentials, or knowledge about the speaking business. All I started with was a lot of fear, so much in fact that I didn’t sleep the entire night before my first paid speaking presentation. I spent it pacing the hotel room, going over and over what I intended to say, and making frequent stops in the bathroom right up until show time.

What I hope to share with you inside Pivot to the Podium, are the anchor practices and competencies that will help you thrive at the front of a room.

The success I’ve achieved is almost 100% derived from three things:

• Experimentation

• Joy

• Authenticity

The good news is that you come hardwired with these three attributes, and to the extent you are willing to reclaim these instincts, cultivate them, and share them with others—you can become an inspiration to many people.

I want you to experience what it’s like to have a room completely lit up by what you’ve just shared on stage.

And by the way, the “experimentation, joy, authenticity” equation also applies if your primary means of expression is through writing. We’re going to be talking a lot about writing, because it’s a fundamental competency of inspired speaking.

I have two reasons for starting Pivot to the Podium.

1. To make money teaching others about a skill that I love.

2. To fill the stages of the world with human beings who model authenticity and heart, because real-life, face-to-face, flesh-and-blood, in-person examples of this are desperately needed, in my opinion.

I’m so honored to have 40 subscribers here in this first week, some of them supportive family and friends, and three generous subscribers who made me feel like a million bucks by becoming paid members from the start.

Thank you!

Answers to Questions:

I put out a call for any questions you may have about public speaking here in this post.

If you have a question yourself, you ask it there, or if you wish you can respond directly to this article if it has appeared in your inbox.

Question 1:

John asks, “What is it about public speaking that makes me feel so freakin' nervous inside?!”

My basic answer to that is, you’re not a sociopath.

Thusly, you actually care about your relationships with other humans, you want connection, and a part of you wants to throw caution to the wind and show up with all the power, clarity, heart, and passion that you possess.

I’d be seriously concerned if the prospect of rising to this show of humanness didn’t make you nervous.

As I stated here in my first article, “It’s the people who are afraid to speak that have the most valuable things to say.”

Public speaking in my opinion holds a potential that borders on the sacred. Notice that a public address mirrors the same crowd architecture as you’d see in church, with an individual at the front of the room who we trust to manage our collective attention to elevate the human spirit.

The earliest stagings of mystery plays, Greek theatre, and the Elizabethan era all treated a public gathering this way. The circumstance of a human person being in front of a room is charged with an archetypal energy that has throughout history fueled tribes, religions, kings, leaders, movements, spiritual awakenings and riots.

Our spirit is pointed in the right direction if we feel compelled to give this circumstance the attention it is due—and the caution it deserves.

The current trend is to pave over the possibility that is inherent in a human gathering with enough powerpoint slides, monotone speeches, and plastic trophies to put an audience of amphetamine users to sleep.

Pivot to the Podium is not about how to survive a public presentation, but how to thrive in the process.

So, in summary, it’s a divine thing to be nervous, John, and the art of speaking is to harness the presence of your own excitement, along with the group energy, and direct it toward useful thinking and action.

We’ll be talking a lot more about this in the future.

Question 2:

Kathy asks, “When I write, I feel like an army of extra-padded pro-bowl football players pre-programmed to tackle my thoughts is bearing down on me waiting for my audacity to push publish. It’s flipping exhausting fighting these internal demons as I write on spirituality. Thoughts?”

I love the creativity of this question.

I also love that the question is about writing. Because writing is absolutely a form of pivoting to the podium. Like speaking, it’s a daring act of visibility and vulnerability, invoking a very similar frame of potential as mentioned above in relationship to John’s question.

I did provide an answer to Kathy in the comment section of the question page, but here I’d like to add another thought.

My experience is that the inner demons do not possess more energy than we do. Although that is what they want us to think so that they can get us to back down and allow them to win as we cower in a corner.

Your pro-bowl football player image is so good, because those internal demons are highly accomplished trash-talking sons of bitches that will do their best to make us believe they have more energy than we do, that they are bigger and stronger, and we should back away from the line of scrimmage before the ball is even hiked.

When we believe these demons and let them win, yes, we will feel utterly exhausted. But if you fight for your voice, fight to be seen, and muster even a small step of courage in the face of their taunts, then you will lawfully inherit the energy of their opposition as fuel for your expression.

All it takes to win against the linebackers is an action step of any kind in the direction of your fear.

You have the energy it takes to win that battle Kathy.

You just have to commit to consistently showing courage, one step at a time.

Question 3:

From a direct email,

Scott asks, “If I’m starting from scratch, how do I get paid to speak?”

Hell yeah.

Let’s talk about the whole path, from A to Z, with a worthwhile end in mind. Love this question Scott.

We could say that this entire project will be an answer to this question, as there are many moving parts and steps that make up that path.

But for the purposes of an introduction to the journey, let’s make this as simple as possible.

Keep your ear to the ground for any speaking opportunity whatsoever. If you’ve got connections in the business world, ask your friends and contacts about any upcoming events, and put the word out that you’ve created a keynote you’d like a chance to deliver.

If they ask what the keynote is about, say that you have a couple of stories about the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your life, and that you’ll tailor your message to the group, depending on what the nature of the meeting is.

Ask them what the budget is for their speaker, and whatever the number is, say “Yes, that works for me.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s a $50 honorarium, or the offer of a free meal. When you’re done, you will be a paid speaker.

For the keynote, tell a couple of your most heartfelt, real, scary, authentic, and revealing stories. Stories that convey your humanity and share what you learned in the process are gold. Trying to prove that you’re an expert or have it all together will leave your audience flat. (I’ll be providing guidance here for us to experiment with a lot of these stories until you find a few that will be your signature stories, or origin stories, that you can bank on over and over in the future.)

Before you start your presentation, put your phone on a tripod and center it on stage where you’ll be speaking. Hit record and let it start running well before you get up there. This footage will be vital to:

1. review for your improvement and

2. use as part of your first promo reel.

When the meeting is over, you have only one job left to do.

Collect a testimonial.

All you need is one person to come up and tell you how much they enjoyed your presentation, or how much they were moved by it, or inspired by it, or how much they appreciated your story, or authenticity—and while they are in middle of their heartfelt testimony, I suggest you do something that is going to feel uncomfortable.

Interrupt them and say this:

“I’m so grateful for your feedback. It means a lot to me. Would you mind if I just filmed you with my phone, and would you be willing to start again with your comments. I’m new to the speaking business, and having testimonials from audience members is the very best way I can get more opportunities to speak. I’d be honored and grateful to have you as my first reference.”

There’s a lot more to the collecting of video testimonials that I’ll detail in time, (some of mine are here), but the basic message is, you must collect these onsite while the energy is flowing. It will feel weird and uncomfortable to ask, but you can’t afford to chicken out on asking for these. You’ll want to make it a habit after every gig.

That’s a rough overview of how you get paid the first time, and set yourself up to get paid a bit more the next time, for a better client, delivering an improved presentation, collecting better testimonials, and initiating an upward spiral of success.

There are, of course, hundreds of other details to cover, but that’s the process in its most elemental form.

Question 4:

From a direct email,

Cam asks, “Was I right to tell my friend that he blew his chance of winning a pitch competition the moment he berated the audience for chatting away as he took the stage?”

The answer to this is—100% yes.

If you want to deliver an amazing presentation, or become a compelling speaker, the onus is always on you to capture the attention of the room, no matter the conditions.

And there’s always a way to do it with skill.

And by skill, I’m not only talking about what you do on stage. It’s also about everything you do to manage the environment, the set-up of the room, the lighting, the timing of your introduction, the length of your bio, the content of your bio, and many other factors. The quality of your personal presence in front of the room is, of course, hugely important. But there are many other factors that can be mindfully managed to produce an exceptional experience for you and the audience.

A speaker needs to function as a leader who creates near instant rapport, not only with the audience, but with the production team, conference center staff, organizers, and other presenters—all as a context for establishing natural authority in relationship to everyone in the room—before even setting foot on stage.

The moment you blame, berate, or shame your audience when you feel the presentation is not going in the right direction, is the moment you shoot your authority in the foot.

Thank you for your questions

If this works for you all as a starting point, I’ll keep answering questions.

So let me know what else you are curious about, or perhaps you have an upcoming presentation that you could use some perspective and support with delivering.

If you’d like to see a different format or subject covered, let me know.

You can respond to this post if it was delivered to your inbox, or use the comment section here to submit more questions.

Coming Soon

The cornerstone of the type of speaking that has worked for me is exceptional storytelling.

I’m a leading authority on how you can translate your personal life experiences and professional expertise into a compelling speaking presentation.

Exploring your own life stories and starting to take inventory of them and develop them will be a key focus of Pivot to the Podium in the future.

Next time I’ll share a content map, showing how your life stories will be used to deliver keynotes that are relevant to your audience.

Stay tuned, and in the meantime, take the risk to speak up wherever you can.

Regards

Rick