My Speaking Manifesto

I was sat in the audience watching my friend Vicky deliver a speech on stage in Birmingham.

She talked about having a manifesto.

It was one of those moments where light bulbs brighten, coins drop, and things seem to fall into place.

Earlier that year I'd shifted my business so I was focusing on coaching people around speaking and presentations.

A shift which was both logical and felt right.

Those first few months were all about really interrogating what I did, what I believed, and how I approached the work that I do.

I'm pretty certain that most people go through a very similar process

Almost like a divination of what it is you do, and how you do it, and for whom.  The process is all about trying things, seeing if it works, trying something else.

Experimentation, failing forward, iteration and many other buzzwords that might end up as a cliched Instagram post.

When Vicky shared her manifesto it was an invitation for me to express how I approach my work.

What appeared is this:

Yes it's heavily influenced by what Vicky spoke about and it's cheesy as anything. but it was the first time where I really started to understand how I approach what I do.

In essence it's not about turning the people I work with into carbon copied, sterile-looking speakers.

You know the ones who have particular hand positions and only move in a certain way.

It's about taking everything amazing about you and finding a way to express that better, and not lose who you are in the process.

You could call this authenticity or as I've come to refer to it in recent months, intentional authenticity.

We can call it whatever you want but it's all about bringing your personality, your values, and all of you to the process of speaking.

And that is what I'm going to explore in this newsletter.

Sharing my thoughts around speaking and presentations.

From how you find your stories, to how you write a speech, to how you put that in front of an audience.

This is all about how you take your words, your thoughts and together we find a way to express them

Perhaps that could be online in your marketing.

Or doing a 60-second pitch to a networking group.

Maybe even standing on a stage and delivering a keynote.

Developing how you speak and present is one of the most important skills that you can focus on.

AI is here. It's not going anywhere.In fact you're probably using it.

(I'm using it a little bit to transcribe this)

AI does some magical stuff but it cannot connect with an audience in the same way as you and your words.

Shall we get started?