Get ready to take your speaking skills to the next level with the latest episode of the Marli Williams Podcast! Join host Marli Williams and special guest Amy Wolff, the renowned CEO of Distinction Communications, as they delve into the art of public speaking excellence and self-awareness. Discover the secrets to delivering exceptional performances, the power of maintaining eye contact, and how to navigate speaking to a large audience. Amy shares her experience as a TEDx speaker coach and her personal journey overcoming anxiety to deliver a powerful TED Talk. With practical tips and insights on seeking and embracing feedback, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their communication skills. Tune in, subscribe, and elevate your speaking game!

Amy Wolff Bio:

Amy Wolff is President of Distinction Communication, Inc, a speaker coaching firm out of Portland, OR. When clients need a trusted truth-teller to help them accurately assess their presentation skills, she provides expert, hands-on coaching. In addition to coaching business professionals, Amy is also a TEDx speaker coach for TEDxPortland, one of the top five TEDx organizations in the world. In May 2017, Amy accidentally began a global movement of spreading hope and love, which became the Don’t Give Up Movement, and shares the inspiring story in her book Signs of Hope. When Amy’s not with clients and running a nonprofit, she’s playing board games with her young family and trying to keep (too many) house plants alive.

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Speaker, Author of Signs of Hope

www.amynwolff.com

Watch my TEDx Talk!

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Hey, everyone. What's happening? I'd love to welcome you back to the Marli Williams podcast where today I get to hang out with my good friend Amy Wolff. Amy is an incredible speaker, a speaker coach, and the owner and CEO of Distinction Communications, where she trains executives, teams, and organizations all across the country on how to be a better speaker. She is incredibly talented at what she does and shares some amazing hot tips on how to take your speaking to the next level. I can't wait to dive into this powerful conversation with you today, so let's go.

Hey, everyone. What's happening? I am super stoked to welcome you to the Marli Williams podcast where we will explore authentic leadership, transformational facilitation and how to create epic experiences for your audiences every single time. I am your host, Marli Williams, bringing you thought provoking insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies to unlock your potential as a leader, facilitator, and speaker. Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth, transformation and impact. Let's Lead Together. The Marli Williams podcast begins now. Let's dive in.

Alright, everybody. I would love to welcome you back to the Marli Williams podcast where I get hang out with my amazing friend, Amy Wolff today. She is an incredible speaker, speaker coach, and the CEO of Distinction Communications. Thank you for being here.

Of course. I can't turn down an opportunity to be on this amazing explosion podcast going around the world.

I know. Right? It's pretty wild. I have looked up to you. We actually met at an event that we were both speaking at right after I moved to Portland called the Superwoman Summit. And I remember part of the bonuses that I got as a speaker for that event was, I got to go to one of your trainings.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

That was a small group workshop, about 10 to 12 people, full day, crash course.

I've taken a lot of public speaking, like, trainings and workshops, and I feel like yours was the first one where you videotaped us.

Oh, the dreaded videotape. I'm sure everyone's cringing listening to this, thinking back to it.

It's like, it is the best tool.

I know. This is what I tell people. If there was another way to coach, I would do it because it's so painful. It's so uncomfortable. There probably been a handful of clients over the last 13 years for me that they just could not watch themselves on tape. Their chin would drop and it was like, oh, there's a lot going on in there, and I would never force it. We just kind of move on. But for the majority of us, we lean in.

It's super uncomfortable, but it's worth it because you get to see what your audience sees. You get to hear what your audience hears. And most of the time, we do not have accurate self-awareness of how we come across. And being recorded is the best way to recognize our habits. It also is self-serving for me as a speaker coach because I'll talk about eye contact and someone says, I do pretty good. I think I do that one really well. And they stare at their shoes, and they have these thinking spots that drift around the room that make them look unprepared. So, then I get to roll tape, and they get to see, oh, maybe I don't do those habits I think I do. And so, it's really validating for my coaching too.

Yeah. As cringey or crunchy as it is, I think it is incredibly powerful to watch yourself speak. So, just right now, for anyone who's out there listening, one of the best things that you can do is record yourself speaking. Because like you said, I love what you said, you get to see how the audience sees you and that we don't always have an accurate self-perception of how we're coming across. Like, we think we're not doing weird things with our hands and then we're doing weird things with our hands. We think that we're not pacing, but when you see yourself pace or look up or look down or look all around and not, like, land the plane on eye contact, you really get the nuance of speaking. And I think that that's one of the skills that I think you really offer people and you bring to the table and how those little micro adjustments and if you're not aware of them, you can't do anything about it. That's the thing.

Step 1, self-awareness, but I will say this, that's not the only step. Sometimes, I get clients saying, I know, Amy. I talk too fast. And for those of you who are Italian or from New York, I've heard it a thousand times. Oh, we just talk faster. And I would say, great. Self-awareness. Yes.

Stop. Stop talking so fast. I can't hear you. Your ideas don't have a chance to linger or land because you're on to the next one so quickly. So, self-awareness is only the 1st step. The 2nd step is, do you have solutions to fix it? Are you practicing? Because it's not about you. It's about your audience. And if you can't deliver it in a way they can hear and they can get, it's a waste of time. So, I will say it's not the only step, which some people are like, I know. I know. Okay. We'll do better. Try harder. Let me help you. Let me help you with that.

I love that. I mean, 1, to be aware of it. And then 2, to look at how can I do this different so that my message lands, so that my audience is served, so that my ideas are clearly communicated, so that people can actually take them and use them. And instead of just like, I'm aware of it. I know. I know. I know. I know. I do that.

But are you willing to have the awareness and then the discipline to make those changes and have solutions. Like, I don't know what to do with my hands or how much eye contact is the right amount, right? Like, it's one thing knowing, oh, I have to slow down my speaking. Well, how do I do that? When this is just who I am or you know?

That's right. I think we settle for good enough. And if we want to be really great, we roll up our sleeves and we figure out what the next level is. I've never met someone that doesn't have a next bubble, myself included. You don't arrive at being a good speaker. At some point, it might not be as, let's fix all these problems. It might be mastery. Oh, what if we did this slightly different? Oh, what if I hone this delivery skill? Oh, what if I got even better at storytelling? So, for those of us who have done this, this is not our 1st rodeo. We've spoken a bunch. It's oop. No. No. No. Not good enough. You're in the next level. There is 1.

Do you know how to find it? And that can be tricky. That is eventually sometimes when I get called in and say, okay, you're the outside expert. What am I not noticing. And I think that the challenges for a lot of us who do this regularly and feel comfortable, myself included, is we develop blind spots where we're like, oh, we're really comfortable, and we think that means the audience is having a good time or it's impactful to them. But that's not always true. Sometimes our comfort does not mean excellence as a speaker. And sometimes when someone is deathly afraid of presenting or speaking, it doesn't mean they bomb it, but we use our feelings as our assessor of whether we did good or bad as a speaker or in a presentation, and we should not trust our feelings in this scenario, they're just not a good truth teller on our ability or skill. We have to get feedback somehow.

What would you say is the best way you've seen people get feedback? I mean, 1 is from a coach, but, you know, feedback from the audience, like, where else does feedback show up when you're wanting and I love this. I just want to land the plane again on this. There's always going to be a next level. Right? And again, this isn't just about, like, how to be a good speaker or how to be an okay speaker. It's how to be exceptional. Right? And this and it's, again, it's these micro adjustments. It's the nuance. It's how can I tell the story even better, or how can I emphasize this message or this point? Or what is the best story? Is this the best story to tell to communicate this idea. Right? So, what have you seen work well for people in getting that feedback, asking for it, being able to hear it. And then it's like, the other thing of then doing something about it.

About it. And that's the tricky part. If someone gets the feedback of, oh, man, you say uhm or and so and so, or like, like, a lot. Now that you have that self-awareness, and most people don't hear how many they have. They might, oh, yeah. I know I do some, uh, no. It might be more pervasive than you think. The hard part is, how do you fix it? In the practical solution, my coaches pause and then that gets really awkward. And then we have to work on honoring the punctuation marks in our delivery that we fill with a filler word instead. But that's the solution. And a lot of us have to go seek that solution because I don't know if speaking 101 in college is really going to provide that level of insight or expertise. But I will say in getting the feedback, in developing the self-awareness, there's a couple things we can do. First, I would never ask someone after speaking, hey. Can you give me some feedback? How'd I do? Because, Marli, what are they going to say? That was so good. You did wonderful. It was fantastic. And it might be true, and it might not. But it's not specific, most of the time.

Or actionable.

Or actionable. So, tip number 1, ask in advance. Hey, Marli. I know that you're going to be attending my session at this conference. Can you give me feedback in 2 areas that I think are my weaknesses? How fast was I talking and did I close strong? Because sometimes that's the most awkward for me. What happens is 2 things. You give me better feedback afterwards because your radar is on. I asked you to notice 2 specific things.

The second is I do better because I know Marli is watching on these 2 things. So, it brings me some specific accountability that hits the back of my brain while talking. Slow down. Because I know Marli going to give me feedback. And then afterwards, I actually receive that helpful feedback. So, ask in advance and be specific.

Yeah. And receive it. I think that sometimes it's hard for people. It's easy to hear, like, you did great. But that closing could have been stronger. Or I felt like you faded out. Right? Yeah. And being mindful, I think, who you're asking for feedback from.

Has that burned you in the past, Marli?

I mean, I guess I think it's interesting to be mindful of who you ask for feedback from. I think that that can change how you hear it and the type of feedback that you get. Right? Because, you know, if I were to ask someone like you for feedback that might, you know, who's in this world and you can look for the nuances and those really specific moments that I can improve might be different than just someone who is in the audience. They're not a speaker coach. They're not maybe paying attention to some of those things. And I think for me, I think the receiving of that feedback not from my lows. So, I have like this not good enough or not enough voice and that inner critic. So, when I hear negative feedback, I could be like, oh, I know I'm not a good enough speaker and I can hear it from that place versus I know that I could be better because I'm here to serve and make an even bigger impact and seeing that feedback as a gift rather than, like, this really, yeah, negative crunchy thing.

That's good. One of the ways that I coach people to give feedback to each other after our training because you can't just leave and assume we fix all your bad habits. The work starts when they leave with assignments of what to work on and part of that is developing a feedback loop. And when you ask people for feedback, yes, it can be hard to receive and how they give it, and then it can be hard to give. It just gets messy sometimes. The language I use is, what are 3 things I did well and what are 3 things to take me to the next level? Because then, I can receive, oh, they're for me. They want me to master this. They know I want to master this. So, what would take me to the next level? Feels better than can you tell me 3 weaknesses?

Yeah. I love that. I love that frame because usually we think of feedback as, like, we call it constructive criticism. We call it negative feedback. We call it all these things versus, what are 3 things that help take me and take my speaking to the next level? Let's go. I love that. That's such a great question and creating that feedback loop. So, I'm curious, Amy, from all your years and years of speaking, coaching speakers, what would you say are your 3 best tips to take someone from good to great, good to exceptional?

I answer this a lot, so I have 3 ready to go.

Let's do it.

The first tip I give people is, well, most of my tips are very practical. 1st, you have to know your content. It is really hard to master and feel authentic in the moment while you're trying to regurgitate content that you tried to bake the night before at 11 PM. It is stressful. And if you're using slides and every time you click, you got to look at your slides, like, what now? It just never is going to feel good or look good when a presenter doesn't know their content. So, step 1, in your preparation process for everyone listening, is there this internalizing your content? I'm not for memorizing. You had Cathey Armillas on a couple of episodes ago, and she gave this great advice. We're in the same speaker coaching circles, and that is internalize, not memorize. And it's so right. It's so right. So, at some point, we're internalizing our content, where we know it really well, even if we're not scripting it, which I'm against scripting, but we'll get there later. So, there's the know your content, or else you're surviving.

Step number 2. Again, practical. Talk to 1 person at a time. And the reason why that's my 2nd tip is that because it hones in the most important skill to come across as credible and engaging and confident, and that's eye contact. And if you can adopt the mindset, you're never speaking to a room of a hundred. You're never speaking to 50 people in a training, a thousand people in a TED Talk. You're never talking to a big group of people. You're talking to one human at a time. It slows down your eye contact. It makes it way more genuine. Then, we feel like a speaker isn't talking at us or over us, but with us. And instead of a presentation, it feels like a conversation.

As a speaker, honing in this idea of one mini conversation at a time with everyone in the room. And by everybody, I don't necessarily mean practically. That's really hard to stay mindful of who you've spoken to and not depending how big the room is, but the concept is there 1 person at a time, a series of mini conversations.

That's so good.

Yeah. But don't creep people out. No staring people down.

No creepy eye contacts. Just genuine landing the plane on the idea with a person, speaking to 1 person at a time. I feel like you talked this in the training, the right amount of seconds to keep eye contact.

Yeah. I feel nervous, be specific, only because I don't know if people will be on here and disagree with me. I have been doing this a while. It is tried and true, but my definition is 3 to 4 seconds a person. More than that is creepy. Less than that, then add thinking spots, then add reading slides. And then pretty soon, it's kind of scattered and frantic, a little disconnected. We think scanning is good because it's inclusive, when in reality, it can look really scattered.

So, if we can hang in one person at a time, about 3 to 4 seconds each, and balance it around the room so we're not creeping the same 2 people out who are smiling. Don't only talk to the friendly faces. I hear that all the time. You're creeping them out, and they don't know how to show it to you. Equal eye contacts the best you can, one at a time. Marli, I have a funny story about this with you.

Yeah. Go for it.

Well, long story, but TEDx speaker coach become TEDx speaker. I was asked to be a speaker. And there was 7,000 people and super bright spotlight, can't see anyone in the room, except for the 1st couple of rows. And I thought, I'm faking eye contact at this point, grouping hundreds of people together in 3 to 4 seconds, staring into the black hole, except I looked down in the front row and Marli Williams is sitting front row, cheering me on. You're such a good cheerleader, and I quickly realized how distracting it was to have one of your dear friends sit in the front row. I don't think I ever looked at you again.

Yeah. Probably one time, and then it was like, okay. We're moving on. Look, I got you. I'm right here. Look, you're doing it. I was so excited for you. And maybe we can talk about what that transition was like of, you know, being a speaker coach and then getting to step on a stage like TEDx Portland with, yeah, 7,000 people at the mode of center. There have been times when I've spoken and there is that giant bright spotlight and it feels like you are speaking into a black hole of darkness. How do you do it? You said you, like, chunk the room a little bit?

Mm-hmm. So, you just group people together. This up here, this back corner is 500 people. And although I can see nobody, I linger there for 3 to 4 seconds and then that rhythm over and over again. And even though it's not relational, it doesn't feel like many conversations to me, the perception the audience has is, she's not a teleprompter. She's not talking out loud to herself with thinking spots and eyes drifting around. She is engaged with us. She is unhurried. She is comfortable, even though it's so mechanical.

And I practice talking to my houseplant for 3 to 4 seconds, in my home office, talking the corner of my curtain for 3 to 4 seconds. And that's weird, except it actually very much prepared me for that kind of eye contact rhythm when it didn't feel personal at all as the speaker.

Yeah. So, it sometimes isn't just about, again, how it feels to you. Like, that might feel awkward, but it's how the audience is able to hear it and receive your message. And so, those things are such an important part of practicing. Right? Where my eyes going and then, you know, all hands and I don't know if I've learned this from you or in general, like, that every gesture should be intentional. So, if you're going to move your hand, move it on purpose.

That's right. No flailing, no hand talking, meaningful gestures.

Meaningful gestures. Okay.

I have a 3rd tip.

3rd tip.

Hey. This one less practical and way more important. Audiences want real over perfect every day of the week. I coach executives in suits more expensive than my monthly mortgage, and they're doing keynotes of major big conferences, and I'm slightly intimidated with impostor syndrome sometimes. And it's same in Corporate America, same for a TED Talk, same in our personal lives. Everywhere we're speaking, I wish people felt the freedom, real over perfect. Here's the thing. If a speaker is very polished, super well-crafted talk, regurgitating, just so, obviously, from scripts, it's so perfect, we don't buy it. It is not relatable at all, where sometimes it even actually diminishes trust because it's robotic, it's too perfect. It sounds like marketing. Department got a hold of the script, and it's all this massive lingo, and it doesn't feel human. So, the thing that I preach everywhere I can, including here, now, is real over perfect. Gary, part about being real. If we're real and human and we accept that, we will make mistakes. As a speaker, in front of people, we’re going to make a mistake, hopefully not massive, but recognizing it happens. And really good speakers don't try to avoid moments like that because we know it's coming.

We know we're going to mess up. The word's not going to come, the slide we forgot we added, the blacking out that happens for a moment, an audience member who throws us off, whatever, we don't try to avoid it because we know that'll happen. If we're seasoned and prepared, we just learn how to pivot or roll off those moments, whether we have to say something because it was an obvious mistake or people don't know that was a mistake, and so we don't say anything, and we just confidently continue on, and so does everyone else. So, an audience is only bothered by a speaker's mistake if the speaker looks bothered by their mistake. The uhms come back in, the eyes start to drop, the pauses start to turn in, and then the audience starts to pity the speaker making the mistake. That if I look unbothered, when it happens, not if, when my mistakes happen, if I look unbothered and I move on, so will my audience. It's not about being perfect. The imperfections will show. It's can we stay confident? Do we not let it derail us? Because truly, it's those moments that make us more relatable to the audience anyway.

Yeah. I love that so much because I think perfection is an illusion. And I think so often, we're, like, going for this, like, the perfect keynote and the perfect TED talk and the perfect presentation and how to, you know, I think the combination of these 3 things, I think, is the trifecta that's like the sweet spot. Like, when I know my stuff and when I create a conversation and to me when you're doing that, it creates a level of depth, connection, and intimacy that isn't there when you're just talking to the sea, doing the scanning above the room. And it creates vulnerability for you as a speaker and for your audience. I think that that's why people don't do it. It's vulnerable to make eye contact with somebody. And to know your content well enough where it's not going to throw you off if they make a weird face.

You know, because audiences have all sorts of reactions. You've got the people with their arms folded, who have the scour. You have the people leaning in, who are nodding their head. You got everything in between. You're the people that are on their phone or bored out of their mind. And so, how do you hold yourself in your, you know, in your dignity, in your strength, in your confidence kind of no matter what and knowing that that takes time and practice.

There's a speaking tip or advice that is common that I actually don't love, and it's this idea of good speakers read the room. And although, yes, I get where it's true, I also think there are places that's false. And the reason why I say that is because there have been times, I have been coaching a small group workshop. I'll never forget one time, 10 years ago, a man twice my age in sales, 30 years, super seasoned, flies a whole day to get to my workshop, is ticked, doesn't want to be there. I can run circles around this young speaker coach, and he's sitting in the back with his arms folded, ticked, that he's forced to come to this training, and I remember all day hustling, which is a terrible feeling as a speaker or facilitator of, I got to win you over. You're not buying this. Why do you look so mad? I'm trying to make you like me. The guy is not buying anything I'm selling.

End of the workshop, he comes up to me and says, this was the best training I have ever had, and I'm embarrassed to think about how average I've been for 30 years. I wish I had this early on in my career. The guy who gave no nonverbal communication that he was interested in the slightest, and it taught me a really important life lesson early in my career, which is don't assume what people are thinking based on how emotive or non-emotive they are as listeners. And when you do make longer eye contact, you will start to notice body language and expression and learn from my experience. Don't always make assumptions. Flipside, I would just say, if everyone's looking at their watches and moving in their chairs, pick up the pace. Cut to the chase. Get close-up the story. Move to the conclusion. So, there is an essence of reading the room, but I think we get that wrong sometimes.

Yeah. I think it's like read the room, but not too much. Kind of like don't let it derail you. And I think, you know, when you when we think about an audience, it might be that, like, 1% of the audience is always going to have their arm crossed with a scowl. Like, and I thought about it this way. Like, no matter what you do or say, 5%-ish are going to be like, I don't know. I don't buy it. 5%, no matter what you do, are going to be like your biggest fan. And then the 90% is up to you. It's like kind of what you do with it. So, I think on either end of the spectrum and it's not about controlling those people or trying to fix yourself or your message or your talk to speak to those 1 to 2 people with the scowl on their face. Because I've had a very, very similar moment speaking where it looked like this person was totally checked out, totally disengaged, had no interest in what I was saying, come up to me after a presentation and say, thank you. This changed my life. You know? And you're like, I thought you hated me the whole time. And something that Brene Brown says is, like, never hustle for your worthiness. Right? And this idea we can go into hustle mode, proving mode, convincing mode, and you want that 1 person in the audience to get it versus really trusting yourself and your voice and your message.

And as a speaker, I know I talked about this on one of the solo episodes, this idea of bring the weather. That, like, it's my job to bring the weather. And, yes, I'm reading the temperature of the room, but it's like I get to show up and bring the level of confidence, bring the level of energy that I want to infuse in this room instead of, like, letting them decide ultimately. So, I love that. And then the trifecta again and bringing him back around to real over perfect and knowing that it's not like if I make a mistake, but when I make a mistake or when I mess up or when I forget because it's like you said, it's inevitable and it happens to the best. And so, letting go of this, again, the illusion of perfection or never making a mistake, and I remember coming up with a phrase. Like, just coming up with something to say in case at any moment I forgot what I was going to say, or I blacked out or I lost my train of thought. And it was something to the degree of, you know, when you're about to say something and you completely forget what you're going to say? That's happening right now.

And, you know, here's the thing about leadership or if I was, like, you know, leadership isn't about being perfect. It's about the willingness to show up and serve. It's about the willingness to be in the arena. It's about the willingness to make mistakes and acknowledge it and acknowledge your humanness. And when you do that, you will be loved. You will be respected. You will be admired. It's not about you showing up and having all the answers and never making a mistake. It's about you being imperfectly yourself or what you know, a version of that. I just making that up.

It's like you're a professional speaker or something.

Hey. So, I think that, you know, having something like that in your back pocket and just I love what you said too of the audience isn't bothered unless you are. And so, can we just acknowledge our humanity? And one of the things that I always tell people or remind people is for the most part, the audience wants you to win. They're on your team. They're on your side. Like, they don't want you to, like, fumble around on stage. They're not like, man, I really hope she messes up. You know.

And so, just reminding yourself of that and knowing that public speaking is people's number one biggest fear, I think some people are just like, I just admire the fact that you are on a stage, that you are speaking into a microphone. There's no way I would ever do that. Right? So, there's just, like, I think reminding ourselves of that.

That's so important. And it takes the pressure off, really. If we're not trying to be perfect, wow, that releases so much anxiety.

Yeah. One of my mantras that I always come back to is to show up and serve. Because usually when I'm caught up in the perfection, it’s all about the ego and, like, I want to look good and get it right versus I'm here to make a difference. I'm here to make an impact. I'm here to, you know, connect with people.

I think this is one of the hard places, I get paid to be a truth teller. I'm the external person where the PR person has talked to their executive a thousand times about what they should do differently, and he just won't listen, and so, let's call the outsider. Amy comes in. I'm the trusted expert. This is my lane, and somehow, they listen to me and not their PR person, and they take it. And some of the hardest things I have to tell them when they really want to tell this 1 story and they just really, this is the 20 ideas I want to share in my talk and I have to come in and say, this is not about you. Or when a client is so nervous, so in their head, and let me tell you, it is up, up, up the corporate ladder. People you would not expect, who totally hate it, are so uncomfortable, but they have to do it, and to them, I say, it's not about you. Your anxiety is all about you, and your ego is all about you. There are two sides to that coin. You are there to serve an audience with information. You are there to serve your audience with ideas. It's about them getting it, not you giving it.

It's about them getting it, not you giving it. So good. So, what was it like for you, stepping into the speaker spotlight, you know, going from speaker coach? I know that you speak in other places, but, you know, a TED Talk is like a whole other creature, I feel like. But what was that experience like for you stepping into that role?

Speaker coaching for a long time, speaking for a long time in a bunch of different kinds of formats and places, the TED Talk felt different because it was going to be on YouTube forever. So, if my clients ever Googled their speaker coach before I show up, they're going to see it. It is a product of my work, which is a whole another level of pressure. On YouTube forever and a bucket list, 1 shot. You don't get to do 5 different TED Talks and pick your favorite one of yours, right? It's like my one shot. I don't get to do this 5 times. So, there was a lot of pressure.

Also, TEDx Portland, the year I gave my TED Talk, was the largest indoor TEDx event in the history of TED Talks. It was going to be the largest group of people I'll ever speak to, probably, in my life, so there were a lot of pressures. Here's what happened. I did everything I told my clients not to do. Don't over practice. Don't memorize a script. I did all of the things. I was in therapy for other reasons, which I believe, and reaching for help and tools.

I was in a therapy session and said, can we take a pause on this topic and instead talk about the speaking gig I have coming up? I do this for a living, and I am freaking out. I'm in my head. My heart rate spikes sitting at a spotlight or a red light in the car 2 months before my TED Talk. Like, my body was feeling shit, even if consciously I wasn't thinking about it. We went through some interesting practices with my therapist, which we could get into, but I walked out of that session with zero anxiety. I didn't feel it, again at all. And I think my biggest fear I'm not sure if anyone will relate to this, but my biggest fear, I made it all about me, which I just said not to do, but my biggest fear is that I might nail my TED talk, but I wasn't there for it.

I wasn't in my body. I blacked out. I walked off stage, and other people could say that was amazing, but I wasn't there for it, and so my biggest fear was I would miss it. I trusted myself to serve something to the audience that would be good, but I was worried about missing it. That experience with my therapist, some of the practices we walked through, really solved that for me, and let me tell you, I walked on that stage fully me, fully present. It was what I wanted for myself as an experience knowing I was giving my audience something worthy of their time.

Wow. That's powerful.

Oh, I realized I'm human like everybody else.

It's wild because like you said, it could be something that you do for a living. And I think that just all of the added pressures. Right? You've been involved in TEDx Portland for so long. You're a speaker coach. People are going to see this online. And so, I think that people can get really caught up in the hype of it. And even, like, I remember when I was starting out and starting to get paid as a speaker. And it was one thing to speak for free.

But then for someone to write a check to hear me talk for an hour that had four numbers, I was like, is it going to be worth it? You know, am I going to deliver what I said I would? And you know, all of the fear that can come up for us. What do you think shifted for you? Like, you said, you walked out of there no anxiety. What was the shift that you went through to go from, like, freaking out, overwhelmed, heart racing to, I'm here. Let's do it.

I think it was a moment where we were doing an EMDR exercise, which I don't know the science behind. I'm sure you could Google it and agree or disagree with the method. But we were in a session doing EMDR, where instead of looking back into something from my past, we were looking ahead. So, some people call it visualization. She hadn't closed my eyes. We did this tapping method, which is part of the method. And she said, walk me through where are you? So, I'm in the green room. What's in the green room? What do you smell? What do you see? What do you feel? So, we went through all the grounding exercises.

Okay. 1 to 10 how intense is your emotion? What would you name that emotion? Okay. Where do you go next? I'm getting mic'd up. Stage wing left in the dark. Okay. What do you see? What do you smell? Right? And we went through 1 to 10, intensity of the emotion. What's the emotion? Okay. Now what? I hear Dave Ray saying my name. He's introducing me. Okay, now I'm on stage. And I start crying. We go through the experience and afterwards she asks me, what were the tears about? They said, I walked out on that stage, and I thought I'm made for this. I'm connecting with the audience. This is what I do. This is what I love. This is what feeds my soul is feeling connected to people.

This is my jam. I love this. This is where I feel fully alive. And what I recognized in that whole experience was my fear had nothing to do with onstage. It had everything to do with, would I psych myself out the hour before and walk out dysregulated, out of body experience, not myself, that was my fear. Do I want to talk to people? Do I not want to talk to people? Should I eat? Should I not eat? Do I pace? Do I try to settle? Should I listen to music? That unknown caused me all my anxiety. And, for some reason, talking about it, recognizing it, naming it, is not the talk that made me nervous. It unlocked it for me, which maybe that doesn't happen so quickly for other people. But for me, I think that's what changed.

Wow. I think that that's really powerful. It's a powerful exercise to really, yeah, walk yourself through every step. Because I think the biggest point of anxiety is often the right before part. It's not often like, I think, you know, maybe, like, the first 30 seconds to a minute, there's like you're getting the shakies out, like but then you're, like, we're in it. Like, let's go. And if you've practiced enough that first 30 seconds to a minute, you have, like, locked and dialed, and you said it 128 times. And so, I think for anyone out there who experiences that nervousness, the pressure, the anxiety, if you were to picture yourself, where are you before? What's happening? What do you see, smell, taste? Like, what's going on?

What's the feeling? What's the emotion? And just allowing yourself to be there to take away some of that unknown. And there's always going to be the unknown that's going to happen, but how can you provide yourself with that gift of just being aware of where those emotions are coming from, when they come up of, like, oh, like, the tears. And then the tears being like, I am built for this. I am made for this. Let's freaking go. Let's do this. I am here to serve and if you can speak from that place, that's powerful. Versus speaking from a place of, I want this to be perfect, and I want this to get, like, 1 million views, and I can't mess up and, you know, what if I like, da, da, da. I'm made for this.

And if you are on a stage or you have the desire to speak on a stage, there's a reason for it. It's not an accident. And that it's like trusting yourself enough to share your message. And it's, again, it's not about necessarily what you have to give. It's about what you want your audience to get.

I will also say this. Everyone seems very surprised to learn that I had a speaker coach. But I think everyone gets blind spots. This story is so significant, and then someone's going, I think you think it works more than your audience thinks that works or this isn't as clear as you think it is. It's in your head, clear, but to a listener, it's not. I mean, these are the things that we need. Back to the beginning of the conversation, feedback loop. And so, I certainly had a speaker coach. And he, probably the value he brought to me more than anything else was actually less content, although he asked me some great questions in the process.

But he continually challenged me for self-care. Stop practicing. What are you going to do the week before? So he gets your mind in the right spot, so that when you show up, you're well, and therefore, you can serve your audience well. And it was such good advice.

Yeah. And that's such an important part of it off, you know, I think that we can over practice. We can get really, you know, not sleeping because of anxiety and not eating well because we're so nervous that, you know, we don't feel like we're nauseous or whatever. And so, really seeing that self-care as an act of service to your audience of, like, I need to be what do I need to show up that day and be the best version of me and having those reminders. And I think that you're right. Like, we all have blind spots. We all have things that we can't see. And the value of having someone provide that insight, that perspective, the guidance.

I mean, again, I always say even the best Olympic athletes have a coach. They don't just have 1. They have, like, 10. Right? And even the best speakers have a coach and, like, have someone who can see the things that we can't always see and support us in, you know, whether that's through self-care, asking really good questions, making sure that our idea is landing, not just in our like, we can only think in our own perspective, in our own frame of the world, model of the world, so to speak. And it's like, does this land for someone outside of me?

So good. So important.

So good. So, as we wrap up, 2 final questions. The first one is, if people want to be better speakers, they want to learn more about you, your work. Where's the best place to find you or learn more about your incredible work in the world?

You can find more about our company at distinctioncommunication.com. You can find me there. You can find me in the social world pretty much everywhere minus TikTok and Twitter or X or whatever it's called. But everywhere else at amynwolff. Start around. If you Google me, you'll find me.

Definitely. Well, thanks so much for being here today. Final question. What would be your one piece of advice or any final thoughts that you would want to leave the audience with today? That those that are listening, again, they're wanting not just to be good speakers. They're wanting to be exceptional. They're wanting to be great. They want to make a difference. What final piece of advice or words would you want to share with them today?

Let's see if I can make this concise. The thing that came to mind first is this idea of aiming for excellence and staying human. Do your prep work. Practice out loud. Videotape yourself. Be human. Be authentic. Be flexible. Don't try to memorize. And as soon as you're in the tension of both, not trusting charisma, not trusting just good data or validation, but that human and excellent prepared both as soon as you feel the tension of them rubbing up against each other, you're in the right spot. Stay in the tension. Do the good work and permission to be real over perfect, but do the prep work. So, there's some nuance in there and I would invite anyone who wants to master this craft is find the tension, stay in the tension. That means you're trying to be authentic and trying to serve your audience well.

It's so good. And I love to lead people with this question of what's going to take my speaking to the next level, right? What's going to be the thing, like, that you want to continue to hone and work on? And like you said, you've met a ton of people who are out there in the world, who are professional speakers who've done this for a living, and, like, there's always going to be a next level. So, it's just like, what is that for you? And I love this tension of, like, aim for excellence and permission to be human, permission to be you, to share your message and your magic with the world. And my bold call to action would be, that the next time you speak to videotape yourself, and then to watch it. Because you will learn so much about what your audience sees that you might not see. So, that's your fun work assignment. Shall you choose to accept it? And stay in that tension and keep sharing your love, your light, and your message with the world.

So, thanks, Amy, for being here. So honored to have you as a friend, a colleague, and just a cheerleader in my life. So, appreciate you.

Love you, Marli. Good luck, everybody. Go be human.

Alright. Until next time, everybody. Take care.

Thank you for joining us on another inspiring episode of the Marli Williams podcast. We hope you're leaving here with renewed energy and valuable insights to fuel your leadership, coaching, and speaking endeavors. I'd love to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast to help us reach more aspiring leaders and speakers like you. We have more exciting episodes and remarkable guests lined up, so make sure to tune in next time. Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.