Help! Will My Big Scary Speech Fail?
- Victoria Hogg
- Oct 9
- 4 min read
Hello, Superstars! |
You’ve got a big presentation looming. Maybe it’s for a room full of execs. Maybe it's a TedX audition. Or worse — a wedding toast for your mate who knows you're good with words. Your brain, suddenly? Blanker than Taylor Swift’s Blank Space, baby! (See: we can make the Young People references with the best of ’em!). You’re not alone. Fear of public speaking ranks higher than fear of death in several international studies (as Jerry Seinfeld reminds us: “At a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy!”). But here’s the truth: your big scary speech probably won’t fail. Not if you embrace a secret weapon: the not-so-secret weapon of applied improv. It’s the same tool that helps comedians perform live without scripts. It’s what keeps you going if your tech fails. It’s where to start when you simply don’t know where you’re going. |
TRY IT OUT: 💘 Our weekly tip or trick - from applied improv to you.
Crazy Eights: If you have a presentation to give or if you’re feeling anxious in any way, try a shake.
The power of shaking, aka somatic experiencing, is huge. It’s a reset, a reconnection with our bodies and a processing and release of adrenalin and cortizol. Brought to attention by Peter Levine, PHD, somatic experiencing is an improv pre-show ritual. We call it Crazy Eights or Rubber Chicken! It’s cute.
• Make sure you’re somewhere you can’t hurt yourself on a wall or furniture! Shake your right hand and arm eight times while counting out loudly: “Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” • Repeat with the left hand and arm, then the right leg and foot, then the left.• Now start again, same order, but say and shake for one number less, so you start with “Seven! Six! Five!”, then next round: “Six! Five!”, etc.• At the end, do a star jump and shout: “Rubber chicken!” As I said, it’s cute. Congrats! You just had a really meaningful somatic reset.
“Practise in private; be rewarded in public” Tony Robbins, motivational speaker
Something changed…
I just gave a workshop on a business retreat in Spain about bias. I had a solid idea (or so I thought!) of where the cohort were ‘at’. I’d planned my session to leave plenty of time to show slides at the end. We begin.
What I’d thought would be a 3m opener became a half-hour unpacking of gender and pronouns. Big talk. My workshop plan was in metaphorical flames on the floor, but if improv has taught me one thing, it’s to change the presentation to suit the group. Don’t wish for a different group and run the plan regardless.
So we took our time. I ditched the slides. Lots was discussed. The following week, I got a text from a participant on how they’d successfully incorporated many of the learnings into something they’d just run.
I learned absolutely loads that week - and a little bit of knowledge from me was passed on as well. We’d all improvised. Each one teach one.
Something missing…
One of our clients in a workshop last year couldn’t speak up. They had opinions and wanted to share them but couldn’t be heard even a couple of feet away.
So much of what we do is to reframe and recalibrate from ‘problem’ to ‘superpower’. This quiet person was (in our parlance and on our IMPROV Inc. S.W.a.L.K. quadrant), the type known as the ‘Lover’.
Suddenly, being softly spoken wasn’t ‘de-voicing’… this quiet person was recategorised as leaning in. And once they understood that was their positive start point, it only took a few more vocal techniques for them to step confidently into and try out the rest of the quadrant: Sage, Warrior and Kidder.
Sometimes it takes reframing people’s output as strength to make the difference. And practice makes perfect!
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great” Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker
Something solved…
A while back I was working with a lovely senior manager who was prepping for her first keynote. Sal (I’ll call her Sal here), was nervous that her topic wasn’t gripping enough. The subject? Supply chain tech. Fair point, I guess.
We had a chat and in the process I noticed she kept using “Yes, but…” sentence starters when replying to anything I offered.
We took it back to basics and had a session around “Yes, and”. Sal wasn’t allowed to say “Yes, but…” for the rest of the meeting. Suddenly, resistance stalled. She found herself yes, and-ing all my suggestions and in a short time had reframed her angle and happily landed on a couple of personal stories.
Sal even used a connection - that of the ‘warehousing’ element being an echo of her teenage obsession with jigsaw puzzles - to give the speech a personal angle. She called me the following month to say how much the audience loved it.
Puzzle solved!
All the best,
Vic (‘n’Paul)
