How to be impressive at public speaking by exploring the intersecting disciplines of storytelling and oratory (they are two different things).
What a wonderful experience to participate in this podcast and have such a curious human steer the conversation with superb questions, provocations and personal insights—Daniel described the episode in the following way via this LinkedIn post:
“You’re not weak. You’re not broken. You’re just wired to survive, and standing in front of people feels like a threat to that. But what if you could rewire that fear into confidence? What if your voice became your superpower, not your source of anxiety?”
A brilliant summary and invitation to watch.
Here are the show notes if you want to jump to certain topics:
0:00 The Power of Storytelling and Public Speaking
2:20 Storytelling vs. Public Speaking: Which Is More Impactful?
6:46 How to Capture and Hold Audience Attention
12:50 Avoiding Overwhelming Audiences with Data
15:12 Designing a Presentation From the Audience Perspective
17:50 Breaking Self-Imposed Limitations in Public Speaking
20:55 The Lizard Brain: Why We Fear Public Speaking
24:10 Reframing Fear as Excitement
26:26 Adapting to Different Speaking Styles
29:04 Shifting Focus from Validation to Giving Value
33:08 Grace, Credibility, and Resonance: The 3 Pillars of Great Presentations
41:28 Mastering Grace in Virtual Presentations
43:40 Tools for Engaging Online Audiences
48:20 Humanizing Data for Impactful Storytelling
50:01 Navigating Speech Creation: Scripts vs. Bullet Points
Thank you again Daniel for the opportunity to share my voice, to be part of your offering to the world and to simply spend time with you (looking forward to part two)—pure honour!
“Amateur is a word that’s kind of a pejorative, but the original meaning of the word ‘amateur’ is ‘lover of,’” he explained. “So being an amateur at something just means that you’re more interested in doing it for the love of the thing rather than the making money of the thing.” The last point is key, he says, because we live in a culture that’s become obsessed with monetizing every hobby. That results in the belief that if we aren’t doing something that can somehow be turned into a side hustle, or we aren’t supremely talented at a particular activity, there’s no point in doing it. And in the end, many people wind up with no hobbies at all.” Artist Austin Kleon Offers Tips on Finding Creative Freedom
“Our nervous system consists of 80% of afferent neurons, which move from the body to the brain—in contrast to roughly 20% of efferent neurons, which run in the opposite direction, from the brain to the body. As a result, so-called bottom-up interventions—or practices that leverage our physiology by consciously shifting our respiratory or visual systems—are 4x more effective at altering our blood chemistry and, therefore, shifting our state.” The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System
“When we detect unauthorized crawling, rather than blocking the request, we will link to a series of AI-generated pages that are convincing enough to entice a crawler to traverse them. But while real looking, this content is not actually the content of the site we are protecting, so the crawler wastes time and resources. As an added benefit, AI Labyrinth also acts as a next-generation honeypot. No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense. Any visitor that does is very likely to be a bot, so this gives us a brand-new tool to identify and fingerprint bad bots, which we add to our list of known bad actors.” Trapping misbehaving bots in an AI Labyrinth
“Although Earth might seem like a stable, flat surface where we live our lives, seismologists have discovered that it’s far from passive. In fact, Earth has a ‘heartbeat’ that pulses every 26 seconds, according to Discover Magazine. Known as “microseisms,” these faint seismic tremors resemble tiny earthquakes, though they aren’t exactly the same. For decades, scientists have been baffled by these mysterious tremors, and despite many theories, no definitive explanation has been found.” Scientists puzzled by Earth’s ‘heartbeat’ that causes slight tremors every 26 seconds – GOOD
“The implications of this research extend far beyond the world of cryptocurrency. The methods developed by Dr. Clegg and his team could be applied to a wide range of complex systems, from financial markets to social networks. For regulatory agencies, this work offers a new way to monitor and safeguard against systemic risks, protecting both individual investors and the broader economy.” Mathematicians uncover the hidden patterns behind a $3.5 billion cryptocurrency collapse
mobygratis – Free Moby music to empower your creative projects, all for free (apart from this pop-up: “there are only 2 things you can’t do with the music here; use it to advertise right wing politics or causes, or use it to promote meat, dairy, or other animal products.”)!
Along with my personal / professional history, am sharing here direct lived-experience strategies of how I work with others when it comes to their own oratory practice—making the case for not using scripts and how to manage nerves as well as analysing the impact of the success of my recent TEDx talk with a nice little social media rant at the end.
Thank you again Noa (and Ash from the tech side) for the opportunity to participate and for what you’re doing by creating this platform / space for others to share their stories along with your wonderful curiosity which drives the conversation in all the episodes.
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
Loving the conversational manner of this video deconstructing and showing / applying / exploring the bass playing of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden (one of my favourite bands from youth). The two camera set-up and post production narrative editing to creates a distinct format flow which keeps your attention (even if you’re not a bass player or into the music).
Revealed through a static view of a fixed cam, here’s a visual feast showing all the camera operators and angles, dancers and tech people, backdrops and lighting, in-sync and aligned to create this one-shot music video by Jungle. This literal and layered choreography makes my brain tingle in all the right ways as a producer!
A nostalgic look behind one of the most popular songs of 1993, watch and learn from the song writer and uncover both the stories behind a song and also the wonderful insight in how the place-holder of the “mmm’s” becomes the hook to the whole tune.
“Amazon has previously mismanaged Alexa voice recordings. In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million in civil penalties over the revelation that it stored recordings of children’s interactions with Alexa forever. Adults also didn’t feel properly informed of Amazon’s inclination toward keeping Alexa recordings unless prompted not to until 2019—five years after the first Echo came out. If that’s not enough to deter you from sharing voice recordings with Amazon, note that the company allowed employees to listen to Alexa voice recordings. In 2019, Bloomberg reported that Amazon employees listened to as many as 1,000 audio samples during their nine-hour shifts. Amazon says it allows employees to listen to Alexa voice recordings to train its speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.” Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 – Ars Technica
“When the company first announced it was considering a sale, we highlighted many of the potential issues, including selling that data to companies with poor security practices or direct links to law enforcement. With this bankruptcy, the concerns we expressed last year remain the same. It is unclear what will happen with your genetic data if 23andMe finds a buyer, and that uncertainty is a clear indication that you should consider deleting your data.” How to Delete Your 23andMe Data | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“To prevent the threatened setbacks to US innovation and risks to national security, OpenAI urged Trump to enact a federal law that preempts state laws attempting to regulate AI threats to things like consumer privacy or election integrity, like deepfakes or facial recognition. That federal law, OpenAI suggested, should set up a “voluntary partnership between the federal government and the private sector,” where AI companies trade industry knowledge and model access for federal “relief” and “liability protections” from state laws. Additionally, OpenAI wants protections from international laws that it claims risk slowing down America’s AI development.” OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use – Ars Technica
“Perhaps the closest we’ve seen to a justification has come from “Crypto Czar” David Sacks, who reiterated that the US would not sell any of the bitcoin and wrote on Twitter that “It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold’”. But this argument doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, even setting aside the already questionable nature of bitcoin’s usefulness as a “store of value”. If an asset will indeed never be sold, how would the US draw upon its stored value in order to, say, backstop the dollar or pay outstanding debts? What’s the point of a store of value if that value can never be accessed?” Crypto reserves: no public good, no principles
“The group cited several of the administration’s actions such as the mass termination of federal employees, the appointment of Trump loyalists in key government positions, the withdrawal from international efforts such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, the freezing of federal and foreign aid and the attempted dismantling of USAid. The organization warned that these decisions “will likely impact civic freedoms and reverse hard-won human rights gains around the world”. The group also pointed to the administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, and the Trump administration’s unprecedented decision to control media access to presidential briefings, among others.” US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms | US news | The Guardian
“Professor Mark Bateman, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Geography and Planning, used a dating technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence, to discover the burial age of individual grains of sand from eight samples throughout the site. His work showed that the archaeological site extended back from 12,000 years ago right through to around 150,000 years ago. These results were then corroborated by Electron Spin Resonance dating. “It is incredibly interesting to take a grain of ancient sand and be the first to know when it was deposited. It is even more so when the age of the sand changes what we know of how, and where, our ancient ancestors lived.”” Scientists find earliest evidence that our ancestors lived in rainforests 150,000 years ago | News | The University of Sheffield
“A more effective model charges for the full engagement, encompassing four key phases: – Discovery – Understanding the client’s needs, challenges, and objectives. This phase involves research, conversations, and assessing the right approach. – Defining Scope – Establishing the framework for delivery, including the intended outcomes, process, and deliverables. This ensures clarity for both parties. – Delivery – The actual execution, whether that’s a keynote speech, coaching session, advisory engagement, or facilitation. By this stage, the foundation has been laid for maximum impact. – Debriefing & Follow-Up – Evaluating outcomes, providing reflections, and offering ongoing insights to support long-term success.” The Folly of Hourly Charging — David McQueen | Executive Leadership Coach
goeuropean.org is a community-driven directory bringing you recommendations and insights from across Europe (if you’re looking to use move your purchase power away from certain places).
The Creativity Pioneers Fund is a global unrestricted grant of 5,000 euros for non-profit organizations around the world, that are addressing social and environmental issues through creativity and culture, established in 2021 by the Moleskine Foundation (apply before April 7th 2025).
Distilling the core tenets to align more to my own personal values.
Been exploring Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” twelve week course for the past few weeks and took the time to turn my attention to the ‘basic principles’ as one of my ‘morning pages’ activities:
“CREATIVITY IS NATURAL AND GIVES ENERGY TO LIFE. UNLEASH AND EMBODY AND CELEBRATE YOUR OWN CREATION TO GIFT BACK TO THE WORLD YOUR NATURAL AND CREATIVE SELF. MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF ABUNDANCE AND POSITIVENESS. IT IS SAFE TO OPEN YOURSELF UP TO GREATER AND GREATER CREATIVITY.”
“We believe that electing the Ocean to be a Trustee of SAMS is one of the most important decisions in our history. It challenges outdated models of governance and champions a future where the ocean’s voice is central to decision-making. That the Ocean should be represented in our governance might seem, at first blush, to be a gimmick, even whimsical. We are conscious that the move could be seen as trivial or ‘greenwashing’. After all, as a non-profit marine research organisation, surely SAMS always has the best interests of the Ocean in mind? But after several months of careful discussion and debate, the Trustees are convinced that even with a strong empathy for ocean conservation and a well-informed understanding of marine environmental matters, our decision-making is essentially anthropocentric; human interests are given precedence, and concern is limited to the impact on the Ocean rather than the interests of the Ocean.” News – The Ocean enters the boardroom — The Scottish Association for Marine Science
“…the British government’s undisclosed order was issued last month, and requires the capability to view all encrypted material in iCloud. The core target is Apple’s Advanced Data Protection, which is an optional feature that turns on end-to-end encryption for backups and other data stored in iCloud, making it so that even Apple cannot access that information. For a long time, iCloud backups were a loophole for law enforcement to gain access to data otherwise not available to them on iPhones with device encryption enabled. That loophole still exists for anyone who doesn’t opt in to using Advanced Data Protection. If Apple does comply, users should consider disabling iCloud backups entirely. Perhaps most concerning, the U.K. is apparently seeking a backdoor into users’ data regardless of where they are or what citizenship they have.” The UK’s Demands for Apple to Break Encryption Is an Emergency for Us All | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But details around the torrenting were murky until yesterday, when Meta’s unredacted emails were made public for the first time. The new evidence showed that Meta torrented “at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna’s Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen,” the authors’ court filing said. And “Meta also previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen.” ”Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealed – Ars Technica
“For the new study, Lupyan and Nedergaard recruited 47 participants who scored the highest for having an inner voice and 46 who registered low scores—roughly in the top and bottom fifths of scores. They then gave these participants four language-related tasks they thought might be influenced by the use of inner speech. In the first, participants were briefly shown five words and asked to repeat them back. The second involved participants saying whether the names of objects in two pictures rhymed. In both experiments the group with less inner speech was less accurate in their responses. For the rhyme judgements, people with more inner speech were also faster. “This wide-ranging study really tests what inner speech gives us in terms of cognitive benefits,” Fernyhough says.” Not Everyone Has an Inner Voice Streaming through Their Head | Scientific American
“Here are just some of the factors in the Startup Drake Equation, the failure of any one of which is terminal: – Product that people want to pay for (really) – Able to grab those people’s attention amidst the noisy Internet – Pricing that those people will accept (and that is greater than your costs) – Competitive and distinctive enough to be chosen – Able to build the product as promised by the home page – Sustained value-delivery months and years later, so customers stay and keep paying – Able to fund the venture, either through early profits or fundraising – Able to work well with co-founders (or able do it all alone) – Develop a repeatable and profitable customer acquisition process – Able to attract and retain talent – Able to psychologically handle many years of deep effort, stress, and pain – Get lucky on occasion” The Startup Drake Equation
1,000,000 views x 19mins (talk) = 13,194days / 1,884weeks/ 36years of watch time.
Start with spending 30 years online, participating in online communities, curating good stuff as a way of honing your taste and building a network of positivity.
Then spend 20 years and a lot of money / time attending other peoples events, learning what excellence looks like in terms of storytelling and delivery whilst also connecting folks you meet to others you know as a pro-social act of being a human.
And finally, add in about another decade of getting paid as a coach in the topic you’ll be speaking on, constantly sharpening your craft, building out services, delivering 1-2-1s and masterclasses and courses, so that you can then have a trove of experiences to reference.
BIG thanks to TEDxNelson and the team there for the opportunity and EVERYONE who watched / shared.
I am gratefully astonished.
One million views is the most popular thing I’ve ever done.
Building on the above, this was the other stuff I did to nudge things along:
OWNED
When the video went live in December 2022 I blogged about it and shared on via my social media channels. I kept tracking and blogging when it hit numeric milestones which included 100,000 (which included the announcement of a pre-order of my new book, see below) 250,000, 500,000 (which included a giveaway for the community also) and 750,000 views.
A whole bunch of strangers have bought it and the digital bundle has been shared with all my clients ever since as a freebie.
Obviously, it references back to the talk often and would definitely have aided awareness.
Did a whole bunch of LinkedIn postings over the past couple of years (and Twitter when I was still on there) using the following clipped pieces to activate interest. And a banner was added to the top of my website whereby visitors can quickly access the talk:
Shared the talk as a resource to my speaker coaching clients who I know in turn have shared it with others in their network.
EARNED
I leveraged my direct TEDx experience in formulating a punchy title for the talk which would both ignite curiosity as well as be easily found in search terms. There’s also the talk description which again is key for being ‘findable’ along with ensuring a short bio. and most importantly, a clickable link back to my website.
For about half a year I responded to a few reddit communities regarding public speaking queries, offering advice and insights whilst adding in the link to my talk (being conscious not to just spam but to respond direct to the questions and adding in the talk as a further overview if relevant).
Got featured in some podcasts either as a direct result of my talk where the folks found me through or where others in my network thought it warranted exploration. This obviously helped introduce it to brand new communities I would never have gotten by myself:
Took out a couple of Google Ads early on and spent a couple hundred bucks on them. For some reason can’t get into my account online but seem to recall it created a few hundred click-throughs.
I also spent the same amount on Blaze over a six week campaign about a year ago, achieving about 144,000 impressions and approximately 400 click-throughs, which is a 0.27777777777778% rate of actual engagement.
As you can see, the growth has been a mix of building on a legacy of activity as a foundation, then leveraging ‘owned’ media channels, ‘earning’ access to other peoples networks through features and it being shared on, very little paid activity, plus organic growth through all the cross-posting which aids the web-rankings and search.
Hope all the above aids someone out there when it comes your turn to step on the red spot and wishing you all the best with it (hit me up if you need some coaching)!
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness”—image and quote source from the artist herself
“Musk is speedrunning the enshittification curve, and yet Twitter isn’t collapsing. Why not? Because Musk is insulated from consequences for fucking up – he’s got a huge cushion of wealth, he’s got advertisers who are desperate to reach his users, he’s got users who can’t afford to leave the service, he’s got IP law that he can use to block interoperators who might make it easier to migrate to a better service. He was always a greedy, sadistic asshole. Now he’s an unconstrained greedy, sadistic asshole. Musk 2025 isn’t a worse person than Musk 2020. He’s just more free to act on his evil impulses than he was in years gone by.” Pluralistic: Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital (20 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
“According to Meta’s testimony, as relayed by plaintiffs’ counsel, Zuckerberg cleared the use of LibGen to train at least one of Meta’s Llama models despite concerns within Meta’s AI exec team and others at the company. The filing quotes Meta employees as referring to LibGen as a “data set we know to be pirated,” and flagging that its use “may undermine [Meta’s] negotiating position with regulators.” The filing also cites a memo to Meta AI decision-makers noting that after “escalation to MZ,” Meta’s AI team “[was] approved to use LibGen.” (MZ, here, is rather obvious shorthand for “Mark Zuckerberg.”)” Mark Zuckerberg gave Meta’s Llama team the OK to train on copyrighted works, filing claims | TechCrunch
“I’ve always lived my life restlessly: business travel, a new home every few years, a relentless pursuit for something more. Some have called it ambition; others say I’m driven. I just think I have a hard time sitting still – physically and mentally. There’s undoubtedly a propulsive energy that keeps me going. Is my RLS the kinetic force? Perhaps it is. And maybe not. Of course, I’ve suffered for decades. But I like the idea that my physical restlessness parallels how I navigate the rest of my life. Certainly, thinking about RLS as something more than twitchy legs is the only thing that partially calms my brain as I saunter into bed hoping, praying, that tonight I might finally lay still.” I clock up to 20,000 steps a night: my life with restless legs syndrome | Well actually | The Guardian
“During a seven-day trial in June, 2023, the 16 youth plaintiffs argued that the state’s promotion of fossil fuel infrastructure had jeopardized their physical and mental health, traditions, and recreational interests. Anthropogenic climate change has already had myriad impacts on Montana, including shorter winters with less snowfall, more frequent wildfires, and the reduced availability of wild game and ceremonial and medicinal plants. These impacts are expected to worsen as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise.” ‘We have been heard’: Montana youth score a major climate victory in court | Grist
“And given the nature of these other devices and that users won’t realize what’s taking place, there are serious implications. Identity Week warns that “organizations using Google’s advertising tech can implement fingerprinting without violating Google’s policies and complying with the requirements of data protection law… Fingerprinting is so hindering to privacy expectations because it relies on signals that are not easy to wipe. Even if data is ‘permanently’ deleted, fingerprinting biometrics could detect and recognize your identity.” Google Starts Tracking All Your Devices In 6 Weeks—Forget Chrome And Android
“The planets are not exactly lined up, so they will appear in an arc across the sky due to their orbital plane in the Solar System. During clear nights in January and February, all of the planets except Mercury will be visible – an event sometimes called a planetary parade. On 28 February, though – weather permitting – all seven planets will be visible, a great spectacle for observers on the ground.” Seven planets are lining up in the sky next month. This is what it really means – BBC Future
Installed StopTheMadness to get rid of the insipid ‘Sign-in with Google’ pop-up plus block many other stupid web things and is working great (worth the money).
Always on the hunt to learn from others and how they approach coaching storytellers in the world, and the above added some gems to my current knowledge. Jeremy Connell-Waite currently works for IBM as a Communications Designer and in the video above gives us a wonderful breakdown of Ted Sorensen’s (JFK’s speechwriter) “4 Words & 5 Lines” concept. Superb stuff.
For the majority of this video only two camera shots are used: the main one focused on the table where nearly all of the action takes place and the second a hand-held side shot for a few close-up vignettes. Added to these is the simple descriptive overlay of each of the elements and stages taking place. Only the last three minutes do the framing change to oversee the stretching of the dough and formation of the noodles. No words are spoken but a tale is told in how to make Chinese hand-pulled noodles.
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