Being Me on Stage

I recently resolved to master the art of public speaking.

I am not by nature someone who talks about themselves a lot in public. I enjoy listening to what others have to say. I recognize that public speaking is a useful skill but I had not needed it. What changed is my aspiration to write books. Publishers like authors to be accomplished public speakers.

The main lesson I learned about public speaking on my journey to stage was actually something I had long known in business.  Be yourself, be genuine, and above all don’t try to perform. Sounds simple but this goes against much of the conventional wisdom.

Writing Books Means Learning to Speak Publicly

So here is how my journey to the podium started. If you are a book author, you need to be able to speak publicly and keep an audience interested.  Publishers will tell you that public speaking gigs are one of the best ways to build an audience that can sell books. (They call it building a platform).  This was news to me when I started thinking about writing books. But it sounded like another interesting challenge. I love learning new things. Why not?

You might think that someone who had taken a company public and led it for a decade was an accomplished public speaker. But that was something I  did not pursue. Yes, I spoke often inside the company, at meetings and gatherings. I spoke to reporters about Digital Link (rarely). I  never spoke at conferences about technology or about entrepreneurship. I tended to take a quiet path to success. Because I did not give importance to it.

There is nothing quiet about public speaking. However, there are some key lessons to being a successful speaker that parallel what I have learned in business while taking my company public and managing it as the CEO for almost two decades. The most important one is stunningly obvious. The best public speaking is not performative. It’s just being yourself, onstage, and sharing what you genuinely think and believe, with an audience. This was the simple yet powerful guidance I received from my speaking coach, Danny Slomoff.

One of my daughters referred me to Danny when she learned that I was planning to do some public speaking. My sessions with Danny transformed the way I think about speaking on a public stage. My good friend Vivek Wadhwa had asked the organizers of a conference in Kazkastan if I could speak in his place. He was busy with his startup. The organizers were gracious and agreed to give me a try.

Overthinking is Not the Way

I had begun recording some videos for my social media sites, as part of my efforts to start building an audience as recommended by my book publisher friends. A videographer was going to come to my home. We would be able to do multiple takes and practice. I had some themes I wanted to talk about, based on blog posts and columns I had written. I was wracking my brain about how to turn these themes into buzzy videos that would go viral. How should I perform? What should I do differently?

The lights went on. The camera focused. My interviewers asked the questions. I started to talk but everything was coming out wrong. I didn’t like what I sounded like or the words I chose. I thought, I need to do better, to try harder. So I doubled down and things actually got worse. In the end, I was able to salvage some good footage for public postings. But these were short questions and answers. How would I be able to speak on stage? What was I doing wrong? I thought, maybe if we mix my answers in with interesting visuals, and change the camera shot slightly, it will look more like the videos I watch on YouTube and Instagram.

That said, I knew the interviews that I watched with leaders I admired did not have fancy editing. Charlie Munger or Bill Gates talking about what they know is fascinating. It does not require fancy editing. They are being themselves and that is the most interesting part — the lessons I can learn.

The Speaking Unlock: Be Yourself and Everything Else Follows

I went up to my first session with Danny Slomoff unsure of how to proceed. I arrived in his studio and Danny asked me about my Kazakstan talk, I explained when it was and that it was a 20 minute time slot. The first thing he told me was that a speaker must “focus on impacting the listener’s mind. He wrote about this in his book, saying “Great communicators agree that the only thing that matters is what your listeners leave thinking and feeling. They focus on impacting listeners’ minds. Instead of thinking about covering everything they want to share…”.

We had a detailed script which was primarily written by me that he helped me refine as I practiced repeatedly in front of him.  I would practice each point with a timer, by myself. I discovered how practice made me think why I wanted to make the point, more useful than what the point was.

Next, I asked if I should memorize the presentation. (This is how most TED talks are done). Danny said absolutely not.

But, most of all, he said, “Just imagine you are having a conversation with me and you look in my eye and see me nodding or not, which is feedback on whether you are impacting my mind ”, he said.

At first, I didn’t know where I was going.  Could he teach a 74 year old, new trick? Isn’t there some way I should talk to make my words interesting to the younger generation? A lingo? Is there a cadence I should follow? Danny said that the wisdom I had gained over my experiences was going to interest audiences of all ages, young and old — because it’s a story and I lived the story. Just be yourself, he said.  Just talk about your life and your experiences — the things you know first-hand and have lived through. And, you can apply that wisdom to teach lessons and make observations.

As I heard his words, I recognized that this was the same approach to business and running a company that had served me so well over my time as a founder and CEO of a publicly traded company. I realized very early in my business career that being honest and being authentic were key building blocks of leadership, trust and creating a healthy company culture. What did the trick for me was, it removed a kink of mind, in presenting myself on the stage.

I am happy to report my talk in Kazakhstan went very well. I was quite pleased. I realize I can still improve. I also realize that one cannot simply stand up on a stage and instantly become a good public speaker. It takes practice. I practiced my talk many times before stepping on stage to get more comfortable. The practice was perfect. However, without the unlock that Danny had given me — the simple twist that I should not worry about anything except being myself — all the practice in the world would not have helped. This was true when I was building Digital Link, for building a business, just as it’s true for mastering the art of public speaking. I am looking forward to giving more talks and to meeting new people along the way. I’ll see you from the podium!