It’s irritating. Fear wins far too often.

“I’ve got the perfect strategy for dealing with the panic attacks I get when anyone asks me to make a speech”, she said, laughing. “I run away. Avoidance is my answer every time.”

These were words from a fellow delegate, who I’ll call Mary in the interests of discretion, at a recent event about content marketing.

Mary wasn’t being funny and she certainly isn’t unique. In fact, she just follows a path taken by so many of the 75% of adults who admit that speaking in front of others is a major source of anxiety.

When asked about the consequences of her fears, Mary had this to say:

“It’s probably the one thing that holds me back, more than anything else in my business. I get so many great opportunities to promote what we do at events all over the country…and I let everyone of them slip through my fingers. It makes me mad, but I just don’t know I can do it – so I don’t take the risk and try.”

While I’m not going to reprise the entire conversations, here’s the curious thing about Mary’s attitude to speaking…

…She has never given a single speech in her life.

A Fear of The Unknown Can be Debilitating

And yet she was showing a classic reaction to a fear of the unknown. If we perceive potential harm could be on the cards – in this case, the possibility of losing face amongst peers – our self-preserving ‘fight or flight’ instinct kicks in to save the day.

Of course, in this case, Mary’s inclination to run away is acting as a huge barrier to greater business success.

Can you identify with where she is coming from?

Has a fear of public speaking ever resulted in you:

• Being reluctant to put yourself forward and take new responsibilities?

• Refraining from saying what you know should be said?

• Limiting the expectations you set for others or yourself?

• Playing so safe that great opportunities go by the wayside?

If you said yes to any of these, you’re not alone. The vast majority of people tend to follow suit.

But here’s the thing, as Mark Twain put it so well over a century ago:

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

Left unchecked and untested – a failure to confront and overcome a fear of the unknown is too often a recipe for unfulfilled potential.

Don’t Let Fear Get in Your Way.

Life’s too short for ‘if only I’d…s’ and ‘what ifs’.

Wouldn’t you rather tell a different story?

The post Does a Fear of Speaking Hold You Back? appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

There are more parallels between the world of advertising and speech-making than many realise…

…And to prove the point, here are 3 short ideas from the late advertising guru David Ogilvy that’ll help you create more engaging talks.

Tip #1 – Favour Substance Over Style

“What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content in your advertising, not its form.”

Speaking is not about dazzling your audience with craft. It’s not about being a gifted entertainer and nor is about the number of plaudits you receive after your talking is done.

While each of these may be a consequence or by-product of what you do, these can’t be a focus or a goal in your presentations.

The only thing that matters when you speak is what your audience gets out of the experience and can ‘now do’ versus any focus on your performance.

Remember, as I’ve mentioned in other posts…“There may be an ‘I’ in ‘speaking’, but it’s never about you.”

Tip #2 – Speak to Others as You Would Have Them Speak to You

“The consumer isn’t a moron; she’s your wife.”

Have you ever sat in an audience and encountered speakers you felt were talking down to you?

Did you bristle? Any chance your annoyance got in the way of you paying attention to the speakers – maybe paying greater heed to ‘how’ something was said that the essence of intended messages?

Probably. It’s human nature.

It’s a fact. We both pay more attention to, and place more trust in, those who are clearly on our side and speak our language.

If it’s not obvious that you respect your audience, you’re on a one-way ticket to disengagement. Instead, always create speeches that speak ‘with’ instead of ‘to’ your audiences.

Tip #3 – Have a Point That’s Worth Making

“You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you’ll never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to gain attention of consumers and get them to buy your product.

Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”  Quote from ‘Ogilvy on Advertising‘.

Here’s a message that will never grow old. It was valid many decades ago when David coined these words and has become more important today.

Getting and keeping attention from audiences has always been a challenge.

However, in this era of unprecedented information overload – where typical attention spans have fallen to seconds, not even moments – ideas that sound even vaguely ‘me too’ in nature are likely to flounder.

If you want your audience to get excited about your ideas, they need to feel it’s worth their while. Marginal doesn’t cut it any more, the stakes have gone up.

As a speaker, you need to answer the ‘why should I care’ question for your audience. The stronger the case you can make – from their viewpoints, not yours – the easier you make it for them to get behind and support your thinking.

Over to You

Share your thoughts and observations.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ogilvy & Mather, Dublin

The post What Speakers Can Learn from David Ogilvy appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

“So a funny thing happened when…”

Do you have to get your audiences to laugh to win them over?

Many say ‘yes’; And with good reason. After all – it’s a fact – the effective use of humour can boost a speaker’s capacity to connect with an audience.

It offers a great way to help your audience to enjoy the experience of hearing a talk, to feel more relaxed and receptive, and even to defuse tension or anxiety when tackling potentially difficult topics.

But does this mean you need to be a teller of jokes or a bit of a comedian to maximize audience engagement?

Actually no. And here are 2 reasons why – the first will be obvious and the second one may be more of a surprise:

#1. Even Good Jokes can Fall Flat

Let’s have a look at some jokes that make people laugh. Check out the top 3 gags from the Edinburgh Comedy Festival last year:

• “You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh and Becks” (Stewart Francis)

• “Last night me and the missus watched 3 DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the telly.” (Tim Vine)

• “I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister” (Will Marsh)

What do you think? Did you laugh – even a little?

Maybe?

Of course, the truth about jokes is that different people find different things funny. So there’s no guarantee that you found any or all these remotely amusing.

But, leave that aside for a moment.

Also – and please indulge me on this – can I ask you to make a few sweeping assumptions about jokes you could tell?

Let’s say:

• You have a plethora of knock’em dead, surefire funny jokes
• You can remember them perfectly, using all of the right words and not forgetting bits – which is kind of important, since most jokes need to follow a sequence to work
• You have the nerve, timing and demeanor to tell jokes well, and
• Your jokes lend themselves to reinforcing points you want to make

Brilliant. You could have an audience in stitches and begging for more.  And congratulations, you’re among the smallest fraction of us capable of consistently getting laughs at joke after joke – which is why there are so few stand up comedians who make a living from telling jokes.

And yet, even if you have all of these things going for you…

…You could still be wasting your time and the audience’s time!

#2 Jokes May Compete With the Effect You Want

You see there’s some bad news here for those capable of having us falling out of the rafters and clutching our sides because we’re laughing so much.

Science is not on your side. Even though your audience may enjoy what you say, there’s a good chance your words will be forgotten in short order.

Robert Provine, professor of psychology at Maryland University and author of “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation” explains:

“What makes a joke successful is also what makes it difficult to remember. The punch line involves an unexpected turn. “

The Telegraph, Mar 2009

Memory researchers suggest additional reasons that great jokes may elude common capture.

Daniel L. Schacter, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the author of “The Seven Sins of Memory,” says there is a big difference between verbatim recall of all the details of an event and gist recall of its general meaning.

“We humans are pretty good at gist recall but have difficulty with being exact,” he said.    

New York Times, Mar 2009

So here’s the thing with jokes – and I’m not saying you should never use them, as they can absolutely be used for effect and to amplify ideas…

…Don’t rely on them as a primary means of imparting a message to your audience, as – unlike great stories that can often be remembered years after you sit down – they:

• Are rarely as memorable as you might like to think
• Can compete with (or even over shadow) the messages you want to share, and
• May reduce your audience’s capacity to remember the messages you really need them to take away after you sit down

As a speaker – if your goal is to educate and persuade versus merely to entertain – steer away from using jokes as your main attraction or as a focal point.

If your aim is the former, focus more on great stories to engage your audience. They are easier to tell, easier to remember and are much more likely to result in audiences forming positive views regarding the speaker – including authenticity and trustworthiness.

Over to You

Share your thoughts and opinions. What forms of humour do you find memorable?

The post Don’t Waste Great Jokes on Your Audience appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

Expectations can be weighty. Many who are called upon to make presentations believe it’s important to be seen as someone who’s thorough – showing all and sundry a mastery of the topics at hand.

“I simply have to cover every possibility”, exclaimed one participant at a recent seminar. “In my job, I deal with so many things…and they’ll expect to speak about them all.”

Was he right? Does that sound reasonable to you?

Maybe?

It’s certainly easy to see why one might hold this view. And yet the answer has to be a decided ‘no

Don’t set your audience up to miss the point

If you make a speech that is chock full of different, albeit important messages – chances are that your audience will forget most of them by the time you stop talking.

But surely more is better? What about the old ‘if you throw more muck at the wall, more will stick’ argument?

When making speeches, nothing could be further from the truth.

Every extra message you share gives your audience more they have to remember. And truth be told, we’re not programmed to recall as much as you may think from speeches we hear. Remembering stuff can be hard work.

Let me show you what I mean. Here’s a little test you might like you to try (and it’s best if you grab a pen and a blank sheet of paper to do this).

I’d like you to cast your mind back to the last time you heard someone give a talk.

Now think hard about whatever he or she said and write down every single point you remember. As you do this, please don’t peak at any slides you might have received!

What do your results look like? Do you have a short (or even blank) list by any chance?

Why less is more when speaking in public

If your answer is yes (and in most cases it will be)…what’s going on?

How can it be that you may have listened to a  speaker for a good chunk of time and yet struggle to remember much of what was said to you?

It’s because the speaker – almost assuredly unwittingly – gave you a job to do that few of us can accomplish. He or she was asking to remember too many things.

In an era of information overload, most of us struggle to grasp and retain more than a few chunks of information at any given time. And if more comes your way – guess what happens? Yep, you run the risk of messages you wanted people to retain being filtered away or ignored altogether.

And the moral?

If you want to be memorable speaker – don’t think ‘the more the merrier’ when it comes to messages shared…

…Think ‘few and well’.  And be assured, this is one form or communication where ‘Less really is More’

Over to you

Who is the most memorable speaker you’ve ever seen? And what was it about his or her messages or delivery that caused you to feel that way?

The post How to Avoid Making Forgettable Speeches appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

It’s tragic. Many investment pitches are over almost before they start.

Worse still, those who have floundered may not twig their case is lost until after the ship they want to come in has sailed away.

What goes wrong?

If your big idea isn’t clear or compelling, nothing is going to happen.

Never mind all the other homework you’ve done, the PowerPoint Deck that’s awash with detail and your conviction that investors would be mad not to back you…

…Should you fail at this hurdle, you simply won’t get to pass GO and will leave with empty pockets. Here’s why.

Seasoned investors  - especially venture capitalists – are notorious for having short attention spans.  And if they can’t see why your vision is exciting and scalable straight away, chances are you’re on a one ticket to ‘no thanks and don’t forget to shut the door on the way out!’

With good reason – they spend far more time finding reasons to say no than yes.

Truth is, larger VCs receive many thousands of funding requests each year and only invest in a ridiculously low fraction of those they even invite in for a pitch.

It’s a case of ‘many come calling and few are chosen’.

And with a view to finding the few they will work with – few VCs are prepared to waste any energy trying to defuse fuzzy thinking to ‘get at’ why they should be excited about your ideas.

A golden rule – Make it easier for potential investors to say yes.

Don’t expect investors to do your job for you – seeing the potential you may have uncovered through a plethora of detail, a collection of ideas you could pursue or buried well into your pitch.

It’s up to you to hit the ground running, delivering a narrative that grabs attention from the off and never lets go.

Think clarity. Think big. Think sizzle. Think easy to remember and share.

And if you need any assistance to hone your story and win the attention your idea deserves, get in touch – we’ll be delighted to help you to achieve the break through you desire.

The post Is Your Big Idea Ready to Win the Investment You Crave? appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

Great stories can endure long after those who tell them have left the building or even, as in today’s post, have shuffled off this mortal coil.

Whether via written or spoken words – they can be the difference between whether audiences hang on to every word you share or drift away and pay less attention than you’d like. Here’s why.

They:

• Can absorb our attention and emotions in ways that facts and figures rarely can, and
• Are easier to remember, act upon and share with others

And below are a few key lessons for speakers from two of the best storytellers of all time – Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

But just before I get to these, a quick aside – this duo didn’t just capture hearts and minds in the 1800s through their writing, they were also much feted keynote speakers of international scale.

Back to the topic at hand – here’s a top tip from each of these legends:

#1.     “Please, sir, I want some more.”            

Charles Dickens came to fame in 1836 through the serialized version of Pickwick Papers.

Readers of his story would reach the end of a monthly installment of chapters and be left wondering – what’s going to happen next?

Would Samuel Pickwick be ok, despite his naivety and an endless stream of misadventures? And what about the scoundrels (like Mr. Jingle) – would they be thwarted or get their comeuppances?

Of course, the characters in this case aren’t important – the point is…

…Stories are more engaging than ‘information’ because those who hear them tend to become more involved – becoming more active than passive listeners.

This is because they commonly cause audiences to draw comparisons or find parallels with what’s happening in the story and their own lives.

Fabulous. As a speaker, you want people to feel more immersed about the topic at hand – drawing their own conclusions and envisaging what actions they might take as a consequence.

#2.     “Write what you know.”

Now to one of America’s favourite storytellers and humorists, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens).

Although he wrote some 30 books and hundreds of articles, he is most remembered for his Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

But why did these books succeed in ways that his other works never did?

It’s because they were based around topics, characters and locations that he knew more intimately – from his childhood growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, his time as a pilot of a steamboat on the Mississippi and as a soldier in the confederate army.

Creating stories from personal experiences, knowledge or observations is much easier than having to start from scratch.

They’re also likely to be more interesting because you’ll tend to inject more feeling into them – after all, you were there and remember how the events you describe were meaningful to you.

Great, share that.

What storytellers inspire you and why?

Quotes: #1 Oliver, Charles Dickens and #2 Mark Twain

Photo credits: CircaSassy and Cliff1066TM

The post What Corporate Storytellers Can Learn From Charles Dickens and Mark Twain appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

Is you vision big on emotional connection?

Who knows? Who gets it? Who cares?

Do you have a clear grasp of the future you want your team or company to achieve? How do you motivate others to row with you and make it happen?

“You need a compelling vision” is the clarion call from a gazillion books on leadership.

You know – let people know where you’re heading and create a rallying, energizing theme that guides the actions of all.

Sound advice. After all, a well-crafted vision is priceless when used to create shared purpose.

And yet, would it surprise you to know that the majority of corporate visions are nigh on useless?

Yep. Despite hours or even months of honing and chiseling – most of ‘em are dull, forgettable and ineffective.

In too many cases, this is because they’re big on corporate speak and short of emotional connection or visual guidance on how things could be.

How often do you come across variations of the following?

“We are committed to being the leading provider of _____ in the world through a focus on innovation, investing in our people, outstanding customer services and providing solutions that are truly responsive to changing customers’ needs while maximizing shareholder value.”

Stirring stuff? Would these words get you fired up? Are they words to live by?

Of course not!

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

While one can argue that there’s nothing wrong with these sentiments – which can come over as well-meaning declarations of intent – they’re unlikely to inspire action. And here’s why.

Not only are they full of bland and impersonal statements…

…They fail to put the people who need to ‘do’ things (the team or employees) front and centre – letting them know:

• They’re important, part owners of what needs doing, and
• They’re instrumental in what happens.

It’s hard to get excited about ideas if you can’t easily ‘see’ where you fit in, why you should care and why it all matters.

What does it take to create a winning vision?

Here are some examples of getting the ‘vision thing’ right:

• “Our goal is to provide outstanding service every day, one customer at a time.”  Nordstrom
• “We inspire, educate and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor adventures and stewardship.” REI
• “We seek to be a premier innovative growth company that improves our customers’ financial lives so profoundly they can’t imagine going back to the old way.” Intuit

And what do all of these have in common?

They’re succinct and visual. Those who hear them can see how they can be part of realizing the future described.

Over to you

What’s the most inspiring corporate vision you’ve ever shared or had shared with you?

Photo Credit: || UggBoy_UggGirl ||

The post The Secret to Corporate Visions That Inspire appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

The ability to speak at length on any subject isn’t necessarily a virtue when it comes to making speeches – especially if a speaker goes off point.

I was prompted to think about this topic by a client who told me how – in an effort to get past her nerves – she experiences an almost involuntary inability to stop talking once she takes to the floor.

Far from being unique, this is a common tendency and almost always results in audiences switching off for large chunks of time.

And it put me in mind of the sage advice contained in the Kenny Rogers song, The Gambler:

“You’ve got to know when to hold’em and know when to fold’em…”

Absolutely. Sometimes more isn’t better, it’s just more!

While there are no hard and fast rules on how long a speech should be – here are a few essential guidelines you should bear in mind:

# 1 Don’t aim to share everything you know with your audiences

Just because you have a great deal of knowledge on a given topic, never assume that others need to catch up with you before they’ll be capable of getting your arguments.

Although there are those who’ll argue that if enough muck is thrown against a wall, some of it is bound to stick…

…Brain dumping is rarely a good plan. Here’s why.

Quantity can drown out, or even cloud altogether, essential messages you want your audience to get and apply.

Truth is – there’s only so much detail most of us can absorb at any one time.

Subjecting an audience to oodles of detail that they can’t use soon is a waste of time. Even if vaguely interesting, few will even try to remember what you say. Why should they?

With everything else that’s going on in our far too busy worlds, most of our brains are already quite full ‘thank you very much’ and the last thing anyone needs is more stuff.

# 2 Think simplicity every time you make a speech

Less is more when you speak.

The more messages you include in your presentations, the less likely your audience is to figure out what’s important or to remember anything at all.

“But there’s so much more I could say”, is a common retort to this idea.

And while in most circumstances this will be true, I say “fahgettaboudit and remember this…

…You need to make it easy for your audience to get your messages, put them into action or to share them.”

Anything that gets in the way of making this happen – like asking your audience to think about tangential issues or less important information – has the capacity to reduce your impact as a speaker.

Steve Jobs summed this up nicely when he spoke about the power of simplicity:

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains”   BusinessWeek, 1998

And he was quite right. One of the reasons some speakers don’t do enough work on simplifying their messages is that it can be hard work.

But it’s work that’s worth doing – because if you don’t, you’re expecting your audience to put in the hard yards. And all too often you’ll find they are neither willing nor able to do this.

How do you Guard Against Rambling Talks?

Share your thoughts.

What approaches do you use to help simplify your messages and increase their impact?

The post Beware of Babbling Speeches appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

Have you ever found yourself sitting at a desk, primed to write a speech you ‘have’ to give and the words just don’t seem to flow?

Angst. Frustration. Irritation.

It’s a pain, right?

Well the good news is – there are a few steps you can take to get past speech writers block and on your way to finding the words you need.

But before considering any of these, I’m going to assume that you have done the following homework first; that you’ve

• Confirmed who your audience is going to be together with what they believe/ know and expect,
• You know what you’re talking about when it comes to the topic at hand, and
• You’ve figured out what you want to persuade your audience about and why they should care

If any of these aren’t true, don’t approach the starting line yet; you’re not ready.

But let’s say you’ve done all that and still you feel stuck…

Here are four ideas you can try to breakthrough to the speech you’d like to give:

#1 Ditch distractions

Don’t try to write a speech while distracted or when you can be easily distracted.

As I commonly say to clients – there are few things I know to be true, but one of them is this:

“Men can’t multi-task and women aren’t much better”.

So find a quiet space where you can write.

Turn off your mobile phone, take your land-line phone off the hook, and stay the heck away from your emails and social media accounts. They can all wait.

That said, some people like a bit of music on in the background when in creative mode. And if that’s you, fine.

But music or no music, here’s the bottom-line – Give yourself a break by creating an environment where you have the opportunity to be both focused and more relaxed.

# 2 Don’t edit as you go

This is a big no-no.

Turn your internal censor off when you start to write a speech. He or she can re-emerge later.

For now you should merely be concerned about getting ideas in your head down on paper. And don’t worry, you’ll have the chance to reorganize and hone these later.

Most top speakers find that the more stream of conscious they are at this point, the easier the task tends to be.

Truth is – If you constantly edit and rewrite as you go, there’s a good chance you’ll find that the job at hand takes longer than it should and the end product will be less fluid than it could be.

For many, this tendency is a central reason they get stuck almost before they start. And it’s especially common amongst those who expect to get everything right first time, every time.

But understand this. Speech writing tends to be an iterative process. So go easy on yourself – you don’t need perfection from the off.

Even the most experienced of speakers will edit the bejinkers out of speech drafts once they start to say it out loud. And that’s before making further changes as they determine how best to own and deliver the messages be shared – in ways that are more engaging for their audiences.

And bear in mind that it’s almost always easier to edit something you’ve written down ‘after the fact’ than to do this in your head or on the fly.

# 3 You don’t always have to start at the beginning

If you’re going to use your speech to tackle a complex or broad topic and you’re struggling with your starting point – see if jumping ahead helps.

As screenwriters and novelists will tell you – it’s always a good idea to figure out where you want your story to go before you set off on the journey of writing it.

And in thinking about aspects or elements of the journey you’d like your audience to take, you may well find that you start off with clearer ideas on some of these more than others. If that’s the case and you can articulate these straight away – Great, jot’em down.

All of these things may help to centre your thinking and result in you coming up with a better opening to your speech later.

Remember. You’re only in creative mode at this juncture and you really don’t have to create speeches in a purely linear fashion.

# 4 Try using time to your advantage

Last, but not least.

Here’s a tip that many a writer of books, blogs and most anything has found really helpful in the past:

Try writing in blocks of time.

Giving yourself say a limited number of minutes on the clock each time you sit down to write or stand up subsequently to edit your speech can be just the ticket.

This is especially true at the outset when marshaling your thoughts and determining the essence of what you may want to say.

The discipline of setting yourself a target of creating a first draft of a speech in say 30 minutes can be truly liberating.

Why? Well apart from the fact that time limits focus the mind wonderfully; they also encourage you not to edit as you go, as you simply don’t have the time.

However – and let me say, there are no hard and fast rules in this area – most of our clients tell us that limiting blocks of time for each step to their ideal speech to no more than 40 minutes at a go tends to work.

Going beyond this seems to test even the most determined of mortals, as it’s hard to focus on anything for longer chunks of time.

Well that’s a wrap on speech writing ideas for now – So, it’s Over to You

If you’ve had issues with writers block in the past – what approaches have you taken that worked for you?

And if you’ve tried other tacks that didn’t help at all – what were these and why do you think they failed?

Photo Credit: Photosteve101

The post 4 Secrets to Avoid Speech Writers Block appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.

How fair-minded are you?

Are you inclined to look at both sides of an issue with an open mind before you draw conclusions?

Maybe?

Great, you’re likely to make more considered decisions.

However, as a speaker…

Avoid trying to cover too many bases with your speeches.

Make it your business to share a clear opinion.

Unlike many a politician who, in an effort to please every possible audience, is purposely vague – often with a view to appealing to every quarter and/or avoidance of being backed into a corner by opponents who would happily criticize their positions on given topics…

…Steer away from this road. It will make you less persuasive.

It’s never a good idea to have your audience less than clear regarding your viewpoint.

Whether your arguments are right or wrong:

• Stand for something
• Make your point of view plain from the outset
• Don’t make audiences have to work too hard to figure out what you’re saying

It’s not about being opinionated; it’s about helping your audience to do more after you sit down.

Understand, audiences have limited attention spans – which have diminished hugely in recent years in the face of rising information overload – and while you may want them to reach their own conclusions…

… If you don’t get their attention from the get go or there’s any confusion regarding what you’re ‘really’ saying:

• You run the risk of people switching off long before you get to the reason you stood up to speak in the first place, and
• Your audience members won’t thank you if they feel they have to work too hard to figure out – never mind buy – your arguments.

The latter is of course a disaster if you need people in your audience to be in a position to influence others not present – which is commonly the case when trying to lay the seeds for future business decisions. It’s in your interests to make their job easier.

How do you react when you come across speakers who don’t get to the point?

Enough said.

The post Speakers – So, What You’re Saying Is…? appeared first on The Reluctant Speakers Club.