That joy of being in the right place to make something cool happen is something we try to impart to the speakers we coach.

Most presenters think, “I have to get this over with so I can go on to something that matters more.” But, in the moment you’re presenting, nothing matters more. There simply is nothing more important than making the people sitting in front of you better, in some tangible way, than they were when they walked into the room.

You will never again get the same opportunity to create an impact on the people to whom you’ll be speaking. No matter how often you see them, no matter how often you address them, THIS opportunity comes only once. By the way if you are having issues reading this blog, do an internet speed test online.

You don’t have to do this talk. You GET to do this talk.

Respect the opportunity, and the wave of people who will take your ideas out of the room and use them.

Be clear about how you want us to use your ideas. Then invest the time to create and rehearse the talk that will get us there.

And on The Day, be ready to play two. It’ll make the one shot you have more powerful.

Just this week, I was doing some laser coaching with a speaker to create and deliver a message that would rock the audience. That was her stated goal: “I want to ROCK their WORLD! They need to take action now!”

And yet, she was so worried about what her CFO would think that she kept watering down her beliefs, deleting totally compelling data to build a weaker case…the kind of case that wouldn’t alarm her boss.

I urged her to talk to him and tell him exactly what she was planning, and why. “Don’t assume he’s chicken — assume he wants what’s best for the company, and make the case that telling them straight is what’s best for the company.” We spent the whole session crafting the words to build the case, and then finding her courage to bring it to him.

I’ve sent this piece to her. But I wanted others to see it, too. Because so often we all make choices that assume the person we have in our mind’s eye — our boss, a parent, a spouse, a rival, whomever — is full of fear and would prefer the small and ineffectual move over the bold(er) impact move.

If you’re crafting a presentation and hear yourself or one of your team members say, “we can’t say that!” do this: Stop. Regroup. Go read this Seth Godin piece again. Don’t make the chicken play. Fight for the real message, the straight stuff, the ideas that will move your audience to do something NOW.

Why so many people use music ONLY for these big meetings is beyond us. We think that the monthly staff meeting, the first meeting of the new working group on XYZ issue, even the board meeting can benefit from the injection of juice and energy that ballroom music brings.

Before we talk about WHAT music to play, let’s talk more about why you should be playing it.

– It’s an auditory and energetic buffer between “out there” and “in here.” Without even realizing it, attendees mentally put away the thoughts and issues from out there and get ready to Be Here Now.

– It relaxes people. It doesn’t have to be spa music or soft jazz to do it, either. Even heavy metal is going to relax some people. It’s an auditory break from the normal soundscape of the work day. Relaxation helps everyone.

– Science has shown time and time again that music reaches a different part of our brain, and engages us on an emotional level. When you play music people enjoy, it almost immediately engages the reward center of the brain. Since no human takes any action without the decision being filtered through the emotional centers of the brain, it’s just plain smart to prime the pump before you ask people to make decisions about your project.

The next question is what to play. Here, we’re agnostic. It depends on your meeting, your culture, your attendees. We’ve seen playlists that run the gamut from feel good music to current hits to electronic dance, to multi-cultural, to that spa and jazz music. In general, we’d opt for something upbeat and peppy — but if that’s going to draw too much attention to itself, go for something else. My default recommendation is always: something by Eric Hutchinson. He just makes me happy.

If you have an account with Spotify, Pandora, or my new fave Songza, you can abdicate from any decision and let them pick for you. One reason I love Songza is that they pick playlists by the time of day and mood you want to create.

Go out on a limb, and bring some ballroom music to your next meeting. I bet things go better than they have before.

If you want a list of my current faves for generally good mood building ballroom music, write and ask me at Janebeard@InVisibleLight.com.

“I can’t wait till I figure out how to do this well!”

It’s great to want to become better at something. Frankly, we wouldn’t be in business if people didn’t want to become more authentic, more effective and more empowered in front of live audiences.

But the idea that you have to WAIT…that “better” is off in some distant future…and that you have to live through some period of time to GET THERE…that’s backwards.

All we have is THIS moment. The only time you have with THIS audience, this exact audience, is RIGHT NOW. You will never again get THIS group of people, with their exact constellation of ideas, problems, barriers, opportunities, vision and fear, sitting in front of you, waiting to be changed by you, again.

Give them your best NOW. Don’t wait till you know something more. Don’t wait till you have more confidence. Don’t hold back any part of you for some uncertain date in the future when you are Better than you are now.

Bring all of you to the table (or the front of the room) NOW. Show everything you are, everything you know, and everything you have. Don’t play small. Come get us, and make us take an action we wouldn’t have taken without listening to you.

If you wait, we have to wait, And we don’t want to wait. We want what you have NOW.

But that’s exactly what audiences most remembered after hearing some recent talks by otherwise smart women. In the name of “standing out” or “being my best self,” these women undercut the power of their own message and mission by insisting on wearing a Statement Necklace for their high-stakes presentation.

And the most common feedback they each heard “What a gorgeous necklace!”

That’s fine for a cocktail party. But if we, in the audience, leave the meeting thinking about your taste in jewelry instead of how we can use the content you’ve just delivered, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time.

[And, Men, stick with this post. Because you have an equivalent here.]

Women, I know you feel that wearing a Statement Necklace conveys important information about you. It becomes your style, your brand, your differentiator, your signal to the world to take a second look at the power of YOU.

Audiences are easily distracted by shiny objects, literal and metaphorical. Don’t dangle them before us when you need us to HEAR what you’re saying, and then act on your message.

When you’re giving a talk, you want us to leave talking about your message and the thing you want us to DO. Wear a Statement necklace, and we leave talking about it instead

That goes for the Power Watch, the funky socks and Technicolor ties men wear, trying to stand out.

The day of your presentation, dress so that your message impresses. You don’t have dress down and look dull. In the words of style guru Liana Chaouli, you just don’t want your clothes (or jewelry, or hair) to enter the room before you do.

As a leader, your statement has to be about something bigger than your style. The Statement Necklace is a big drain on your personal power. Leave it at home the next time you address an audience. That’s how we’ll hear, feel and act on the REAL statement you want to make.

The hash tag phenomenon has gone overboard in many ways. Jimmy Fallon has a series of sketches making fun of #hashtags, like this one.

And not every topic can be explored deeply in the 15 minute TED Talk formula.

But the fact remains. TED Talks and Twitter and Reddit and texting and google and all the rest have re-wired our brains. And that’s changed the way audiences experience you and your message.

If you know what you need us to do with the content you’re sharing, and focus your entire message and performance on getting us there, you will #speakshort and be more effective than you believe possible.

#Trustus.

Let’s assume you have a picture in mind of what “rocking it” looks like. In our experience, your picture is based on an idea of what you want either to avoid (disaster and mediocrity) or achieve (universal praise and acclaim). That picture of what you want probably is based on what you’ve seen happen for (or to) someone else, rather than what’s actually required by, and possible for, the specific talk you’re about to give.

That’s where the problem starts.

The meeting and speaking culture around us has only a few models to follow:

– The rockstar, “wish-I-could-do-that!” model of Steve Jobs, Rich Fairbank or other charismatic corporate leaders
– The inspirational speaker with the revival call-and-response patterns and big energy
– The 1999-style information and status update, with the “tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em…” and rhetorical cue devices
– The thrown together, dispassionate slide presentation where the audience reads the slides along with the speaker
– The boring middle grow where most speakers live
– And more, the TED Talk-style short, punchy 15 minute Big Ideas talk

Speakers imagine themselves up against those models – the ones they want to emulate and the ones they want to avoid. They want to be like the “good ones” and be the opposite of the “bad ones.”

And that’s all backwards.

Because you don’t actually want to be like them. What you want (or want to avoid) are the results you see them get (the crowds love them/loathe them/are indifferent to them). And people think that the way to get them is to emulate (or refuse to be like) them.

Truth #1 You can’t do it like them. You have to do it like you.

Because when speakers are really good, when they’re really delivering well for the audience, they’re doing it from a wholly authentic place. They aren’t trying to be something or someone other than themselves. They know they are sui generis (one of a kind).

And so are you.

To rock your next talk, you have to let go of how someone else did it. Then make sure you deliver what the audience wants. But as you, not as Steve Jobs.

It’s pretty rare to hear a slow talker these days. More commonly, the speakers we hear are candidates for membership in the FTOA: Fast Talkers of America.

Maybe it’s a product of a constantly multi-tasking society, or a fear that you might lose the audience if you take a breath. Whatever the cause, the problem seems to be getting worse.

Still, when we coach speakers, we never say, “Don’t speak so fast!” As soon as you ask the brain to focus on a behavior you don’t want it to do, it now begins to think less creatively. It’s avoiding a behavior, preventing mistakes, and that’s a less resourceful place from which to deliver your presentation.

Instead we tell them to pick a few places and take more time there. Find the five-seven key messages and let them land. Consciously slow down in those places, so we really hear you. First, the change in rhythm will cue us to listen. Second, the slower pace will allow us to really hear the words.

One mechanical way to get yourself to slow down is to hit all the consonants in the key sentence. Practice that over and over until the muscles in your mouth learn a stronger articulation in those few sentences. Then, when you get going in performance, you will naturally slow down in the right places.

Taking your time through the whole talk just doesn’t work for a Fast Talker. And forced slowness can become as painful for us in the audience as it was for Bob (or Ray) in the sketch above. But it’s a real help to take your time in a few key parts of your talk.

Check it out.

Last night, the Hollywood Foreign Press gave out the Golden Globe Awards. And even though they’ve known for almost two months that they were one of five people nominated for an award, several winners had the balls to pretend they hadn’t peppered a speech.

I call bull$#!% on that. It’s time we all do. These actors have been preparing acceptance speeches in their bathrooms since age 7. In a show of false humility, and bad acting to boot, they pretend it never crossed their minds that they could possibly win.

SO they waste 50 percent of the short time they have and lose the chance to show authentic gratitude.

Robin Wright, great as she is, was disingenuous in her speech.

So was musician Alex Ebert.

And of course, Jacqueline Bisset. Probably the worst offender I have ever seen in this regard.

But this isn’t a star-bashing post. I hope this reaches people who will, whether in the near or long term, remember that accepting an award isn’t just a gift. It comes with responsibility.

Make the audience, and the people who helped you excel, more important than some pretend, “Who, me?” moment. Here are some acceptance speeches that did just that:

Amy Adams got there eventually.

So did Spike Jonze…

…and Jared Leto.

You see that Michael Douglas was prepared and authentic.

What ties these speeches together is that all of the speakers gave some thought to something that mattered to them, that was bigger than themselves.

When you win the award Salesperson of the Year, think about a message that is bigger than you. Should the Most Valuable Employee of the Decade award go to you, name the people who helped get you there. If you’ve broken new ground and get the Innovator Award from your company, acknowledge the people who came before you.

Winning an award is a big deal. No one who is up for an award treats it casually in private moments. Don’t pretend you’re casual about it when all eyes are on you.

Regardless of your politics, regardless of whether you’re blue or red or purple, there’s a lot to learn in the way Governor Christie handled what might arguably be the most important press conference of his life.

The difference between a faux-pology and an authentic apology is real. In a faux-pology, the offender regrets the impact the event had on him or herself, more than the impact it had on others. And if there is a, “but” anywhere in there, it’s no longer a real apology.

There are times in life when an apology is required. This was one of them.

“I want to apologize to the people of New Jersey,” he started. “The person who needs to apologize is me.”

In the age of Twitter, it’s no longer enough to check a box “I apologized” and then spin things as if you are the offended party. If you’re a leader of anything, you need to know the difference between an “artful” faux-pology – and an authentic apology that connects with your listener.

At one time or another, we’ll all experience the need to face an audience and apologize. As a leader, you need to be ready with the COFFE plan:

Cop to it. Whatever it was, just cop to it. Don’t use the apology to justify why you did what you did (or how it was really the people who report to you who did it and you had no idea). Be clear about what happened and move on from there.

One of the strongest parts of this apology was when he said, “The things that happen on my watch are my responsibility, both good and bad.” It could have been stronger had he said, “I am not waiting for resignations — I’m firing the people involved.”

Own it. Is Governor Christie hurt by this scandal? Undoubtedly. But there were people who were hurt directly in Fort Lee. And there are nearly 9 million residents of New Jersey.

Imagine if he’d said, “The people of New Jersey, and especially Fort Lee, have been betrayed and I am deeply sorry for that. My administration will do everything we can to regain their trust.
”
Fix it. Governor Christie cannot get the kids of Fort Lee NJ to their first day of school on time, nor can he restore the life of a woman for whom EMTs responded because traffic prevented their arrival.

But he could have announced, “I’ve instructed everyone in my administration that this sort of thing must never happen again, and I’m investigating if there are any similar instances of this anywhere. If so, those people will also be fired.” Instead, he said the problem he was solved now.

Focus on the future. What are your plans for whatever went wrong to never happen again? The subjects of the apology want to know. The Governor could have said, “I’m also taking steps to investigate the culture that could have allowed people to think this kind of action was permissible, because it’s not. I want to know what went wrong so we can fix it now.” He didn’t.

End strong. The Governor made a judgment call to stay in the press conference as long as it took to answer every question. Smart move. It would have been even smarter if, instead of letting the conference peter out, he’d said something along the lines of, “Again I want the people of Fort Lee to know I am deeply sorry this happen, and for the people of New Jersey to know it will never happen again.”

COFFE: Cop to it. Own it. Fix it. Focus on the future. End strong. If you’re a leader, you need to know this formula. Because in the age of Twitter, audiences smell a faux-pology a mile away.

And for times when the mistake isn’t of the magnitude of the Fort Lee event, take a look at this formula for taking the foot out of your mouth when you’ve just said the wrong thing. You’ll find a useful formula there, too.