Anxiety and Deliver like a Pro,” for more on sense memory).
The morning of the presentation we arrived early to check out the space. Before entering the room, I thought about what I wanted to achieve. Just before our introduction, I did a breathing exercise to bring my heart rate back to normal. During the keynote, our outline stayed on the lectern. I was able to cover the entire stage, walking over casually to check my notes only when necessary. I made eye contact with the audience, embellished an anecdote or two, and on occasion injected personal comments that were well received.
About five minutes in, I began to have a good time. The positive response from the audience energized me. Their support gave me confidence. I discovered what actors mean when they say they owned the room during a great performance. It was thrilling—similar to the time I jumped out of an airplane and looked up to see the beautiful red, yellow, and blue colors of my parachute open against the sky!
I discovered what actors mean when they say they owned the room during a great performance.
Often speakers (like the old me) strive to educate an audience to prove their expertise or deliver in a manner they believe is expected of them. This takes an enormous amount of preparation, ramps up anxiety, and rarely achieves one’s intention. It’s much more powerful and effective to persuade an audience. Better yet, it takes the focus off the speaker and puts it where it belongs, squarely on the audience.
David spent many years as a professional actor. When I combined his knowledge with my experience directing actors, I realized I had the secret sauce. Great performers are masters of emotional persuasion. They understand Intention, the complexities of Roles, how to manage anxiety, tell a great story, move in a space, and turn any script into a gripping narrative.
Every professional actor knows that audiences connect with a performer who’s perceived as authentic and committed to the character she’s playing. Similarly in business, speakers who reveal something meaningful about themselves (or their take on a subject) can expect a high likability quotient. Audiences trust and respond to a speaker who provides a window into her thinking, even if they don’t agree with her.
As a former director, I know the value of practical techniques. It’s nearly impossible to follow the advice to “be confident,” “be yourself,” or “give more emotionally.” That’s why Out Front is balanced between identifying women’s challenges in communicating and providing an operating manual on how to overcome them.
But technique is only part of the equation. Learning to identify and express your core differences, strengths, and authenticity isn’t easy. George Burns said it best: “Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” The same goes for speaking in public, making a presentation, or communicating with others.
In Out Front I share the performance techniques that David and I have translated for business professionals. The anecdotes about clients throughout the book are based on real experiences, but client names and other characteristics have been changed to protect their privacy.
This book focuses on the strengths and challenges facing women speakers because that’s what I know best. However, the techniques presented here are practical, field-tested, and proven. When these are put into practice, women and men can become engaging, memorable, and fearless speakers.
1 INSPIRATIONAL ANDPOWERFUL FEMALE ICONS
There have always been women who had the moxie to stand up and speakout. Today, many women are making unique contributions in politics,entertainment, and business.
As a college student, I embraced an alternative lifestyle. Before my junior year, I changed majors from education to anthropology and transferred from Northern Illinois University to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It was the 1960s, and the pass/fail grading system at UW allowed me time to protest the Vietnam War and participate in campus politics. Even my decision to study cultural anthropology was about making a contribution to the world rather than making money. Thank goodness my parents gave me a long leash, especially when they very much wanted me to graduate, get a job, and become financially self-sufficient. But I believed that going corporate, owning property, or driving a gas-guzzling car was being co-opted by the establishment and just plain wrong. Ah, college and the naiveté of youth.
This narrow perspective severely limited my career choices. But when you’re twenty-one and on your own for the first time, anything and everything seems possible. And I was fortunate to have powerful female icons who served as role models, both personally and for women worldwide.
In 1972, Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine and took a stand on women venturing out on their own. She popularized the phrase, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” which resonated with me.2
I was equally impressed with the chutzpah of authors such as Germaine Greer, who wrote The Female Eunuch and railed against the conservatism of the day. Greer was described as an “impulsive, fatally naive diva of feminism who made the world a better place in spite of herself.”3 Or Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying, who celebrated women’s newfound sexual freedom. As you’ll read later, I picked up her banner with the genre of films I produced. Now Jong’s book Fear of Dying completes the arc of time.4 Aging has a way of giving us perspective on the totality of our lives.
In politics, I was moved by the eloquence of Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, the first black woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives. Two of Jordan’s talks are included in American Rhetoric’s list of the 100 greatest speeches of all time.5 At the 1976 Democratic National Convention, Jordan delivered a moving and powerful call to action. Hard to believe it was forty years ago. Following is an excerpt: “And now—now we must look to the future. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans. Many fear the future. Many are distrustful of their leaders, and believe that their voices are never heard. Many seek only to satisfy their private work—wants; to satisfy their private interests. But this is the great danger America faces—that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?”6
I also admired the outspoken U.S. Representative Bella Abzug, who wore her trademark floppy hat on the House floor to avoid being mistaken for a congressional assistant who might be asked to fetch coffee. In her words: “When I first became a lawyer, only 2 percent of the bar was women. People would always think I was a secretary. In those days, professional women in the business world wore hats. So I started wearing hats.”7 Abzug provided many quotable statements, but this one says it all: “We are bringing women into politics to change the nature of politics, to change the vision, to change the institutions. Women are not wedded to the policies of the past. We didn’t craft them. They didn’t let us.”8
At the opposite end of the spectrum was the soft-spoken yet effective Patricia Schroeder. In a sea of male congressional representatives, Schroeder was the first female representative elected from Colorado, as well as the first woman to serve on the male-dominated House Armed Services Committee.9 I’ll bet she wasn’t popular for publicly stating that “When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children,
