Master Public Speaking (Even If You're Terrified of It)

Desi (00:02.888) Hey Alex, you've said great content means nothing if it's delivered poorly. What do most people get wrong about public speaking and what actually counts as poor delivery, in your opinion?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (00:08.43) So do those people.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (00:14.434) I think the biggest thing people get wrong is they focus on themselves instead of the audience. They go, I'm going to talk about me. I'm going to say, here's my history. Here's the company's history. We've been working for 20 years doing this. But actually the audience don't care about that. We're really selfish as audience members. What's in it for me? So I the biggest mistake people do is they focus on themselves instead of what the audience wants.

Say you've got 100 people in the audience, they've all come for a solution. How do I save money? How do I market better? Give them that value straight away as opposed to that classic spiel of I've been training for this amount of years, I've worked in this company, this company, this company. We don't care. Give us the value and then they'll walk away happy. So I think that's the biggest mistake people do is they don't understand what the audience wants and gives them that value.

Desi (01:07.434) Absolutely. And how about in their delivery? How do they manage nerves if somebody is super nervous, super anxious? It really shows, right? They don't look confident.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (01:20.812) Yeah, nerves is a really, it can be good and can be bad at the same time. So nerves can heighten our performance and it can elevate us to a more effective presentation. However, when we have too much nerves, we're too anxious, that's when our performance falls to pieces. So for those people who do get nervous, I think the main thing you can try and do is slow down because when we get nervous, we will naturally speed up because we'll speed up, because if we go faster,

The whole event is over and I'm safe and I can sit down. But actually, when we speed up, we lose everything. So slowing down is going to be the key thing to showcasing that you're not as nervous. Because the audience can tell, they're speaking really fast. They must be nervous. Also, fidgeting is another thing people tend to do. So if you have a lanyard, people tend to do this. If you have sort of pockets or zips or anything like that, people tend to do this when they're nervous.

or they'll kind of look around a little bit, shifting kind of look around. So slowing down and giving some good eye contact to the audience is going to help people perceive you as more confident than you might actually feel.

Desi (02:29.51) Yeah, that's right. I when somebody is speaking slowly, they come across as more confident, they're confident in their skin. You have a PhD in public speaking anxiety, which is honestly something I've never heard before. I've heard you saying that you might be the only one in the world who's got PhD in public speaking anxiety. You've really researched the topic. Why do you think...

public speaking is so terrifying for so many people. Is it really just about the fear of failure or is there something deeper going on?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (03:04.046) I think there's a lot of different reasons why a person might be afraid of public speaking. They could have had a really bad experience when they were younger and then actually every time they do it they just think of that experience and they don't want to do it. A lot of people don't have the experience, they haven't presented much, especially in the UK. We don't have many opportunities at school to present to other people and to get coaching and feedback. A lot of the time a teacher will say, okay, can you present in front of the class?

but they don't know how to present, they don't know how to use their voice, how to use their body, unless they've been trained in acting or vocal skills in private lessons, they don't have that skill set. So a lot of it is a lack of positive exposures to presenting. But then think about it, if you're naturally a little bit anxious, maybe socially a bit awkward and you don't like those social situations, having to speak in front of other people is the prime example of a situation where everyone's going to be looking at you.

And you might have traits of perfectionism, so you don't want people to see those mistakes. So again, that might think of it. You're worried about your mind going blank, because again, you haven't been able to practise because you have been so busy with work and other opportunities. So there's a wide range of reasons why someone might fear public speaking from having that bad experience in the past to lack of experience in any positive public speaking situations. Or they're just worried about making mistakes, the audience seeing those mistakes.

mind going blank, all of these doomsday scenarios that the audience are gonna see and then there's gonna be consequences to that. I think that's the main thing. People are worried about what's the bad stuff that's gonna happen if I do a bad job. say I present poorly, my friends are gonna reject me, they're gonna laugh me, we're not gonna hang out afterwards. Say I do a presentation poorly, I don't get that job promotion. I lose out on that sale, I lose out on all of those ramifications.

There's lots of different areas of why people might be afraid and the rationale for like, don't want to do this. And then they avoid it. And ironically that makes the situation worse. They spiral out and they go, avoidance of the problem doesn't solve the problem. It just makes it worse. Like a snowball effect of getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But then at some point you're going to have to present and that's when we have that catastrophe of we just fall to pieces because it's got so daunting and so overwhelming for us.

Desi (05:29.338) Where do you start from when somebody comes to you and says that they're terrified of public speaking? How do you help them? Can they rewire that anxiety and are there any really practical techniques that provide relief instantly?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (05:44.27) So the first thing, when someone says, I'm afraid of public speaking, for me, that's too broad. It's too, I'm afraid of X, Y, and Z. It's not enough for us to go on. So what we've got to do is we've got to delve deep. I, as part of my PhD, I created a questionnaire to help identify specific sources of public speaking anxiety. So you fill in this question, this questionnaire, and we go, okay, these are the five key areas that you seem to be most worried about.

when it comes to public speaking. Maybe it is, I'm worried about performing poorly, I'm worried about making mistakes, I'm worried about performing in front of my peers. Whatever it might be, we can then get a really specific idea of where we should focus our coaching and our training. So for example, if I've got a group of colleagues and they're all afraid of performing in front of their peers, then actually, it might not be a presentation issue.

it might be a team issue that they don't feel safe in that team. So actually what we need is more team building exercises. If it happens to be that everyone's afraid of performing in front of their boss, then again, it might be an issue between the boss and the employees and that device. They might need a bit of coaching or communication work in that aspect. I think, so we find out what it is. We go, what it is specifically that you're afraid of. And then I'm a big fan of exposure based

therapies. Essentially what we do is we go right here's our top tier thing of presenting in front of a thousand people is absolutely terrifying. But could we present in front of one person? If we can master that great now let's do two people let's do three five ten twenty so we can do we can increase audience size we can also increase duration can you speak for one word great say hello perfect now can we do two words five words a sentence and then can we also do complexity

of subject matter. Can you just talk about yourself? Quite simple. Can you talk about work? Okay, a little bit harder. Now can you talk about an abstract topic you have no information about? Probably very hard. So we can expose you in three different dimensions of going right. Audience size, duration and complexity. And it allows us to slowly increase your confidence in each situation. Because if you can master that each one, then you can go up the next step, the next...

Dr Alexander McWilliam (08:07.458) Think of it like a staircase, where I've mastered level one. Now level two is this. And different people will have different things that they're worried about and they find difficult. They might go, actually, in front of my peers is fine, but strangers is intimidating. Great, speak to one stranger. Now two, now five, now 10. I would always advocate that my clients record themselves, because actually, like we're doing now, I can look at it back in the past and go, okay, what was I doing then? Okay, next time I will do this differently.

How was my gestures? Was I doing loads of things? Was I going all over the place? Or was I very tense and I could barely move? Was I talking really, really fast? Or was I talking too slow? Was I too monotonous? There's loads of different areas that you can really focus on. Because a lot of the time, people have the natural skill. They might talk at a good pace and they have good pitch range. They're nice and melodic. But the only thing they're worried about is maybe they have, and they kind of have,

sort of filler words and stuttering and they don't really know how to overcome that. So you can really fine tune as a person go out, where's my one area I'm going to improve? And then I can develop that because you don't need generalized coaching. It's like if you're going to a gym and you go, right, I've got really good cardio, so I don't need lessons in how to run or how to jog or how to swim. What I need lessons in is how do I lift these weights in a specific manner? So being fine tuned and specific on what we're doing.

is the key to success there.

Desi (09:36.69) I love that. So recording yourself, listening, watching to the recording and really reflecting on what you're seeing. You most people hate to look at themselves when they're speaking in front of camera. How about preparation? I have this belief, especially I'm usually presenting or speaking in not my native language. I feel like there is no such thing as being overprepared. The more I'm prepared, the better I feel I'm presenting. Do you think?

that's true for most people or is there a point where you just have to probably get used to the idea that you have to be natural, you shouldn't overthink it and be little bit more kind of a bit more like acting.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (10:13.486) or for thinking the individual features of your product. I think people might ask you

Dr Alexander McWilliam (10:42.264) bonjour, that's the limited nature of my ability to speak in those languages. But I think with practice, a lot of people say, if you're practiced, it's going to be wooden. But actually, I think there's a fine line where people don't practice enough that it becomes quite wooden. And my big advocate of practicing is when people are writing a speech, what they tend to do is type it out or write it out by hand. But written English,

is very different from spoken English. Written English is going to have a very different format, it's going be very formal, it's going to have lots of different languages, whereas spoken English is a lot more casual. So I would always advocate, and I actually argue and say, you're not practicing unless you're verbally doing it out loud. You kind of typing it out, I wouldn't class this practice because you're not practicing with your voice, your body. And also you're not knowing, this is how it works with my tongue, my jaw, my lip.

Desi (11:12.935) Right, yeah.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (11:38.646) muscles, all of those kind of things. So I think you can keep on practicing. You practice loads. The more you practice, the more it becomes conversational and the more it becomes you because you become more relaxed in what you're doing. Let's say I'm talking about a very complex topic, maybe physics and the first time I'm doing it is very, very complicated. very kind of, it's slow, it's very methodical and this is the theory, this is this.

But actually, if I keep doing it again and again and again, that really strict script that I created starts to fall away and I start to use much more conversational language. So I'd always advocate practicing as much as you can, but also make sure you're effectively practicing. So there's no point in doing it again and again and again if you're not doing it in a conversational manner or engaging or you're repeating the same mistakes. But you also need to practice under pressure.

So while I might practice on my own, it's very easy, very, very relaxed. When I get into that boardroom, that pitch, which is gonna be more hard, it's gonna be high stakes, so I'm gonna be more stressed. If I haven't practiced in that pressurized situation, my body isn't gonna get used to it, and that's when I fall to pieces. So so many entrepreneurs, when they're pitching, they're quite relaxed. I'm sitting down at home talking to you going, I'm pitching. But when I get up in front of angel investors or anyone like that and I go,

here's my product, here's my service. I'm not used to that pressure and that's when I start to fall down. So find out what pressurises you. If making mistakes or getting negative feedback is a bad thing, then have a friend to sit there, crossed arm, looking at you, kind of going, okay. And it gets you used to having someone negatively feeding back to you when you're presenting. So practicing under pressure is gonna be key to allowing you to thrive in those actual pressurised situations.

Desi (13:33.872) Right, absolutely. In your coaching business, Improv4Business, everybody check it out if you don't know that Alex is actually involved in that, you use improvisation techniques to help people become better presenters. I mean that's interesting, And just your background is in acting for people who don't know.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (13:36.29) your future.

Desi (13:54.728) For most people, improve is still something that is for comedy clubs, for theatre, it's not really for the boardroom. What makes it so effective in business setting, in your opinion?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (14:07.534) So there's a couple of things. First of all, we're improvising all the time. The conversation we're having right now is improvised. The conversations you have with friends, family, colleagues, they're rarely scripted. Even if they were scripted, the other person isn't gonna have a script. You're going to have to improvise. So first off, we do a lot of improvisation. In business settings, that Q &A with the audience or with that client is gonna be highly improvised, because you have no idea what they're going to ask you.

So one, we improvise a lot. I learned very early on that non-actors don't like doing improv exercises that makes them pretend to be actors, because it reminds them of school and GCSE or year seven drama and they go, I don't want to do this. So I learned very early on, don't make people pretend to be characters. But the art of improvisation, the exercises we do, can enhance your individual ability to develop key skills like storytelling.

communication, so listening skills, how to be precise in what you're talking about, how to adapt, how to cope with pressure, have creativity to allow you that when the pressure comes and you're having to think on your feet and adapt, you can creatively think of those ideas. So improvisation is a great tool to give you practice also presenting because we don't focus on the content. I go, I'm not going to focus on the content. You don't have to prepare a speech.

all I want you to do is come in and I'm going to give you a topic and you're going to talk. That topic might be, okay, you've got a minute, talk to me about yourself and what you did this weekend. That's a presentation. And what it means is we don't care about the content and I can see what are you like when you're semi relaxed? You're okay. Your voice comes alive. You can do this. You can do that. And from the improv, I can see, yes, you have the capability and the skills to do it. However, when we're doing a work related presentation,

they all go to pieces because we go into work mode and we go very serious and we lose our personality. So improv is a great way of seeing people's individualization and personalities coming across. While also, a lot of fun does happen because our brains go in very weird and wacky places when we're improvising. But the great thing is there is no expectation to be funny or to be a stand-up comedy or anything like that. And that really relaxes people. All we say is...

Dr Alexander McWilliam (16:32.966) A good example is one of the exercises we do early on is, okay, you're in pairs, just tell a story to your partner. It can be made up, you know, once upon a time, or it could be what you did this morning for work. Okay, well, this morning I woke up, I had some porridge, I got on the train, I got into London, I got a grab of coffee, and I went to work. That is an improvised story. It's highly rooted in what you did in real life, but that's an improvised version of that presentation.

and then we can ramp up the pressure and give you curve balls and go, right, I'm going to make you change certain bits of it while you're speaking. And they go, okay. And it replicates this pressure you're going to get with a Q and A. So an example would be you pitch to a client and go, okay, we can offer you this service for 20,000 pounds. And they go, we don't have 20,000 pounds. And you go, okay, you're right. You don't have 20,000 pounds. What we can do it for, we could do this for 10,000 pounds and we do this. So already,

You're having to improvise and adapt to that situation. But are we going to remain calm under pressure when we have to adapt? Or are we deer in headlights when someone says, no, we can't afford that. And you go, OK, you can't afford what we've planned. I don't know what we can do. Or do you go, OK, I completely understand that. What we could do is do this. So it's that importance of remaining calm under pressure and your ability to bounce back when things change.

That is what improvisation is great for, giving you that practice.

Desi (18:00.938) It sounds like every sales course is a bit like an improvisation practice, right? Your dynamic delivery training focuses on voice, body and presence. Can you break that down? How do these elements work together to shape how someone comes across?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (18:19.544) So think of it like this, so with our voice we hear what you're saying. So if you're interesting to listen to, the audience are going to be much more engaged. Think of it like a radio play or a radio presenter, you can only hear them. It makes them much more engaging to listen to. The ones who are energized, the ones who are engaging vocally make you want to listen and also make it much more engaging. Because otherwise, if it's a very monotonous speaker, so they're speaking with

not much pitch range, it's very flat, hello, welcome to my presentation, you start to switch off, it starts to get quite boring. So already it makes it interesting, vocally interesting. But also the words you say are gonna be really important. So those key words of how much it costs, where they can save money, all of those things, if you're not clear in what you're saying, then you're gonna lose that clarity and the audience might misinterpret what you're saying. So vocally really important.

Physically is also really important because when we look at someone we will naturally make a perception or a Would go okay. This is what I think of you when you're presenting This is why I think of you as a person if I'm hunched over and I go hello Welcome everyone to my presentation on confidence building you're not going to naturally think that I'm a confident person so but then if I over arch and sort of over stretch and get a bit cocky with my posture then again, it's going to have the opposite effect so we're going to have

We're gonna make impressions on the audience, how we're standing, how we're sitting. But also, like smiling, eye contact, all of those things are really important, and gestures. So with smiling, I think it's always really important to smile and engage your audience. They're be much more receptive to your message. Eye contact is really good. Now for those people who find eye contact a bit overwhelming, maybe you're neurodivergent, and you go, I really find eye contact really uncomfortable.

But what you could do is look at the top of their forehead or maybe just above their head to warm up and then go to their hairline and then go to their forehead and then build it up again. Exposure, back to going to eye contact to build that up. Gestures is a really important one. Now, some people might say, I need to gesture really loads or I don't gesture enough. I would say, reflect back on the last time you had a conversation with friends and family. How did you gesture? Do you naturally gesture loads?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (20:42.03) or do you sort of sit there quite with not many gestures, then that's going to be your natural presenting style. But what we tend to do is in a presentation situation, we overthink it and go, ah, what do I do with my hands now that people are looking at me? But if we relax, we can get back into a much natural rhythm. So we have our vocal skills, we have our physical skills, and all of those work into our overall presence.

So those things essentially are like, how do the audience overall perceive us? Well, actually, they've got really good presence. They've got good posture, their voice is really engaging. Wow, they're really great. actually, they're talking really, really fast and their posture's really poor. Their presence is much lower. So with our dynamic delivery course, we give you the tools to go, okay, how do we work on our vocal skills? How do we work on our physical skills? And then how do we combine those with improvisation?

to increase that presence. And the presence comes from increasing your confidence in those presentation situations, which can only come from experience. And that's what improv gives you. Improvisation gives you numerous mastery experiences that allow you to then go, I've done it once, I can do it again. It's like, you the first time you do something, you go, my God, I can do it. I did that high jump to the height I wanted to. I ran that race and under that time. my God, I can do it once.

maybe I can do it again and again and again and again. So there's great opportunities for people to experience that in that session.

Desi (22:14.238) That's the thing, but some people are really naturally good at it, right? Do you think that fake it till you make it actually work? Can you learn those skills? Do you believe it's a skill anyone can master? Or are some people just...

simply not wired for it, it comes with our default personality. I honestly think and I know people I can never imagine being good at public speaking. I'm also myself not really confident speaking in front of people. So is it something we can actually learn?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (22:43.886) 100 % It is a skill like any other that you can develop Naturally certain people are going to have a more aptitude towards it They go, I'm more experienced, it comes to me more naturally Like with any skill, if you take 100 people all trying the same skill Some people are going to be naturally quite good Some people are going be naturally not as effective And there's going to be majority of us in the middle All of us

can improve and learn. But it just takes those hours, those practices. It's like driving. A majority of people in the UK can drive. A lot of my friends and family can all drive. Their ability to drive is varied. Some are very good drivers, some are not very good drivers. But it's come through skill and practice. And the people who aren't as effective at public speaking either haven't had the coaching, haven't been trained, or have tried to self-learn.

or they haven't had as much experience. the people, a lot of the time people go, that CEO, they're so good at public speaking, they're just a natural. No, they spent hundreds or thousands of hours of practicing in their office, in their room, in their bedroom, in the car, practicing their skills, but also getting external help to go, okay, I want to improve my public speaking skills, what do I need to do?

And as a coach, that's what we like doing. Think of it like a personal trainer. I always use that analogy. The personal trainer gives you the tools and techniques for you to then go away and practice and develop. So I think it's a skill anyone can learn. It takes dedicated practice and you probably need some guidance just to point you in the right direction. Some people need a personal trainer every single week to work through their exercises. Some people need it once every month.

just to guide them and some people need it once a year, give them a programme and they go off and do their own thing. So everyone's going to have their own individual way of doing it but I think definitely everyone can learn it and it's a skill everyone should learn because it's going to change the way you do everything in life from personal to professional settings from pitching to best man speeches, father the bride speeches, all of those kind of things will determine if you can be, it'll give you those opportunities to present.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (25:01.986) And I think if you want to master in those situations, public speaking training is an essential skill to do.

Desi (25:08.628) do think it should be taught in schools? Because if you think about it, people like they spend their adulthood trying to unlearn these bad habits or to overcome the fear of public speaking. That was probably created when they were little.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (25:10.658) Yes.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (25:25.582) 100 % people, this is a skill that should be taught in schools. I know Keir Starmer, before he came into power, he had a big thing of I want to get public speaking rhetoric, all of that into schools, which I think is an amazing idea. The issue is you've got to have those coaches, those people who can go into schools and teach it. You've also got to show the value to a student and go, well, why is it important? Well, do you want to become an entrepreneur? Do you want to be?

successful in business, then actually if you do, then these are going to be essential skills. A lot of the time you get this in private schools, they have the opportunities to present because they have maybe coaching classes, debating classes, but in the state sector you don't get it as much. But it's saying that I know so many university students that I've worked with who've never had any training in their life. Again, we go back to that conversation of in schools a teacher might go, just present at the end of class.

but they don't get told how to present or what's effective. And also a lot of the time, the way a teacher presents is very different to a presentation or a pitch. Cause when I'm teaching, I'm going to use very different slides and visuals and engagement because I've got a variety of learners in the room. Some might want to make notes on the slides that I'm using, but when I'm pitching and presenting, it's a very different format, but that's not being taught in schools or they're not getting the opportunity. So I think,

from secondary school or even early, because in America they have a lot of show and tell. come in, oh, this is my toy, this is my parent, this is what I'm talking about today. We don't have that in the UK. So you could start from as young, know, young as year three maybe, know, year four, year five, whatever it might be, you you're 10 years old, you're going to present next year, I think that's year six off the top of my head. But you start from that young, because I've seen people who are excellent presenters when they're young, and I've seen presenters who are terrible.

like really scared of presenting and they're in their 50s, their 60s because they haven't had the training and the opportunity. definitely it needs to be taught in schools, outside of schools, just giving people opportunities to present and master those skills they're going to need in life.

Desi (27:41.098) And yeah, and if you think about it, we tend to reward children who are quiet, who follow the rules, who don't speak too much. kind of teach teachers going shh, shh all the time. So we actually encourage being shy and following the rules as being the good thing instead of people kind of developing those more skills where you want to present, you want to shine in front of the whole class.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (28:08.13) Yeah, I think, because it's a complicated issue because you want people to be quiet when they're learning and you go, right, please listen, this is what you need to do. But then you don't want to hamper their ability to present and articulate. But if they are trying to do that, maybe in a fun way with their friends, but then someone goes, shush, don't talk now. You're like, I'm not allowed to do that. And you again, it's those put downs. So I think you need opportunities.

for people to express and present and maybe that's where you go actually they need a class once a week they're right this is your presentation class everyone gets to present and have some fun and do some stuff and you get to showcase that personality because a lot of the time you've got to say a wide range of students who all have an amazing background ideas you've got some people who've got hobbies in sport but gaming all of these things but they don't get to share it with the audience or their group and so their peers never know about it

Well, a great exercise we do sometimes with clients is we go, right, we're pair off and as a group, we're gonna find those uncommon commonalities. So find out what are the things that people do and are interested in that you don't necessarily know about. And I've done it with teams who've worked together for say 10 years and they've only learned, my God, you love Lord of the Rings. How did I not know that? We've been working together for 10 years and now they have a great conversation. They can chat about it for ages.

and they go, did you watch this? What do you think of this? But that never would have happened because they didn't get the opportunity to do that with other people. So I think you need those opportunities for presenting, communicating, sharing ideas in a fun and safe environment. It's so important, especially for young people.

Desi (29:49.64) Yeah, absolutely. Very important topic. Let's talk storytelling. You started this conversation saying that one of the biggest mistakes people make is focus on themselves instead of what the audience is interested in.

What transforms, in your opinion, a dual presentation into something more memorable? And how can people start weaving stories into their messaging? Because sometimes if we think about environments, let's say a quarterly review, where the numbers are down, you can't really incorporate a very exciting story into that. So how do people go about incorporating stories more seamlessly into their presentation?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (30:34.54) It depends on the context of that presentation. So there's loads of different story arcs that you can do and you see them all the time in most modern, actually not even modern, most films or theatre pieces have a very generic storyline. Marvel's a good one. So with Marvel, you have a group of people and they encounter a monster. They encounter a really big bad person and they get defeated by that monster and then they have to find

a new way of overcoming it and then they overcome it and then they win. It's a very simple story arc. You fight the monster, the monster beats you. You then train to become better. You then fight the monster again and you beat him and then you solve the world. Happens most Marvel films, most superhero films, that is what happens. So you can decide what story format goes and while I said earlier, oh don't talk about yourself, sometimes you might want to talk about your origin story. So if people want to know, oh tell us about, you know,

Desi (31:19.103) Alright.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (31:31.458) They want to learn about your product, your service, where did you come from? Maybe it's an entrepreneur, going, I'm going to tell you the origin story. You might use it on your website, say. And it might be like, 10 years ago, Little Alex was just a struggling farmer in the county of Berkshire, and he was really struggling to make ends meet. And one day, he saw in the distance a carrot that was luminescent in the night, and he went over to him and, my God.

and he tried it and it was the most tasteful carrot in the world and he went, oh my God, what we could do? And then he goes from that and he makes a story, you that's a random story about a farmer who finds a luminous carrot. But what you could do is you tell the origin of your business. So 10 years ago, I was a struggling actor and I didn't know how I was gonna make ends meet. And I saw that people were really struggling with how to present effectively when they were in business settings. So I thought, okay.

Let's go from that. And that spirals on into the origin story of that. So that's one, you could tell the origin story. You could tell a story of how you'd overcome adversity. Well, COVID is a good example. So you go, we were a thriving business and then COVID hit and we fell to pieces. We lost all our orders. We couldn't host any parties. We were at rock bottom. And then from that, we decided to do online parties. And then from that, we then generated that. And now we do online escape rooms and things like that.

You can find opportunities on how to use storytelling to make your story and make your message much more engaging. And you can determine how much of a story element you do and how much of a, think of it like a spectrum. You can go from the once upon a time there was a company that did this to very methodical and this is our story, five years ago we did this, we did this. So you can find out how to use that because stories.

make it much more engaging for the audience to listen to and they're going to remember it much more fondly. go, yeah, do you remember that story of that company? yeah, that was what happened there or that's what happened here. So it's a really important thing to do and it'll make it much more memorable. But also to make it memorable, you can make it emotionally engaging. Audiences are much more engaged to presentations and stories that have some emotional content. Make us scared, make us excited, make us angry.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (33:53.486) Make us happy. If we have some sort of emotional connection, our brain goes, oh, remember that, it's gonna be important. Because we can remember in our lives when we were most angry, the saddest, the most jealous, they're emotionally charged events. So can we stick those into our presentation? And stories are a great way for suspense, engagement, all of those different things to make it much more engaging for that audience. So practice storytelling. Tell a story to your kids. know, once upon a time, this happened.

If you're struggling with a kid who's not going to bed, make up a story about the kid who never went to bed and what happened to them. They never went to bed and so they were grumpy and if they were grumpy pants they didn't get their pudding the following day. It's just, you can be playful with that storytelling. I think go back to having fun when you're presenting and using stories in a fun, engaging way makes it so much more memorable.

Desi (34:46.726) Absolutely. Do you think that any presentation can be rewritten and restructured in a way that turns into a story? Have you done that exercise with people you work with?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (34:59.5) Yeah, we've played around with sometimes there's appropriate moments for stories and sometimes there aren't. For example, you said, financial data, we've, you we had a very bad quarter. You probably don't need to put any storytelling in that because, you know, if you're pitching to the board or whoever it might be, it's probably not, they're going to remember that. They're going to remember, okay, we've lost a lot of money. But you might be able to reframe it in a way rather than going, there's a great Ted talk of a guy who

talks about population growth but rather than saying in 1990 there was 1 million people and in 1994 there was 4 million people he doesn't like a racehorse presenter and he he presents it by going like oh and in 1990 India is at 1 million and in 1994 they're at 5 million and then all Americans taking over and oh my god they won! It's the same data but it's done in an interesting way now you probably shouldn't do that if you're doing bad or

you know, very good scores of, we had five million and then we lost three million and we're falling, falling, falling. Yeah, so it's probably not, but if you're like, okay, in January we're at this and our competitor was this and then actually in February we're in our here and our competitor is falling behind. It's the same data told in a very different way. And the audience remembers that and you go, actually, that was quite a fun, engaging thing. And it wasn't told in the traditional way.

Because again, a lot of the time when we're presenting data and financial data, the audience don't care, like all the figures, they go, what's the meaning? Are we losing money? Are we making money? Are we breaking even? What's the outcome? We're making money, great. That's all I want to know. So I think it depends on the presentation. I think internally, and depending on the stakeholders that you're talking to, you'll determine if a storytelling element is gonna be appropriate. But I think any talk...

can be converted into a story to a degree. It depends how extreme you want to make it. So it's a fun exercise, try it, see what happens.

Desi (37:03.082) We'll do next time when we're running a workshop. I want to see how that's gonna play out with 13 grumpy people in front of me. Awesome. Give us some pre-presentation rituals that you think work for yourself or for some of your clients. I love all the kind of different interesting exercises you're sharing here. So is there something we can do immediately before present that's gonna help us?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (37:32.91) There's a couple of things. I would always recommend you do a vocal warmup, a physical warmup, and a mental warmup before a presentation. Vocally, we might not have spoken for the day, and so if we've just woken up out of bed and we haven't spoken to anyone, our voice isn't gonna be warmed up. So I would always encourage a vocal warmup, and there are various exercises you can do. So vocal warmup, really important. Physical warmup, just to get your body moving, just realign it, just to get you going, especially if you've been at a laptop all day.

and you might have been hunched over, just realigning your body, just to get it kind of shoulders back, head up, all of those different things. So I'd encourage that. Now, mental warmup is really good, especially if you're slightly anxious. So a mental warmup, you'll see a lot of athletes do this. Tennis players are a great example. They will tend to bounce the ball a certain amount of times before every serve. They tend to go, right, I'm gonna do three, three, cool, great, and then I'm gonna go. That is their pre-performance ritual before serving.

with a presentation, there's various ones to do. I like to do a performance visualization, which very simply is you close your eyes, you take a couple of deep breaths, and you envision the best case scenario. So you envision, okay, I'm gonna walk into that presentation, I'm gonna turn that Zoom call on, and I'm gonna present, they're gonna be smiling, they're gonna be nodding, they're gonna be clapping throughout. Afterwards, they're gonna ask me some questions, I'm gonna answer them all amazingly, and at the end of it,

They're going to literally throw money at me, throw contracts at me. And it's the best case scenario. And then you open your eyes and you walk into that room, you turn on that Zoom call and you already have moved your mindset from a, I'm slightly worried of what could go wrong to this. I'm going to focus on the best case scenario, what potentially could happen. That's really good for those who get slightly nervous. Is a really great one. Just sort of relaxing you a bit. But if you still find that nerve wracking,

I would encourage you to maybe listen to some music, so calming your body down. You could take some deep breathing exercise. So in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. It's called like a box breathing, essentially. You could also distract yourself. If you have a dog or a pet or something, you can maybe play with them for a few minutes, just go, you know, how are you doing? And just distract yourself. Because what that does is it doesn't allow all those worrisome thoughts to get into your brain because you're playing with that dog.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (40:01.868) Or if you haven't got a pet, you could water a plant, could dust a plant, you could maybe tidy or organise something very briefly, maybe your pencil case, something like that. It just distracts your brain enough that you're not gonna focus on those worrisome thoughts. Because those worry isn't gonna serve any positive purpose. So those are my tips. Vocal warm-up, physical warm-up, a quick mental warm-up, and then if you are feeling nervous, a couple of different things to relax you.

before that presentation, I think it's really important.

Desi (40:32.296) absolutely amazing. I really love the reframing approach here. Instead of thinking what's the worst that could happen, we can think what's the best that could happen because in this situation everything is still hypothetical, right? So you don't really know what's gonna happen. Why not focus on thinking what's the best that could happen so you can set your mind for success in this situation? Love it.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (40:54.574) No, 100 % and there's, physiologically when we get nervous, our heart rate goes, we go, oh my God, my heart rate, my hands might shake and I get a bit sweaty and I'm picturing the worst case scenario. Now when we're excited, our heart rate goes, our hands might shake, we might get a bit sweaty and we picture the best case scenario. So physiologically, anxiety and excitement, you can't differentiate. It's only from a mental standpoint. go, actually it's your mind that alters it.

So if you are feeling nervous, go, my god, I'm nervous. Ask yourself, go, okay, yes, this could be nerves. Or go, actually, I'm excited. And if you reframe that anxiety into excitement, it can also help. So, my god, I'm excited. And then give your reason why. I'm excited because I get to pitch to these amazing investors. I'm so excited because I get to do this. Rather than going, my god, I'm so worried because it's gonna fail. Because again, that's your, you're presuming this heart rate is a negative thing. But actually, it could be positive. my god, I'm so excited.

I get to present in front of these senior leaders of this big company and they might give me loads of money. Oh my God, this is amazing. So reframing that anxiety, excitement is such a powerful tool. you can see, sometimes you have to keep doing it. I always tell the story that I don't like dentists. I'm really anxious when I go to a dentist and I use that, go, oh my God, I'm so excited to get to clean my teeth. I'm so excited and I have to read, I have to tell myself consistently again and again and again. I'm so excited, so excited, because then I can go, right.

reframe this anxiety, switch it into that excitement and it helps so much.

Desi (42:26.804) Yeah, absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for your time, Alex. This conversation has been super interesting and I'm sure it's going to resonate really well with our audience. Just before I let you go, what's the one thing I should do today right after this conversation to improve my public speaking skills from tomorrow?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (42:46.862) I would encourage you to film yourself presenting and you watch it back in a couple of ways. The first thing you do is you put your phone down and you listen to it and go, okay, how do I sound vocally? Okay, how's my pitch? How's my pace? Great. You then watch it again, but you put it on mute and you look at yourself physically. How am I? Am I moving around a lot? Am I standing still? Am I looking tense? And then the third one is you just, you write it out. You make a transcribe and go, okay,

Where are the filler words, the ums, the errs, the likes? Where are all of those in my script? And also, have I gone on a tangent, all of those things? So you get an idea, you get some very specific feedback. Go, right, I was too fast on this area. My hands were all over the place throughout it, and I had lots of filler words. Great, choose one of those to focus on. I'm gonna focus on slowing down. And then focus on that one thing, master that, and then go on to the next one. So fast feedback loops.

is so important to allow to thrive when it comes to your self work and self development when it comes to presenting.

Desi (43:53.834) I'm going to do this now straight away. Where can people find John Wayne if they want to reach out?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (43:56.59) So you can look at us on our website which is www.improvforbusiness.co.uk which is the number four or you can connect with me on LinkedIn under Dr Alexander McWilliam. More than happy to chat and talk things all things presenting and public speaking.

Desi (44:16.362) Awesome, thank you so much. That was super interesting. You definitely do what you preach, right? I was gonna put you on the spot and say you're an actor, right? I mean, it's easy for you. How about the rest of us? But you explain it really well. You can actually learn that. Thank you so much. Enjoy your weekend when it comes and I'm gonna keep you updated when this goes live.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (44:21.198) Thank you very much.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (44:29.07) What?

no, thank you.

So we'll

Desi (44:42.89) Can you share a high res kind of headshot or shall I take the one from LinkedIn?

Dr Alexander McWilliam (44:43.246) Yeah, no, that's perfect.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (44:51.566) I'll drop you email with a high res one and then you've got it.

Desi (44:55.666) Okay, okay. Thank you so much. Bye. Have a great afternoon. Bye bye.

Dr Alexander McWilliam (44:58.636) No, absolutely pleasure. Thank you very much. Bye, bye, bye.