Well, this
happened.
My business partner, Paul Counts, knew that Jenna and I were visiting Las Vegas this week, and since Vegas is a short flight from the Seattle area, where he lives, he decided at the last minute to fly down and spend some time with us.
Yesterday we were at a bar together, enjoying drinks and appetizers. Jenna had an appointment to get her nails done, so once she left only Paul, Henry (my three-month old son),
and I remained.
Before too long, a waiter had come up to Paul and me and started talking. He looked at the two of us and little Henry, and asked if this was our baby. So without Jenna around, the only conclusion he could reach was that Paul and I must be a homosexual couple.
In fact, we are not.
But this was an instructive episode: it shows how quickly
people form conclusions.
The guy imbibed a few pieces of information, filled in the blanks, and arrived at a confident conclusion -- in about three seconds.
That’s exactly what audiences do. When you get up to speak, people are sizing you up immediately. Before you’ve made your second or third point, they’ve already asked and answered:
Is this person confident?
Does he know what he's talking about?
Is this worth my attention?
And once they’ve made that judgment, everything you say afterward gets filtered through it.
That's why you should
not "start with a joke," unless you're advanced. If the joke bombs, that becomes part of the filter through which the audience judges you. It's very hard to recover after an opening joke doesn't land -- you're flustered now, and the audience feels awkward.
The best speakers know how to command the room from the beginning.
They know how to structure what they say so people stay engaged instead of drifting. They know how to come across with authority, even if they didn’t feel that way starting out.
And as a result, doors open for them that stay closed to everyone else:
More speaking invitations.
Higher fees.
Opportunities they never would have been considered for otherwise.
Jeremy Anderson speaks to large crowds for a living, and knows how to do it -- that is, how to craft talks that keep people locked in and deliver them with confidence.
Next to no one knows how to do that, which is why having these skills makes you stand out so
much.
And no AI can replace someone with such skills.
Here's a free masterclass -- with valuable, actionable information -- on how to acquire those skills, because they absolutely can be learned:
Tom Woods