Michael Chad Hoeppner

That then manifests into a whole bunch of things, more monotone voice, faster rate of speech, more stumbles, more ums and uhs and filler, but you can trace a lot of that back to that first initial adjustment of contracting. And is that nerves? What causes that? Well, for some people, yeah, for sure.

I mean, I'll give you, you can think of the three evolutionary threat responses of fight, flight, or freeze. When you're giving a big presentation or you're at a networking event or whatever the thing might be, you can't fight anybody. There's no one to fight. You can't flight. You can't leave the room. So what do you do? Well, you freeze a little bit. But speaking is moving. To speak is to move.

I mean, I'll give you, you can think of the three evolutionary threat responses of fight, flight, or freeze. When you're giving a big presentation or you're at a networking event or whatever the thing might be, you can't fight anybody. There's no one to fight. You can't flight. You can't leave the room. So what do you do? Well, you freeze a little bit. But speaking is moving. To speak is to move.

I mean, I'll give you, you can think of the three evolutionary threat responses of fight, flight, or freeze. When you're giving a big presentation or you're at a networking event or whatever the thing might be, you can't fight anybody. There's no one to fight. You can't flight. You can't leave the room. So what do you do? Well, you freeze a little bit. But speaking is moving. To speak is to move.

We breathe in, our diaphragm moves down, our rib cage expands and moves out, and then we allow the air to flow over our vocal cords, our mouth moves in this tremendously dynamic way to enunciate words. Speaking is moving. So if those nerves and those anxieties manifest in freezing, what you're doing is, yes, contracting yourself quite dramatically. Other people contract for different reasons.

We breathe in, our diaphragm moves down, our rib cage expands and moves out, and then we allow the air to flow over our vocal cords, our mouth moves in this tremendously dynamic way to enunciate words. Speaking is moving. So if those nerves and those anxieties manifest in freezing, what you're doing is, yes, contracting yourself quite dramatically. Other people contract for different reasons.

We breathe in, our diaphragm moves down, our rib cage expands and moves out, and then we allow the air to flow over our vocal cords, our mouth moves in this tremendously dynamic way to enunciate words. Speaking is moving. So if those nerves and those anxieties manifest in freezing, what you're doing is, yes, contracting yourself quite dramatically. Other people contract for different reasons.

They might, as I suggested earlier, think it's more professional or dignified or something like this. And most of the time, in my experience anyway, it's just wrong.

They might, as I suggested earlier, think it's more professional or dignified or something like this. And most of the time, in my experience anyway, it's just wrong.

They might, as I suggested earlier, think it's more professional or dignified or something like this. And most of the time, in my experience anyway, it's just wrong.

Yeah, you ask a really important question. oftentimes they do prepare badly and it shoots them in the foot and i'll give you the primary culprit most people think of preparation as writing so they type a bunch of stuff or they write out all their comments but they're doing an activity that is completely different from what they're actually going to do in the moment which is speaking

Yeah, you ask a really important question. oftentimes they do prepare badly and it shoots them in the foot and i'll give you the primary culprit most people think of preparation as writing so they type a bunch of stuff or they write out all their comments but they're doing an activity that is completely different from what they're actually going to do in the moment which is speaking

Yeah, you ask a really important question. oftentimes they do prepare badly and it shoots them in the foot and i'll give you the primary culprit most people think of preparation as writing so they type a bunch of stuff or they write out all their comments but they're doing an activity that is completely different from what they're actually going to do in the moment which is speaking

So one of the first missteps people make is this writing first approach. And what I often coach people to do is something I call out loud drafting. And it is exactly like it sounds. As opposed to grabbing the laptop or a pad of paper to begin, No, stand up, walk around the room, and ask yourself some big open-ended prompt to get your ideas flowing.

So one of the first missteps people make is this writing first approach. And what I often coach people to do is something I call out loud drafting. And it is exactly like it sounds. As opposed to grabbing the laptop or a pad of paper to begin, No, stand up, walk around the room, and ask yourself some big open-ended prompt to get your ideas flowing.

So one of the first missteps people make is this writing first approach. And what I often coach people to do is something I call out loud drafting. And it is exactly like it sounds. As opposed to grabbing the laptop or a pad of paper to begin, No, stand up, walk around the room, and ask yourself some big open-ended prompt to get your ideas flowing.

Something simple like, if my audience were to walk away with one thing from this today, what would I want that to be? And then answer the question. Well, the first answer is gonna be bad. Fine, do it again. Second answer, a bit better. Third time you answer the same question, I promise you, you will already have come up with something that you can begin to work with.

Something simple like, if my audience were to walk away with one thing from this today, what would I want that to be? And then answer the question. Well, the first answer is gonna be bad. Fine, do it again. Second answer, a bit better. Third time you answer the same question, I promise you, you will already have come up with something that you can begin to work with.

Something simple like, if my audience were to walk away with one thing from this today, what would I want that to be? And then answer the question. Well, the first answer is gonna be bad. Fine, do it again. Second answer, a bit better. Third time you answer the same question, I promise you, you will already have come up with something that you can begin to work with.

Not only that, but it will sound more like how people actually use language in speaking. You will have come up with it with a muscle memory experience of relaxation and release as opposed to effort and tenseness. and you will already have started to loosely memorize what you want to say, and it's almost instant.