41. How to speak on stage

International keynote speaker Simone Heng shares fantastic advice for speaking on big stages, from calming nerves to using a microphone, from projecting your voice to choosing the right shoes! Simone's expertise is 'human connection,' so she also shares insights into the critical role of our voice in connecting with others.

Watch Simone’s TedTalk - How to connect authentically to anyone

Transcript

Sally: Guess what? This is the last guest chat for That Voice Podcast. Season Two. And I have a superstar with us, the one and only Simone Heng.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast, no matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. So unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome to episode 41 of That Voice Podcast. Now, today we have a professional keynote speaker. I'm talking TEDx Google, the United Nations. Simone Heng has been on some pretty big stages. Her topic is human connection, which with the pandemic has never been more important. Simone Heng, welcome to That Voice Podcast. Could you do your job if you lost your voice?

Simone: No, Sally, I lost it once I had a virus and I freaked out so bad because I realised how much I took it for granted and it literally is my moneymaker. So no I could not.

Sally: So yes, knowing what I know, that is a very, very silly question. But for everybody else, tell us a bit about what you do.

Simone: Absolutely. So for over 15 years I was a broadcaster. So I was working on radio for Virgin radio and for Southern cross Austereo in Australia. And I worked in radio for a very long time, did a bit of television at the beginning of my career as well. And I'm also on the side of voiceovers, like a lot of radio people do and also a bit of MCing, but a year ago almost to the day I stepped out and launched my own speaking business. So I travel the world speaking well, I did before COVID, on the subject of human connection, which is really dear to my heart. And yes, and still do a bit of emceeing and things as well. So voice is integral to everything that I do.

Sally: Yeah. And yay! Congratulations on your one year having been in business myself, it's so exciting to get to that milestone. So Simone speaks about human connection. I'm going to link to her amazing TedTalk about this topic. What do you think the role of our voice is in human connection?

Simone: Absolutely. So most of the experts I've interviewed and the books I've read and my own experience is that we cannot connect well with others unless we have great self connection. It all starts inward before we can go out and imprint on other people. And a big part of that is your metaphorical voice. I'm sure Sally, you've spoken about this before, and you're an expert on this, but your metaphorical voice is your, you know, your truth, your opinion on things your views on the world and certain subjects. And it's like a fingerprint, it's so unique to every single person because your metaphorical voice is built on your own experiences. So it's incredible when you can align the metaphorical voice, which is self connection with your literal voice speaking into the world, and other people can then connect to who you truthfully are. So if you do not cultivate the metaphorical and then literal voice people are not connecting with authentically who you are. They're connecting with a, like a performance of you in the world. And I think that's why a lot of great human connection starts from self connection.

Sally: Absolutely. Absolutely. I often say your real voice is a megaphone for your inner voice. And if you're doubting and you've got restricted thoughts that you're not wanting to share, then you get a restricted voice like this. So it's really interesting.

Simone: Absolutely. And then other people connect actually with the restricted version of you, which is not the full version of you. So it's pretty big and deep work that that you and I both do actually that people might not think from the outside. Hopefully they will after hearing this.

Sally: That's right. Yeah. So let's just take our minds back to pre-COVID times when you were stepping on some pretty massive stages. I know a lot of people listening, you know, the thought of stepping onto a big stage with thousands of people would just terrify them. What are some tips that you have for preparing yourself for that kind of event?

Simone: Absolutely. So one thing that I started doing when I began, my speaking career was doing Amy Cuddy's power poses. I'm a little bit of a huncher anyway, and we know how hunching can crush the diaphragm and how the voice projects. So the power poses helped with that. They've recently discovered that the power poses don't actually the study shows that they don't actually elicit the hormones in the way which Amy Cuddy describes in the TedTalk, but they do give a feeling of more confidence simply by the physiology. So I definitely do the power poses. I recommend them to my clients. They make me at five foot one feel more powerful. I do that. I also choose my clothes really wisely for when I go on stage. So nothing with a really tight, restrictive waistband that can crush my breathing and my movement. The one time I have worn a bodycon dress to do a big speech to 2000 people that was in January. I really regretted it. It really limited my mobility and what people need to know as well. When you get onto big stages to mentally prepare yourself, you have to hand it over to the audience, you know, you're there in service of the audience. So I always say to myself, this is not about you. So I don't, a lot of people do that. I'm confident mantra. You know, I do the opposite because I am already kind of quite confident. So I think you're here to serve people. You're here to impart a message on people. It's not about you or your vanity, you're here to serve. And that works, that setting that intention works 99, 99.9% of the time to make my message land properly for people. And I couldn't could just say, anyone's doing really, really large stages, you know, for someone who is my size. So I'm Kylie Minogue-size guys, and I have to transverse a stage, that is many, many times my height. You're gonna laugh, but shoes are really important. If I wear a stiletto heel, I'm unstable. When you become unstable, you're not rooted well on stage. It also affects your voice. So I am now in the practice of wearing like big pants. I can wear like a massive platform, comfortable heel underneath that people can't see. So I'm really grounded. And I recently found out that Idina Menzel the voice behind Elsa on Frozen. She did the same thing when she went to sing at the Oscars, she wore big shoes as well. That made her a lot taller cause she's petite, but also grounded her. And I thought, well, that's good. I'm not alone in doing that.

Sally: Oh my goodness. So many pieces of fantastic advice in there. I have a whole section in one of my courses called Logistics Matter because time and time again, I see people not think about these things like the wardrobe, like the footwear, you know, and not just choosing it carefully, but not practicing in it. And the other thing with logistics, which I'd love to hear your take on - is microphones.

Simone: Sally, I will never forget one of my first radio shows and I did it and I thought I did really well. And I wrote out all my breaks this is like 2007. And then one of the guys at the radio station was like, you were popping. He goes, you were popping all through that. And I was like, what do you mean I was popping? And I didn't know about the fact that if you spoke too closely to a microphone, your p's start to distort and pop. And I had to learn about about distortion. This goes as well for singing, like when I was little kid and I learned singing lessons. When you do a big blasting note, you pull the microphone away from you instead of pulling it deeper inside so that the dynamics are right. So one big thing that I use because I know that I'm loud.

And I know that I have an accent here in Asia compared to other people, is that I have the microphone a little bit away. I project into the mic as opposed to a lot of MCs will actually place the microphone. And you wouldn't want to do this now during COVID mind you as well, it's a communal microphone and they place it on the edge of their chin when they talk - particularly the kind of emcee that we'll do a full day spruiking just so that they don't have to project as much. Most of the gigs I do are like one to four hours. So I don't think that's necessary. But so I would advise just against that firstly for hygiene reasons. And secondly, it just looks really awful on stage of you're resting a microphone on your chin. You should learn to project anyway. So if you learn to project properly, regardless of the microphone, people will be able to hear, you won't have to rest it right on you. The other thing as well is I prefer onstage when I do a keynote to have a headset mic, because part of great storytelling and engaging an audience is using your hands. There's a great study that I learned from about the fact that when we were evolving as cavemen, we would have our hands - basically, whenever you meet a new person, the first thing they look at is your hands. Because when we were cave men and we met someone from another tribe, the first thing they do would be looking at our hands to see if we had weapons. So gesticulation is really, really important. The world's best TedTalks have double the gesticulation as the world's worst TedTalks. So because of that, I really, really prefer headset mikes. And normally for keynote speaking, 99% of the time, they will supply that or lapel mic. I hate lapel mikes because the battery pack has to go onto the waistband of something. And as a woman, if you're wearing something kind of form fitting, even if it's a suit, just that simple two inches and a half of the battery pack can cause your whole front of your suit to kind of stretch out and make lines that the lights on the stage hit. So my preference is always kind of the headset mic. And then I put the battery pack on the top of my blazer facing internally inside the gap between my shoulder blades, as opposed to around my waist. Just because it kind of pulls everything really tight, affects, my diaphragm breathing, but that could be, cause my body shape.

Sally: My lapel mic horror story, although maybe that's being a bit dramatic was I was wearing a dress and I didn't have any belt or anywhere to put it. And so it ended up having to go up the top, but the weight of it dragged my dress down. Do you know what I mean? And so it changed the neck line and then of course my hair kept getting stuck in it. And then the sound guy wanted to put electrical tape on there just to make sure that the battery pack would stay. I had all my hair like stuck in this electrical tape.

Simone: Alright. So I have really short hair. You can't see, but I've really short. I don't think I often speak because I had that horror story about the bodycon dress that I mentioned that I would never wear again on a stage. So now I just wear suits and you could probably get away with a battery pack on a suit because of the way it's made. But if you're wearing a dress like Sally, yes, it's heavy enough. It will pull down your dress. Absolutely. So these are all things that I guess we, we have to think about a little bit, but yeah. So gesticulation definitely prefer a headset mic. That's my big key takeaway. If you can get it for keynote, take it. For emceeing they will always give you a handheld largely. And then I always make sure my palm cards are ring binded so I can hold the mic and flip the palm card.

Sally: Amazing. And I know a lot of people listening wouldn't be doing professional speaking like Simone is, but I find with microphones. Just ask the event organizer, you know, just ask what, what you can expect. Is it going to be handheld? Is it going to be lapel and same with if there's a lectern. Just asking the question. Oh, is there any way I can speak not being behind the lectern often they say, Oh yeah, you can. It's just that people don't ask the question.

Simone: Yeah, absolutely. And I actually, there's a world-leading expert that Sally and I both have fans of Caroline Goyder and she says that she just hates lecterns she thinks like, why should we have them? And I have to say, I agree when I went to the UN and I'm tiny guys - I'm child size and they have the biggest lectern in the room in the United Nations with a big UN logo on it. And all my photos from it and my video, I'm just a floating head. So now I actually send the UN picture when I was in Canada recently during that MC gig, I sent them that picture as a reference because they actually do have a lectern, but they're very clever. It's perspex. So it's clear. And I didn't know that. So when they mentioned the lectern I just set the photo, I said, hi guys, this is just to show you scale of what my body is like and what I look like behind the lectern.

And then luckily for me, not only did they let me go free onstage, their lectern was also perspex. So everyone could actually still see my body, but these are things as you go on the logistics, the nuances of it, these small tweaks is the mastery between being a good speaker and being a great speaker. And of course I still have years and years left to become better. I hope to continue to work on this for the rest of my life, but these small tweaks really do make a huge difference in your speaking game.

Sally: Absolutely. You've got so many other things to worry about. Your main priority should be connecting with the audience. You can't be worried about your hair getting stuck in electrical tape or not being able to be seen behind the lectern. So Simone, you've spoken on some amazing stages. I mean the UN in front of thousands of people, don't you get nervous?

Simone: The UN I did and in Canada, I did because it was my first time with a North American audience. And I, they had asked me to be funny and because of my radio background, I can do humor. I was roughly, but it went off well, but you know, I got nervous because you don't know with different cultures, how things are going to land. So Australian humour is different to North American humour and Asian humour is most certainly very different to either of those. So in those contexts, I do get nervous. And even yesterday, when I went to do a filmed speaking gig, because of COVID it's being streamed, I got nervous because I've been in a house for three months and I haven't done any speaking on a stage. And part of me was comforted by the fact that I was a bit nervous. I thought, no, that's a beautiful thing because when you stop being nervous and there have been times of my life in Dubai, where I was, when I was based in Dubai for Virgin radio, I was doing such a volume of emceeing gigs. I would literally, I was checked out Sally and automation. I didn't get nervous. I just read the cards and I thought you never want to go back to that. I would rather be nervous any day than be checked out and in automation mode.

Sally: And what strategies do you have to calm your nerves?

Simone: One that my girlfriend told me once, and she's been an emcee for like 25 years n the Southeast Asian and the, the North American market. She said to me, stop stressing. This is what you do. And this is what you're made for. And that's what I say to myself, stop stressing. This is what you do. And this is what you were made for. And when I connect the occupation to my life mission, man, that calms my nerves mission over your ego, gettin’ all panicked right now.

Sally: I love that. And I actually use a similar thing. You know, I still get a little bit nervous before I go live in my programs. That's mainly because I'm worried about the tech failing, but once it's all working, I tell myself the same thing. This is what I do. This is what I was made for. Now. We have a little bit of a similar background. We've both worked in radio and have you have experience in broadcast and like myself, I'm sure you hear a lot of the time. Oh wow. You have such a broadcast voice. How do you think you've got this broadcast voice? Do you think it's just been the years of experience that we've had in the industry or have you done any particular training?

Simone: So just compared to a normal person, you would have a microscope on your vocalization by hearing yourself back day after day after day. And this was particularly in the era before voice notes on your phone and podcasting. So the normal population's just using their voice as they normally would, they're breathing like they normally would. And here's this small subset of broadcasters being taught to be hyper-critical about how they speak. Now. That's not bad if it's done in a really great way, like they teach you to thicken your voice and project and all of those things, but it can be very useful for the rest of your life. I found it to be incredible people, judge you on your voice. They do. So it has profoundly given my other work as a speaker, like leaps and bounds, because most professional speakers actually have not - they've either come from a training or coaching background, or they are the experts who wrote books. So they're not from a performance background where they would think about that. So if someone's doing a one hour keynote and I've seen this and the lady's like this and this and this and this, and she asked me to give her feedback and it was really difficult because if no one has ever told you before about not speaking nasally or breathing from the right space, it's really hard to teach someone when they're 45,50, or how many years in. So I'm really grateful for it. It's one less thing to worry about, Sally.

Sally: Your voice is beautiful. It's so clear. It's so full.

Simone: But there are some vocal habits that simply by not hearing myself live every day have come back - like the day. I just said the day, that is exactly it. You know, they've just come back.

Sally: Yeah. And it's totally fine. You know, it's not about being perfect. I think it's about just having that awareness and then saying, you know what? I know what I can do.

Simone: And also the awareness. It's interesting. It's not about being perfect because Caroline Goyder also says that with AI and all of the automation that's happening, your voice is one of the few things that's truly human about you. So the imperfection is our humanity also. So it's good to keep that in mind.

Sally: I love that. Simone was there anything else you'd like to add?

Simone: No. I just want to tell you, Sally, I'm such a big fan. Thank you so much for asking me on and for doing all that you do. And I really hope that everyone listening, invest more time into your voice. I know it's something we overlooked, but it really can change your change, your life, your job, how you show up in the world. It's so connected to every other part of you and how you connect with others.

Sally: Amazing Simone. You know, I love you. You're such a huge inspiration from the time I stalked you on LinkedIn. I feel so grateful that I've been able to not only meet you in person, but stay in touch with you because you inspire me so so much. And I'm just such a big fan of, of everything that you're about.

Simone: Thank you. My love you have a wonderful day.

Sally: Love, love, love Simone. And if you resonated with her tips today, you might like to join her Courageous Speaking community to get special access to more Simone tips, head to Simone's Instagram @simoneheng for more details and tune in next week for the Season Two finale, I'll be sharing my top confidence hacks.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast, all episodes and full transcripts are at www.thatvoicepodcast.com.