71. What's your speaking runway?

This is the often forgotten part of speaking - how we prepare our energy BEFORE we hit record or open ZOOM or grab the microphone. In this episode I share ten practical strategies to use on your runway to ensure a smooth speaking takeoff!

Transcript

Hi, I'm Sally Prosser. Welcome to That Voice Podcast. Great to have you here! I believe your voice matters and deserves to be heard. I started this podcast to share free practical tips to help you speak with more confidence, to grow your business, advance your career and avoid totally freaking out about public speaking. As a former TV journalist and company spokesperson, qualified speech and drama teacher, TikToker and general lover of life, I know firsthand about the power of showing up with confidence. Your voice is the soundtrack to your personal brand. Are you ready to turn it up?

Hello, hello! Welcome to Episode 71 of That Voice Podcast. I'm very excited about today's episode. It's one of my favorite topics, and the reason for this--people don't usually think about it, but when you do, it makes such a huge difference to your speaking. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about the "runway"... that probably doesn't help the course you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, is this like about modeling or something?". No, no, no, no, no. So you might've seen Mel Robbins talks a lot about the power of the countdown. She puts out tweets where she says, "If you are reading this while scrolling in bed, then five, four, three, two, one... jump up!" And, it's about how so many great things in life that really take off with a bang, start with a countdown. I mean, of course we've got the rocket launch has a countdown. There is a ready set go before races in sports. There is a countdown before news goes live.

And of course, with a plane, it doesn't just take off. There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes on the tarmac, on the runway to ensure that takeoff is smooth. And our speaking is exactly the same. We need to get out of this idea that our speaking starts when we press record, or when the ZOOM meeting opens up, or when we grab the microphone on stage, that is not when we're starting. That is when we're taking off! And if we want to have a successful takeoff, we need to have a really effective preparation in our runway. So practically speaking, how long do we need for this runway? Well, it entirely depends on you and also the nature of the speaking gig to give you an idea. If I have a big speech at an event, then I will normally be preparing the whole entire day.

If it is going live online, usually about half an hour to an hour, I need. If it is between coaching calls, then usually 15 minutes does the trick. So it really depends on what the nature of the presentation is, and how you're feeling about it. The difficulty with corporate culture especially is I don't know of any companies that enforce time off between meetings. If your company does this, then let me know. I'd love to hear, but there's no company that seem to say, "Okay, you can't book any meetings 10 minutes to the hour". And so what that creates is this back to back to back where you are literally going from one meeting to another. You don't have time to go to the toilet, let alone give an effective presentation! So this is not good, and if you are in a position where you can change the rules on this, I would highly recommend trying something like that because your employees will thank you.

But there is also an element of personal responsibility to this. Say "No". If you have an important presentation coming up. You know, I've worked with clients who have to give a presentation to the board, right? It is the most important part of their role and they are taking back to back meetings right up before it like it's crazy, right? Absolutely say no to this and prioritize. Also feel free to tell people about it. If you say, "Oh, I absolutely can't do during that time because I have a presentation to give or a meeting to run", then people will understand they can just make it a different time. So be strict and give yourself that time. When I have a speaking gig on it's in the calendar, and I don't accept anything that day. I might do a couple of phone calls or something, but there is no appointments, that's just it. Because I know that I don't want anything to mess with my, mess with my runway. It's a bit of a tongue twister, "Mess with my runway".

So give yourself that time and try not to come up with too many excuses about why you can't give yourself that time and instead, think about it like a flight. You cannot arrive at the airport at departure time, like you're not going to get on the plane, right? So even though the ticket says the plane's leaving at 12:05, you know that you have to be there, you know, half an hour before to board. So think of it the same way with speaking. When you say that you have to do something rather than prepare for your speech, it's like you saying that you are going to rock up at the airport at the time, the planes departing, you're going to miss the flight.

It's not going to work. All right. So what are you going to do in this time? What do you do during the runway? Well, this is where you need to get your energy right. And you need to ask yourself, "Where is my mindset? How is my body feeling? What's happening with my breathing?". A whole lot of self-reflection goes on during this runway. And if you're not sure how to tap in, then this is something that we do in My Six Week Voice Makeover. There's a real theme of how do we tap into what we're thinking, how we're feeling, what our breath's doing. So yes, join the waitlist for My Six Week Voice Makeover, if you haven't already. So what I'd love to share with you today is 10 things that I do during my runway that you might like to do as well. Keeping in mind, it's a really personal thing. It's about what do you need to do to get your energy right and every day can be different. There has been times quite recently, when 20 minutes before I had to go live for my course, I was sobbing uncontrollably on the couch.

I needed to move hard and fast to get myself in the right state, to be able to deliver that class. Not ideal. There's been other times when about an hour before, I've really had to get myself in the zone. There's been other times when I've been feeling so great I've just done a quick warm up, a couple of minutes before, and I've been fine. So it's really about tapping into your energy on that day and understanding yourself and what you need. So the 10, I'm going to go through are quick things, alright, apologies in advance. If I'm giving you too much information or TMI, as the kids on Tik Tok say.

So number one, go to the toilet. This is important because you do not want to be about to speak and need to go to the toilet at that point. So I make sure that I've gone to the loo in advance. So I don't have to worry about that.

The next thing I often do is prepare a cup of tea, especially if I'm going live online. And part of it is the tea itself. But part of it is also the ritual putting on the kettle, getting out the cup. It just gives me a bit of space to think.

Number three: Dancing, shaking, moving it baby! So I will crank, Oh, what have I been playing lately? Sia? Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Dolly Parton. I've got a whole playlist of things that I just put on to get me in that mood. And when I say dance and shake, I like jump around the room shaking my shoulders out of their sockets. Kind of like I'm in a mosh pit.

The next thing I do is run little mantras or affirmations through my head. "You were born to do this. They want to listen to you. You deserve to be here. They've been waiting all day for this. You can do it!" Running those mantras, those affirmations in my mind.

Maybe I'll go with option five: some days and that's meditation. Do I need to be still and quiet, close my eyes, sit, cross legged on the floor and just drop into my body.

Number six is, "Do I need to eat something? Do I need some food?" More often than not it's no, because if you eat too quickly before speaking, then you can have it sort of repeating on you and you don't want to be burping or anything like that while you're speaking. But also if you're feeling too hungry, you're going to be lightheaded. And so maybe a couple of nuts. So just something small, a piece of fruit might be just what you need to give yourself that energy boost. And I didn't have this on the list, but it's very, very obvious. I'll put it in with food is water. Are you hydrated? Have a big drink. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink. Because you know how they say, by the time we get thirsty, we're already really dehydrated. So it's important to stay on top of that. I'm like everybody else, and it should be drinking more water than I do. So it's a reminder to us all.

Okay, what are we up to? I think we're up to number seven and that is a tidy up of my desk. So do you need to clean your space, even just cleaning that the bedroom or cleaning part of the house can actually clear the mind. So a bit of a tidy up, can be a good thing to do on your runway.

What about talking to yourself in the mirror? So getting in front of the mirror, hyping yourself up, but also practicing whatever speech you've got to give. So even if you're facilitating a team meeting or something, you look in the mirror and say, "Wow, it's fantastic to have everyone here today. How was everyone's weekend?" Or if it's going live online, then you can practice that opening of "Hello. Hello. It's wonderful to be here!". So that's what I normally do. When I practice in front of the mirror, I go with my opening lines, looking at myself, loving on myself, reminding myself that I'm my own best friend, all of those things. I think I've covered those in a different episode, but it really works during the runway.

The next thing I think, what are we up to eight or nine? I was only a couple left, but that is, I avoid looking at emails or social media comments. And the reason for that is because they can distract you. You don't want to be distracted by an annoying email or an annoying comment or DM right before you need to give a presentation. You want to be in the zone, right? So shutting out those distractions, X-ing the email not looking at the phone.

And the last one is do a voice warm up. This is really up my alley. Do a voice warm up .Breathing low and deep, then breathe out saying, "Shh..." Bring in some vibrations, breathing low and deep. And then... Um, turning it into an M "Hmm".

Then I bring the lips in.... Focusing on that air, flowing out the vibration, sitting forward. Again, this is all things that we go through in My Six Week Voice Makeover. And that way, when you do start speaking, you know, your voice is exactly where you need it to be. Is that plane ready to take off? It's not going to be a false start. There's, if you've done a voice format there's less chance that you'll say, "Oh, um, okay, alright!" And weird sounds come out at the start. If you're not warmed up, especially if you're a bit tense, right? Because the tension will also make your voice do weird things, which is why the dancing and the meditation, all of those exercises to relax. You are also wonderful things to do in your runway.

So a bit of a quick recap of those 10, I've got them written down now. So I'm not going to be going all over the place.

Number one, toilet.

Number two, tea.

Number three, dancing, shaking.

Number four, mantras affirmations.

Number five, meditation.

Number six, have some food or some water.

Number seven, tidy up your desk.

Number eight, avoid looking at emails or social media.

Number nine, talk to yourself in the mirror, practicing your opening lines.

And number 10, do a voice warmup.

There's just some ideas for you. But the main takeaway from today is to prioritize your runway. Your speaking occasion does not start when the button hits record. When the zoom meeting opens up, when you grab that microphone on stage, it does not start then, it starts well before. If you don't arrive at the airport on time, if you don't have this runway and you just turn up at the departure time, you're going to miss the flight. So I would love to hear your ideas on what you do for your runway. So please, DM me on Instagram. If you liked this episode, it of course works with speaking, but I think it works with lots of other things in life as well. Then please share it with your friends and I look forward to your next speaking scenario, truly taking off. see you next week!

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