Conquer Your Public Speaking Fears

Our episode explores the transformative power of public speaking and how anyone can develop this skill by sharing their unique story. With insights from expert Jesse Cruz, we discuss overcoming self-doubt, structuring presentations, and even the art of virtual speaking, encouraging everyone to take action and find their voice. 

• Discussing the importance of discovering your unique story 
• Overcoming fears related to public speaking 
• Practical steps to start your speaking journey 
• Exploring effective presentation structures 
• Emphasizing the importance of audience engagement 
• Evaluating the pros and cons of paying to speak 
• Highlighting the significance of creating your own speaking opportunities

Chapters

• 0:01 Starting Your Journey in Public Speaking
• 6:07 Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety
• 10:55 Crafting a Compelling Presentation Story
• 22:21 Mastering Public Speaking Techniques

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast with your host, chris Anderson. In this show, chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate Media Podcast. I'm Chris Anderson, your host. Today we're going to dive into the topic of public speaking, speaking on stages, speaking at virtual events. So if you've ever wondered what that's like, how to do it, especially if you have no experience, this episode's for you, and make sure to share with someone else who might be looking to get on stages as well, because we've got a public speaking coach, an expert in this world, jesse Cruz. Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast, man, thank you for having me Absolutely Super excited that you're here. We're just going to dive right into it. Man, why got you so involved, so engrossed in public speaking and speaking on stages?

Speaker 3: 1:10

Well, it came from a place of sharing my story. I wrote my first book and then I just wanted to write books and people were like, well, you come speak. And I was like what's that? Like I didn't even know. What do you mean? Right, right. People were like, will you come speak? And I was like what's that? Like I didn't even know. What do you mean? Right, right, anything about that world. I just want to write books. Everybody, leave me a little bit.

Speaker 3: 1:29

I realized that if I want to impact more people, it's probably a very useful skill too, as much as I can. And so, yeah, I've invested into some great coaching and conferences and communities and all these things so I can learn. Speaking once I I saw how much it impacted the audience. I said how many people can I coach and train up to do the same thing? Because there's only one of me and I know I'm not the only one with a great story to share to impact the audience. And how do I get the opportunity to train other people now? So my mission is to look how do I help train other professionals to increase their impact and their income from their sharing their story effectively out stages and when I get the opportunity to see that happen. It's one of my greatest gifts, that's cool.

Speaker 2: 2:12

And so what if people are sitting listening to you right now saying, you know, Jesse, that's awesome, Do you love it? But I don't have a story man, I don't, I don't have that positioning to to pitch someone about my story. It's not good enough. How do you? How do you talk to those people and share with them?

Speaker 3: 2:27

So typically when I'm coaching someone, they usually fall into one of two camps. One is that their story is so traumatic that they feel like they'd be trauma dumping and overwhelming their audience.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Good point yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:40

Number two, they feel like they lived a pretty normal life. Nothing bad really happened, everything was great, came from a perfect family and a great upbringing, like nothing bad happened. And both are actually incorrect. And why I say that is they both have just the amount of right unique life experiences to connect with their audience. So, even if you have been a traumatic story, it's not like you're getting up on stage to just share all your trauma or it's not a counseling session. What are the lessons that you learned from the trauma? Now, for the people who maybe do not have that trauma, what are just the lessons that you've learned about life during moments where you were fearful, maybe insecure, anxious, worried, afraid. We've all had those emotions. And how do we take those lessons and put them into a presentation to connect with that audience?

Speaker 2: 3:33

I think that's beautiful because you know, and I truly think, everyone has a story. You know, everyone has a purpose and something to share. I think everyone's story matters. You know, we hear a lot about mental health awareness and things like that, especially, you know, in the men, with men, um, and so I think it's it's crucial that people understand, like you do have a story and your experiences, even if he can change one person's life, like that's, that's huge, right. And then I think what you said there is is perfect. You know, on both edges of the spectrum of you know, uh, there's something that people can learn from your story, no matter what, what direction you come from or what position you come from.

Speaker 2: 4:08

So, with that being said, too, you kind of kind of started talking about. You know building out that presentation. You know structuring it in a certain way. Before we got to get into that aspect of it, how do people want to go about? You know, okay, maybe they understand. Okay, jesse, you're right, I do have some experiences I could share. I learned certain things along my journey.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Where do I go? How do I start?

Speaker 3: 4:34

getting on these stages, yeah, so I think one of the key components I see with speakers and people in business, they overthink getting on stages. And getting on stages it's a process it takes, could take years of building relationships and you know a lot of great investing into yourself, which is all fine. Yeah, I believe if you want to get on a stage today, you do something so simple is that you take your phone on, you hit the record button and then you post that video. There's your very first stage. Because if you're not going to be able to, if you can't be trusted on your own stage, how do you get trusted on somebody else's? And so I think, proving yourself to other people, like into your own self, like hey, I have a track record. Well, you know a lot of these people in their first speaking, I don't have any experience, I've never been on stages. Have you showed up consistently on social media with content? Because before you can be great, you must be consistent.

Speaker 2: 5:28

Yeah, yeah, I love that and I think that's so hard for people. You know, getting on camera and showing up consistently consistently being the key word, because we can all improve with our you know our content. If you look back at my first episode here, the podcast, yeah, they were video, but they were terrible, sounded terrible, looked terrible. I was terrible, you know, I didn't know how to ask a question. I just riddled through all these questions I had written out and so, like showing up consistently and just getting started and improving from there, I think a lot of people how do people get over that fear? I guess.

Speaker 3: 6:07

I think one of the common things is that what holds most people back is that they're so obsessed with everybody else's thinking about them and they become so focused on everybody else's thinking about them they don't even know what they think about themselves anymore. Therefore, they're they're they're basically putting their opinion of what other people may think above their own opinion of what they think of themselves, and so one way to combat that is to quite literally remember your why, focus on your purpose and your mission. Because at the end of our lives, you know, we're going to be held accountable for the things that we did or did not do, and no one's going to be asking me, hey, why weren't you more like so-and-so? We're going to be asking, hey, why the gift and the Kong and the purpose that was planned for your life? And we have to answer that.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Yeah, that's so funny because, like so, if you're watching this, if you've been watching the show, you'll realize my background is a little bit different. Right now we're actually, you know, out of state, we're vacationing and you know I still want to take these calls and do this. So I was trying to get this set up beforehand. I, you know, I brought some of the gear to do this and I was like trying to tweak the background and do things. I was like looking for, you know, decor in the, in the place where I and I just couldn't find any of that fit.

Speaker 2: 7:08

My wife was like you're overthinking it, like it's not that, and I was like you're right, like it's, you know what we're bringing in the conversation over anything else, and it kind of humbled me a little bit and helped me and even at you know where we're at, jesse, I think we still have to think about it. Obviously, you know we think too much into what people are going to. Uh, think about it instead of just trying to put out the best content we can. So it still, it still happens for sure. Um, you know, tell me when was it? Can you remember that first time you were got, you got on stage. What was, what is that like? If you can, if you can think back, then uh.

Speaker 3: 7:44

So I was asked to go speak at a correctional facility. Oh, wow, okay, and that was my first time ever speaking and I thought when this person asked me, hey, jesse, do you, would you like to come speak? I thought they were on drugs. I was like you must be on drugs, you have to be, because I have no speaking experience at all, but you're gonna go ask me to go speak in front of a bunch of strangers. Um, but for some reason I said, yeah, like I'm in, and in that first presentation at the time I thought it was the greatest speech of all time. I look back at it now it was the. It was the worst disaster of human history. Okay, because all the things that I've learned since then, it really wasn't that great. It was probably just great for the stage that I was in and that current moment.

Speaker 3: 8:29

And I think a lot of times people are so focused on the comparison of somebody else and how far they are along in the game, but what they're doing is they're comparing my chapter one to their chapter 37 and they're wondering why they don't get the results. You're not even in the same part of the story yet. Story yet you're just beginning. You don't become an expert in one rep yeah, no, that's true, you definitely.

Speaker 2: 8:52

And you know, as my first time ever speaking on stage it was a small stage, um, you know, probably 20, 30, probably closer to 20, uh, listening and stuff, and for me, I mean, that's the first time you know, besides, in like school, when I was in class, I'm going to speak in front of people, and you know.

Speaker 3: 9:09

I thought it was terrible.

Speaker 2: 9:10

I was like, oh my gosh, like I prepped but it like didn't come out Like I thought it was going to do and I was like no one got anything from this. Like this is terrible, man, I beat myself up so bad. Like it's actually you know, this is good, so you helped me through this, so I had that and I was like man that's, I'm never doing that again. That was terrible. Like I don't, I don't have enough time to prep, enough to to be good. So I haven't even like tried to get on the other stages since, I think subconsciously, cause I felt like how bad that was. Um, so what do you tell someone like me, who's who tried and thinks it just was the most terrible thing ever, to improve and you know, get back on the horse.

Speaker 3: 9:48

I mean it comes back to your overall mission If you understand that there's people out there who need you to become a better communicator, because I believe we can all probably agree that if we improve our communication skills, we can also improve our reach, improve our business, improve our relationships, and so it's a worthy skill to invest, to learn, and if you care anything at all about helping more people, then it becomes your more responsibility to learn as much as you can about your presentation skills so you can reach those people, because if you do not, then all of a sudden those people are not getting the support and encouragement and the strategies and tactics that they need and therefore we decide that we're just going to hurt people. We're supposed to help by withholding our education when it comes to speaking.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Yeah, that's so true and you know I actually have an opportunity coming up that I'll be speaking on a virtual stage and it's so it's not live. So that helped me and we're pre-recording it too. They wanted to pre-record it, which helps me, I think, plan a little bit better. Uh, so, when it comes to speaking someone so someone's getting on stage you know they're prepping for this, this upcoming presentation. Is there a good flow or structure to their presentation that allows it to kind of get their points across, keep people engaged and leave a lasting mark on people? Is there something they should follow, kind of?

Speaker 3: 11:09

I mean there's many different structures I work with my clients on. I'll give a simple one. I'll call it the story framework. So the very first thing that you want to do in the beginning of a presentation this is where most speakers get it wrong. Even trained speakers get this wrong, which is very surprising because they just haven't been trained properly is that you want to have a strong hook. So meaning the very first sentence that you say is something that grabs their attention. No hook, no attention. If you have no intention, they're not going to buy from you, they're not going to work with you, they're going to tune you out.

Speaker 3: 11:39

So the first seven seconds the audience makes a judgment if they want to follow you. And so the very first thing, a lot of speakers say thank you for having me, my name is so-and-so. They give a second introduction of who they are, the weather, all kinds of logistics that nobody cares about, and I've already lost the audience right from the beginning. First seven seconds you hook their attention. That's the S strong hook. Next is you tell a compelling story. You share a story of success and struggle, of things that you've gone through in your life. That builds connection to them, because a lot of times speakers they just want to talk about the success how much they know how smart they are and that's cool.

Speaker 3: 12:20

But the audience can't connect with you, and so you must have a story that you tell of some sort of struggle and success as well. But you want to have struggle in there so you can really connect with the audience. And then the O is the organized content. This is where you have your three. I call it a three-step process. I think everyone should have a three-step process at least. Maybe it's five, maybe it's seven, maybe it's two, but you have like a three-step process. You walk your audience through. This is where you go into teacher mode. So in the storytelling you're building a connection, hitting the heart. When you have your organized content you're hitting their head and getting into their mind. Now you become a teacher and you're in the authority and you have credibility. Now they're more lucky to want to do business with you because in the beginning they just like you. But you don't always do business. But just because you like them, you also have to. They have to have some trust because they must know what they're talking about. And you have a three-step process that you walk them through in your teaching and then you shift over to the R, which is a relevant call to action.

Speaker 3: 13:14

The greatest speakers have a next step. What do you want your audience to do next? Is it to go to your website? Is it to meet you in the back of the room? Is it to buy your coaching program? Go to your events, download this pdf, whatever it is. Yeah, you just have a next step that you bring them and, as you're concluding your presentation, the why is it's literally your why remind the audience of why you're doing this and see that this is so important to you because their audience is going to connect to your why and they're going to feel that. And so, as you're concluding why you do what you do, why this subject matter is why it's relevant to them and connect that all together. And that's a good story framework Any speaker can walk through.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, I like that and I think keeping that simple for for people starting out you know, myself included speaking on stages that's such a good, easy one to follow. And yeah, you're right, that hook at the beginning, like I've heard many speakers starting out with things like you said, introducing themselves again or thinking the people who invited them. Actually for this one coming up, I thought about, yeah, I need to first start out by thanking those who invited me here. I'm going to switch it up a little bit now after listening to you, for sure to get people hooked. What's one of the if you can think of that off the top of your head is have you been ever listening to a speaker that just had an amazing hook that you still remember today and are like, wow, that really got me listening?

Speaker 3: 14:37

I mean, there's been a variety of powerful hooks that I've heard over the years, and so there's a couple different ways that you know you can do that. So some speakers will get up on there. You know, if they've been properly trained they'll do what's called a universal question. So an example of a universal question this doesn't have to be the beginning, but it's a good way so you could say something along that. So if you're talking to a specific audience about losing a loved one, let's say you're talking about grief, about losing a loved one, let's say you're talking about grief.

Speaker 3: 15:07

And if you get up on stage and say, by a show of hands, how many people in this room have lost a child Now, maybe a handful have lost a child, all right. So let's say, if there's 100 people in the room, five hands go up you lost 95% of the room. Yeah, so the better question would be by show of hands, how many, how many people in this room have lost someone they love? Now you're talking, probably 99 to 100 of the room is no connection with you. So you can ask a universal question. Um, you can also use an inspiring quote with your interpretation on it, and then you can also just start with story like, have a captivating hook of the story, and a lot of times this framework that I'm sharing is a lot of movies follow this. It's it's a similar structure to your favorite movie.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Okay yeah, that's it and that's a good point. And I've been trying to think about this for mine coming up because I'm speaking more like technical things I I guess like how to incorporate video basically in our marketing is kind of the premise of it, and video production, and obviously we launch video podcasts for people, we do video productions and that kind of ties into the call to action and I've been like how can I hook someone in for that and tell a story that relates to that? Is there a difference to that? Is there a difference? Can you still follow the story method, um framework, with like a technical speech like that or presentation, versus like an emotional drawl kind of one?

Speaker 3: 16:34

you can and so you would want to tap into, like that, why that you use at the end, you can tap into that in the beginning of your presentation. Okay, about a particular movie, a particular show, an instance where you decided in your life this is what I was made for, this is why I want to get into production, this is why I want to help people. The video and the emotional feeling that charged you to make that decision, to go all in on it, that's the story they need to hear okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Yeah, and tie into then, how did how they can do that in their own business and brand to utilize that? Okay, no, hey, because like there are so many avenues, um, do you ever what's? What is the okay? Let me rephrase this question because I'm trying to think of it in my mind. You go to events, you hear, you know speakers. Is there ever a story that you've heard over and over that you're like, okay, are they going to keep telling this story or we're going to come up with a new one? Have you ever heard one that just is like I've heard this one like millions of time. Okay, let's move on, let's try and get something else.

Speaker 3: 17:36

So there's interesting perspective on that.

Speaker 3: 17:39

So there's been speakers where I'm like, okay, I've heard this speaker multiple times, yeah, the same whether it's in person or virtually like yeah, sometimes it's a youtube clip or whatever the case may be, and they've been on shows and some of these are very famous speakers that I've heard multiple times, and sometimes they're telling a brand new story. Sometimes they're telling the same old story. A lot of them tell the same story and some people like, well, why are you telling the same story? And so here is two different perspectives.

Speaker 3: 18:07

Some people would say, if you're telling the same story over and over again, you're not producing any original content and you're not growing as a speaker. There could be some truth in that. I don't know how much truth is in that. That could be some truth. And the other end of the spectrum is that think about if you went to a concert of your favorite music artist and you went to the concert and you want to go, um, hear all their biggest hits, their number one song, and they never performed it. You'd be like, why are they not performing their hit? It's the same with speaking. You got to have your hit record, your hit story, your hit speech and presentation. You tell it over and over and over again, and that's okay and that's. I would encourage speakers to develop that signature talking way that they can tell over and over again and yeah, some audiences have heard it before, I've heard this before. I've heard this before. But you know, sometimes you need to repeat to reinforce the message.

Speaker 2: 18:59

That's true, that's great, those are great points. Because, yeah, I think that would be weird to go to your favorite artists and then not play their top song. And you know, it's kind of like from my perspective, like even reading the Bible like I've read these verses over and over Something new always pops out, kind of same thing, kind of in these speeches, when someone's giving the same story you might be at a different season, so they say the same story, but something different pops out and resonates with you in that moment, which is I think it's just crazy that that happens. You in that moment, which is I think it's just crazy that that happens, but I think such a cool saying, uh, and another to your point of of why they say these over and over. So, um, and I like it when, when you hear a speaker and they're using the same story, but they've like updated or tweaked it just a little bit, and you can pick up on those two like, oh, hey, they added that or that's different, um, and that's a cool, powerful thing as well.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Um, but you know, you see all these speakers, you know the ones, you know you hear over and over and you know Tony Robbins, um, bob Proctor when he was around things of those nature. Um, but they all started where everyone else starts. You know they started with their first speaking, uh, engagement, their first presentation, and they just kept growing and getting better, which you said, you know, their first presentation, and they just kept growing and getting better, which you said you know. Getting the reps you know doing it over and over. But when it comes to getting that first one, building that relationship, like you mentioned earlier, it could take time. Is it okay? Because you know this happens sometimes and I don't know. I'm I'm kind of cool with either way. Paying to speak, paying to be on the stage. What is your opinion on pay to pay to speak?

Speaker 3: 20:32

It can lead to incredible opportunities. So I've done both. I've paid to speak. I've been paid to speak, spoken for free, uh, made money from all three of them. So uh, and helped a lot of people along the way. I don have. I think some people they get, uh, maybe grossed out or disgusted by that concept and I'm like, oh well, if someone could tell you you could pay a thousand dollars but you can make ten to twenty thousand dollars is that a? Good deal, or is it a rip-off?

Speaker 3: 20:59

you know what I mean so it's like, um, you know, it depends on your ability to market. You know, yeah, skills, and sometimes it's like, even if you're not selling and you're paying to be on a stage, the relationships that you get from being in that room, the marketing opportunities you get from video, photo photos, testimonials, uh, and so it's like I think that all speaking leads to a paycheck.

Speaker 2: 21:19

It's just not always money yeah, no, I love that perspective and I agree and that's kind of like what my mindset.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Obviously I I'm new to speaking world, um, but like when someone was like, yeah, it'll be this much to pay, like I have to look at the ROI, like, okay, I'm new for one in the speaking world, I know I have, you know, things I can offer and help people, but what's like, am I going to be able to help enough people? Am I going to get in front of people, been paid to speak yet minus, you know, through connections, relationships, business, so that's, I mean, paid enough, I guess with that which no, so I was curious your opinion, you know, also with that, there are things you don't want to do, speaking right, obviously, you mentioned one earlier. Don't start the first seven seconds by not grabbing attention. Are there some other you you know, speaking no-nos that you're like you cringe when you see someone do it. You're like, oh, don't do that. Like there's, like you got like a top three list of like you know, don't chew gum on stage, stuff like that there's.

Speaker 3: 22:21

I could go on and on about how many. I give it. Maybe just three, sure? Um, there's so many. So, yeah, number one this is more true. I've seen with guys on stage I don't really see it in women as much, but guys for sure.

Speaker 3: 22:36

A lot of times when guys are presenting, they do a monotone and they stay in the same tone of voice the entire time. So when you're telling a story or whether you're giving a presentation, you must fluctuate the tone of your voice to match what it is that you're talking about. Some speakers will be on stage. They'll be talking about something sad, and it sounds exactly flat. Or they're talking about something happy and it sounds exactly the same as when they talked about the sad part.

Speaker 3: 22:59

I'm just like wait, are you happy or sad? I don't know the difference. So have you know, variety in your tonality and your presentation. So have a variety in your tonality and your presentation. That's going to be key. Having you know, hiring a coach to help you work with that tonality and voice and fluxation in certain parts of your presentation will make all the difference. Yeah, key, yeah, I mean that is huge, yeah, big difference. Another one this is not like a, it's not a bad thing to not do it. It's just not as effective If you can just master this on any. A rookie speaker can become well-respected if they do this one thing.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Okay.

Speaker 3: 23:38

Just one thing If they learn how to do strategic pauses, that's it. So a lot of times people think that the speaking on the stage is about how many words are you going to say in the time you have. The best speakers make the least amount of words. Go the furthest. It's anytime that you're using a strategic pause. You're actually making more impact by the words that you do not say because of how you time them in the presentation. And what I've seen is when you have a strategic pause in your presentation, put in there correctly, you'll be amazed at the difference in impact it makes. The best times to put in a strategic pause, I think, is probably right after you say something compelling, an inspiring quote, an important part of your story. A traumatic experience could be something funny where you crack a joke After you do those things. A traumatic experience could be something funny where you crack a joke after you do those things.

Speaker 3: 24:28

Allow space in the room because what happens is speakers, they, they take a buffet of information and they cram it down their audience's throat and the audience is full their stuff. Now they got a food coma. They're falling asleep because you just you've been talking the whole time. Yeah, didn't put any pauses in there. And so when you do pauses, you actually give them an appetizer, one bite at a time. It gives their hunger going. Okay, that one bite was great, let me get another one. And you drop another piece of knowledge and wisdom and technical you know you're doing technical talk right, so you don't want to just floor them with technicalities. They drop in a piece of information, stop talking, let them digest it, so then they can receive the next piece of information. So that would be two. That would that would be another one.

Speaker 3: 25:10

And then, lastly, is eye contact. A lot of times speakers will look when I'm, when I like, at our events and things like that. What happens is a mistake that is very common is that they don't look at the audience. It makes them nervous. So when a speaker doesn't know what to say next, typically their eyes go up. They don't realize at the audience. It makes them nervous. So when a speaker doesn't know what to say next, typically their eyes go up. They don't realize it because they're trying to. You know you ever think of a word. You're trying to grab it out the air. Essentially, you're just, you're looking up to see if you go. What is that? What?

Speaker 3: 25:35

am I gonna say yeah and so when you look up, what happens is you break connection. Well, the audience doesn't feel connected because now you've lost eye contact. So eye contact is going to be key. It's one of the greatest ways to build connection, where the audience is looking at them. And so when you, when you lose the word, you look up and then when you're nervous, fearful or insecure, you actually look down.

Speaker 3: 25:55

A lot of speakers actually look down because they lack confidence in themselves. So while they're presenting, they will just break eye contact and look down and that breaks connection with the audience. And so don't look up, don't look down, don't do the vertical. You actually wanna do what's called a horizontal eye sweep. So you actually want to look people directly in the eye and if that makes you feel a little bit weird, just look right above your eye and like in the middle of their forehead and just look above their eyes and then you just want to go from left middle right or right middle left and you just want to sweep back and forth and that's going to get the audience to really build a stronger relationship with you, because you know when you're not, when you're talking to someone and you're not looking at them, sometimes people look at us, disrespect or something's off, or this is a shady character Like what's going on? Why aren't you looking at me?

Speaker 3: 26:39

It's like when your parents say look me in the eye when you talk to me, boy, you. You know, my dad used to say like, look at me when you talk to me, like oh, yeah, yeah, same when you're presenting on stage. Look them in the eye, let them see. Your eyes Build a connection.

Speaker 2: 26:52

I like those. Yeah, so we're on stage. Those are good. If we're virtual, obviously you can still not be monotone, you can still fluctuate your voice and things like that. You can still have strategic pauses. What are other ways to improve your, your virtual presentation? If you can't see people, how do you cause I feel like that's a little bit harder, cause you don't have that eye contact and that you you don't necessarily have as much movement. What are some a couple of things that we can improve, even our virtual stage presentations?

Speaker 3: 27:22

Yeah. So in any virtual presentation you must give a command for them to do something like typically on its own, you have to drop something in the chat. So what you're doing as a speaker, you're training your audience to follow your lead and to trust you. If this is making sense to you, drop a one in the chat. Boom, when are you from? Drop it in the chat. Put your favorite emoji in the chat, if this made sense to you. So you want to. Throughout your presentation you want to have, I would say at least three to five times you've told them to drop something in the chat to show that they can follow your direction and guidance and leadership. And if the more times you can get them to drop something in the chat, the more likely they will be want to work with you after the presentation's over.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Cool, okay, and that's good Cause. I was going to ask you about how many times, because I've seen I've been on virtual ones where it's like every other sentence I swear was drop this, drop this. I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm not. So three to five, I like that, that's good. Uh, I think a good number to do, depending on the length of the presentation sure, sure an hour, I mean maybe more than three, right, yeah, okay, because this one, the one we're aiming for, is 20 minutes.

Speaker 2: 28:24

So you know, I think three to five is would be, would be fine for sure. So, um, cool, yeah. So you know, build relationships, show up on on social media consistently. Uh, continue to improve. Um, obviously, reach out to people. Any other ways to to get your foot in the door and get on a stage this this year, coming up to 25? Any other ways to get your foot in?

Speaker 3: 28:47

the door and get on a stage this this year, coming up to 25. Yeah, I mean, for me it's like get yourself a coach who can help you and create your own stage. You know some of the clients I have. A client I'm working with now. Literally they're creating their first ever event and it's in tokyo, japan. Okay, so I I love being able to help people create their stages and bucket list destinations and not having to choose between their business and their family. Like my family goes on all our trips. We did Italy and Iceland just this year. My wife and kids are at all of it, and so I believe there is a way to create stages on your most ideal vacation places in the world and then bring clients with you. So you don't have to always pick between family and business. Let's just create it so we can do it together, and I think when you start creating events and experiences around the world, creating your own stage, you have a much more fulfilling business in life. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 29:33

And I like that. I like that thought too, because, yeah, why wouldn't you just create it where you want to be and create your own and practice that way? So, man, jesse, this has been a great conversation. I think, so much valuable insight for people who want to get on stages, who want to improve their speaking. Obviously, if someone's looking to get better at public speaking and get a coach, they can reach out to you. Where's the best place for people to go, connect with you, get more information and possibly even get your help?

Speaker 3: 30:03

Yeah, they can connect with me. You know, right off Facebook, jesse Cruz send me a DM. Love the chat your help.

Speaker 2: 30:09

Yeah, they can connect with me. You know, right off Facebook, jesse Cruz send me a DM. Love the chat, awesome, yeah. So everyone make sure you do. I mean, jesse's a great person. I've talked to him multiple times on DMS and seen his content so, and obviously he shared a bunch here that's going to help a lot of people. So, uh, you connect with them. Uh, start getting better at speaking. Build your own stage. Just start getting better at speaking. Build your own stage. Just show up consistently online to practice and to build that, that competency around what you talk about.

Speaker 2: 30:32

But again, jesse, thanks so much for being on Elevate Media Podcast today. It's been my pleasure. Appreciate you, man, absolutely. And again, guys, if you're listening to this and you know someone who is trying to become a speaker, trying to get on stage, trying to expand their authority in their marketplace, share this episode with them. We can do so much more together by sharing and we appreciate everyone who listens in and shares. But until next time, continue to elevate your life, elevate your brand and we'll talk to you again soon.

Speaker 1: 31:00

Thank you for listening to the Elevate Media Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. See you in the next episode.