Episode 16: Tips for Becoming a Better Speaker with Jacqui Maloney

Today I'm chatting with Confidence and Speakers Coach, and my friend, the gorgeous Jacqui Maloney. Jacqui and I share our love for Beyonce and what people can learn about public speaking from Queen Bey and Harry Styles.

You'll learn:

• Ways to combat nervous energy on stage

• Should you prepare or riff?

• What we learnt from Beyonce's Coachella performances

• How to build connection on and off stage

• Why you need to be clear on your point of view and your values

About Jacqui

Jacqui is a Confidence and Speakers Coach and works with women to find their voice and own their story. Whether through speaking on stage, on camera or on a podcast, the clarity of our message is vital and having the confidence and the media training will make all the difference when it comes to engaging your audience.

After studying acting in New York and continuing her career here in Australia in film and tv and also now being the voice of national campaigns, Jacqui works with entrepreneurs and CEO's to become wildly in-demand speakers, panellists and podcast guests.

Jacqui is also one half of the speakers initiative Tales of a Founder, created to get more Founders stories on stage to share the good, the bad and the ugly about being an entrepreneur and business owner.

Connect with Jacqui on Instagram, LinkedIn or on her website

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• Full Episode Transcription

  Good Chat Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land where we work, live and record the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and we pay our respects to elder's past and present always was always will be Aboriginal land.

  Hey, I'm Cass, the founder podcast production agency, Good Chat Media and welcome to Good chats. Good chat is a podcast with a holistic approach to business and marketing. And with the help of some super special people, I'll be spilling all the secrets about boosting your brand building credibility and connecting with community through podcasting. Let's get into the episode.

   Hi friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Good Chats podcast. It is your girl Cass, and we are back with another special guest. And I told you that it was going to be a good one last week. But what I didn't mention was that it was my good friend, Jackie Maloney. Now if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Jackie, she is an absolute ray of sunshine.

  We recorded this back in March or April, so very early on in the year, and we have since become really lovely friends. And this conversation made me smile the entire time. In the episode, we chat about what people can learn about public speaking from Beyonce and Harry Styles. Now, I know that's very on brand for me, but what the hell does it have to do with public speaking?

  Jackie's going to share ways to combat nervous energy on stage. I know for me, I get really sweaty palms and I get a bit nervous, but I actually do like speaking. So. It's something that ever since she told me these tips, I have been able to implement and it's been so great. We also talk about things like, should you prepare or should you riff in your talks?

  There's beauty in both, but we want to just make it clear for you, which one will really help you be the best speaker that you can. We also really want to share about how to build connection on and off stage, so that you're making sure that who you are and what you bring, what your point of view and your values are, are always brought to your speaking gigs, your podcast episodes, if you're a podcast guest, that you're speaking in a way that really helps you connect with your audience and Builds that one on one emotional connection with them so that it's not just like they want something from you and you want something from them.

  It's like, oh, this might be my new friend. Do you ever feel like that when you listen to a podcast? I hope you feel like that with me. That's why I always started with hi friends, because I feel like you are my friends. While we're on the topic, Jackie is launching the playground this week and she has a birthday giveaway for a chance to win a whole year's membership.

  It is a monthly membership for female entrepreneurs, corporate women, and she's wanting to help them take up space on stage and really wanting to help them become better at storytelling and get better at public speaking so that it raises their profiles, their thought leadership, and just to take up space in any capacity.

  So, all of the details will be below for that. But without further ado, welcome my lovely guest and friend, Jackie. Hi Jackie. Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. I'm so excited to talk to you. Is this going to be a chat? I feel this is going to be a chat. I'm sure it is. So, I would love for you to share about you and what you do and how you help people to be better public speakers.

  Yeah. Great. Um, do we have enough time is what I'll first say. It's my podcast. I make the rules. You can have as long as you want. Great. Thank you. I love that, but I won't indulge for the sake of listeners and for the sake of a lot of the things that I teach my own clients about keeping things concise and clear and direct and straight to the point.

  So I'm going to live and die by my own rules for this one here. Sorry. A little bit about me. Cool. I guess. I was always that child that wanted to be an actor when they grew up and did just that. And I can't tell you that it was a linear journey for me. Absolutely not. I think I tried everything in between and it was definitely not a career path that my family, my parents really wanted for me.

  They definitely just wanted the safety route. They wanted me to be able to be financially stable and be able to have opportunities and what have you. And for most people, acting doesn't fit in that category. And I get it. So it was definitely a case of having to prove everyone wrong. And so I'm from Perth originally.

  So I left Perth, I think when I was about 22 and moved to Sydney. And I transferred my commerce degree from Curtin university over there to Macquarie just to keep things amicable with my, with my family. And without letting them know, I dropped out of uni and started a part time acting course in Sydney.

  And then from that, I went to New York to study acting for six months. And that was just like. The biggest eye opener for me as a human, just in terms of how insular my life was until I started traveling and seeing the world from a completely different perspective. And I think the biggest takeaway from me living in New York was my ability to own my vulnerability, because until that point, I thought I knew everything.

  What a joke. But, you know, I had really sort of built myself up to be this young woman who was confident, knew everything about the world. And I just knew nothing. So the ability to for me to now, I had to, I had to learn how to ask for help. I had to. Show emotion, because I was just getting to some stresses and some points in the trip that like my wall could only stay upright for so much longer.

  And then eventually it was just going to come crumbling down and it did, but it was just the most beautiful life lesson that you never knew that you were expecting or needed, but happened at the time that you needed it the most. Um, so. Came back to Sydney, started working as an actor, started booking some TV roles and bits and pieces.

  And slowly, but surely mom and dad came around to the fact that, hang on a second, she can actually make money doing this. So that was great. It really was the pandemic for me that just kind of threw everything into a bit of a tailspin. You know, like you experienced here, I was in Perth at the time, but you know, the thing that I love the most with my acting and doing voiceover just completely stopped and I couldn't do anything.

  And it was that real pivotal moment of, I don't ever want to be classified, or I don't want my passion and my joy in life to ever be classified as non essential, especially from a lot of artists at the time were just going, but what is everyone doing when they're stuck at home? We're binging on Netflix.

  We're listening to music and podcasts. We're consuming books or reading or writing poetry or we're painting or we're picking up something artistic. It's like, yeah, great. That's my lifeline. And you've said that all of these things that we're doing to try and keep ourselves afloat during the pandemic. Is not considered essential.

  It was that real moment of just what am I doing? I didn't want to have to rely on government support. And that really started the process for me, starting my own business about coaching people, how to have that confidence to stand on stage and tell a story like I do as an actor. And it really was also about fine tuning those moments to be able to be on camera and just feel so confident knowing what you're going to say, who you're talking to.

  And delivering that in such a beautiful way that your audience is just like, wow. And they, they feel something from that. So that's where that all started. And, um, I moved to Melbourne in August of last year and just, I'm loving it. I love this city so much. There's just. So much camaraderie going on here, everyone's willing to help each other out, whether it's jump on my podcast and let's help promote each other.

  Let's do a workshop together. Let's do this. And so there's so many things in the works for me at the moment. And I'm just, I'm loving the energy of this city. So that's just a little bit about me trying to keep things as short and concise as I possibly can. There's so much more. That's so amazing. And that's cool that you are a loving Melbourne.

  I absolutely love Melbourne and you're so right with that camaraderie energy. Like there's so many people that are like, Oh, do you want to do this together? Do you want to do that? And I'm like, yeah, I didn't know you would want to work with me. Like, you know, that whole, like, you know, do you just stay in your lane?

  And then someone's like, Oh, do you want to do this together? You're like, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course I do. So nice that you're able to do that. With public speaking and what you help people through, a lot of people are shit scared of public speaking. Petrified. Yeah, I know for myself, I get very, my heart goes, my hands go.

  I don't feel like I'm nervous, but my body is telling me I'm nervous. And acting is something that I always wanted to do as a kid. And I did acting, you know, classes and stuff like that when I was living in California. So there was like lots of things that I would love to do, but then that. You know, even doing a speech at a wedding, I was like, I couldn't even get out the words cause I'm like choking on my own words.

  How do you help people get over those barriers? Yeah. Absolutely. Look, I mean, you're in a very interesting predicament where the fact that, you know, you actually enjoy the process and you enjoy the actual act of doing it. It's just that your body is saying, Hey, hang on a second. And it's definitely, it kind of dates back to that fight or flight mode, right.

  Or our minds trying to keep us safe. And it's in those moments where. We always say, you know, outside of your comfort zone is where the magic happens. And so we're all sort of searching for those moments. And when everyone's just like, yeah, I'm going to speak, but we haven't really turned our mind and our body on to, Hey, this is the new way of being right.

  I've been in my little box for so long and this is my comfort zone. And so we've written a script and we've done, we've said yes to the opportunity. We now just need to tell, Hey, body and mind, this is what's going on for us now. And. As much as we can rehearse a script, we can totally prep our body and our mind to do the same thing in preparation for jumping on stage, doing a podcast, doing a live webinar for the first time sort of thing.

  So a few things that I talk my clients through is just your mind is always going to try and keep you safe. And it's going to have those moments where we really heighten our breath and it starts getting shorter and it starts getting sharper. And what we end up doing is we should be breathing from our diaphragm.

  So right in that beautiful, you know, when you've got that really deep belly bellowing laugh that you hear someone do. That is where we should be breathing from. But a lot of us still breathe from our lungs or think that we should breathe from our lungs. Because when we inhale out, we expand and our lungs fill up with air.

  And then that's our sort of lifeblood. But it's actually not where we should be breathing from. We should be breathing right down here in our bellies. And so when we get nervous, our breath naturally comes up into our chest. Our rib cage prevents our lungs from expanding any further. So there's really no much further to go.

  And so instead of speaking from my belly, like I am now, I'm going to start speaking from my chest. And it's already starting to sound a bit constricted and then I'm going to get nervous and then you're going to add nerves and sweat and everything. And then my voice is going to go up an octave and then we already don't sound like we're confident because we start questioning everything.

  So it's, it's just a whole process that happens, right? And you can feel it happening, but by that time, it's probably a bit too late. So. The biggest thing to consider is breathing and well, before you jump on stage, this is not a moment of okay, quick three deep breaths before I walk out to the podium. No, this is.

  Weeks in advance, just before you go to bed at night, I want you to really just lie down, put your hands on your tummy and practice breathing into your hands and let the, your diaphragm rise and fall rather than your chest rise and fall. And the more you keep doing that. The more you get this beautiful, deep resonance in your voice as well.

  So it's not just your ability to breathe slower. It's just, you get this like beautiful, deep tone in your voice as well. And it just allows your mind to go, okay, this is how we breathe now. And then you'll just find like these micro moments before you jump on stage and you might, you know, put your hand up at a meeting at work, or you might put yourself forward for something.

  And in those moments where you start to feel nervous, it's just like, no, no, no, cool. Just half a second. Just go back to breathing from my diaphragm again, from my belly. Okay. That feels better. Okay, cool. And so, uh, there was this really interesting moment at an event I was at that I ran last week. And it's like micro moments of bravery.

  I want you to do the same with your breathing, just micro moments of, okay, brain, we've been breathing like this for so long. I want to get really good at speaking and really confident. I want to drop my breath down because I know that that is going to make such a difference in so many aspects. And so you're really retraining your body to breathe differently again, so that when you start to get nervous, let's drop our breath straight back into your body and it makes such a difference.

  And so if you practice that well in advance. This starts to go. Okay, cool. This is the new way that we're doing things. Okay, great. And then you kind of taking every, you're going on this journey of preparation with body, mind and soul. Now, instead of just, I'm going to prep my script and then I'm going to rehearse two days beforehand and everything's going to be great by that time.

  It's just too late. So the more prep you can give yourself, the better off you're going to be to sort of balance those nerves as, and the breathing as well. Love that. Do you find that you get nervous at all? Oh, all the time. Yeah. A hundred percent. I cannot, it doesn't go away ever. There was this beautiful quote of your nerves never go away.

  It's your ability to deal with them that changes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's doing the work. It's the visualization techniques that you can do leading up to it. So like the night before. You know, if you visualized the space, the stage, you can see the microphone. It's just like, you know, from the moment you get up, visualize how you want your day to go.

  Yeah. I'm going to get up. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to have my coffee early so that I can clear and get everything ready. And then you just walk yourself through the process of delivering the best speech you possibly can. And so visualization is really important as well. I'm sorry. It's just.

  I know I've got all of that in my toolbox. So in those moments where a slide might not, it stops working, right? So tech fails or someone's coughing or someone walks out of the venue to answer a phone call, panic, right? Normally panic in those moments. I know what I can call on. To be like, I've got this, you know, acknowledge that the person is leaving or do whatever and make a joke about it.

  Don't let them derail all of this beautiful work that you've done. Yeah. Include it in there, make a joke about tech failing and just go, well, I knew this was going to happen. So let's change things up. And then you've already got plan B ready to go. So. Yeah. Of course. Always nervous. But yeah, just relying on a toolbox that I've worked on and having notes and having everything prepped ready to go.

  And I'm just like, I got this. Everything's all good. Yeah. Speaking of your toolbox, do you have any basic do's or don'ts that you help people with? Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot to say between being scripted and speaking on the fly. And there seems to be a huge divide. I often get clients come to me just going, Oh, I'm so much better when I just riff and off the fly.

  And the other classic thing that I always hear is I don't ever want to sound too scripted. And my argument to a lot of those points is when we riff, we lose track of where we are. And there is nothing worse than a speaker that goes over there a lot of time. It's not great for the booker who's booked them.

  It throws out the schedule of the day. It throws out the other speakers that are coming after them who are getting themselves ready to jump on stage. And so you really have no control over your timing, the points that you're trying to make. A lot of times they go around in circles and you're sitting there in the audience, just going.

  Yeah, I, that's a really great story, but you kind of said that like 10 minutes ago. Now we're back there. So I feel like it just doesn't dispel a lot of confidence in the audience. And when they don't feel confident about you, then it's really, really hard for them to make any great takeaways from it. My other counter argument is the fact that Beyonce rehearsed.

  For Coachella for eight months before she got on stage. And she is one of the best entertainers of our generation, but she knows that the more prep that she does in the lead up, it means that when she's on stage, she knows where every light is going to hit her. She knows where every dancer is going to be at any one moment.

  And she is allowed to be in her Sasha fears and connect with her audience because she knows everything else is going to happen, like fuck work. And then we get this Beyonce that we know and love. And it's the same with actors, right? To do a stage show, you'll be rehearsing for eight to 12 weeks for a four week show, right?

  The scripts are there. We know everything back to front so that if we do drop a line, our fellow actor is there to pick us up and get us back to where we need to go again. So when you don't have that structure. And you're off the cuff and you're riffing, it's really, really hard to get yourself back on track again.

  So, there is a part of me that really loves a good script just to get the skeleton of your script down pat. And then you can fill in the gaps, but just, yeah, please be mindful that time is of the essence. And when your audience attention span is getting less and less every single time. If you're giving them any reason to go off track with you, it's really, really hard to pull them back.

  So having a really good, clear idea of what you want to speak about is going to speak volumes for you. As I said, your breath work, making sure you're drinking so much water. It's inevitable that you're going to get a dry mouth when you get nervous or when you're speaking a lot. So water is so important.

  My clients hate me when I say no caffeine before a speaking gig, because Caffeine is terrible for your vocal cords and so is milk. So if you're a milk coffee drinker, forget about it. Yeah. I was actually at that Beyonce Coachella performance. Oh my god, amazing. And when you were talking about it, I literally had chills on me because anytime Think about that Coachella performance.

  I had tears pouring down. Like it makes me physically emotional because of how spectacular it was. So that when I watched the Netflix documentary about it, I had tears. Like every now and then they would just. Come out and I was like, this was just the most incredible thought out. She's so incredibly smart and prepared and it's, she's just such a true performer that it, you can't appreciate it enough.

  And to be there when it happened was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. So. So good with the eight months of, and I honestly, like we, we had only booked because we knew she was going to be there because the year before she had said, I've got to postpone it till next year because I'm having the twins.

  So I won't be there this year. So we said, okay, well, let's just buy the tickets for next year then. Cause we know that she's going to be there. And then when we were there, cause we were like, oh, you know, like how much difference is it going to be? And when we were there, we were like, holy smacks. This is why it took so long to prepare for.

  And it was just not just her, just like the whole production was literally flawless. Like it was the most beautiful show I've ever seen. And I love it. The biggest, I guess the chalk and cheese moments. I was at a CEO breakfast in Perth a couple of years back and there were two keynote speakers, both female, both from very different industries and very different parts of their journey as well.

  It was almost like comparing Beyonce to comparing an up and comer, just the thought process of this one speaker. She didn't have slides. She didn't have a script. She had her lapel mic on, so she wasn't holding anything. And she took up every bit of that stage. She connected with eye contact with every single human in that room that could have been close to 200 people who were eating and drinking somewhere on their phones.

  It was a business y breakfast thing. And then the second lady got up now, she stood behind a podium. She had pages of a script. She looked down because she had to read from her script. So there was only minute moments of, of eye contact with the audience. And I clocked into the rhythm of her script and there were no moments for pausing.

  For the audience to take in that she said, she never repeated anything to make sure that that was a point that she wanted to get across. And I stopped counting. I had the piece of paper with all the branding on it. And I stopped counting her arms and eyes at 95 for a scripted piece of content like that.

  It was just, you couldn't compare the two women, but I can tell you, and I can still remember every single word that this first woman spoke about because she had this ability to capture the audience because she had done the work. Connection is so key. Oh, so important, right? So it really speaks for doing on the fly and not having these micro moments to connect with the audience versus.

  Having a script rehearsing and getting it down, packed, and then you get these moments to go out into your audience and go see this, see me. I'm telling you that something that's raw and vulnerable and there are lessons in here for everyone, even if you haven't gone through what I've been through. And so that performance or that speech, that keynote was really.

  One of the big driving forces behind the way I go about speaking myself or the way I go about coaching my clients, because I wanna be her . Yeah. So whatever she does, I'm gonna emulate. I'm gonna practice so I can get better and better and be just like her. Yeah. Because that speech just like knocked the wind out of my sails.

  It was so moving and so beautiful versus someone who was reading off pages of a script. Behind a like, it's just the physicality of it was just so different as well. Yeah. It's, it's also very hard when it's two people straight after each other, where you see the, the difference and you see the disconnect, like that must be a hard thing to follow as well as the speaker for sure.

  Uh, if you're not feeling as prepared as, as you know, the person before you, so, Ooh, yeah. Just as a side note, I recently went and saw Harry Styles and the way you and half of Melbourne. Literally, the way he connects with the people in the crowd, it's no wonder people pay so much money to go and see him.

  He is so beautiful, the way he looks at people. I watched him like go over to someone, say, are you okay? They must've said no. He said, do you want water? He went and got water while he's singing a song, by the way. So that no one else noticed, none of my friends noticed, but I watched him go and get water from like, got his person backstage to go get some water.

  He got it, then threw it out to the person so that they were okay. And then came back after the song was finished and checked on her and make sure she was okay. Like the connection that he has with so many people in that audience, the personal connection is just. It's such one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen.

  And I had like post Harry depression because it was literally like, it was a beautiful show and it was lovely. And, and, and, you know, he's a great performer, but like seeing this like kind person that I felt connected to and then to like never see him again, I'm like. I don't know if I can, if I can do that.

  Like he, he made me feel something. And that's the thing I was saying, like making people feel something is so special. And for someone to be able to do that as a performer is incredible. And it's memorable. You still get chills from, you know, thinking about Beyonce, about thinking about Harry, you know, and that is what us as artists and speakers, we strive for.

  We strive for that connection with our audience. So Whatever prep we can do so that we get to be there in the moment and have a conversation with people or he just gets to perform the way Harry gets to perform knowing that. The production is still going to have his back, the band, the everything, the lights.

  They're just going to follow him because they know they've practiced this in rehearsal. So then he just gets to be Harry. Yeah. So I love making that connection between what type of speaker do you want to be? It's just like, do you want to stand behind a like turn with notes? Or do you want to get to be your own Harry or your own Beyonce where you actually get to be out in the audience and touch people?

  Maybe not physically, but maybe you do or hand them water bottles or, you know, you have those moments where they reach out to you afterwards and just be like, your words spoke to me in a way I've never heard them before, but I've heard someone talk about that theory or that idea a million times, just never the way that you've said it.

  Yeah. Cause sometimes you, you hear those same ideas. Like really, how many new ideas are you hearing? It's just hearing it in a different way and in the form that someone's done it in the lead up the way that they can emotionally connect with you. I think that's why people like Mel Robbins and Brene Brown, like they connect with people so well because they're great storytellers and they can really make things emotional.

  Like someone else could have said the exact same thing to me that I would have heard on a podcast or a TED talk or something like that. But. If they don't say in the way that I feel something that I'm likely not going to remember. They make themselves relatable. Yeah, for sure. There's an incredible podcast and it was early on when Mel Robbins launched her Mel Robbins podcast.

  So I think just this year, and she was talking with a communications expert and there was something to be said and Mel Robbins does this better than anybody. And she didn't know that she was doing this before this podcast, but for instance, with your phone and when you're talking to your audience.

  Different distances that you have when you talk on camera to your audience. mean different things. So the way that Mel takes up her entire face in your screen is a very intimate way of communication, right? And so therefore your audience feels propelled to really listen or feels like you're talking directly to them.

  The next distance out means something else. The next distance out means something else. And the next distance out, I think there were four different, your relation to the camera at four different distances, all meant slightly different things to the audience watching. It's a fascinating podcast. I'll get it for you and send it if you want to put it in the show notes.

  But Mel didn't know that this is what she was doing. And then it made complete sense when she would get DMS just saying, Oh my God, I love your stories. I feel like you're talking right to me because she takes up so much space. It's like a FaceTime that you do with your mom. That's exactly what she does.

  So this is why she gets connection with her audience in the way in which she does. She knows she was doing it, but that's actually subliminally what she's doing. So it's fascinating. And she has that very low tone, it is that like FaceTime with your mum kind of thing because I feel like the tone in which she talks is so calm and nurturing, it feels nurturing to me.

  And so it feels like, okay, whatever she's talking about means something special because it's, she's talking to me. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. Going back to what you were talking about with the two people on stage, do you think it was, A more clear thing to you because of the media training that you do help people with because what does that media training look like?

  Yeah, sure. Great question. I was very, very early days in my business at that point. So I didn't really know what I was coaching. So it was actually perfect for me to have these two scenarios play out right in front of me. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, cool. Well, if my point of difference, or if the type of speaker that I Jackie want to be is this.

  Then that's the type of training I want to be able to give to others as well, right? You know, I want to coach those who are invested in the process and are not just sort of doing it because. They want to be a speaker and relying on reading from their phone or reading from notes or whatever. There's an element of public speaking to me that is a performance, whether you like it or not.

  A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And so I think with my acting background, that's just where, like, I get chills now thinking about what performance means to me and it is being on stage and connecting with your audience. So if that means prepping, then that's the way I want to coach, right? So I guess for me, I'm in a.

  Interesting area of being an actor and a voiceover artist. And so I can coach on those vocal elements and, you know, breathing is just one thing, but there are a number of different other things that I can help coach people if they do want to simply just do more podcasts. Yeah, I had one client come to me and she's like, Oh, I just don't sound professional enough.

  And then I said, great. I just want you to talk to me. We were just on zoom. I just want you to talk to me about what you do for a living and for five minutes and then I can pick up on some vocal patterns or tones or whatever. The number of times this particular client said, like. You know, all of these filler words.

  And I was like, no wonder you see yourself as not coming across as professional because your dialogue is not reading as professional. You're relying on ums and ahs. And, you know, if I was to say, like, Um, well, you know, when someone comes to you and they really want help in this area, but like, um, you know, it's just, I've spoken to 30 seconds and none of that's helpful.

  You're like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about, but I know what I mean. Yeah. So there's a huge part of me that just wants to eradicate that from the English language and let's all get comfortable in the pause. I don't have to fill every single moment with noise and I don't have to fill it with umming and ah ing and it is a sense of I know exactly what I wanted to come on and say to you today Cass and that's what I'm doing.

  I don't need to um and ah because I had clear intentions. I've got notes. And I prepared those notes and I practiced those notes and now we get to riff and have a conversation. But I don't need to necessarily think about the next thing that I want to say because we're just in this together and it's a conversation now.

  So that is a lot of stuff that I work with my clients as well. But. You know, having stage presence is something I feel so strongly about and working with some incredible humans who are so intelligent at the top of their game, but put a camera in front of them or put them on stage and they just don't know what to do.

  Yeah. And if you can't communicate what you know, then that's where the real struggle is for so many people wanting to make change in the industry or.

  It's the ability to communicate and that's really where the essence of my training and wanting to help my clients with is to take that next step up in their journey of whatever industry they happen to be in. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think a lot of the time. I hear people talking on podcasts, especially as a guest, they say a lot of ums and a lot of filler words and that's where I'm constantly cutting out because I want it to sound much more professional, much more articulate than it is.

  And it's okay if they can't, you know, they can't get it out the first time because I say, you know, every now and then. But I hear a lot of ums and not drives me crazy, but it's, it's, I hear it a lot. So. I notice a lot more when they're guests than when they are running their own podcast because they're used to talking to people and they get in such a good habit of knowing what they're talking about, exactly what you're saying, having those questions.

  We send out questions earlier on so that people can prepare some answers to them so that it is an easy riff. Would you recommend people if they're just looking to be a guest rather than actually being a podcast host, if they just wanted to be a guest, would you recommend that they still get some training to help them through?

  Yeah, so I read this thing this morning. It was actually an email marketer. It's a speaking coach in the US. And I guess it was her argument as to why everyone should have a signature speech, a signature talk, just have it, have it written, feel really good about it. So if you ever get asked to do a half hour keynote, it's done.

  What that signature talk does for you then is it just means that the ideas are there. You've written them. You've practiced them. You felt them in your body. When it comes time to doing a workshop, it just gets shortened, or you might pick points and elaborate on them a little bit more to make it a teachable moment.

  Or then you get an opportunity to do a podcast. Again, you take those moments from your signature talk. And it's just basically what we call redoing your content or. You know, just repurposing is the word that I'm looking for. Perfect. We're not reinventing the wheel every single time. We don't have to go and do hours and hours of work to prep for every opportunity we get given.

  We do the work upfront and then we get to pick and choose the bits that we want dependent on who the podcast interviewer is. Or the topic that we're talking about, or, you know, maybe I get asked to talk on something slightly skew if to public speaking, I'm still going to take some of the lessons and the things that I coach my clients with, but I might then add a few other things that I have again in my toolbox or things that I've read or listened to, to make it more relatable for that audience.

  Yeah. It still stays true to my thought leadership in my space. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. I think. It's so important to be so clear on your point of view in this world, in your industry, that makes you different. What do you value and have a list, have a document, have something ready to go so that when the podcast interview comes up, and if that's your goal to do more of them, you've done the work, babe.

  And then you just get to rehearse and just rejig it. And maybe you do a little bit more research to make it more relatable to that podcast. And then you're ready to go again. And then we don't need these ums, uhs, thinking of things, Oh God, I've got to do another interview. I've got to do all this work.

  It's done. We've done it. Yeah. Being prepared is so important. And I definitely recommend that to people that are being a guest on a podcast. I speak mostly to people that are podcast hosts, but I always say to help. Your guests be the most prepared that they can be. Make sure you're sending questions out to them as far in advance as you can, at least a couple of days to make sure that they can get their head around what they want to say.

  And then with the podcast guests, like I've written a couple of blogs about it, having little stories. Ready to go for those questions so that when it does naturally lead into that question, you've got the story ready. It's a beautiful thing because you already know what you're talking about. You're already ready to go and same with talking about your services.

  So I think. A lot of the time when people are a podcast host, they forget to talk about themselves and talk about what they do. They just talking about what the other person does. So, and, and that's a beautiful thing that we're able to share that with each other, but it's also, you're not interacting with them and not making a good conversation.

  It needs to be more than an interview and it needs to be more conversation about, okay, you were talking about Beyonce. I could have let that whole thing go without letting me know that I was there, you know, like. Those kinds of things, not that they've got to do with my business, but, you know, an experience of mine that shows personality or shows, you know, my chosen music type or whatever, to be able to get to know you more.

  I think that's really important to have. Not only when you're a podcast host to have the questions ready so that they can have some stories ready, but have some stories ready for yourself so that you can talk about how, when you've done this certain thing, you've either helped someone through something or you.

  You just have a fun story to tell, to add to building your brand. It makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. A friend of mine got me onto Sarah Blakely, who is the founder of Spanx. And she has just recently done a whole thing on masterclass. And I think it was 200 and something minutes worth, and I probably consumed it in a day or just over a day.

  I was just obsessed. And then I listened to a podcast that she did with Tony Robbins. And I kid you not, it was honestly, word for word her story about how she started Spanx with 5, 000, what she did, she wrote her own patents and then she got a lawyer to quickly just do the legal side of things, you know, how she went to Bergdorf Goodman and, you know, actually showed the difference between wearing a set of white pants with, and without Spanx to the woman who is the buyer for Bergdorf, like I can regurgitate every single thing because I've now heard her say it three different occasions.

  Yeah. In different mediums as well. Yep. So one was a podcast. We need to be so much more involved and energetic when it comes to a podcast, because our voice is the only medium that we have. When we have video, we have a physical element. When we do public speaking, we have an audience. We hope that we've garnered a little bit more of their attention because they're live there in front of us, but that's never a given, but on podcasts, we just do need to do a little bit more work just to make sure our audience really does hear what we're saying.

  Cause I mean, let's be honest podcasts, you're walking the dog or you're taking the kids to school in the car. Like we are distracted when we're listening to podcasts. I don't think I could personally just sit there with my headphones in and just listen to a podcast without. Needing to do something else.

  It's a multitasking thing. It's a multitasking thing. So we need to do a little bit more work as both a podcast host and as a guest. Because our only medium to use is our voice. So yeah, but Sarah Blakely word for word, every single time, she doesn't have to think about it. She doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time she gets interviewed.

  And the more we hear her story, the more we just go, Oh yeah. Remember that she did that. That's right. I should do that. And it's just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Yeah. And so, she always ready, girl. She is always ready. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. We have a quick little game of smash or pass.

  Smash being two thumbs up, pass being throwed in the bin. Oh, see, now I'm nervous because I'm not prepared, I'm joking, let's go. Smash or pass horror movies. Oh, throw them in the bin. I hate them. I hate them. What about thriller movies? Do you like thriller movies? Nah, same vein. It's just, yep, not my jam. Give me an action film any single day of the week.

  That's a smash. Alright. I'll remember that. Yeah. Coconut Margs. Ooh, I can't say I've ever had one. Do you like a normal margarita? I love a Tommy's margarita. Oh, I do like a Tommy's margarita. Yes. Yeah. So I think I'm neutral on that one. Okay. All right. You don't have to have it. We just keep it in the middle.

  Yeah. The Bachelor. Oh, absolute throw it in the bin and lock it and throw away the key or bury the key or throw it out to see somewhere. I have a very interesting story about that. Uh, when they were, um, I think a couple of years ago, they did the application round and a friend of mine actually said, you should apply for it.

  And I put it on my Instagram stories and I probably had to disown about 20 or 30 people who said, you should absolutely go. And like, you know, please apply. We totally watch you. And I was like, Oh, we can't be friends. You don't know at all. This is like the worst thing ever. In the bin, in the middle of the ocean and the key is the other way.

  Oh my gosh. Strong pass. Strong. Yep. Instagram filters. Look, there is a time and I'm going to say. Smash. Yeah. And hear me out on this one. The number of clients that come to me and say, I hate the way I look, therefore I don't like doing stories. Hmm. Hmm. Great. Chuck a filter on it, babe. And let's get to work is my answer to that, right?

  Whatever gets you through, whatever gets you through. Having said that, please don't have. A distracting filter with things floating around. If you're a business coach, right. That doesn't make sense to me. Don't make it. So not you that I'm looking at this, just going, but I know Cass and that's not how she is at all.

  Yeah. But most of the time, if I'm doing my stories, I don't have makeup on. It's just not something that I like to do during the day. Yeah. Chuck a filter on it, get the story done and no more excuses as far as I'm concerned. So that's how I feel about filters. Cool. All right. Last one. Smash or pass musical stage shows.

  Musicals. Okay. Controversial opinion as an actor. I hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Why? Because there is a level of fakeness. For me that I just can't get on board with because I think it's just like, they're telling this beautiful story and then everyone launches into song and dance. I was like, Oh, I was really into the story.

  And then you just ruined it. I also am very distracted by musicals because of how much detail things go into costuming staging. They want to put levels. So they'll have some dancers up here and then the lead characters here, but then they might move over here. So I'm focusing on them, but then I feel like I'm missing out on something over there.

  So I'm running around the stage, just going, I want to take her all in, but I, my eyes and my mind only allow for a little bit at a time. So I hate them. Have you said that Hamilton and, uh, which one did the boys do from South Park? Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon, yes. Incredible. Yeah. Incredible. I haven't seen Book of Mormon, but I've seen Hamilton, and I loved it.

  Yeah. Uh, I love musicals, but it's so right with looking everywhere, and from a performance side, I'm always looking at... Like not the main performers. I'm looking at what everyone else is doing. I'm looking at, you know, in Hamilton, all the chairs going up. I'm looking at everyone's in sync. Is everyone, you know, Oh, this person just went and changed costume.

  Like I'm, I'm thinking about it too much. Do you do that as well when you're watching TV shows or watching movies, thinking about their acting? Oh, all the time. Yeah. It kind of ruins it for you. It ruins it. I remember, I went in, I did a float tank once, and normally I just do silence and I opted this time to do a guided meditation the whole time for 75 minutes.

  I just went, Oh, she didn't inflect there. Oh my God. She didn't pause there. That was the end of a thought. So she hasn't started her new thought with like a clear delineation between, Oh, it was a mess. It's the worst flow I've ever done. So I do need, it's hard to switch off. It's really hard to switch off.

  Yeah. I find that with, uh, with audio now a lot where I'm listening to, I listen to people talk and I hear them say, um, and I want to cut it. And then I realized where I am and I'm not in. I'm not listening to, like, I, I'm listening to someone speak and I'm like, Oh yeah, no, that, that, that is, that is speaking.

  Yep. Thank you so much for coming to chat to me. Where can people find you and come and connect if they're looking for some media training, public speaking help? Absolutely. So I'm doing a lot of one on one work at the moment. And so a lot of my clients are working at that long term. We're doing their signature talk so that they can break off and do podcasts and like amazing like, uh, webinars and things like that.

  So I do four month coaching, one-on-one, so you can really get me and we nut out script everything. Mm-hmm . Um, so Instagram is great for me. So at Jackie Maloney coaching, uh, on LinkedIn, I share a lot there as well. We'll make sure we put all of those links in the show note. Thank you. Thank you so much and if everyone else, we'll chat to you next week.

  We want to say thanks so much for joining us for another good chat. We would love if you would help us with our 2023 goal to get to 100 ratings and reviews, and then send this podcast on to someone who you think will love it just as much. Connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram like good chat media, and we'll chat with you next week. Bye. This podcast was produced by good chat media.