Open Strong, Practice Deep: My Speaking Playbook

Have you ever watched someone hold a room so fully that time seemed to pause? That was my grandma Gwen. She was a famous antiques lecturer with style and spark. For example, she often wore a Victorian outfit and lifted a piece of Flow Blue pottery as she spoke. Because she told stories, history felt close. She could talk about sterling tableware, Civil War furniture, or nineteenth-century silhouettes for hours. Yet people stayed, laughed, and then lined up to ask more.

Last week at #SuperCrowdLA, I thought of her as I stepped onstage. My heart raced. Still, I chose to call it excitement—the same bright energy my grandma used to light up every audience.

Lesson 1: Open with something real

Don’t start with a pitch. Instead, start with a moment you lived—a memory, a single image, a reason to care. I anchor my opening with one clear picture and one word to set the tone. Because the start is clean, people lean in and follow.

Lesson 2: Keep the energy moving

Transitions hold a talk together. My grandma used short quotes, surprising facts, or quick stories to link her points. Likewise, I use one-word slide cues—“why,” “story,” “proof,” “ask”—to stay focused. As a result, ideas flow and the audience never feels lost.

Lesson 3: Practice more than feels comfortable

Writing once is not enough. I practice out loud until the words stop sounding like lines and start sounding like me. Consequently, the message feels true, and people feel it too.

The human side of stage presence

Getting on stage mixes thrill and nerves. Nevertheless, each time we do it, we grow a bit. My grandma taught me that presence grows when you let yourself be seen and invite others into your story. Therefore, I treat the butterflies as fuel.

Your next step

In short: open real, move with purpose, and practice past comfort. If you do, your talk will carry command, clarity, and warmth. Most importantly, it will move people. Step onstage, be present, and let your story do the rest.