Build A Magnetic Presence and Become Confident in Public Speaking with Adriana Baer

Join us on the Scenic Route Podcast as we welcome Adriana Baer, a seasoned public speaking coach and former theatre director, to share her expert insights into overcoming public speaking anxiety. In conversation, we dive deep into practical strategies for turning pre-speech jitters into an electrifying presence.

Adriana Baer brings a wealth of experience, guiding listeners through embracing their authenticity to make a genuinely impactful message. Discover the art of storytelling, and learn how to debunk the common myths around public speaking. Whether you're an empath, an introvert, or someone who wants to improve their oratory skills, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways.

We explore childhood persuasion tactics as a foundation for powerful communication and discuss how to engage any audience confidently. Get tips on tailoring your message for maximum impact and learn the secrets to maintaining a charismatic presence without feeling drained.

Why You Should Listen to This Episode

• Unlock the Secrets of Public Speaking
  Adriana Baer shares her professional techniques for mastering public speaking and turning your anxiety into an impressive, engaging delivery.
• Deepen Audience Connection
  Delve into audience awareness strategies that help you read the room and communicate more effectively, ensuring your message isn't just heard but felt.
• Enhance Your Communication Toolkit
  Discover the pillars of effective communication and presentation skills that can set you apart in personal and professional settings.
• Maintain Your Energy in Tricky Situations
  Learn how to create a charismatic presence while establishing energy boundaries, which is crucial for empaths and introverts who thrive on genuine connections.

Tune in to the Scenic Route podcast with Adriana Baer and elevate your public speaking skills to connect confidently with any audience.



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Download her 5-minute guided audio meditation GET GROUNDED. In just 5 minutes, this guided audio meditation will move you from anxious to empowered.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Mastering Public Speaking
• 10:21 Audience Awareness in Communication
• 22:35 Effective Communication and Presentation Skills
• 36:30 Creating Charisma and Energy Boundaries
• 52:04 Get Grounded Meditation and Creative Inspiration

Transcript

Jennifer Walter: 0:00

Adriana Baer is a public speaking coach whose mission is to help clients claim their stage, radiate confidence and charisma, propel their career and increase their impact. With over 20 years as a professional theater director and arts leader, adriana brings a unique perspective and a practical and actionable set of tools to her coaching. In addition to her private coaching practice, she has worked and lectured at dozens of theaters, colleges and universities nationwide. Adriana holds a Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master of Fine Arts in directing from Columbia University. She offers courses and coaching to her company Claim Center Stage.

Jennifer Walter: 0:34

Adriana, welcome to Scenic Route podcast. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. So they were talking about speech and how we communicate, how we talk. How did this topic find you, adriana? Well, I actually was a kid who wanted to be an actor when I grew up, so I started from elementary school, primary school, performing on stage, and that journey is what eventually led me to becoming a speaking coach. But between the world of being an actor and where I am now was a long time as a professional theater director, and so my background is really in helping people tell their stories authentically and truthfully in front of other people. So that is the world that I? That's how I approach speaking In your experience, when you work with people of all sorts and backgrounds.

Jennifer Walter: 1:44

What are the common obstacles or perceived obstacles that people have or and claim to have, that you hear every day Like, oh, I don't know, I can't talk, my voice sounds funny or I don't know, what is it? Yeah, I love that you say the what are the perceived obstacles? Because so much of this work is mindset. It's just, you know, and it's all the same stuff, right, okay, of your other episodes and it's all the same stuff. It's just I know it's getting boring. It's mindset or it's like breathing through and you're like tell me something new, for God's sake.

Jennifer Walter: 2:21

But I mean, but what's interesting is, you know, I think with public speaking it's gotten such a bad rap. You know, it says there's so much statistical data and analysis that says that you know, somewhere between, depending on the study you're looking at 40 to 75% of the people on the planet named public speaking as as scary or scarier than death, and I think that, yeah, I know it's shocking and the joke that people say is hard for me to imagine, because Me too, me too, me too. But the joke that people say, of course, is like oh, people are more afraid of giving the eulogy at the funeral than being the person being eulogized, right? And you know, I think that's sort of tongue in cheek, but I think what happens with people is they get this idea early on that they're afraid of public speaking and that becomes kind of part of their identity. And so a lot of times where this comes from is just bad experiences really early on, like having to memorize some document and then perform it in front of your class when you're 13, 14, 15 years old and you don't really have any guidance. You do it. It's kind of awful, maybe it's probably a text you don't like. It's probably a text you don't like, right? It doesn't mean anything. How do you connect with it? And you know, here in the States we have the Declaration of Independence and everybody's supposed to memorize this document. That was written, you know, hundreds of years ago by a bunch of grumpy, cis white dudes, you know, and we're all supposed to relate to it somehow.

Jennifer Walter: 4:03

So a lot of people get in their heads early on oh, I'm bad at this or I don't like this, and so one thing that that leads to is this you know, we start having these fears in that live somewhere in our psyche. These are in our bodies that we bring forward with us just throughout the world which can't, or throughout our time out you know, out in the world which could be anything from. You know, every time I'm going to go talk in front of a group of people, I get butterflies in my stomach or I start to feel nauseous, or I, like you said, breathe through like I can't breathe, or I don't know how to speak properly, I don't know how to hold this microphone right, or it's this sort of external thing. I feel like I'm being judged, or the audience is out there and they're they feel scary to me. I don't know what they're thinking of me, that kind of thing, yeah, I think, for my guess is for your audience and similar for many of the people I coach who are business owners or entrepreneurs or leaders the what of what they're going to say, the kind of content part that's actually generally the easiest for people because they're really familiar with.

Jennifer Walter: 5:21

Like, this is my pitch, this is my tagline, this is the thing that I do, this is who I serve. So it's really that you know stuff about myself, my mindset, my body, my experience or the other, the audience, those people out there that people get really tripped up on. And so the first thing that I always encourage people to do there's two things. The first is really figure out for yourself what is it? What is, what is the nerves? I mean, I've been performing and public speaking my entire life and I still get nervous before I give a talk, right as it follows a bit of being a bit of nervous, feeling a bit of nervous is quite okay and healthy and it shows that something you is, something you care about and it's important to you, right? Yeah, and adrenaline is a helpful chemical in our body that kind of makes our brains work faster, gets us going, makes us a little bit more charismatic yeah, so we want to figure out what that is.

Jennifer Walter: 6:21

The other thing I encourage people to remember and sometimes this is the first thing time anybody's ever thought of it this way is that my definition of public speaking is any time you are talking to one or more other people you don't know very well, does yourself count? Like when you talk to yourself, no, in public space, nope, nope, not well, I mean, I suppose it no. So, like, drink that out, ask it for a friend? Yeah for sure, yeah, definitely. I mean, like right now, I would consider this to be public speaking. You and I don't know each other. We're connecting, we know we're going to be listened to by an audience. You know, hello, audience, I know you're out there. Yeah, we love you.

Jennifer Walter: 7:07

And so when I say that people go, oh well, I guess I'm public speaking all the time. Then, right, yeah, we're braiding your contributing. Yeah, and I don't say that to freak people out. I actually say that to just say you know, we've got to break down this notion that to get good at public speaking you have to get comfortable standing on a stage in front of a thousand people. Yeah, we always kind of like, imagine, when I I mean, I'm guilty too when I read, oh, public speaking, my mind automatically goes to like pet talks. Yeah, most people do. And then you think, well, what does that have to do with me? Well, a lot of people who are building their own businesses and their own brands and their own worlds. They need to be able to communicate their message to their target audience, whether that target audience is their internal team or their key stakeholders, or they're pitching something for funding.

Jennifer Walter: 8:11

There's all these different places where opening our mouths and talking about what we care about shows up Absolutely. I mean regardless where you're at, whether you have your own business, whether you're in corporate, whether you're a stay at home mom you, if you can influence the way you speak so others will listen. I mean checkbox. I mean if I get my kid to listen to me, to actually really listen to me, I'm like, yes, oh, my gosh, that's so funny, I so. So this is a slight tangent, but I think it's really relevant, which is so.

Jennifer Walter: 8:50

My, my daughter is seven, and you. You told me your son's about four, and right around when my daughter was four ish, my husband and I started realizing that he's. He was in the theater too, so he has a theater background as as well, and we started realizing that she was incredibly good at what we call, in the theater, playing her objective or trying her different tactics. So, for example, if so, this is what I teach a lot of the time, and this example works really well for people's brains I always say, okay, who is your audience and what do you want them to do? Right, so that's a really important piece of public speaking that people forget. They forget to think about the other people. So, yeah, when I'm, when I'm talking to an audience, I have an objective. Is my objective to educate, to incentivize, to entertain, to entertain, to galvanize to? You know, if I'm running for public office, I want them to vote for what is? What is the thing that I want them to do? Then I have all these different tactics to achieve that goal. Some is storytelling, maybe it's, you know, giving examples, maybe it's visuals. In the theater, when we're on stage, characters do this too. They say I want that person to fall in love with me. So here are the tactics I'm going to use to get that thing to happen From googly eyes to whatever, right, yeah.

Jennifer Walter: 10:21

So with my kid she was getting, she was figuring out I was her audience and the thing that she wanted was a cookie, right. So first we got Can I have a cookie? No, nice, try. Next, right, can I please have a cookie? No, not right now. Then she would try another tactic like cookie, cookie, cookie, cookie, cookie, no, Okay. Then she'd like try to go get the cookie herself right and like try to start pulling stool out.

Jennifer Walter: 10:57

She did all these different tactics and I would just watch her doing this, cracking up, because I was like, girl, you don't know who you're talking to. I got your number, I'm not new to this Like thank you very much. Oh, this is my zone, man, you are in my world now, girl. But I'd be like, oh, but this is so fascinating because she's, this is what we all do, we have to. We actually just know how to do this. Like we don't have to learn it, we just know Right, instinct, yeah, like with so many things, we know things as children that we then unlearn or forget as adults. And like getting trained out of us while we go through certain schools or academia. Like certain things, definitely, yeah, right, and you know. Or polite behavior wouldn't be appropriate for me to like just yell at somebody cookie, cookie, cookie, you know. But although I'm really tempted to do that sometimes you should, yeah, so I think you know.

Jennifer Walter: 12:00

When I give that example people, you know it's, it's clear, it's like right, okay. So what are these different tactics that we can put into place that get me my, that achieve my goal, whatever my goal is? But if we don't know who we're talking to and we don't know what our goal is, then our message is always going to fall flat. It's just not going to be specific enough, it's not going to be pointed, it's not going to be clear. Yeah, you know I'm so, I, okay, I can, like I, I hear the devil's, the devil's advocate argument for me. Okay, so, how, this makes total sense. If we like talking in a meeting and we know our boss, we know our coworkers, like, we know them, that's fine.

Jennifer Walter: 12:46

But now we're going to do the bloody TED talk and how am I supposed to know that audience? Oh, I'm so glad you asked this question. Okay, I was like, oh, it's on a silver tablet, I just have to go grab it. Thank you, okay. So here's the thing. The answer to your, the actual factual answer to your question, is you don't know. You don't know. Sure, right, okay, my mind gets behind that. Yeah, you don't know. Here's what you do know. You know you can find out a certain set of factual information about the people who are going to be there, right, mm-hmm, you know how many people are going to be there most likely. You generally know can find out the demographic or the average demographic of the people who are going to be there by finding out from past TED talks at that same venue, talking to the, to the conference presenter, whatever it is.

Jennifer Walter: 13:44

So there's two kind of ways that you can approach this, and generally you can also kind of do both of them. One is to really actually dig and try to find out who is actually going to be in that room. If you happen to know somebody who is going to be there that day, you can decide and I'll explain why this works that that person is your audience. Just that one person. Yeah, let's call her Jennifer. Oh wait, no, we can't do that because you're Jennifer. Sarah, oh, oh, great, sure. So Jennifer, your talk that somebody. So you're the, you're the person speaking. You're going to do its TED talk. You know your friend Samantha's I mean, I talk to myself all the time anyway. So that perfect example works. So you could decide okay, samantha isn't going to be in the audience, this talk is for her.

Jennifer Walter: 14:39

Now, what if you don't know anybody and you don't have Samantha and you can't get all this information? You're going to invent a character who is your audience. You're going to get as specific as you possibly can about who that person is. This is a 45 year old woman. She has, you know, this kind of employment. This is her hopes and dreams. This is her family situation. Today she was coming here and she was taking the bus and the bus broke down and so she's rushed and you can get as specific as you want with who that character is. So you're building the whole story. Yeah, so this is what.

Jennifer Walter: 15:21

If you ever see an actor doing a monologue, so in which they're talking to it's just them on stage, they're talking to a character who's not there, they have to do that work. They've got to invent what the other character looks like, sounds like, is behaving, or how they move like exactly on the stage. So they kind of like react. Yeah, yep, oh yeah, so it's rare that you'll see that kind of thing. But let's say, you've got a character who's talking to a ghost or you know, talking to somebody on the phone. This happens all the time right, they're on the phone. There's actually nobody on the other side of the phone, but they've got to create the whole relationship. They've got to create the whole relationship with that other character, and so their homework, and the work of the speaker as well, is to create that character.

Jennifer Walter: 16:14

Who are who literally asked the question who am I talking to? Now, what happens, because you've asked that specific question, is that your language gets, by default, gets clearer and clearer and clearer Because, for example, the way that you are going to talk to, let's say, of you know, the woman we just described, that you've invented, samantha, versus a room full of 70-year-old VC venture capital funding people. It's very different, right? And what you want those people to do because of your message will also dictate your energy or presentation style, the words that you use. Now it could be and I think this is important distinction you might say my goal is the same. My goal is I want Samantha to buy my product. My goal is I want these you know this room full of venture capital dudes to buy my product. Same goal, different audiences, different tactics yeah, different. Same goal. Different audience. Like demand, different tactics Right, otherwise, you're just kind of like yelling at the wall, yeah, and so you can see it.

Jennifer Walter: 17:35

I think in TED Talks it's a great example and it's a really helpful tool to kind of just go through YouTube and pick, you know, like five random TED Talks. You don't even have to watch the whole thing. Watch, like, the first three minutes. You'll be able to tell. Even if you don't, you know, if you're conscientiously looking for it, you'll see right away if the person talking has figured out who they're talking to or not, and usually when they don't, you're like that kind of falls flat. I don't feel that connected to it.

Jennifer Walter: 18:06

So yeah, even if the topic is interesting, is that something that we kind of like just generalize as like charisma as well? Well, charisma, I think, is something that you can learn and hone, but what you'll find, I think, energy-wise is that when somebody is just speaking kind of generally to whoever, often what will happen is like their energetic reach will kind of stop at the edge of the stage or even on a Zoom room. It'll sort of just stop. You won't feel like they're reaching through to connect with you or with their audience. They're just more focused on what I call the first two circles of speaking, which is myself and what I'm saying, and then they go into that third circle, which is who am I talking to?

Jennifer Walter: 19:01

We are basically all way too self-involved as usual, 100%. But the good news is, when we start realizing that we're putting more focus on the other people than ourselves, a lot of the nerves so circling back to your first question a lot of the nerves will go away. Our brains can't actually focus entirely on ourselves and entirely on somebody else at the same time. We just can't do it. So if we focus more on the other person, then we're suddenly like, oh, I'm talking to you, I care about what you're going through, what's landing for you, and then I get out of my own way. I get less obsessed with my bullshit and focus more on what's going on in front of me. Yes, it is very true. I love this example. This is very true and this goes for all areas of life and business. And wherever, wherever you focus on what's going on around you, the less caught up in your own shit you get. Yeah, so I'm curious. So we kind of learned that.

Jennifer Walter: 20:07

Okay, if I want people to listen, I have to find a way to get their attention to speak so they can hear me. I have to know who they are so I can actually know what kind of works for them. If they're a gigabit or stay at home mom's, what are their thing? So follow up question there before I want to know how I can learn charismatic, how much I remember when Back at Corporate, that balancing act of authenticity and professionalism, or how much do I want to be for the other person and how much do I be myself. For example, how can we balance being authentic with the need to conform to certain professional norms in leadership roles or public speaking? And when you're in a Fortune 500 company, there's a certain way you're expected to talk that's why I was a bad fit at corporate Whereas at the same time, it's always kind of like how much should I? How to balance?

Jennifer Walter: 21:26

Yes, it's a really important question and I think that's a challenging question as well, because a lot of times, what you're talking about is corporate culture and we can only control what we do inside of a certain circumstance, right? We don't actually have control over the other people in the room. Similarly, however, hundreds of plays I've directed, I don't have control whether the audience gives me a standing ovation at the end or not. I can just undo my part, right, yeah. So if I'm honest, if you're feeling like, if somebody is feeling like I cannot be me inside of this institution, then that's a mismatch, right, yeah, and agreed, we just, and that just is a bummer and that's where we're. If you can go look for another job, right, exactly, I mean, which I understand, like that's a privilege and it's not always possible, but absolutely, yeah, yeah, but.

Jennifer Walter: 22:35

But I will say a couple of things that are helpful. So one of the things that I think can be a super, super useful thing to remember is that within the phrase I always say is within structure, there is freedom. So I don't mean a bad corporate fit culture, structure. What I mean is within the world of having a lot of tools, having a lot of practice, having a lot of skills, you then can find places where your confidence and your authenticity can come forward and feel better to you. So this is why I always say to people we've got to dig into what is your particular challenge, your unique challenge, because a lot of people you know again this kind of generalized I'm afraid of public speaking.

Jennifer Walter: 23:27

Well, what does that really mean? Do you not know how to use your voice? Do you not know how to ground your feet? Do you have a lot of filler words like, like and um, and you know what is it? I feel personally attacked now. But here's the thing actually, I don't think that's necessarily a problem to have filler words. I really don't.

Jennifer Walter: 23:47

I think that you can speak authentically and have you know all those things, but if they are happening, because you don't know what you're saying next, or you're nervous, or you're questioning your worse of being in that room, then that's when we want to work on those things. If there's part of your personality and it's part of how you lead, fine, we don't need to take that out of the mix. But if it's because I don't know where I'm going with my next sentence and I'm getting lost in my language, then that's something that we can work on. So what I will often say to people is okay, look, if you don't have to memorize a script before you're going to talk, even if you're giving a long presentation, as long as you know what your key points are and where you're headed next, you'll be able to stay on track. Whether somebody drops a tray of coffee cups in the back corner, or an airplane flies overhead or somebody slams the door, doesn't matter, you'll be able to go to your next point because you know where you're headed. You've done that homework in advance.

Jennifer Walter: 24:55

So, kind of like, have a rough road map of okay, this is where I'm going, but I don't know where, kind of like what happens along the way. I just yeah, I always give that example. Yeah, I always give this example that if I'm going to drive from San Francisco to New York, from the West Coast to the East Coast, and I'm going to stop in Denver and Chicago on the way. I know that I have to get to Denver next. I live on the West Coast, I know I have to get to Denver. Next, I could go north, a little bit south, a little bit backtrack, a little bit, stop for a day or two, but eventually I'm going to get to Denver. So if you think of Denver as your next speaking point, it's okay if you get a little wrapped up by the truck the story, right, the scenic road, exactly how about that? But you know where you're headed, right.

Jennifer Walter: 25:41

Okay, so you have to make your kind of like homeworks. Is A, figuring out who you're talking to and B, what you're actually, like, want to talk about? Yeah, just giving yourself some structure, because I think within that structure, if you have the speaking skills, you know how to breathe properly, you know how to warm up your breath and body and voice, you know how to ground your feet, you know how to take up space energetically in the room. These are all skills that you can learn and practice. When you know how to do that stuff and you add the next layer, which is the thing that I'm saying. You have a pretty solid grasp on an outline of what you're going to say, then you have a lot more freedom within that to show up authentically and share your personality with the room, which was your question.

Jennifer Walter: 26:31

And so what I find happens for so many people is they worry too much about one of those three, as I said, those three circles, and they don't think about enough about the other stuff. So they'll either only think about the people out there who are judging me, or they'll only think about their content, or they'll only think about how to hold a microphone or themselves, right, and so they're like a tiny cog in the entire machine and generally. So their brains then obsess over that one thing and they miss the other pieces. Then they're less agile, they're less human, they're less able to respond appropriately to what's happening in the room. Really, actually, what's going on right then? Right there, be more present and really kind of like okay, what's going on in all senses and all spaces around me?

Jennifer Walter: 27:32

Yeah, and I think too that that question about culture if you are working in a culture, for example, I think this is a really easy one to talk about if you're working in a culture that we're swearing is not generally appreciated, right, or they're sort of frowned upon. Then you get to decide. Am I using swearing anyway? But if you do, you need to be thoughtful, okay, am I using this to make a point? Am I using this to show my personality? Am I using this to get the other person to do something or not do something? Right, so you can still use the language that you want to use, but you have to be thoughtful about your audience and who's receiving it. Is that going to get you what you want or not? Right?

Jennifer Walter: 28:27

So there's a difference in what I'm talking about, which is a more performative or presentational setting than just like generally, is this the right place for me to work? Right? Which is a kind of a different question, because even though, even when you want to show up authentically and try to be yourself, if you are the person who is presenting and there is other people watching you, there is, by just sheer fact of the way that our brains work, there is an othering a little bit of a difference between you and the people listening, and so there is a presentationalism that you can try to get as that wall as thin as you possibly can and be a person, but unless you know those people really, really well and you've been doing this a lot you're probably going to have some version of feeling like, okay, this is the time in which I'm presenting it's not necessarily just me, showbo, like I would normally talk yeah, look at that. And then there's no limit to who you are going to work with. Just tell me At the end.

Jennifer Walter: 29:38

I have a follow-up question on this, which I kind of let me think how to articulate. It goes into what we said okay, we kind of like looking into how much of ourselves we're bringing in. Or, and it's like, and we all know, we've all know that person who tried to talk like Gen Z, and it's like right, but they're doing this, or often they're doing this. Well, either, let's say, press, but if you're more conscious about it, you're doing it to create rapport, to kind of like hey, I build bridges and I know for myself when I talk in different languages, I have different tonalities, I have different speeds depending on who I talk to. I also switch accents, which drives my partner. I'm crazy, but it's not necessarily something I can often control.

Jennifer Walter: 30:36

So how do we? How do we? How do we what is kind of like, the, the intersection, the intersection between like, creating rapport, still being ourselves, and like, is there something, if we create, build too much rapport, trying to sound too much like them, that this presentation mode gets too disrupted, too fiddled out and we're not seen as leader anymore? Like, how, what's your kind of like take on this? That's really a nuanced question. I, I'm sorry, no, no, it's great, it's great.

Jennifer Walter: 31:19

So I, I think a couple of things. So, when, when I say the kind of language that you're going to use changes depending on who's in the room, I don't necessarily mean that if you're talking to, you know I'm 41, that if I was to go in and give a presentation for high school students, I would try to talk like I was in high school. That's actually not effective generally because, like you said, the kids will just call bullshit on me, right? And likewise, I simultaneously, am not going to walk into a room with a 72 year old attorney and try to talk like I'm a 72 year old lawyer, right? What I do mean is the, the energy that I bring into the space might shift depending on who I'm talking to. So I noticed for myself when I go into rooms with high school students, even if they're really chill, I tend my energy tends to amp up. I'm a lot more animated, I'm a lot more present, forward facing energy. I'm asking a lot of questions, I'm engaging, I'm giving examples that are more relevant to them, right? So I'm not using, I'm not saying like I'm only going to reference 90s TV shows, right, because those are the TV shows I watched when they were their age. I'm still going to find relevant examples and ways of talking data points that make sense to them.

Jennifer Walter: 32:57

When I go into the other room, for example the you know 70 something year old lawyer, I might be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more reserved, a little bit more thoughtful or slow in my speech. That doesn't, that's not. Neither of those is inauthentically me. They're both me. It's just the part of me that I'm using as my tactic in that moment, right? Yeah, so the way I prepare to go into those rooms is really different too. The way I prepare to go into a room the high school student room is I will probably listen to some loud, fun music. The way I prepare to go into the room with the other dude is I'll probably take five minutes to sit quietly to ground my feet.

Jennifer Walter: 33:41

You know, when people talk about, they talk about, in psychology, this idea of mirroring or mirror neurons. Yes, right, if you see somebody and they're sitting in a certain way and you want them to feel comfortable, you might need to cross your legs, or right. 58% of how people perceive our message is through non-verbal communication. So, guys, the power of body language, huge, huge, right. It's something we miss. We don't talk about it a lot because we're always talking about the content, the words, right, but the way that we're communicating, the sound of our voice, the energy, the body language, is really different depending on who it is that we want to receive our message. So, again, I have a high energy side of me, I have a mid and low energy side of me. I can tap into those different parts of me, still feel like I'm me, but I'm thinking more about how they need to receive my message, right, yes, much makes sense, yes, okay, one more follow up before question, before we come to charisma, because we got to cover this. I want to know this might. Again, I'm drawing this from my own experience and I hope some of you think this. Oh, yes, I actually can relate.

Jennifer Walter: 35:03

You said like you bring your, like all the parts are you, which I think it's such a beautiful point because it's so true we're more than just one side, we're all of these dimensions and noises. I would say I'm very empathic. I really look at how the other people are doing. So what would happen to me if I bring my high, strong energy and someone else on a call would also bring their high energy? We could really go sideways because we're like hyping each other up and there's no like calming presence. So how can we catch ourselves in that? I mean, that's not just with that. I mean we all know like we're feeling good and then Debbie Downer comes into the room and we're suddenly feel like crap, right, oh yeah, big crowd, it works all the ways. Or someone is angry and then you're kind of like oh, actually I'm not really angry, I'm yeah, that's not my energy Like how, if we're in the middle of a conversation, or like how can we kind of like break this? So another super smart, interesting and nuanced question.

Jennifer Walter: 36:30

So the first trade work, yeah. So my, my coaching on this has to do with how you prepare, and I talk to folks all the time about creating their own energy barrier or energy boundary before they start speaking. So this is really helpful. It's really helpful for empaths, and I am one too. It's also very helpful for introverts, who need to go into a public speaking space or networking or whatever, where they're going to feel drained by interactions.

Jennifer Walter: 37:11

I will literally, and it depends on the person and what works for them, but one example that I use is envisioning however much energy you need, however much boundary I try to avoid the word barrier because it sounds like boundaries In spite. Yeah, yeah, I see that. This is my dancing space. Yes, how much personal space do you need? And it's going to change day to day where you are in your cycle, where you are in your mood, what time of day it is. Some days I need three to 70 feet on any side of me of people away.

Jennifer Walter: 37:52

Some days it's like come on in, I got the capacity. You've got to become present with your own self and put up whatever, and I have a ton of different visualizations. One of the things that I really like is for myself is I'll imagine a plexiglass sphere kind of all around me, so I can see out and they can see in, I can hear you in and out, and then I imagine somebody's energy coming towards that plexiglass and they can come barreling towards it, but they'll just hit the glass and bounce right off. Ooh, I like that much. They can't come in so I can respond to them, but I'm still me, I'm still present, I'm still grounded. So I will notice and I do the same thing that if somebody's got really high energy and I'm talking to them and then I have high energy, we go back and forth. There's actually nothing wrong with that if that's how the flow is going. But if you know so, this is where we kind of knit all these pieces together.

Jennifer Walter: 38:55

If you know that in that conversation you need to get to a certain point, then you need to have your personal boundary set up, your structure of where am I headed? What is my goal here? So that you can catch yourself in those moments. And maybe it's as simple as just pausing. I think the power of the pause is amazing. You just stop talking for a second, take a deep breath, exhale, continue. Where are my feet? Oh, there are my feet, okay, and then let's go Right. Mm-hmm, so, yeah, so I think that that, yeah, so I think that that We've got to do that work in advance, and I really you know, people don't think about doing this kind.

Jennifer Walter: 39:44

People don't think about warming up when they're going to do a Zoom conversation or a podcast. They don't think about warming up when they're going to yeah, I've never warmed up my voice. This is very Really no, yeah, no, like what would you do? Well, I'm going to gift you, I'm going to gift you my how to create a personalized public speaking warmup. I'll send it to you when we're done. But I do have a course. It's a really it's a short, it's like 30 minutes super easy to consume lesson on how to warm up your breath, your body, your voice, get ready to do speaking, because we have a whole instrument here. You know, this is our instrument. If we were Trump players in the symphony, we wouldn't warm up before any performance. It's the exact same thing and that mindset even just taking five minutes to down-regulate your nervous system can be the thing that changes the game for your speaking experience.

Jennifer Walter: 40:45

So, yeah, yeah, makes sense. Remember oh, I mean, you'll remember Adriana, like before just right before we pressed record, I told Adriana that I really like to do these conversations in the evening because that's where I feel like most chatty. Maybe that's just when I'm most warmed up. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It makes sense, yeah, yeah, oh, okay, this is okay, I love this. Yes, so we got we got a lot of homework, and I love that. It's not just no, but it's so helpful, right, and always with a bloody mindset, but it's so true, right, like we've got to have to kind of like figure out how we protect our space.

Jennifer Walter: 41:27

And that goes in any kind of conversation, doesn't it? It's not just a chat talk. It's you talking to your kid, you talking to your spouse, you talking to your boss, you talking I don't know talking to the grand live, right? Yes, yes, or even just an Instagram reel, anytime. Yeah, you're putting yourself out there, and the more we do this kind of thing, you get a shorthand.

Jennifer Walter: 41:52

You figure out what works for you, right? Yeah, like it doesn't have to be a massive 25 minute project every time you're going to do it. You could have a thing where you say, okay, I'm going to do one breath of square breathing where I inhale, hold, exhale, hold, each for a count of four, and that is my nervous system, mental, emotional, spiritual, reminder of all this other process. Prep work I've already done. It could be just as simple as that. It doesn't have to be massive or hard, right, and actors do this over time. They figure it. You know, every single actor, with their salt, warms up before they go out on stage, even if they've done the play 100 to 200 to 800 times before. They always warm up, and part of what they do is they figure out over the course of their career what kind of warm up they need, and for different characters they might need different things, right? The same thing that we've talked about, yes, makes sense. Okay, which brings me.

Jennifer Walter: 42:54

I feel this is kind of like the golden ticket jackpot question. You said before oh, you can actually learn charisma. So I'm like, okay, spill, spill, sister, because I mean, I'm sure I don't know one of the things, like, we all want to be more happier, more fulfilled, more joyful and we all want to have more charisma. I think that's something I don't know. I've never met anyone who was like nah, I'm actually I don't want it.

Jennifer Walter: 43:21

Oh, charisma, and it's I mean, it's part of the tagline of my business is charismatic speaking. Here's the thing there are some people who are naturally charismatic, right, we know that these people are mostly their actors, their politicians, right, that's where we see them in the public sphere. But we see people too who have a magnetism. So we all had that person in class who was just kind of like getting every way with the teacher because she, he just had their way right, like just knew how to right, and sometimes it's just an energy, it's just who that person is.

Jennifer Walter: 44:02

But more interestingly, I think, is what do we perceive as charismatic? So I actually am curious for you when you say we all want to have more charisma. What? What does that mean for you? Like having charisma or being charismatic? For me it's an allure of interest, of like interest.

Jennifer Walter: 44:30

Oh, this is interesting. This person is interesting. It's something that's kind of stops me in my tracks. It's something unique and something maybe a bit out of place. It's just right. It's not your standard I don't know, standard beautiful voice or something. It's something's catching. Something's catching me, yes, and I'm guessing you've experienced this in many circumstances that had nothing to do with public speaking. Oh, absolutely, yes, right. So I love that you use the word unique and said you know, there's something special about this person that makes me lean in. Without trying to sound like it's all rainbows, unicorns and sparkles up in here.

Jennifer Walter: 45:34

I do happen to believe that each person on the planet is a unique individual. Right, I have never looked at a person walking down the street and been like God, just kind of, in general, that's a crazy bitch. Well, I mean, yes, although we all sometimes call ourselves basic bitch because we have like those Stanley Cubs and we really do feel like basic bitches. But, yes, but you are nothing like. Like. If I lined you and all your friends up, even if you were holding the same cup and wearing the same clothes, I would be able to tell you apart. Right, absolutely For a little bit. Why I think that charisma can be learned or can be revealed, I think, is maybe the better word Is all this other boring shit I've already talked about, which is all this practice, this homework, this structure, right?

Jennifer Walter: 46:28

Mm-hmm? And this goes back to your very first question, like how did I come into this? Because of being a theater director, I've spent my career Sometimes I've directed the same play with different casts of people, right? So same script, same structure, same beginning, middle and end, and some productions work better than others, or some actors hit more than others. Why is that, right?

Jennifer Walter: 46:55

So what you have to figure out is, once you do all of this homework, the thing that is left is you, it's your unique voice, it's what makes you tick. So, if you can get all that other stuff organized, dialed in, and then the best part is, then you let it go. Okay, then you forget all about it, because you have it all about it Intensically. Your body knows what to do, your body knows it has to ground itself, your body knows how to breathe. This is why, yeah, so when I directed Romeo and Juliet right, everybody knows these speeches and these scenes, are they? You know, they're familiar with it enough, right? So the actor playing Juliet she memorizes her lines, she knows her blocking, she knows her staging, she knows her why.

Jennifer Walter: 47:48

And then what you're watching is a person living in real time in front of you, being truthful, and we lean into that. And that, I think, is what we're actually looking for when we're talking about charisma Is vulnerability, is present, centered, showing up as you are. You don't have to be the prettiest person in the room, you don't have to be the funniest person in the room. You said something's a little out of place. It's like what's going on there, right, makes us lean in and ask questions, right, yeah, but we can't. Whenever I take to feel curious, when I'm intrigued to ask questions, that's when my interest peaks. I mean, that's personally for me, but then I'm like, yeah, wait a minute, right, right.

Jennifer Walter: 48:40

I actually think people tend to try to do this work backwards. Were they all? Well, they just if the other stuff can feel kind of boring. It's like you're telling me that to get to charisma, I need to like center around my head, like learn where to stand and like all this stuff, and it's like, well, yeah, because what's blocking you from showing up authentically as you and being charismatic, being unique, even if you're?

Jennifer Walter: 49:13

Again, you didn't say. That's why I like to ask the question. You didn't say they're. They sounds like you know, they sound like Meryl Streep, or they've got the best speaking voice ever, or they're so pretty. You said there's something unique about them that makes you lean in. Yeah, it's just a person being authentically a person in the world, yeah, so what we have to do is we have to create enough structure so that you can then forget about the structure and then show up as you. I love this, oh God, yes, absolutely.

Jennifer Walter: 49:45

And then the other two guys, since I have never really been speaking in the real life. Wow, okay, I think we've covered so much ground in this conversation, like for anyone going new to the conversation never really thought about it up until like, how to really like you've done all that, then what, like, how can you still, like, continue to grow? I like, as like in your public voice, in your public speaking, so you can continue to grow? The more you become yourself yeah, I love this, right, and this just applies to everything, right the more, yeah, maybe really see it. We could see it as the structures that help us to become more of ourselves. Right, because they give us enough well, structure doll, but also that the freedom that comes with it, right To kind of like, oh okay, I know this helps me and then I can go on and actually do epic shit. Yep, yep, I love this. Oh okay, this is very good. So, if people are now, adriana, if they're not, oh okay, this sounds interesting. I got to learn more. Whether is that I have no idea how I should ground myself or, like, where my feet are.

Jennifer Walter: 51:21

How can people work with you? How can people find you online? Tell us, my website is claimcenterstagecom and that is the hub for all the things. So if you want to answer the question you know how do I stop using filler words or all of those things I have a whole bunch of very short tutorials that you can access through that page, as well as coaching and courses and one-on-one opportunities. If you're an Instagram person, that's where I post a lot of tutorials. You can look in the Reels section. There's a ton of free content there, but primarily it's all through claimcenterstagecom.

Jennifer Walter: 52:04

Perfect, and you also brought something with you for everyone listening. It's called Get Grounded. Do you want to quickly tell me something about it? Yes, so that is a free download for you and it is a five-minute meditation On this word we've used a bunch of times on how to get grounded before you speak. So you can go to my website, click on free tools and you'll find a link to the website and then you'll find that meditation. You can download it and try it out and let me know what you think. Perfect, that I will. Before I let you off.

Jennifer Walter: 52:46

What book are you currently reading? Oh, yeah, we're audited. I mean, oh, we're fine. I just started a book called the Creative Act A Way of being. It's by Rick Rubin and I've just delved into it, but it's this really beautiful look at how to sort of see the whole world as inspiration for art making, or how to see yourself as an artist, even if you're not. You know hunting stuff. I love this. So, yes, this is Debbie, you're going to go on the scenic route. Book list recommendation. That sounds like Keeper. Yeah, adriana, thank you so much for going to scenic, taking the scenic route with me. It was a pleasure. It was so fun. Thank you so much.