Hello, and welcome to the Lonely Chapter, a podcast for people who are doing okay on the surface, but quietly unsure how to live well.

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Today's episode is with Miles Usher Doyle, a speech coach who founded Speak well Coaching.

He's worked with a wide range of people who speak for a living, including Chris Williamson.

But at the heart of his work is something simpler.

Helping people communicate with clarity, confidence, and presence.

In this conversation, we talk about why modern life is quietly training us to speak.

Worse, how focus and body language can signal confidence before you say a word, and the small, practical shifts that make you more compelling in any room, on camera or.

Or in person.

This is a conversation about being seen, being understood, and learning to speak in a way that matches who you really are.

Let's get into the conversation.

Miles, when did you first realize the importance of language and what was happening in your life at that time?

Wow, what a great opening question.

So I am a bit of an old soul, so I was brought up on lots of classic films, cinema, music, theater and things.

And I remember quite vividly watching the film version of the Importance of Being Earnest, which is from, I think, 1954.

Anthony Asquith directed it.

And I remember watching it thinking, oh, my word, How.

What language is this?

Was it all Oscar Wilde and all this sort of stuff?

And I didn't really understand much was going on, but I just.

I was mesmerized by the use of language and wordplay.

So I was probably about eight or nine, maybe slightly younger, Maybe seven.

Eight or nine.

And I'm sitting there thinking, gosh, this is amazing.

They wouldn't just say, I love you.

It would be a sense where the character Algernon says to Cecily, would you be offended if I were to say to you, you are the visible personification of absolute perfection?

Wow.

Use that on your girlfriend later.

That'd be great.

So I remember thinking, thinking then, wow, this is amazing.

I want to look at more things in that particular era.

But of course, sort of classic cinema that I would watch, they'd be all set in the sort of 30s, 40s and 50s.

So language was slightly different and slightly elevated depending on what you were watching or what genre you were watching.

It was mainly British cinema around that sort of time.

And I think then that's where the Colonel sort of, sort of grew.

I was very shy.

I was very shy.

Schoolboy.

Yeah.

At that particular time, it's quite early.

In your life to sort of get into those sort of things, really.

So was it.

What, did your family encourage you to look at those sort of movies?

Those older movies?

Yeah.

So my brother's 10 years older than me.

Right.

So I was the youngest in the family for a long, long, long, long time.

So references that my parents would refer to and reference in everyday parlance would be things that perhaps the parents of some of my friends at school wouldn't get.

So I was immersed amongst all this useless reference to, you know, adverts or films or music and that sort of thing.

So it was always around.

I also remember because my father was very much into theater and he was a member of a amateur dramatic society.

And I remember listening to the cast recording of My fair lady from 1958 in the garage on his turntable.

And the song.

On the street where you live the line, does enchantment pour out of every door?

No, it's just on the street where you live.

I remember thinking, that's a wonderful way to say something.

So my parents did.

They did encourage it, I suppose, because it was just around there.

But I wouldn't like my friends to know that I used to like British films and classic cinema and this sort of music and thing.

That was a bit too different for me then.

But my parents are so supportive.

I remember my mother always saying, if you like it, then you like it.

Okay?

Be, you know, proud and show that you've got an interest.

But I kept it very much hidden for a long time, apart from my very sort of close friends, I suppose.

But I didn't have a huge friendship circle.

Just being so shy, really.

I think you do just rely on a few key, monumental players when you're quite shy.

It's difficult as well.

At that age, you're trying to blend in.

You've got the peer pressure of school and everyone.

You've got to fit the mold, otherwise you're the weird kid.

You're quite right.

Yeah.

And blending in is what you want to do.

Yeah.

That.

You know, the fact that my name was Miles, you know, was an anathema to me.

I longed to be called Jamie.

Right.

Or something else.

Miles was way too different.

I think I had something like that.

I wanted to be called, like, David or Michael.

Mike.

Yeah.

So it's that sort of.

That sort of thing of wanting to disappear and not wanting to step forward.

And that was actually really capitalized in a parents evening where one of my tutors said to my parents, we sometimes forget that Miles is in the classroom, which is a horrible thing to hear.

And I remember it really affecting me.

Almost like a donkey kick.

Yeah, to the gut, really.

And I thought, oh, gosh.

But also, what a terrible thing for a teacher to say.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, to say it to your parents is crazy, you know.

So I remember that affecting me then thinking, oh, gosh, I don't think I want to disappear.

I do think I've got something to say.

On the odd occasion I might have something good to say.

So I was very conscious of that.

I would just want to disappear.

And that that wasn't the hinge moment for me to go, right, I'm going to start speaking up.

It wasn't that at all.

It was.

It was a bit of a slow burn, really.

And my parents were so supportive.

They, you know, pushed me to join groups and things and which I would do.

And I think organically, I just sort of started to step out of myself.

There wasn't a hinge moment later on that sort of started that.

Yeah, it's a really good question.

Last year I was doing quite a lot of reflection on not just the business, but what I've been doing and what my vision is and what my vision was for the business.

And it is to give people a voice and say, look, no, you have got something to say.

You don't need to hide or pretend to be somebody else.

Just, you know, let's have a.

Say what you want to say and let's see where we are and take it from there.

So that that kernel was born during that comment on Parents Evening.

Yeah, and those ripples just grew out of there, really.

I was a member of groups, you know, I was a member of the Boys Brigade.

My parents.

Parents, you know, said I should join this.

And I did, which my brother joined.

So I was in lots of circumstances where I had to speak on my own in front of people and even at school in debates and things.

There was no two ways about it.

You had to do it.

But I just.

I remember just longing to disappear and even remember it was a sports day, I think it was year five, and they were taking photographs.

I said, right, we'll do a nice smart one, smart one.

And they said, okay, for the next one, just, just go mad.

Just, just go wild.

And it's interesting in the pictures.

I then moved behind somebody else for the go mad moment because I just.

That was far too out there.

Yeah, way too out there, way too exposing for me.

And I remember that.

And that's only crept out since this point of reflection last year, really so.

So important to reflect and just look back on those moments and as uncomfortable as they are.

Absolutely, yeah.

And I remember just, you know, the abject fear and terror of being called upon to speak in front of the class or to even just answer a question.

You know, there are things that still sometimes keep us up at night, or you wake up at 3am and your mind goes back to that history class, or your history teacher pointed at you and said, what happened on X and X?

Or who was that person?

And just point you out rather than waiting for hands to go up.

So that I think those cuts run, run deep, really.

It's interesting looking at that, speaking about you at that age and how children fit in and the peer pressure of that.

But that never really stops because you get into adulthood and there's still that peer pressure.

And I suppose you see this a lot in the clients that you work with is they've fallen into this specific way of speaking that is normal but not optimal, maybe, and they've got these little isms that they've learned depending on where they are living, where they've come from.

What are the things that you hear first when you hear someone speak that you can point out?

That's a very, very good question.

But just to backtrack slightly just before I answer that, I think the blessing that I had when I was at school was it was the pre digital age, you know, it wasn't a subject until I was in upper school and then it was a optional, it was ICT I think then.

So it must be so much harder now where there is even less opportunity for children to speak in front of the room, speak to people face to face, just to get their head out of a screen.

At modern life, as I often say, modern life encourages us not to speak.

Well, send a text is quicker.

Don't call somebody, don't meet up with somebody, encourages you to disappear digitally in that sense.

But when someone's speaking to me and the first thing I hear, if it's in a consultancy format and if it's a complimentary call, say I will first.

It's not before they said anything, it's where they're looking, that's the first port of call.

So if it's down here first or there's a slight fleckle to the side and then they come back to you and then break away quickly, that usually gives me a good idea of where we're going to be starting from.

Yeah, this sort of almost visual game of hide and Seek.

If I don't look at you, then this isn't going to, you know, I'm just going to start to hide.

And then everything starts to regress.

Why do we find it so hard to look at people when we're just having that conversation?

It's hugely exposing to look at someone's eyes to see what the expression is, to judge a reaction.

And I'm not saying you stare at somebody or glare at them, but there's a sense of shared experience when you're looking at somebody through the eyes.

You see what's going on, you see what's happening, you see the message and the story that person wants to say.

And if it's being broken every other second, then it telegraphs from the speaker, don't look at me, I'm not worth looking at.

And therefore, don't listen to me, I'm not worth listening to.

I've got nothing to say.

So it telegraphs a sense of low status where that person wants to go.

So the first thing that I look out for is focus, essentially.

And that's such an underrated element.

People always forget about that, especially on zoom calls and things, you know, where am I looking?

Yeah.

Is it my picture?

Is it the green dot?

Where.

Where am I?

Where.

Where should my focus be?

And as speakers, we need to start making decisions a lot earlier.

Give yourself the time to think about what you're going in to do and think.

Okay, Right, so it's a.

It's an interview for a job.

I need to show I'm interested and I am confident, so I'm going to look at eyes.

And if I'm working with somebody who's incredibly timid and shy, and they'll say, like, I can't deal with eye contact, I'll say, okay, we'll start with the nose.

We'll start with in between their eyebrows or foreheads, and then ease into that particular sense.

Because it's hugely exposing.

Yeah, because you can't escape, can you?

If I was to hold your eye contact, I'm doing now, and you're feeling slightly uneasy, you might want to.

Oh, my word.

Oh, gosh.

I feel as though I'm being found out sometimes.

I think.

People think, yeah.

And you also get immediate reaction to what you're saying.

If you're looking at someone's face and you say something that they don't agree with or they want to question, you can almost see that little, little twitch.

Whereas if I sort of say it, and as I say the awkward bit, I look over there and You've done that.

I don't notice.

I'm sort of safe.

Exactly.

And as you know, the pure qualities of good conversation is you reacting to the other person.

It's not a transaction of words in that sense.

Hello.

Lovely to see you.

It is lovely to see you, too.

It's not a game of tennis in that sense.

It's a game of tennis.

When it's a beautifully returned serve or a rally and it's just going really lovely, you capitalize on what's there.

That lovely adage is no such thing as acting, only reacting.

I'm going to react to what you're giving me.

So if you're giving me looking away, breaking eye contact, I will just want to think, I need to leave Sam alone.

He's obviously not having a great time.

Me being here isn't helping.

So I'm just gonna remove myself from this scenario and let him just work out what he needs to work out.

Because being around somebody who is incredibly timid or shy or feeling very vulnerable doesn't instigate a good conversational moment at that point.

It can if you warm into it, if you've got the time to warm into it.

So if you're sat with somebody, say you're sat with somebody at a wedding and the person you're next to is very shy, you could probably warm into it and show a sense of familiarity and let that person grow and give them the space to grow and breathe by just asking some very pointed questions.

You know, what'd you do?

How did it get into that?

That's amazing.

How old were you when you did that?

You're sort of teasing questions to sort of ease somebody out of their fearful state and into a more sort of successful state to have a good conversation.

Because it's amazing.

I think back to school and the very close chums, a very small cohort use, sometimes just one or two.

And the conversation we would have was so passionate and interesting.

We would have our shared interest on something obscure like, I don't know, television program or, I don't know, the Beano or the Animals of Fathering Wood magazine or something like that, you know, and that reaction is fantastic.

Equally, when you meet somebody who has some shared interests, what you have, it's great.

And we all know the feelings of a good conversation because it feels amazing.

Yeah.

I also love that on obscure sort of passions that people have, even if it's not in common.

I found before where if you come across someone who's quite shy and you're having those, maybe Very basic small talk, trying to find out a little bit about them.

And then you ask them one question and it might be about motorbikes and they're like, oh, I love motorbikes.

And then they just talk and you're like, ah, this is like.

As soon as you find that thing that they're passionate about, there's an unlocking in that as well.

Yeah, you unlock that and then comes forth this huge flood of interest and passionate interest comes flooding through.

And especially if you're not familiar with that subject, say motorbikes or SAMP collecting or something like that, if someone's passionately talking about it, it's infectious to listen to.

It's amazing.

You think, oh, my word, gosh, I had no idea.

But the person out there telling this, to me, it sounds like this is the most amazing thing to listen to.

So you're quite right, once that point of interest has been dug out.

But sometimes people think, no one's going to find this interesting.

So I'm going to keep this to myself.

On the topic of converse, sorry, confidence, and talking about people who may be shy, maybe vulnerable.

When people come to you and say that they lack confidence, maybe it's public speaking, maybe it's just general conversation.

How much of it is to do with technique versus something much deeper?

Again, really good question.

There's never a clear.

It's never as clear cut as that.

There is usually some stuff that goes quite deep.

And I always say, I'm not a speech therapist, but if you're happy to talk about something so I'm aware of it, that is completely up to you, I'll be happy to hear it.

And we could discuss it if you would like.

But usually it's a issue at school or a bad public speaking experience has happened and that is locked in.

But then when we look at some basic levels of technique, and again, because it's just one on one, although the first half an hour might be quite torturous for that person, once you've got through that layer and we've looked at some basic fundamental pillars, such as posture, poise, focus, way before any sound is heard, then we can start to ease into something else.

And as I always say, I won't seek to change the way you speak, let's just enhance what's already there.

And that enhancement is the person talking about the love of motorbikes.

Yeah, I'm sure they're incredibly eloquent when that person talks about that interest.

So therefore they'll probably be the first people to say, I'm not articulate.

And I will say, well, you've just spoken for 10 minutes on this fabulous subject of yours, motorbikes.

And it sounded amazing.

Yeah.

So therefore you are articulate.

And that's when they might say, well, somebody at school said da da, da, da, da da da.

And similar to me with the parents evening comments, something like that might come up and we'll go, okay, great, that happened.

Then let's talk about it.

Let's move on.

You might be in that little trench, but you're not going to furnish it, you're not going to move in.

We're going to just find some techniques to get you out of there and to sense some different feelings of not just using your voice but your whole Persona and take it from there.

And all of my sessions, first session, start in the same way.

That person will present to me for about five minutes.

And that's the worst, sometimes for the client, that's the worst possible moment.

I don't know this person.

I'm in a room with them and I've got to speak to them about something.

This is my worst nightmare.

But of course that's what we're there to do.

It's to embrace that sense of difference and to move them out of their comfort zone.

Overdone phrase.

But it works in this particular instance.

And for them to realize in that moment that even if they're not quite as good as they want to be.

So what, what happens after that?

5 minutes stops, of course.

You just reflect on it and learn from it and.

Yeah, exactly.

And as I always say, sessions with me are rehearsals and workshops.

If something's going great, fantastic, let's celebrate it.

If it's not going so great, that's equally as brilliant, we can throw it away, we can think about why it wasn't great.

Was it not great because you felt exposed and you are doing a public speaking exercise which you wouldn't normally do in your day job, for example, or your day to day existence and therefore this sense of difference is good.

Or is it a sense that something happened vocally or your cadence was slightly off, you lost your way.

And let's have a talk about that.

And that's the point of.

I think any good coach is not just to teach the subject but to be in active sounding board.

Especially I help to write lots of speeches as well.

So that's great because I don't know a lot about the subject that somebody might be talking about.

Yeah, so it's like a wedding speech or a eulogy or Something.

And there's a great sense of discovery in that conversation to say, okay, I think I can see what you want to say here.

Why don't we say it in this way?

Try that on for size.

Let's just shout out to the room, put out into the ether.

How did that feel?

What did that sound like?

And we might record them, or we might just look at.

Watch it back together.

So it is this sense of just trying things and putting them out to the ether, but having somebody there with you to mold it and to discuss and evaluate it as a team, as it were.

Yeah.

And I think that's where the true elevation comes from.

Yeah.

You mentioned in your answer about these three pillars of technique.

So posture, poise, and.

Yeah, so they're not three set pillars, but I got some.

I got a few set pillars.

So, yeah, posture and poise, definitely.

So how you're standing, how you enter a room, how you walk into a room where there are other people on the other side.

Do you walk in with a sense of, sorry to disturb you.

Don't look at me.

Let me just slide in.

In this sense of.

With the invisible and just disappear into the back?

Or do you walk in this sense of openness, thinking, hello, good morning.

How are you doing?

Great to be here and take the room with you and go in there and embrace whatever situation could be happening.

There's also focus, which we discuss.

Where am I looking?

That fantastic question which people don't seldom want to answer or even ask.

Where do I look?

Do I look here?

Where do I look there?

If I'm standing on stage, where's the best place to look?

What's the stage set up?

What's the room set up?

Where are the audience?

Where should I look on that line?

What's my opening line?

Lots of people get lost in the reeds before sound happens.

And that's where your famous filler words creep in.

And so, yeah, hi, everyone.

It's really great to be here.

Any zoom call during COVID started like that.

Yeah, hi.

Just waiting for Susan to arrive.

Hi.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

So 30 seconds of just noise.

Nothing's actually been said.

So therefore you're not sort of striking the right balance to begin with.

Diction is obviously the big one.

Can I be heard?

If I can't be heard, there's no point speaking.

So again, it's sort of very basic questions, but questions that everybody has forgot to ask over these past 15, 20 years.

I would say with the advent of digital and social, again, it encourages you not to be Articulate to think about what you want to say, not just what you want to say, but how you want to say it.

So those are the sort of a little smorgasbord of the, of the pillars I like to lean into within an introductory course.

For example, those basic points.

It's interesting just as you list those off and sort of explain them, I find myself, and I'm sure the listeners will as well, just sort of reflecting on my own how I was and maybe where I am now and still what I need to do to get better, but just reflecting on each of those points that, like you say, they're very simple things, but they're things we maybe don't really think about that often.

One of the things that I got taught, so I had a guest on who was a SWAT hostage negotiator.

His name was Terry Tucker.

And this was quite an early episode actually.

And he taught me the 7:38:55 rule, which I'm sure you may have heard.

So is that sort of percentages breakdown?

How accurate is.

I don't know.

But he suggested that 7% of how you communicate it down to the words that you say, 38% is down to the tone that you use in your delivery, and 55% is body language.

How do you help your clients build their body language as well as the speech that they're producing?

That's usually the first port of call.

How am I standing?

So again, how do I enter a room?

How am I standing?

What am I leading with?

Am I leading with my rounded shoulders and my forehead as everything's drooped, or the top of my head sometimes as people down here, very insular.

So how am I standing?

Again, a great, great question to ask ourselves.

How am I sitting?

Am I falling back into the chair?

Am I way too Californian for this particular conversation?

I'm due to have?

So those basic points are so, so monumental.

But the way that someone stands on the body language point of view, and I, you know, I reflect and think back to how I used to stand when I used to work as a sales assistant for a Saturday job in retail.

I would be behind the counter and my arms would usually always be running down the front of my legs because my shoulders were so rounded forward.

My posture wasn't engaged at all, at all.

And we are just so oblivious to what that beams out.

We think it's quite an inoffensive position because we're just hiding.

But that poor person wanting to talk to you or to ask you a question that is not going to bother.

So again, this body language sense, it closes down before anything's happened.

And if voice production happens way before any sound is heard, you know, for you to start a conversation from this very small position, and it's very small in an insular, nothing's great is going to happen.

So the body language point is the point we always start with.

And it could be a sense of that person standing in front of me has got their feet very close together or overlapped.

Again, a sort of protective position.

Don't look at me.

I'm going to hide myself in plain sight.

Which means that their foundations are slightly rocky.

So while we usually say, okay, just, let's just stand with our feet slightly further than hip width apart, lower, that center of gravity feel a bit more grounded.

You can't take over the world if your feet are wobbly.

You can't build your dream house on two lollipop sticks.

The foundations happen there.

And with that, and I'm sure your guest, the negotiator who you spoke to, would echo this as well, this sense of.

Let's find a workable point of neutrality for you, your home screen.

If your default position is rounded shoulders, feet overlapped, then it's going to be a Herculean effort to go from here to here and grow.

So let's find a workable point of neutrality for you.

No one else.

Just, just, just for you.

How does that feel?

It's going to feel different.

Does it feel different just because it's different, or is it different because it feels uncomfortable?

If it feels uncomfortable, is it a muscular sensation?

Is it a discomfort?

Because you don't really want to be standing in front of people.

You can't deal with that sense of exposure.

And as I always say, it's great.

That's what we're here to do.

If you had answered that question and said, this feels great, I'd perhaps say, okay, this is gonna be a very short course.

So it's that point of neutrality where you can grow from, you can grow from.

I'll just get people to grow from here as opposed to growing from here.

Yeah, grow from.

Nice set.

And I always say, and you probably heard me say this before, but when you're about to do a deadlift, you are the most present you're going to be at that point in the day.

Your shoulders are relaxed, your chest is open, your feet are solidly grounded.

Okay, nice, deep center of gravity has been lowered so you feel secure.

Why?

Because you won't move the damn weight otherwise.

Yeah, yeah.

You just can't do it.

So I usually operate in that frame and quite a few of my clients are in the fitness fields.

That always goes down quite well because that's an instant.

Ah, great.

Yeah, I know that position.

It's not tense.

And lots of points of bad posture come from a sense of tension, especially mixing in a sense of shyness with the sensation that you're about to deliver a five minute speech to a room of 50 people.

There are so many things going on.

There's nerves, apprehension, terror, fear, even excitement as a point of tension.

You know, I can't wait to get out there.

Everything's very tense.

So we need to remove that sense of tension and what can we do on a daily basis to reset these points?

You spoke about how the modern world maybe taken away the opportunity to be around people maybe quite as much.

But also I think it affects the posture as well that constantly looking down, you see it so often you look across at someone and their necks are like 90 degrees.

And it's something that I became really aware of when I first started my sort of self development journey early.

Jordan Peterson.

It's like his first draw I think is stand up straight with your shoulders back.

And I remember taking that very literally and actually really working on my posture and then the years that followed, the comments that I would get from people saying, you're really upright, you really are, you like, you look uncomfortable.

I was like actually very comfortable.

I think your posture's just really bad.

But it's become so normal to have that like rounded shoulder.

So everyone's sort of losing straight away unless they can open that up.

Exactly, you're quite right.

Stand up tall.

You know, let's look to.

If you're going to speak to a room, we've got to find a point of excitement or a sense of I can't wait for you to hear this message from me.

I cannot wait for you to hear my story.

And if that's coming from, I can't wait for you to hear my story, then we're going to sit there and think, who's this guy trying to kid?

They don't want to be here, therefore should I be here.

And as soon as you give an audience that opportunity to start asking themselves questions, it's, you can win them round.

But it's my word, it's hard.

It is so, so tricky.

So standing up straight, facing the world, in one sense a really old fashioned piece of feedback.

But my word, it's a glorious piece of feedback really.

And it's no wonder it's been banged into everybody for years.

Stand up straight, man.

Sonia, come, come.

Stand up straight.

What's going on?

Look at me in the eye.

What's happening?

Talk to me.

This sense of engagement, the sense of stepping into this point of positivity and effectiveness.

A really good, good stories happen from that sense of vulnerability.

Sometimes the oldest and the simplest advice is the most effective.

Sam.

Yeah, that's, that's.

Yes, it's quite right.

That's a whole nother podcast in itself.

You know that you're completely right.

There's basic sense which.

But of course, social media and the digitalization of the world has just meant that that point doesn't need to be valid.

It doesn't need to be recognized.

Sometimes I think even if you've got a job where you're just on the computer all day and you live on your own and you don't operate with anybody, it's a pretty lowly existence.

And it's going to be a point where you're going to want to engage with somebody, be that a potential partner, a really good friend, somebody in distress.

You want to be sought for advice.

When things aren't quite going well, you're probably not going to want to seek advice from the person who doesn't really want to be there speaking to you.

So that person tends to disappear.

So it's just stepping into that mold and stepping into the frame and stepping into that moment.

But how do we step into that moment?

What does that moment feel like is where I come in?

Because it sounds great.

You know, stand up straight, face the world.

Let's get cracking.

Think.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

Looks good in a T shirt.

But what does that actually mean?

And that point of just standing with your shoulders back, or as I say, shoulders, knee, back, pocket, so it's not so tense like this.

Yeah.

So sort of relaxing in means that when you do come to sit down, you are not flopping into a chair.

You're sitting with a sense of, you know, a sense of purpose.

So you and I sitting here now, fairly relaxed.

Okay.

It's.

It's lovely.

It's great.

But we're both engaged and I like to think we're both.

Yeah, yeah, we're both here.

Yeah.

Good.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Very short podcast.

Otherwise, it's this sense of are you here?

Yes.

And are you feeling relaxed?

Yes.

It's a complete point of my chest is open.

It just.

My default focus is then up.

If my shoulders are relaxed and they're in my back pockets, my chest is open.

I'm leading with A nice, vulnerable, open chest.

My default focus is up.

I want to turn the conversation to more public speaking.

Most people thinking about themselves, going on stage and speaking to a group of people, even potentially just speaking to a group of 10 people at work, maybe they're in a team of 10 or less, might be even less.

But that idea of speaking in front of people is such a vivid fear for so many people.

What, what do you find the main fears are when it comes to public speaking with people you work with?

Judgment.

I think that's.

That's the main one.

It's that sense of, well, there's two things going on.

One is anything can happen because it's live.

You're speaking live.

It's like live television, live theater.

But we love live television, live theater, live sporting events.

Anything can happen.

It's that real sort of ancestral, innate quality that we love.

It's really raw.

If that is then being met by somebody thinking, people are going to think, I don't know what I'm talking about.

People are going to be marking how I'm looking.

People are going to be thinking about this and the other.

As I always say, most people don't like themselves.

They haven't got the time to then critique the entity that is you.

Okay, Sam's wearing glasses, he's got jeans on.

People don't have the time to do that.

So it's almost taking the focus off you and putting the focus back into the message of what you're doing.

And that message about what you're doing goes to that sense of why are you speaking?

What's the point of this public speaking exercise?

And as soon as you start to embrace that area, this sense of you just standing up there in abstract, abstract judgment from the room starts to diminish because you're putting your thought back into the story that you're wishing to tell.

Be that last year's sales figures or a pitch that went well, a picture went badly.

You then start to be a lot more smart about what you're delivering and much more intelligent in the way that you wish to tell it.

It's pure judgment.

You are never more exposed and vulnerable than when you stand up in front of a room of three, four, a thousand, five hundred thousand people.

Because all eyes are on you.

You're the point to look at.

If you're then meeting that with people are going to be judging me, then it doesn't make a good cocktail.

Slightly sour.

So front it.

Think about why you're doing it and what the point is, why you're doing it magic.

Why, why, why, why, Why?

I spend hours sitting with clients saying, but why are you doing this?

My boss told me to, but why are you doing this?

What's the point?

I'm not interested in that.

You're not interested in that?

What is the point of it?

And we find that nub through discussion and heated conversations sometimes to get to that point where we find something that you can work with as a motivator.

If your motivator is, I'm being judged by the room, then shock horror.

When filler words creep in and you lose your train of thought, the whole exercise becomes so redundant.

And we as audience members, we pick up on this like that.

We're quite an unforgiving crowd.

And audience, we're quite fickle as well.

If a new thing creeps into the room, we'll focus on that.

And, you know, audiences are always baying for blood.

Yeah, let's see what happens.

We like to see our heroes in trouble and how they get out of it.

Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

Which goes to the wonderful area of narrative and storytelling.

Why do we like these stories?

What happens?

Why?

You know, it's not just somebody wakes up in the morning, goes to buy paper, comes home, reads it, has a cup of tea, then goes to bed.

You think, okay, I don't really care about that.

You have to bring an element of danger or something's got to change.

Hinge moments.

Yeah, Quality moments.

That.

That backstory, that origin story of what was the struggle that they overcame to get there as well.

Exactly.

You just see someone smashing life, and they've always have been, and they just were born that way.

And that's it.

It's.

It's not the same.

People are drawn to those stories where someone was born into nothing, made something out of nothing, and overcame all these barriers.

You're quite right.

It's incredibly boring if it's not there.

I always use the analogy with my clients.

I'll say, okay, imagine the three bears, Goldilocks and three Bears, and take away Goldilocks, the bears wake up, make porridge, it's too warm.

Go for a walk, come back, eat it, go to bed.

Who cares?

The trouble or the tilt of the story is Goldilocks coming in.

Think of any Bond film, any die hard narrative.

It's that sense.

Once upon a time, this thing happened.

And it happened like this every day until one day.

Yeah.

Think of any good series that you like.

Stranger Things is a great setup with that.

You know, is there anything that you like with that sense, that tilt to the story is where we peak.

Cause we think, oh, my word, I'm gonna see Sam in trouble here.

How on earth is he gonna get out of this?

And that's talking a series.

They've clocked onto this massively as well, because they leave everything on a cliffhanger, of course.

Yeah.

That's where Binging's come in.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Quite right.

Quite right.

Yes.

But also, if you think about the stories, like the books that you perhaps liked as a youngster or when you were growing up, or the films you liked, even the music that you liked, any good song has a good story as base of it.

And you think, okay, this is.

I can get what's going on here.

You might find a point of relevance with your own self.

And that's that lovely moment where you're reading a book or watching a film and you think, that happened to me.

I know that feeling, that hand of history coming out and just touching your shoulder going, yeah, I felt this 500 years ago.

You're going to be okay.

Those senses come in when we think about what the tilt of our story is and what's going to happen.

So if you think, you know, this is very basic, but if you think about the main points of a good story, once upon a time, this thing happened, and it happened every day until one day this happened.

Therefore, every day since this new thing happens to put on a new line.

Very watered down, very basic.

But there's some good points there that you could lean into.

When you're doing your next presentation at work, your speech at a wedding or whatever.

When you're speaking to a room, you lean into that.

Humans relate to humans.

We love good stories.

Yeah.

And we know what a good story is.

Again, modern life encourages us to forget about this.

When we're younger and we're reading a book, or a parent is reading us a book or a story or whatever, or introducing us to a film, we know what makes it good because we enjoy it.

We don't enjoy it just because.

And sometimes going through that gauze of the.

I like this.

Why?

Well, I like it because.

And sometimes it takes a while to find what that point is.

If you're feeling comfortable to say, oh, I liked it, because that point there, I actually felt that similar sensation ten years ago when I was going through a breakup and da, da, da, da, da, or I wanted to change jobs and all this moment happened, or a relative passed away.

We understand we can relate to that.

Yeah.

And that relatability is beautifully infectious.

If you can chime that with somebody in the room that they can feel the same way.

And again, it's just a point of how you're then writing that, how you're saying that, how you are articulating that point.

Is there a better way to say this?

Probably.

What does that look like?

I'll air that with Miles in my next session, and we'll just play around with it.

And if someone's working on that idea of finding why and questioning themselves and going a little bit deeper to find that sort of drive and where that relatability comes in, is that something they should be doing by themselves?

Could they just do it with a friend?

Could they sort of ask a friend to sit down with them and listen to them speak out loud and just say, can you help me dig in and find out what it is that I'm trying to get out?

They could completely do that.

Yeah.

I would say, like with anything, when you work with a coach or a consultant, it's that sense of going a bit deeper, but also it's the focused prep.

You know, I could have read my wedding speech out to my parents ahead of the wedding.

I could have completely done that.

I probably would have got some good feedback.

Would it have been enough for it to grow into something else and for me to really stretch myself?

Would they say something that I wouldn't like to hear, for example?

And any good coach holds you to account.

If I've heard my client do something really well, then they do something a couple of months later, it's not quite as good.

That's a good point for conversation.

Say, what happened here?

There seems to be a ball was dropped.

Was this a creative decision or have you forgotten to do something?

Talk to me about that.

And I think it's important for any coach PT to not pull their punches in that sense.

And going, look, I know you can do this.

You've done it.

Why are we regressing?

Let's advance.

Let's find this point here so you can completely do it with somebody.

And I would say if you're not in a position where you want to work with a speech coach or you can't quite work with a speech coach at the moment.

One of the really good things you could do with a speech that you're putting together or a presentation that you're putting together is to air it earlier, vocalize earlier.

Don't get stuck in your head scribbling it down, because we all sound fantastic up here.

Air it earlier.

As soon as you air it and you are Your own best critic.

Once you air it, you'll go, that sounds hopeless.

I've never ever started a sentence like that before in my life.

What's going on here?

And as soon as you air it, you can correct that.

But the other great thing happens when you do that.

You start to.

The lines start to bed in.

In a much more natural way, rather than an abstract memory test way of learning lines.

Yeah.

You start to then inhabit it more because you're shock horror.

Getting the reps in a lot earlier in the day.

If you get the voice warming up earlier, vocalise earlier, you're going to be able to plan out a pretty good speech.

I would say in your tongue.

That sense of authenticity creeps in quite neatly when we do that too.

How important is authenticity, especially in this modern day of AI writing a lot of stuff for us and us trying to speak a certain way, maybe to fit in.

How important is it for us to go within ourselves and find what it is that drives us?

Yeah, I think it's hugely important, obviously.

I think it's the main thing.

I'm interested in Sam telling the story.

If I know sis.

A abstract agent stepping in.

Or.

And if I'm working with somebody who's very high up in business, the sensation for corporate speech to creep in.

Corporate presenter 2.0 to take over.

And I wouldn't say Sam telling the story.

I'm only interested in you doing it.

If I wasn't, then there's no point you doing the speech.

Just send me an email.

I'll read it on the way home.

If you're going to stand up and speak and speak, speak as you.

Yeah, it's got to be you.

The audience is only interested in you.

Also, if you're at, say you're at a networking event, those awful networking events, and you are speaking to somebody having a coffee and then you're called to speak to the room and you and I are having a very good conversation and then you stand up in front of the room to tell us about something that's happening and it's a different person up there than was having a coffee with me.

I'm gonna think, who on earth is this person?

Yeah.

Inauthenticity just takes over and presence just disappears.

You can't be present as an imposter.

Where's the line between amplifying and enhancing someone's Persona versus taking on someone else's Persona?

Or, yeah, that acting.

That's the question.

That is the magic agent that comes through this sense of working through a script.

Working through the words, getting used to inhabiting a new sense of a different attractive state, a new habitual way of thinking about things.

You try something different, it's going to feel different.

Lead it into your day to day for two weeks, a month, it'll start to be a part of you, but really an elevated part of you because we're always starting with you.

That's the point.

Sounds all a bit wispy and washy, but it's completely that.

It's this sense of starting with you, getting used to the difference.

Is anybody doing pt right?

If it's the same person coming in week after week after week after month after month, year after year after year, and nothing has changed because, or a, perhaps you're not a very good pt, but also your client perhaps hasn't had the tools or advice from you to take on this new level, to seek to advance.

When we're looking to advance, something is going to change.

Otherwise we'd never learn a musical instrument.

You know, if I go and see a piano teacher, I'm going to lose my natural sense.

And you might think, yeah, but where you are at the moment isn't fantastic.

So for you to embrace and change and grow, as I'm sure you've on many occasions in your life, this would have happened.

It's that particular sense.

I think we know when we're being an imposter.

We know when we're feeling slightly uncomfortable and sometimes that could come from somebody not giving an honest response to something.

Have you seen this film?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've definitely seen it.

Yeah.

And we quickly discover through the conversation that your friend you're speaking to has never seen this film.

And it would have been so much better for that person to say, no, I've heard of it, but I haven't actually watched it.

That opens a much better conversation, more human conversation.

And also it gives your colleague you're speaking to a great opportunity to extol the virtues of this fantastic piece of art.

Is there a greater conversation than telling somebody about your favorite film and they've never seen it?

It's lovely, you're impassing something onto them, but if it's met with a sense of falseness, it runs out of ground very quickly.

And that person then turns into somebody who doesn't really want to grow and embrace something.

So it's a very, very good question.

There's no clear cut answer to that, apart from getting the reps in experiencing what that change is and embracing the difference.

And how can I use this in my day to day which any good coach will give you that particular quality.

You've got to experience it.

To know in there whether that is you or whether that is crossed a line there.

And I'm just reading off a script.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I'm going to run out of ground very quickly.

I'm going to get found out here and the imposter is always in that sense of, you know, this sort of Ripley esque mode.

I'm going to get found out soon.

I'm going to get found out soon and it's not a great place to be and it doesn't feel particularly comfortable.

Of course there are people who do it very well but we are not of their number.

We are really just down to the sense of look, just be as you and let's grow from there and see where we are.

Enhancement was already there.

Is what I do with all my clients.

Let's look what's there, what's going on.

Let's enhance that.

How does that feel?

Tell me about it.

Talk to me.

Don't suffer in silence.

This is a two way street.

As any good coach does with any client.

Self awareness is a massive thing as well.

You look at, if you look at this both in a speech capacity but also maybe in a physical capacity passed as a PT when you look at someone at the top of their game.

And again this is a mod.

This is a modern day thing where we see so much of that online.

We see the best bodybuilders just scrolling down and we start comparing our bodies to them.

We see these really effective communicators who we're comparing ourselves to.

But they've had years of training and working on that and repetitions most importantly.

And we haven't.

We've just started.

Yeah.

And we've got to remember and be self aware enough to be able to say I can.

I'm definitely not as good as that person.

They've had all this experience.

I can work towards it.

The only person I should compare myself against is me yesterday.

What have I done to improve that?

Exactly right.

As I said, we are interested in the final results not the journey that person's had to get to that particular point.

And this is where that toxic sense of envy and jealousy creeps in which can just enrapture somebody forever if they don't.

If they're not careful.

It really can.

And it's a horrible, horrible sense.

We all feel it as a natural thing to feel it.

A little pang every so often.

But as long as you brush it off and think, well, you know, I didn't live in that war zone or I didn't lose both my parents at two years old.

This person did.

I wasn't homeless for five years.

You know, all these sorts of things that creep in.

So it's really important.

You're quite right to think of it in that way and what I was doing yesterday compared to today to keep things marching in a really effective direction.

When you look at the world of communication and the advice that's out there and people speaking on this sort of stuff, is there any common mistakes that.

Or common things that people mistake for good communication?

Yes, in the sense of very sort of abstract advice, I would say.

I remember being taught when I was in the choir at school to just look at the fire exit sign.

And that should be my focal point.

Now I get why that was trotted out as a piece of advice.

And I can see it sometimes with speakers who I work with or people that I see and they are almost stuck to that point of just find a point and focus on it.

And I'd rather speak to a face or a room of faces.

Going back to what we said earlier to get a good reaction, because that means I can either vary my response or be guided by the shape of the room, the temperature of what's going on.

Are my points landing?

Especially if it's a speech where it could be slightly spiky, it could be a point of reflection, but a rallying cry, this has happened.

I'm going to dwell.

Let's march on in this direction.

So points like that, when they're just far too vague and abstract, I think sometimes also there's the eye contact rule where people say it's 80, 20 or whatever.

I think there could be something in that.

But if it feels right for you to do it, to engage with somebody for a longer period of time and then break away to think about what to say and return.

I think if you make it too prescriptive, you start to stop listening to that other person.

I think when we're an active listener, as you well know, that is when good conversation happens because you're not just spouting your lines, you're listening and you're waiting for those points of interest or a point of commonality or a point of particular excitement that somebody might say, you might think, ah, okay, actually that happened to me.

Or I'll be interested in.

Learn more about that.

I don't know that point.

I don't know that person.

I don't know that film.

Tell me more it gives you the opportunity to do that.

So yeah, sort of generic, sort of old wives tale advice has its place and is sometimes quite useful.

But it's not the hard and fast lockdown rule of elements as things move on and progress.

And there's this, you know, I'm completely open to the new changes that may be rattling around and really excited to have those conversations and to look at those points of insight.

What are the for anyone listening who wants to get a little bit better at speaking and they've listened to some of the stuff that you've spoken about, what are the smallest changes that someone can make that can make the biggest differences?

We've already said it.

So just Vocalizing earlier in the Day if you wake up at 8:30 and your first call of the day isn't until midday and the first time you use your voice is at midday on that call, don't be surprised if you're coming at it from a home.

A bit of a low drone.

So wake the voice up earlier.

Jump in the shower, recite a lyric of a song that you like, recite a poem, recite a limerick, recite a tongue twister, get the vocals working earlier.

Start to meet the day here.

As opposed to warming up through the day and then being surprised at your coughing and sputtering through that call at midday, start from a much more elevated plane before you begin.

In the same way you would never do a big park run or a big set at the gym without doing some semblance of warming up, the same principles apply.

Treat your voice in the way that you would treat other muscles in the body before you do an exercise.

You would warm up on the empty bar before you did a big deadlift.

Potentially you would just do a warm up of some description to get the muscles moving and to wake yourself up.

Put the voice in that same category and vocalize a lot earlier in the day.

Yeah, we all know to do a warm up when we're at the gym.

Why is it that we don't do that for our voice?

Why are we not taught that?

Because I think it's just fallen by the wayside over these past 20, 30, 40 years as we go back to the point of modern life.

Encourages us not to speak well.

To speak well is to put your flag in the ground, to step forward and to put yourself out there, to send a text to somebody you know everything's going to be fine because it's a hey, how's it going?

Question mark.

Whiz that away.

But for you to pick up the phone, potentially.

Or to meet up with that person.

Have a good conversation.

You're not going to be a victim of convenience.

It's convenient to have the takeaway.

It might take a bit more effort to walk 10 minutes to the butcher's to get a better cut of meat than to get something that's been sloshed around in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Yeah.

So it's that particular point.

The voice is muscle and cartilage.

Let's treat it in that same way.

Don't just think it's going to be great.

It's ready to go.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not.

Yeah.

You've got to get to that point.

You've got to warm into that.

Yeah.

So singing in the shower and bring it back.

Bring it back to the car on the way to.

Completely right.

Completely right.

Most important part of the day.

Do it, do it.

Seriously, you'll recognize the difference.

Yeah.

Because you're waking things up now.

I would say do a tongue twister because it gets you working the words, gets you working the vocals, gets you working the sense of diction as well.

Again, can I be heard?

If the answer to that is no, I'm going to ask you to sit down and not speak because that's going to be redundant.

There's no point.

Somebody standing up there who can't be heard.

This happens all the time.

Someone stands up in front of the room, you might be three rows back or the other end of the boardroom and you can't hear what they're saying.

You're a lazy, fickle audience member, as we all are.

We're just going to switch off.

That's a great thing.

We are audience members more than we are public speakers, all of us, so we know the sensations that are happening.

So next time you sit in a meeting, ask yourself the question, can I hear what's being said?

Do I know what the point of this is?

Could this meeting have been an email?

So those points there, I think mostly.

Meetings could be an email.

You're quite right.

Yes.

When it comes to that self awareness that we spoke about and obviously getting feedback and taking that on board is a massive part of it.

You've worked with some very effective communicators, such as Chris Williamson and loads of others.

What do you find separates them with the feedback aspect of it?

They take it on board and they do it in its most simplest form.

Usually in my first couple of sessions, I will teach a client a vocal warmup, focused prep that you could do on a daily basis.

Every day A non negotiable.

And people of that particular cut will embrace a non negotiable and recognize how effective it is to take that on, to move things in that really, really effective space and to keep things advancing and growing.

That idea of a non negotiable is discipline led, and that's a very, very fantastic quality.

It is purely that, taking it on board and doing it.

I then, as a speech coach will then message them or send them a voice note next morning saying, how's it going?

Have you done any warmup today?

Can you sense a difference?

And I know that they would have done it.

The ones I'd know who haven't done it.

It's quite apparent.

And again, that's another point of conversation to say, why haven't you done it?

What happened?

What crept in?

Do you think we're at the stage where we should be working together at a moment?

Do you want to take some time and we'll come back?

They take on these points.

They recognize that a non negotiable is a non negotiable and it forms part of their day in the same way that we have glasses of water.

We might do our walks every morning, meditation, going to the gym, all these sorts of things.

They are bedded in for a reason.

Because discipline is so, so infectious and fantastic to bring into your day.

You feel better, don't you?

Ultimately, you feel better for doing it.

You never regret doing it.

You regret not doing it.

Yeah.

You never regret doing it.

So it's purely that I think, Sam, those clients I work, I'm very fortunate to work with, are all of that particular cut where they'll go, yeah, okay, right.

I've got to do this, got to do that, and that'll help move the dial with my speech craft.

Yeah.

Is there something common that you see driving them to be that disciplined?

Because discipline's an interesting thing.

It is an interesting thing, yes.

A lot different to motivation, of course, which is a bit too wispy.

Yeah.

It's difficult to wear, isn't it?

It does, yeah.

Discipline needs motivation.

For breakfast is.

Chris has said in the past, It's a sense to advance and to be happy, to advance and to improve oneself.

And we can follow that thread to the title of your show, the Lonely Chapter.

When we cast off our chums who are bad critics and not good critics, and we find ourselves with our friendship group decreasing as we get older because we want to engage with the people who mean something to us, but also add something as opposed to taking away, because that person is depressed and angry, they haven't made the changes so they're going to throw that ire onto you because they can see you growing.

It's exactly that particular point.

And that takes some guts.

You're putting something on the line to say that every morning before 7am I'm going to do a cold plunge or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to do my vocal warmup in the shower.

It's that point and it takes some getting used to and it takes a while to get to that point.

I think we've all recognized those points of friends who were, we thought were close but actually they were holding us back and actually we are better without them being so entwined in our lives.

It takes a lot of reflection, it takes a lot of unpacking, a big debrief with yourself to think actually yeah, that wasn't an effective relationship, that wasn't helping build.

Whereas a good critic will say, you're doing this is amazing what you're doing.

Have you thought about doing X or.

I think that'll really help you.

Okay, I haven't thought about that.

Yeah, it's super hard to overcome.

It takes a lot of energy to overcome and believe in yourself.

When that group of friends are.

For me, I went sober for two years when I was I think 24 and at that time I'd still go out to the pub or to clubs with the people I was drinking with, but I wouldn't be drinking.

And they would say, oh come on, just have one, don't be boring.

And it was that like constant pressure of trying to.

Then what I found interesting was at the end of the night when they were a lot more intoxicated, they turn around and say, I'm like, I wish I could do what you're doing.

And it was like that moment of like, okay, so you're almost saying that to make yourself feel better in that moment because you haven't got the strength right now to do what I'm doing and stick with it.

And I think that's where people sort of draw away sometimes.

You're quite right.

And it's to embrace a sense of loneliness when that happens because there is a natural sense of betrayal.

Sometimes we feel, and we've all felt this and I think.

And sometimes.

And that's why I don't dismiss the seven year old.

Shy Miles.

I don't try and eradicate him.

I'm glad he pops up every so often just to remind me about those close friendships that I had or still have from those days.

So I think it's incredibly grounding.

And I'm always happy when he pops into my head every so often.

So I would quite like to take that guy out for a cup of tea and just say, it's going to be okay and look where we are now.

I'd be quite proud to take that person out for a cup of tea.

It's a nice thought experiment to do, is like, think back to that.

Those pivotal times in your life where you were almost different people and say, what would I say to that person?

What would they say to me?

They'd probably be quite proud.

And it.

In that moment now, you think, okay, I must be doing something right.

I've obviously made a lot of progress.

Yeah, they'd be hugely proud, Sam, of everything you've achieved.

It's incredible.

They'll be hugely proud.

And I so don't ever dismiss that person that creeps back in at 3am when you go back to a past experience or a point at school where you didn't really like that person or something, you made a bad choice in your teens or at university or something, as we all do, and just, you know, think about it, reflect upon it and move on in that particular direction.

So, yeah, it's powerful stuff.

It is.

Can you think of a moment where working with a client, it became less about speaking well and more about something bigger in their life?

Yeah, quite a few times, actually.

Yes, this has happened.

It's a.

Sometimes a client will come to me and say, I want to speak like this person when they did their TED Talk.

And I'll go, that's great.

We might need to break down your goals and objectives slightly differently.

That person's been working with their speech coach for the last eight months to get to that point.

What is it that that person does that you're not doing that you wish you could do, and why?

And we'll go into that rhythm.

And that's usually for me to go, let's see if we're the right fit to work together.

Because sometimes there's no point going on this journey if you're disconnected to begin with.

Usually people come with very prescriptive requirements.

I want to drop this, I want to do that, I want to do this.

Okay, let's.

We can unpack those.

We can completely address those.

What do you want to do?

What has happened?

What have you seen?

What has made you wake up and think, I am.

I want to be better than this.

And we go back to those hinge moments and look at that.

And it's come in different moments, especially if I'm working with somebody and they are wanting to be a bit more emotional or expressive when they're speaking.

And I'll go, okay, well, let's just go back to when did you feel emotional?

Have you ever.

Oh, I don't think I've ever.

I'll go, okay.

Have you got young members of your family?

Yes, I've got two young cousins.

And I say, okay, have you ever read them a bedtime story?

Yes, yes, lots of times I said, okay, I bet you were expressive and emotional when you read them their bedtime story.

I bet it wasn't once upon a time there are three bears.

And one day it's a once upon a time there were three bears.

So sometimes that shy, timid person, they have had these moments of glory and they can do it.

And sometimes that's a real big light bulb moment.

And sometimes that then opens up another conversation about, well, actually I did do that.

And then I found myself in this position profession wise.

I found that very repressive and I didn't really enjoy my time there.

I might have been making a lot of money, but I wasn't particularly happy and fulfilled.

And I think I've let a few things get quashed during that period.

So there'll be some unpacking comes out of that point of how they were feeling during that particular time.

But usually when you, when you force somebody to find those moments when they were expressive, you know, might say, okay, when you proposed your wife, I'm sure you were expressive.

I'm sure there was something or there was a desire to do something.

And they might have sent me a copy of their wedding speech that they did a couple of years ago or a video of it.

And I'll go, okay, I can see, you know, you're, I can see you apprehensive about doing it.

That comes across in your performance.

But the words on the script that you wrote, this is amazing.

And you're telling me you're not creative, expressive or emotional.

So that does.

There is some unpacking along those particular lines.

So it usually goes beyond the sense of I want to drop filler words, I want to correct this and the other.

It is a mindset shift and that always kicks up some old emotions.

And I think that tends to go with quite a few coaches in a number of different fields.

Yeah.

PT for example, I want to look better because I was teased at school or I was, you know, told I was overweight at school.

Or I told I was a bean pole at school, which was definitely in my case.

So it's those particular points where a comment has happened that they want to eradicate.

And so, no, I can do this.

I think we all have this.

I remember at school being that shy, sensitive person, ripe for comments and the odd dose of bullying.

And I wasn't particularly into sports either, so a sense of sort of weakness would creep in and I would.

You know, over the last couple of years, I really upped my fitness game and done events and things just to even to prove myself.

Now I've got that strength, even though I know I had it then.

And it's.

It's an interesting journey that we all go on.

And I think that's what crosses over quite neatly from coach to clients.

Yeah.

Because we've all.

We know that.

And I think that's why it was a good exercise for anybody to do with any business to think about why they're doing it.

Why did you do it?

Because the kernel of you doing it is usually way before you think about it being a thing.

When we look at your own journey, when you look back on how far you've come personally, are there any failures or lesson points that you've had that maybe your clients don't know about or things that have shaped how you coach now?

Oh, yeah, 100%.

100%.

I can take myself back to numerous experiences at school.

Public speaking experiences early on, social interactions with a large group.

Going to a group where there's new people in there and I don't know anybody.

I think we've all experienced that, and I think that sense of apprehension is still there.

It's just at different degrees.

And I just learned to manage it in the sense of, okay, I'm happy with who I am.

I'm going to go into the room and I'm going to have a good conversation with a good few people.

I'm very much looking forward to stepping into this room.

But, gosh, yeah, there are countless things I can take my mind back to, to think, okay, yeah, that wasn't a happy time.

That wasn't a great time.

So that journey in itself is always worth unpacking and thinking about.

But, yeah, we could be here all day, but I could definitely trot out a few.

I remember actually reading.

I was in church and I was reading.

I was doing a scripture reading, and it was horrendous.

It was horrendous.

I didn't prep because for me to prep, would me be admitting to the fact I'm going to be doing something.

Yeah.

So it was completely internalized in my head.

I stood up there in the pulpit, I had the Bible in front of me.

Gorgeous language, lovely wordplay.

But if you're not used to it, then it's an absolute minefield and I wasn't prepared.

And I remember reading this passage, I can't even tell you where it was now, trotting down from the pulpit, walking back to.

Down the aisle to my seat in the pew and everyone just looking at me thinking, what the hell was that?

And I remember these eyes weighing very heavy as I flopped down into my uncomfortable pew to sit there and think, oh, no, that wasn't great.

I don't think that was good.

But then I wouldn't have sought to unpack that.

Yeah.

Because again, to unpack that would me be admitting the fact I'm going to be doing it again at some point.

And I couldn't cope with that.

I just could not cope with the fact of doing that exercise again, you know, and it's.

Gosh, it's any maths class when the teacher is, throw up, times table at you.

Bang.

Yeah, blink it.

I don't know, what's my name?

Where am I wearing shoes?

You know, everything goes out the window.

And it's that.

That particular sense or.

I think most of the schools I went to were very sporty, so you didn't have an opportunity not to do it.

It was like a daily thing when PE was every day and it's like once a fortnight, I think now in some schools, and that moment the ball would roll towards your feet or the rugby ball falls in your hands and you think, this isn't going to end well and you just get absolutely flawed and, you know, you're hobbling back to the changing rooms.

But those points of exposure and fear and worry, oh, my gosh, the worry that would wade and the panic that would come from that worry, the Sunday night worry, thinking, I've got school tomorrow, I've got X subject and I know my friend is not very well, I'm not going to see them.

I won't have a point of, you know, comforts in that sense.

Yeah.

So that's you looking back at previous things, considering how far you've come and your current expertise, is there anything that you currently feel that you still need to work on?

Do you ever look at yourself now?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Completely, completely.

Not just with what I'm doing.

I'm always seeking to develop the strategies and techniques that I'm looking at.

I don't like to keep them too locked in.

I'm not arrogance enough to think this is the be all and end all and this will work for everybody.

I didn't know.

I work sort of one to one small group.

So there's a nice bespoke element to that.

So it keeps it nice and lively and nimble.

I think with my own sort of fitness journey as well.

That's something I'm constantly looking at.

Learning more about how things work and the new marches of science and the new tools that are out there are definitely things I'm always sort of trying to explore or find the time to explore when one can.

Also forcing that time into the diary, the development time, you know, so coaching the coach.

Yeah.

To.

To lose that for something.

We're all so busy now.

Yeah.

Where have I got time to learn something?

And I hate that excuse and I hate even saying it sometimes.

And I.

Again, I think that's something I've really worked on.

I stopped saying that so much because of course it's.

Life is busy.

If I had millions and millions of pounds, I was just sitting at home, it would still be busy.

There'll be stuff to do.

So it's that sense of just thinking about it in that way and seeking to develop and you know, I learn from every client that I work with.

It's a lovely opportunity just to speak to them and see how they're responding to not just my coaching, but seeing them grow and attending their performances, attending their seminars or seeing them interact with the world.

Looking at their content that goes out online, I think that's amazing.

Five weeks ago that was nowhere near being a point to do, but now it's regularity.

I'm sure you found that with your content as well.

Doing it every day.

Yeah.

First couple of times it's a.

But then you get used to that rhythm and you sense this scent that's you vocalizing early, that is you completely taking that thread that we were talking about and putting out into the real world.

I find it really interesting looking back, especially at the start, it was very slow.

And then as I spoke to more people and people who have spoken a lot, they speak a lot quicker.

Especially I found Americans and I found myself then trying to match them and speaking too quickly that I would lose my train of thought or I would add in loads of filler words.

So I've.

Now it's all reflection, isn't it?

I look back and I sort of can see that went too fast.

And now I'm sort of Somewhere down in the middle where.

But there's still so much more to do.

That's not me saying this is the end.

Well, of course.

And it's never the end of the.

It's never the end.

It's like you, you buy a house, you think, okay, I'll just decorate that room.

It'll be done.

Yeah, it's never done.

It's never ever done.

It's a bookcase full of your books.

If you get to the point you've read every single one of them on there, that's a really sad moment, very sad time.

It's pictures you want to frame and put on your wall.

You're never going to frame them all.

They're never all going to be up at once.

It's that sense of not trying to complete everything like it's a video game, I think is a nice place to be.

Because there's so much to garner from the unknown, the joy of the unknown and stepping into the unknown and embracing that sense of naivety, I think, and just not knowing.

You'll never know if you don't try.

Exactly right, exactly right, exactly right.

You're quite right.

If you could add one compulsory speaking experience to everyone's life curriculum, what experience would that be?

Reading poetry.

Okay, that's what I would say.

Privately or privately or publicly, Really?

I think it's a lovely way of exploring language, exploring stories and exploring expression and emotion.

I use a lot of poetry in my, in my coaching sessions for a number of reasons.

One, you can't.

You, it's forced expression really, when you read a poem.

Yeah, you're forced.

It's a bit like when you're trying, if you tell a joke that you love, you're performing.

You are.

The person who says, I'm terrified at performing suddenly becomes a performer for 30 seconds while they trot out their award winning gag.

Poetry is like eating chocolate properly.

You take a bite of it, you let it sit on your tongue, you let it melt into your taste buds.

Everything stops for a good 2, 3, 5 minutes.

Poetry is exactly the same.

You stop, you contemplate, you read, you recite, you read it out loud.

You might see a word you don't know, look it up.

Hey, presto.

You've bolstered your vocabulary today and it's only a Tuesday morning.

How wonderful is that?

So starting every day, grabbing a poetry book, reading a stanza or a whole poem before you kick off with the day, it's going to move the dial, something's going to change, something's going to Improve.

You're going to taste the richness of this, of the English language, and that's a fantastic thing to do.

And as I say, it bolsters your vocab at the same time.

Is there a starting point you recommend?

Is there like, a collection?

Yeah.

I mean, I tend to find, actually, the poet John Betjeman is usually a good one to start with, and one that I've used with a number of my clients is one of his early ones, Death in Leamington, it's called.

It's quite a somber piece, but it's a great piece, and it's even a piece that Chris still trots out at every tech rehearsal he does for every show.

So it's brilliant.

And it's a lovely sense because you are sort of touching someone's shoulder of history, something that was written almost 100 years ago, and just trotting it out and absorbing the word, you know, how can I step into performative states when I'm in my sort of stagnant state at the moment?

Poetry is a great tool to shove you into a different direction.

So bringing poetry into your life is a great place to be.

And if poetry is too, too broad and a bit too overpowering or a bit too potent for you at the moment, I would say find a songwriter that you like and just read their lyrics like they are a poem.

That is poetry.

Miles.

The way I like to finish my episodes is to ask my guests to leave a question for the listener.

So I enjoy listening to podcasts and going away and having conversations about what I've listened to, starting those conversations outside of the audio platform.

So to give the listener that opportunity, if you could leave them with a question to take to a family member, a friend, or even a stranger, what question would that be?

What a wonderful way to end the podcast.

Let me just dwell on that for a second.

Absolutely.

Because that is so, so lovely.

Okay, this.

What was the first film you saw at the cinema?

Because everybody can easily remember that.

And sometimes that is the first time anybody has embraced any sense of art.

Yeah.

And sometimes those cuts run deep, and that really resonates.

And if you're speaking to a grandparent or an auntie or uncle, it's wonderful because they go, oh, gosh, I can't quite remember it perhaps was.

And they might.

The act of remembering and basking in the waters of nostalgia is a lovely place to be.

Other memories as well.

I think the detail around that and the devil being in the detail.

That's a very good question to ask.

Great question.

Myles, thank you so much for coming on.

I've really appreciated this conversation.

If people want to find you online, keep up to date with what you're doing.

Where can they do that?

Instagram's the best place to go, so it's eakwellcoaching or my website is speak well.co.uk.com awesome.

I'll link it all below so anyone listening can just go down and click on it.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please do share it with someone who you think would find some value from it, whether that's a family member, friend, or a stranger on the Internet.

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And on Instagram, it's oneychapterpodcast.

But lastly, from me, thank you for listening.

Stay curious and I will see you in the next one.

Sa.