From Nervous Engineer to Confident Presenter: Unconventional Tips for Public Speaking Mastery

Tim Newman: 0:36
Welcome to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast that’s here to help you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I’m your host, tim Newman, and I’m excited to take you on a journey to become a better public speaker. If you are like most people, just the thought of speaking in front of a crowd or talking during an important meeting can trigger all kinds of anxiety. Trust me, I know what that’s like. I gave my first speech as a senior in college. I was so nervous that as soon as I got to the front of the room and opened my mouth to speak, I threw up. I have learned a lot since then and I’m here to help others overcome their fear of messing up or sounding stupid. In this episode, our guest talks about how he’s handled his nerves when it comes to public speaking. I can tell you right now you probably won’t believe some of the tips he’s picked up over the years to address things like swaying profusely. I know I was shocked when he mentioned the idea of wiggling your toes.

Tim Newman: 1:27
His background as a technical person and engineer placed him in positions where he was required to deliver presentations for work on a regular basis. Since this did not come naturally to him, he quickly realized the need to improve his skills in this area. As you listen, you’ll hear about a variety of techniques you can easily apply to your own situations. He talks about his personal experiences and how his failures helped him grow. He does a great job of using examples that are easy for anyone to follow, and he relies on practices that may surprise you, coming from a technical person and introvert. Listen to the full episode for a variety of suggestions to help you communicate effectively audiences made up of different personalities, backgrounds and interests. You can add some tricks to your personal toolbox for overcoming whatever physical reactions you had to stress and some practical strategies to make your presentations flow in a more logical manner.

Tim Newman: 2:22
All right, so let’s welcome our next guest. After one too many failed presentations, neil Thompson, an engineer who worked in the medical device industry, knew he had to improve. He did so and now, via his company, teach the Geek, he works with technical professionals like himself to improve their presentation skills. He’s the creator of the Teach the Geek to Speak online public speaking course. It’s geared towards those in the technical fields. He hosts a podcast, the Teach the Geek podcast, interviewing technical professionals about their public speaking journeys. He’s also the author of the book Teach the Geek to Speak a no-fluff public speaking guide for STEM professionals in the accompanying workbook. Neil, welcome to Speaking with Confidence and thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Thanks for having me, tim. What do you mean when you say that you had some failed presentations? What does that actually mean? You know people have different interpretations of failure and success, so what did a failed presentation mean to you?

Neil Thompson: 3:17
It meant that I was getting questions after the presentation that I thought I’d answered during the presentation, but because I input what I was talking about in a way that the people that I was speaking to could understand, now I’m getting these questions. I was sweating profusely before the presentation. Now I’m really sweating hard. It was just a disaster all around.

Tim Newman: 3:38
My guess is, at that point in your career you had no real training at all on public speakings.

Neil Thompson: 3:44
Oh, absolutely not. With my first job, I worked in a lab. I didn’t have to do much speaking at all, which I didn’t mind. It wasn’t until I took my second job at another company, where I was told I was going to be a project lead. Up until that point, I was a research associate, so I asked them what a project lead was, and the company that I worked for didn’t have project managers, so that responsibility fell to engineers like myself, and that meant having to give presentations on project status to the decision-makers, upper management, on a monthly basis. And those first few presentations I gave were well, they were to be desired.

Tim Newman: 4:25
Well, yeah, I read in a couple of places you said you know you can sweat from your fingernails. And I had to chuckle because I never really heard it that way before.

Neil Thompson: 4:34
Oh yeah, the wire was coming at you from everywhere.

Tim Newman: 4:38
In the moment. How did you deal with that? Because you know people have heard me say you know, when I was in college I had been in the military, I’d been an athlete. So you know I’ve had been in roles where I’ve had to be a leader and speak to people. But you know, in class I kept dropping to class and then I was a senior getting ready to graduate. The first time I threw up, I threw up in front of the class. So how did you handle that stress and anxiety? You know, sweating through your clothes and everywhere else. How did you handle that?

Neil Thompson: 5:08
Well, I’d run a sweat through my clothes and throw up. So as you got through that, my God, I’m not sure I could care more about the class next day.

Tim Newman: 5:20
I didn’t have a choice because I kept dropping the class. My advisor said if you don’t take this class and pass it, you’re not going to graduate. So you know, it was one of those things. What are you going to do? Right?

Neil Thompson: 5:30
Yeah, for sure. I mean. Ultimately, I suppose the profuse sweating had to do with nerves. You know I have my own podcast and I often ask a lot of my guests do they deal with nerves or do they get nervous before presentations and, if so, how do they deal with their nerves? Interesting one it was to wiggle your toes. Okay, and the and the guest said that by wiggling your toes it focuses your, your, your thoughts are your toe wiggling, as opposed to the fact that you’re nervous.

Neil Thompson: 6:02
It’s certainly something to try, but one one of the things that I typically do is before person at least now, before presentations, I’ll go in a quiet place and just breathe, deep breathing and also a lot of visualization, because if you tell yourself that you are, if you tell yourself that you stink at public speaking, you likely will. I mean your thoughts, certainly your thoughts matter. So if you visualize yourself actually doing well and and you’re hitting all the various points that you’re going to hit, and people are asking you questions afterwards that you have the answers to, and even if you don’t have the answers to, you are comfortable enough to admit that you don’t know, basically, you want to visualize yourself doing the best presentation that you can. Well, that certainly was going to help with the profuse sweating and hopefully the vomiting as well.

Tim Newman: 6:51
Well, I hope so. You know it’s. You bring up a really good point. You know, being comfortable enough to say that you don’t have all the answers or you you know you can’t answer a question that to me is a huge obstacle that I think a lot of especially my area, young professionals struggle with Thinking that you have to know the answers to everything and that, like you said, puts a lot of stress and pressure on you. But just being comfortable enough to say you know what I don’t know, let me see if I can find out and I’ll get back to you is a huge step in somebody’s growth 100%.

Neil Thompson: 7:26
And it definitely was something that I used to struggle with because, as you said, I felt like I had to know everything. I was working on a particular project as the product development lead, so I was the only person in a team that had this expertise. So I figured if anyone asked a question on that topic, I had to know the answer, because who else would? But I became a lot comfortable over time, admitting, when I didn’t know the answer, especially with the types of presentations that I was giving. It wasn’t as if these were one-offs, these were a monthly thing. So even in the event that I didn’t know the answer, I very well could find the answer and then provide that answer to that person at a later date. Right, right.

Tim Newman: 8:07
So you talk about part of your preparation before you go up and speak is to breathe and to meditate. Obviously, I’m assuming you know that this isn’t a, you know, public speaking isn’t, doesn’t come natural to you, but do you ever find yourself getting pumped up? So, like you know, for me one of the things I try and do is, you know, go through all the preparation and then, right before you know, I stand up in the meeting or on the stage or wherever it is I’m going, I get myself pumped up and excited and I talk about having a walk-up song. You know, like in baseball, do you do anything like that?

Neil Thompson: 8:42
There are certainly. Well, as I mentioned, I have a podcast and there are certainly a number of guests that I have that do something like that. Ultimately, when it comes to it, they reframe nerves as excitement because they figure the the, the feelings, the emotions that you feel when you’re excited, as opposed to nerves. They’re very similar. So when they look at it as in terms of being excited, which is more positive, than being nervous, which is negative, well then that helps to calm themselves down so that they can actually get up there and get the presentation. No-transcript I mentioned that my first few presentations were bad.

Neil Thompson: 9:33
They were failed presentations. Well, apparently the perceived sweating had an effect. Ultimately, the project that I was speaking on was canceled, and this happened maybe 15 years ago at this point, and I still think to this day that maybe if I was just better at speaking about this project, that perhaps I could have saved it. I suppose we’ll never know, but that really was the catalyst for me, even getting better at giving presentations. I didn’t learn my lesson after the first presentation or the second or the third or the fourth.

Neil Thompson: 10:05
It wasn’t until that project got canceled that I realized okay, maybe this is something I need to work on, and that’s when I joined Toastmasters and for those of you all that don’t know about Toastmasters, it’s an international organization with chapters all over the world and it’s an excellent forum to practice your public speaking skills. So I joined that and then I also didn’t shy away from any other speaking opportunities that were offered at the company and that certainly helped. You can read all the books and listen to all the podcasts, but you don’t get better at speaking or anything really until you actually book the work in.

Tim Newman: 10:44
Right, and that’s something that I stress to my students all the time. You have to practice, you have to do it and we can talk about like you said. We can talk about all you you said we can talk about all you want, but until you actually stand up and do it, until you put the work in to getting better, it’s just not going to happen. And that goes for any skill, any skill that we do ever. I mean just think of it from as an infant growing up, that they don’t just pick up a fork and start putting food on and put it in their mouth. It takes time and it takes practice over and over again and then it just becomes second nature. Now, I’m not saying the public speaking will ever become second nature for, I would say, the majority of people, but you still have to put the time and effort into it to get better.

Neil Thompson: 11:27
Oh yeah, absolutely. And for the kid out there that was able to pick up that fork and put it directly into their mouth, kudos to him, or?

Tim Newman: 11:34
exactly. You know, I’m actually I’m watching my, uh, my, my grandkids do that. Now I’ve got a almost two-year-old grandson and it’s, it’s, it’s fun watching that progression and he, he doesn’t have the that, that dexterity yet, but he, but he’s getting there. You know, kind of on a related note, you know, as as you’re, as you worked on your professional, your professional speaking, how did that affect your interpersonal communications and did it improve them as a result of becoming a better public speaker?

Neil Thompson: 12:05
Absolutely. I mentioned that I joined Toastmaster. For those of you who don’t know how a Toastmaster meeting works, it’s divided into three sections. One is prepared speeches, where a person gives a speech that they prepared. And then the third and another aspect of it is evaluations, where an evaluator evaluates the person who gave the prepared speech.

Neil Thompson: 12:28
But, at least to me, the most important one is what’s called table topics. With table topics, you are asked a question and are typically given one to two minutes to answer, and this is a question that you didn’t prepare for, you didn’t know about it beforehand and to even up the level of difficulty, they may even say you have to use a certain word in your answer. So this really helped. Yeah, this really helped in my impromptu speaking, because in in so many instances, just in the workplace, maybe your boss will ask you just around the water cooler about a project and you have to be able to give a coherent answer. And the Chose Master has certainly helped in just being able to be more in the moment and not too much in your head by giving an impromptu answer the moment and not too much in your head by giving an impromptu answer.

Tim Newman: 13:14
It helps you think, helps you think on your feet and be able to speak extemporaneously on on different topics, and you know that’s something that especially young professionals across the board really struggle with, and so you know that that would be a, you know, a good exercise, and I’ll. I’ll come back to that here as as we, as we move forward. But in terms of your speaking and in the things that you’re doing, do you still have anxiety, even though as good as you are now? Do you still have anxiety before you present or throughout the process? And how do you deal with it outside of the right before work that you do, in the meditation and the breathing?

Neil Thompson: 13:57
Oh sure, I’ve interviewed a number of people at this point and whenever I get the answer no, I don’t get nervous or don’t feel anything really before I give a presentation. I think they’re lying, because I think it’s just a normal. It’s a normal emotion to feel before you actually get up in front of people. But ultimately you want people to really take in what you’re saying and you being nervous about it is just you feeling that you really want them to get it. You’re not just getting up there just to talk. At least I know I’m not.

Neil Thompson: 14:29
There’s other things I’d rather do in a lot of cases. So I figured I put the time and effort to put a presentation together, for instance, and I really want these people to understand what I’m talking about and that’s in my mind. That’s where the nerves comes from. I don’t think it ever goes away. It just gets better over time. I think, just with the rep and with the practice. As you mentioned earlier, I have a friend who gives me a hard time over the fact that I practice presentations before I give them and he does a lot more. I guess off the cuff speaking when he gives presentations, but I’ve seen him give presentations and I think it shows when I practice my presentations. I’m thinking what points do I need to make and in what order do I need to make them for it to make sense to the people I’m talking to?

Neil Thompson: 15:14
Is there a call to action that I want the audience to really take in at the end of the presentation. What is that call to action? What points do I need to make that lead naturally to that call to action? What introduction could I come up with that would lead naturally to those points which would then lead to that call to action? These are all the things that I’m thinking about before I even practice a presentation. But if you just get up in front of people and start talking, well, now it all just comes out the way it comes out, and it may not come out in the way that is best suited for your audience. So then you might end up being in the position that I was in when I first started giving presentations, where you’re getting questions afterwards that you thought you had answered. You didn’t practice. I certainly didn’t practice enough to really think about how I could present this data or present my information in a way that this audience can understand.

Tim Newman: 16:06
Yeah, and you hit on a number of really good points there. First and foremost, I agree with you. First, the majority of people are introverts, right, so getting up and talking in front of people is not something that just comes natural. There are some extroverts out there, and that’s fine, but the majority of people are introverts. So there is going to be that nervousness and, like you said, if somebody tells me that they don’t get nervous or they don’t have that anxiety, they don’t have the butterflies, whatever you want to call it I kind of look at them and laugh and, like you said, I think a lot of that shows in the presentation style and I think one of the biggest points that you brought up is the whole idea of practice, practicing the presentation.

Tim Newman: 16:44
So let me just ask a couple of follow-up questions on that from you. Number one what is your practice routine? I mean, you talk about some of the things that you want to make sure you hit on, but are you standing up? Are you sitting down? Are you doing it in the rooms? Are you? Did you have somebody critiquing you? What does your practice actually look like?

Neil Thompson: 17:04
Well, when I first started, I had someone critiquing me, because it was really helpful to get that feedback. Especially when I’m giving a presentation that I’ve given a number of times before, I don’t need that as much. But ultimately, the process that I use is, as I mentioned I figure out what the call to action is. What do I want people to do after I give a presentation? And with Teach the Geek, the call to action is to maybe bring me in to do further training. Maybe it is to follow me on social media or follow me on LinkedIn. And then I have to think to myself well, what points do I need to make for them to make that decision after the presentation.

Neil Thompson: 17:44
Typically, what I’ll do is I will have tips that I offer during the presentation as to how you can get better at giving a presentation, presentation about presentations. And then I think to myself well, what kind of introduction would I need to make that would lead, naturally, to those tips? I mean, you mentioned even in the intro that I speak mainly to the technical audience, so why should they listen to me, talk to them about getting better at presentations? There’s more than enough people out there to do that. Well, I tell a little bit about my story, about the fact that I’m a technical person myself and I had to give presentations in front of people and I wasn’t all that great at it, but I got a lot better at it, and here are some of the tips that I now use to give better presentations. And that’s really what I do. I mean, I start the the end and I work backwards and I try to make it as logical a flow as possible, but that’s actually my process in my area with my students.

Tim Newman: 18:51
When I talk to them I say you know what? What are you? What’s the first thing that you do? When you know, when I give you an assignment or you’re going to do a presentation, the first they tell me the first thing that they’re going to do is they’re going to open up PowerPoint. And you know I tell them okay, well, so, so that right there, that is, before you even get started, you’ve got your steps all mixed up. You know that that that should be one of the last things that you do. You know when you mentioned it, I think, without really mentioning it. You know you’re talking about your audience, right? You know who are you speaking to on a regular basis and, again, why are they listening to you? So, number one, I think you know you’ve got to know that audience and then build from there 100%.

Neil Thompson: 19:29
You need to have an outline, and I agree with you, tim. The slides the slides in my mind, are secondary. What’s primary is the words that are coming out of your mouth. If anything, the slides are just used as a supplement to what you’re actually talking about, because ultimately, you want people to listen to what you’re saying. I’ve been to so many technical conferences and been in the audience listening to these presentations. You’ll hear people just read the slides. There’ll be a whole bunch of graphs and tables on the slides. You only know which one they’re referring to at any given time because so many, so often they’re not even looking at you, they’re looking at the slides, so you’re not really sure what’s going on, and it’s so unfortunate.

Neil Thompson: 20:13
I get the sense that for a lot of these types of conferences, people are doing these presentations for maybe different reasons. It’s not really for information exchange, I don’t think, because if it was, then they certainly would do a better job of just thinking about the audience. A lot of times I think it’s just for being able to say that you presented at that conference Right, because it’s going to be helpful for your career moving forward. But my God, if they just put a little bit more time just thinking about the best way to put the information together so that the audience could understand it. Those presentations would be so much more useful.

Tim Newman: 20:49
Yeah, and I know I’m going to get vilified for this statement you know me, being in the education industry, that I can tell you that is probably the biggest reason why people go and present at conferences is so that they can say they actually presented at a conference and not really the exchange of information or growing the database of information. So I know my friends and colleagues that and I’ve said this to them anyway, but that to me is probably one of the biggest problems with professional presentations on the education side.

Neil Thompson: 21:23
Yeah, I mean, this conversation is making me think of another conversation I had with a professional speaker, and he’s been a speaker for over a decade and he finds that oftentimes, when even professional speakers give their presentations, afterwards people will come up to them and say great speech. But he says, well, what else are they supposed to say? If you see that person, your speech could use some work? They’re probably not. They’re going to say great speech, but if you do say that, I mean, how are they going to know that maybe there are some things that they possibly could do to better impart their information? Similarly, those same people who are giving presentations at those technical conferences, I doubt that people are coming up to them afterwards and saying, yeah, you could have done this better. It’s just hey, great speech, where’s the lunch?

Tim Newman: 22:16
Exactly, exactly. Oh man, it’s funny. It’s funny on one hand, but but it’s not. You know, you know, and I always bring it back to you know, trying to help help students and for them to get better, how, how does, does that type of environment actually help them? You know, because you know they go and they see that and they say OK, this is how you know the 15 or 20 year educator is doing it. So if they can do it, it should be fine for me.

Neil Thompson: 22:42
Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean yeah. If you see someone that’s been doing it this long and who’s correcting the 20 year vet, especially if you’re somebody just new in the field, you’re saying nothing. Especially in those technical conferences I used to go to, a lot of the people who’d be presenting would be professors, maybe some grad students, some postdocs, you know students. A student is going to tell no tenured professor anything about his presentation.

Tim Newman: 23:07
Exactly. You know I don’t want to get too far down the weeds here, but you know, with my students I say look, if you need to, if I’m doing something that you don’t like, that you’re not understanding, if it’s not resonating with you, please raise your hand, say Dr Newman, this is what you’re doing. I’m not getting it. And, and even still a lot, sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. And so you know we, you know as as times have changed if, if we don’t start connecting, going back to who our audience is right. So so connecting to my audience 20 years ago is very different than connecting to the college student of today. How they get information, how they process information, is very different. So if we don’t make that change and we don’t adapt, then this is what we get. And then I’m that 20-year educator standing up in front of a group of people talking to young professionals and they’re just not getting it, and then they don’t say anything.

Neil Thompson: 23:58
For a couple of years I was an adjunct instructor at a university in Maryland, baltimore County. Oh really, yes, the overwhelming majority of the students were international, mainly from India and Pakistan, especially that area of the world. And I get the sense that, for those students, when they are students, listening to a professor speak, that’s what you do. And I get the sense that, for those students, when they are students, listening to a professor speak, that’s what you do. You listen to the professor speak. You don’t speak back unless it’s spoken to. You’re certainly not offering any feedback on how they could be a better professor. You just you take what you get and then you do your assignments and that’s about it. It’s very one directional type of communication, right, and it’s so unfortunate. Hopefully, by them being in this country now, they’ll realize that there very well could be that two way dialogue and it just helps for them to learn better because they’re telling the professor what they need for them to be more effective in teaching them Exactly 100% agree on that.

Tim Newman: 24:59
Yeah, I grew up. Hundred percent agree on that. Yeah, I grew up just just outside of Baltimore County. I went. My undergrad is from Towson State University at the time, so UMBC I’m very familiar with, so that’s a. That’s a pretty good connection there when you tell people like you in the STEM professions you know, who have the same type of mindset in terms of speaking in public, to help them become more confident speakers and communicators Because, again, like we’re talking about, most of them don’t have that mindset.

Neil Thompson: 25:28
Technical jargon. Get rid of it, Especially if you’re talking to non-technical audiences. They’re not going to understand those words and in some instances they may not even bother to listen anymore. They’ll just tune you out and then go and do something else. And that’s unfortunate, because you put all this time and effort into playing a presentation together, all to have a good chunk of the audience not listening. I think another point is to have empathy. You weren’t always the technical expert that you are. At one point you were a non-technical person. When you were a non-technical person, could you have understood the technical presentation that you’re giving now? And if the answer is no, then maybe you need to tailor your presentations a bit. Just harken back to those days when you weren’t that person, because there was a time and if you put presentations together that would be palatable or usable by that person, I think you’d get much better results when you gave presentations Right.

Tim Newman: 26:32
I agree, and you know. Take it back to my industry. You know sport industry and we talk about building data analytics teams. So you have the PR professional, you have the marketer and then you have the technical professional who’s writing the code, writing the stats, and you don’t have that person interacting with the client. You have the marketer and the public relations person and so you’re effectively cutting that person out of the communication cycle. You know, so you’ve the marketer has to have some, some of that understanding and they have to be able to go to the public relations person to take that information, give it to the client without that, without that jargon, so that they can understand it. You know, so it’s. It’s a complicated process but, like you said, if you’re using jargon and people don’t understand, number one, they’re not going to listen to you and they’re not going to be able to use anything that you’re actually communicating with them about.

Neil Thompson: 27:28
Yeah, you certainly don’t want to play a game of broken television.

Tim Newman: 27:31
No, no. So what’s the biggest obstacle for STEM professionals in terms of public speaking?

Neil Thompson: 27:38
Getting out there and actually doing it.

Neil Thompson: 27:40
Okay, I mean, you mentioned that a lot of us are introverts and we’re more comfortable, you know, sitting in our cubicles or at our desks, working on our computers and actually getting up in front of people and explaining the work that we’re actually working on.

Neil Thompson: 27:56
It was a lesson that I had to come to at some point. I mean, I mentioned that my project was canceled ultimately at that company that I was at, and if I was just better at relaying the work that I was doing to these people, then who knows what could have happened. But because I wasn’t even thinking about that, I just figured oh, they don’t pay me to present, they pay me to do work. This presenting thing is just kind of a thing that I have to do every month. If I put more effort into it, maybe, as I said, the results could have been different, and it could be different for other people who are in those positions as well. So ultimately, it comes down to just getting out there. The biggest issue is doing it and thinking about the best ways to go about doing it.

Tim Newman: 28:40
Right, and I think another way to look at it, you know, for you is it actually did work out. I mean, look at how successful you are and look at how much you’ve grown and how much you’ve learned and how many lives you have touched. Because I’m doing airfinger, of course, because you failed and so you may not have succeeded in the moment, but I think if and it’s just the way I kind of think if you look at it in the bigger picture, how much you have actually succeeded in the lives that you’ve touched.

Neil Thompson: 29:05
All right, yeah, hopefully I sweat so other people don’t have to.

Tim Newman: 29:12
And again, sweating is better than throwing up Indeed. All right, so what suggestions do you have for presenters such as me who are speaking to a group of STEM professionals? Is there anything that we should keep in mind to make them more effective with a specialized audience?

Neil Thompson: 29:29
Well, speaking to a STEM audience, I think one of the biggest tips would be to make sure you know your material really well. Make sure you know your your material really well, because afterwards they’re they’re likely listening to what you’re saying and they’re going to ask questions because they want more clarity on the points that you’re that you’re making. This isn’t a type of group that well. You mentioned that they’re introverts and as an introvert, because you’re not speaking as much, you’re listening a lot more, you’re observing a lot more, so you’re hanging on to people’s words. You’re actually listening to people when they talk and you’re putting it through your own mind and thinking does this make sense? And if it doesn’t make sense to you, then you’re likely going to have questions. You may not have questions in the moment because I think a lot of times we also. It takes you some time to even contemplate what those questions are, so you may get those questions well after the presentation. So certainly be ready to get those types of questions.

Neil Thompson: 30:23
And then I think another thing that if you’re going to be speaking to STEM professionals is focusing on whether the presentation you’re giving logically floats. You know, I mean I mentioned the friend that I had who liked to give more impromptu presentations, and the information comes out as it comes out. If it doesn’t come out in a way that these STEM professionals think makes sense, they’ll be thinking well, why did you say this point first? This other point should have been made before this point was made, and that’s what they’re going to be thinking about a logical way to present the information I think would be beneficial to STEM audiences as well.

Tim Newman: 31:05
Two really, really, really good points. And you know, one that I’d never really thought about, you know, is because, as introverts, we do a lot better job of actually listening to what other people are saying, and that is that’s crucial in the whole communication.

Neil Thompson: 31:23
Yeah, you’re either listening, you’re talking or you’re zoning out.

Tim Newman: 31:29
Exactly, exactly. Or sleeping, I guess. And then the whole idea of the plan and you know that that just gets that sends me down a whole different path of how your talk or speech or presentation is going to go. You know, to me and I know you cover this a lot is, you know, try and tell a story, taking them from point A and weaving that story to get them to where you want them to go.

Neil Thompson: 31:54
Yeah, storytelling was definitely not something I thought was needed when it came to giving technical presentations. It certainly wasn’t one that I thought about needed when it came to giving technical presentations. It certainly wasn’t one that I thought about when I first started doing presentations, but especially if you’re talking to a non-technical audience, it could be the difference between them listening and them not listening. It’s why does this matter? Tell me, I want to know more about you, know more about your motivations, why do you do what you do? And I think a lot of people appreciate that type of information and it really helps them to even want to learn more about what this topic you’re speaking about.

Tim Newman: 32:34
Yeah, absolutely. Tell us a little bit more about what you’re doing with Teach the Geek and where they can get more information about you.

Neil Thompson: 32:41
Sure you’re doing with Teach the Geek and where they can get more information about you. Sure, well, with Teach the Geek, as I mentioned, I work with technical people so they can present more effectively, and I focus mainly on them presenting to non-technical audiences, because a lot of times that’s the people you’re going to be speaking to. You could be that engineer, like I, was giving a presentation in front of senior management, many of whom are non-technical. Perhaps you’re giving a presentation in front of senior management, many of whom are non-technical. Perhaps you’re giving a presentation in front of customers, in front of vendors, maybe at a conference, somewhere. You know, a lot of times there could be people in the audience who may not have the same technical background that you do and you’re going to have to do some work in figuring out what’s the best way to present to such people. So that’s essentially what I do. I mean, you mentioned earlier that I have a course, online course, called Teach the Geeks to Speak, and it comes with a book and an accompanying workbook. I go into organizations and I do trainings.

Neil Thompson: 33:34
I mentioned earlier that I have a podcast in which I interview people with technical backgrounds about their public speaking journeys, and that’s been really interesting to learn more about what they did to get better at giving presentations. What did they do to deal with their nerds? Do they have a process of putting their presentations together? Were they ever? I mean, were they good at public speaking to begin with? And if not, what did they do to get better at? And it’s been. I just released my 300th episode, so I’ve talked to quite a number of people and just hearing their stories has been really interesting, but not just their public speaking journeys, but their career journeys as well.

Neil Thompson: 34:12
One that stands out is a woman named Christine Vartanian. I mentioned her in so many podcast interviews that I do, because I find her story to be so interesting. She got a degree in civil engineering, never worked as a civil engineer. She then went back to school to do law. So she did law and then she became an attorney. She was an attorney for a few years, then she was a stay-at-home mom for a decade and now she works as a personal stylist helping women with choosing their outfits, their clothes. I mean engineering to law school, to stay-at-home mom, to clothing. I mean, that’s not exactly a straight line.

Tim Newman: 34:51
No, it’s not, but I don’t know if there are guys that do that. You know, I think a lot of guys need more of that personal styling than a lot of females. But you know, that’s just me talking.

Neil Thompson: 35:05
But good for her. I think you’re right about that.

Tim Newman: 35:11
You know I tell my students this all the time. You know I’m a very conservative dresser generally. You know dark pants, white shirt, and I say my wife picks out my clothes for me. So if I come in dressed like a clown and things don’t match, that means that I’ve done something wrong and my wife is mad at me.

Neil Thompson: 35:29
So uh yeah, I can’t dress myself well, that’s wonderful that you, that you have a wife that’s willing to put your outfits together, and I get the sense that she worked with women mainly because they have so many more options. I mean, you mentioned as a guys like we wear a college shirt, wear some slacks, maybe some hard bottom shoes. You’re good to go.

Tim Newman: 35:50
Yeah, exactly, exactly. But but you know, understanding that that, like what you said, her career journey is not a straight line. You know, in in today’s, you know work world that should really be expected. It’s not like it was. You know, I’m not even gonna say 20 years ago, I’m gonna say 30 to 35 years ago it used to be a straight line Getting young professionals to understand it’s generally not going to be and and to be okay with it not being a straight line. You know, being open to trying different things and and understanding that you may have to go this way to get to where you want to go.

Neil Thompson: 36:22
I never lived in a world where you started a job in a company, you worked there your entire life, they gave you a pension and a gold watch when you were done. These are all things that I heard about by reading and maybe looking at it on a YouTube video or something like that. It’s a life I’ve never known. Especially now there’s so many people in the tech industry that are getting laid off and now they have to think about what the next move is and why not the next move be something completely different than what you’ve been doing? You certainly have the flexibility to do it.

Tim Newman: 36:57
Right, well, neil, thank you so much for taking some time with us today. I love your insights and, again, if it were up to me, I’d sweat from my fingernails, as opposed to throwing up any day of the week. So I love the insight, I love the candor and the humor. So, again, thanks so much for taking some time with us. Take care and we’ll talk to you soon.

Neil Thompson: 37:20
Thanks again for having me, Tim.

Tim Newman: 37:21
Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on our conversation with Neil Thompson and the items he covered about public speaking. He shared about the many ways he learned how to overcome the stress that he faced while developing the skills necessary to fulfill his job responsibilities and present to his colleague. Neil explained how he’s used meditation, visualization and reframing techniques, which honestly surprised me, coming from a technical and STEM-based background. However, when you combine the physical strategies with the use of outlining ideas, practicing content and getting feedback from others, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, the processes he advocates putting in place to ensure a logical flow of information and highlight the knowledge and expertise of the presenter are well designed and what you might expect from an engineer. While Neil’s examples and ideas may have started as outgrowths of his own background, they are clearly applicable to audiences across the board the board whether discussing the benefits of participating in Toastmasters organization or simply putting the time and practice into rehearsing a presentation. Neil’s examples, attitude and sense of humor help make his points. Even though we came from different perspectives, we agreed on the importance of specific strategies and approaches, which goes to showing you the transferability to so many different walks of life and audience participants. I enjoy talking to Neil about the times when you may be an expert in your field but you still don’t have all the answers, and your various methods for pumping oneself up before presenting. I’d love to hear from the listeners if you have a personal walk-up song or visualization technique that you use before each presentation. Please make sure you visit the Speaking with Confidence website and join our growing community.

Tim Newman: 39:04
Sign up for special updates regarding the June 1st launch of the Formula for Public Speaking. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any episodes. You can download, like and share the podcast with friends. Always remember your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care, thank you.