Keith Bailey Of Articulated Intelligence On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Practice Out Loud. It is imperative that we practice our content, stories and key points out loud. How many times have you practiced for that presentation in your head, over and over, then you open your mouth at go time and it’s like someone else took over your body. As good as it may sound in our head, it never seems to come out with the same level of success until we’ve practiced saying it out loud, over and over again. Practice with your dog, your partner, in the mirror, walking through the park, driving in the car, get in the reps. I like to use Zoom or Marco Polo so I can record, review and refine. I know for some this is even worse than public speaking, having to watch yourself speaking, so if that’s not for you, at the very least practice out loud.
At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Keith Bailey with Articulated Intelligence.
Keith’s public speaking passion started with a seminal moment in the 4th grade while delivering a book report. From the hospitality industry to global corporate sales, he learned the power of storytelling for profit, influence and fun. During his 16 years as a coach, 8+ years as a Toastmaster, and ongoing involvement in the National Speakers Association, he has learned that good speakers are created, not born. To give everyone the opportunity to live life well spoken he co-founded Articulated Intelligence, a communication up-leveling firm where the gamified storytelling technique With 1 Word® was created to help build relationship equity and prevent unintentional audience abuse.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I moved from a small farming village in the southern part of Holland to the suburbs of Kansas City at the tender age of 8. While I did not speak the language of my new country, I will never forget learning the power and impact of body language and gestures when I flipped the bird for the first time on the elementary school playground. As my language skills grew so did my confidence in speaking, a direct result of a seminal moment, in the 4th grade, after delivering a book report. The teacher, Mrs. Merrick was so moved she had me repeat my performance for the 3rd and 5th grade students. From that experience I learned those who believe in you will take you by the hand and show you the way. My love for the art and craft of public speaking and storytelling was born on that day. It led me to photojournalism in the Marines, to nearly 10 years in Toastmasters and now as a board member with the National Speakers Association and owning a speaking business. I believe everyone can experience success in public speaking which is why I take my clients by the hand and show them the way.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
In the Spring of 2017 the legacy corporation I worked for hired a new president tasked with righting the ship and rallying the crew around a North star that would restore our historic prestige. His debut was speaking to a room full of hopeful employees, at our company meeting, ready to be inspired by their fearless leader. And instead, he ummed, he ahhed and he fumbled his way through an introduction, providing nothing of substance about himself or stories to help us relate and rally behind him. It was at that moment I realized my purpose — to prevent business professionals from committing unintentional audience abuse. Unintentional because the speaker wants to do their best but does not possess the confidence, skill or knowhow to connect, convey and convince. And in turn they don’t give the audience the one thing they want, for the speaker to WIN! They want to be inspired, moved, educated. They want to feel their time was well spent. I knew there had to be an approach, a methodology to help people overcome their fear of speaking and a way for anyone to connect with their audience. And so was born the With 1 Word® storytelling method.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I call it my “Covid Surprise”. As my in person business slipped away and everything moved to virtual interactions I was left staring at my computer camera light in front of me and the static backgrounds behind me. In person interactions are so dynamic, I knew my soul would be crushed if I couldn’t figure out a way to bring this dynamic nature of my business into a virtual realm. On a virtual call I was glazing over and started fiddling around with the virtual backgrounds, flipping from one to another and blam, it hit me! Instead of using slides and sharing your screen, where you the speaker, the main attraction, becomes this tiny box in the corner, why not build your info into the virtual backgrounds so you can stay in the foreground just like in person presenting. Think about it, sharing your screen, where your visual aid becomes the centerpiece, is akin to being in the boardroom, starting your PowerPoint and walking into the hallway to present. I started using this “hack” for my workshops, my Toastmasters speeches, and my social interactions. The reactions I got were incredible, even to the point where people were barely paying attention to what I was saying, they just wanted to know “how was I doing that?” Figuring out this hack and sharing it with others helped me pivot my business to a fully virtual realm and helped feed my soul during a challenging time. I’ve created a short course on “How to Use Virtual Backgrounds as Your Presentation Deck” which you can find on our Articulated Intelligence website for anyone interested in learning more.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This is only funny because if I didn’t laugh about it, I would have cried. I worked so hard to land a gig with a national fitness company working with their coaches on their public speaking skills. This fitness organization understood the importance of making connections with members through personal stories shared by their coaches. The schedule was confirmed and I had everything ready to go. I was on cloud nine. A couple days later I get a phone call and the key stakeholder says, “where are you?”. I get that sinking feeling in my stomach and think I am going to throw up. I look at my calendar and have nothing on it! Apparently I hadn’t saved the calendar event. Fortunately I’d spent time getting to know the key stakeholder, understanding his needs and defining what success would look like for him. This upfront time spent with him collaborating and designing together saved my bacon. Because of this time getting to know, like, and trust each other he gave me the benefit of the doubt and gave me a chance to make it up to his team. From this experience I learned the importance of not rushing to close the contract or win the deal, but rather spend time building relationship equity because when (not if) something goes awry, the equity will pay dividends.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It is the Spring of 2014 and I am sitting in the audience, along with 40 other members of Cherry Creek Toastmasters, listening to Ed Tate’s farewell speech. He is moving his family and professional speaking/coaching business to Las Vegas. When Ed speaks you cannot help but listen, not because he is the 2000 Toastmasters International Speech Contest winner and ‘World Champion of Public Speaking”, but because his message always hits home in a personal, meaningful way. As he comes to the close of his speech, he imparts this knowledge upon the assembly.
“Toastmasters is not the place where you deliver your best speech, this is the place where you practice, try new things, and see how far you can stretch yourself.”
Those freeing words forever changed how I approach the practice of public speaking. They released me by giving me the permission to not be perfect. Over the years, especially after my departure from corporate in 2017, my relationship with Ed has evolved into a mentor/mentee connection. We speak on a regular basis to collaborate on ideas, work through business problems and currently Ed is coaching me on my Toastmasters International Speech Contest journey.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
We believe if you are in a role that includes introducing ideas, providing updates or presenting pitches, then you are a professional speaker. After all, you are getting at least in part, paid to speak! So this advice applies not only for those who want to be professional speakers but for those who are speakers in a professional setting.
My best advice is practice. There is a direct correlation between professional speakers and professional athletes.
A professional athlete spends more time scrimmaging and practicing the play book then they ever do playing the actual game. As a professional speaker you need to apply this exact same principle! This is the reason why I have been a member and active participant of Toastmasters for years. Once a week I show up to practice by actively listening, giving feedback, and trying out new material (aka running plays and getting in the reps).
If your intention is to up level your ability to connect and convey via the spoken word then you must make the time and put yourself in the place of most possibility to practice. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he references the attributes of those who stand apart from the rest. One of the primary differentiating factors is the amount of hours Outliers have applied to practicing their craft. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
Good speakers are not born, they are made!
What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?
My secret pleasure is other people’s “Ah!Ha!” moments. Many of our clients believed that “Nothing exciting has ever happened in my life!”, to which I always respond, “Have you lived this thing called life?”. Everyone’s life is fascinating, the difference is that many people have never looked at their experiences through the lens of a storyteller. Look at comedians, they are some of the greatest storytellers and what they talk about is simple, everyday stuff… going to the grocery store, raising kids, breathing, you name it! It all comes down to understanding where in your brain to find stories, how to construct a good story and sharing it, over and over again.
At Articulated Intelligence, our With 1 Word ® approach makes it easy to find memories and specific experiences for any occasion, shape them into the framework of a story, and most importantly share them out loud. The more you do this process the easier it becomes to search, shape, and share, even on the spot. And it’s incredible the stories, remembered and forgotten, that come out of this process. We so often hear, “OMG I haven’t thought of that in ages” and “wow, I’ve never shared that before!”. It’s empowering. The beauty of this approach is these are your stories/experiences, you know them, you own them and it’s actually quite fun to share them, even in a large group. It helps build confidence because it’s not so formal, it’s simply a game.
Our main empowering message at Articulated Intelligence is everyone can “Live Life Well Spoken”. With coaching, support, practice, and stories anyone can be a successful “public speaker”. By improving your speaking skills you can create lasting connections, spread your ideas, sell more products and services, and grow your overall relationship equity at work and at play.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
One of the most interesting projects we are working on now is “gamifying” the preparation, execution, and follow up of networking. Networking is definitely a form of public speaking and the majority of people dread it. We are creating a networking game with a reward system for things like doing specific prep work prior to networking, introducing yourself in a particular way, and answering/asking questions that allow for deeper conversation. We’ll let you know when it’s released!
Overall we see ourselves continuing to figure out how to gamify public speaking even further so it feels more like fun than fear.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of my favorite quotes is by Winston Churchill — “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts”. It actually hangs on a placard above my office door. This quote is relevant to my life because win or lose you must continue to reinvent and have the fire in your belly to keep on trying.
We began building our business in 2018, experienced some success in 2019 with great anticipation of doubling our book of business in 2020. Then on April 5th of 2020, as the world was shutting down due to the pandemic, my professional and personal world came to a crashing halt. Clients began to cancel in droves. We quickly realized that our business was about to evaporate because everything we did was live and in person. All of the momentum generated the year before was dissolving overnight. To add insult to injury, on the morning of April 5th I was out riding my bike trying to figure out what to do. I hit a bump as I wasn’t paying attention and ended up crashing into an iron park bench. The impact put me into the emergency room with a broken left shoulder.
Shortly after my bike crash my friend Hawthorne, upon learning about my predicament, prophesied “You are about to enter the most creative state of your life because you broke the shoulder of your dominant hand”.
For several weeks I walked around with my arm trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey wing completely demoralized. I felt embarrassed, sorry for my situation both professionally and personally and I was lost. I know now I was not alone, many of us went through the same if not much worse.
What I know to be true is that when I am in the service of others I always find purpose and self-worth. With everyone pivoting to the virtual realm there was a mad scramble to stay connected which resulted in an abundance of social outreach groups on Zoom. After attending many sessions, I started to ‘Pin’ and watch people in the gallery while speakers were presenting. What I saw through the veil of engagement was distressing to me. I saw people all alone, scared, and looking lost — just like me. The first person I reached out to was a friend from within my professional speaking industry, Judy.
“Hey Judy, I hope this finds you well… I welcome the opportunity to connect for a breakfast babble, or a lunch liaise or a happy hour harangue to play a game of With 1 Word ® . She responded quickly as many of us would, “I am doing great!! Thank you for reaching out, I am so busy right now. Perhaps another time.” About 30 minutes later my phone rang, it was Judy. “ I changed my mind, I would love to connect with you. What is this game?” “ The game is an opportunity to get to know each other and escape, for a brief moment, from our current situation. I want to take you on a guided visualization to share a personal experience.”
That conversation changed everything. From then on, for the next 12 months, I had over 100 conversations with people inside and outside my network. “The shortest distance between two people is a story!” This quote by Pati Digh rings so true and is the foundation by which we rebuilt our business. Through these conversations I began to understand how our storytelling method can help business professionals become more influential, have their ideas heard, understood, and bought into.
Hawthorn’s prediction has come true and it is built on the foundation of the quote by Winston Churchill, “…it is the courage to continue that counts”. Our business is thriving in the virtual realm and with restrictions being lifted we are seeing an uptick with in person events.
Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.
- Always, always incorporate stories, it’s how people remember. Stories evoke feelings and feelings are a magic memory elixir. Anytime you are presenting, find a story or anecdote to help people understand and remember your topic(s). It’s way more interesting for your audience than just timelines, facts or figures and it gives your audience an opportunity to know, like and trust you. And it’s more interesting for you, it feels good to share stories, it’s part of our DNA. Even if it is something as simple as an introduction at a meeting, a networking event or a social gathering, incorporate a story. It will differentiate you from other people who do what you do and it will allow people to quickly find out if they have similar experience, shared values, and common interests, which are the building blocks of lasting connections. Let me give you an example. This is the introduction one of my business partners uses when she meets people.
“Have you ever been in a meeting or at a presentation and the presenter um and ahs after every word, or they read every slide to you (although you know how to read) or they dump a bunch of information on you without any way to relate to it? My business partners and I help people with these challenges. We help them up-level their communication and help prevent unintentional audience abuse. I didn’t know it at the time but the idea for this business was planted back when I was a senior in high school in Bennett, a small farming town in Colorado. I am preparing for one of the biggest moments of my young life — I will be delivering the Valedictorian address to a gymnasium full of parents and peers. Fortunately, I had an incredible coach, my dad, who told me, Renee, if you want to keep people engage, you have to tell stories. So instead of delivering a speech full of platitudes like “Follow Your Dreams” or “It’s Our Time”, I told a story about a 3-legged chicken. I remember looking out at the audience, seeing their eyes on me, laughing when I finished my story and feeling immense pride in a job well done. Fast forward to now and I want everyone to have that feeling whether they are presenting in a boardroom or delivering a keynote. And I know it’s possible with the right coaching, support, and practice like we provide at Articulated Intelligence.”
By incorporating a story, people now know more about her, perhaps they can relate or empathize. There are also different conversation threads they can explore, “I must hear the chicken story” or “I grew up in a small town too”. And, they’ll likely remember her more than if she had just said “I’m a speaking coach”.
2. Opt for Authenticity Over Memorization. Scripting and memorization simply don’t work. Either you lose your place in your mental or written script or you lose your authenticity. It is impossible to be yourself if you are stuck in your own head or your head is stuck down looking at a piece of paper. Writing it all out to then speak it is like wanting to be a good swimmer by practicing running. They are both cardiovascular exercises but doing one is not the same as trying to be good at the other.
How I develop my keynotes and how we coach our clients at Articulated Intelligence is through using recall words organized on a Run of Show document. Imagine a big white board — create an intro column, body column(s) and a close column. In each of these columns put recall words for the info you want to share. For example in the Intro column put a sticky note that says “Chicken Story”, then another sticky that says “5 Ways to Overcome Public Speaking Fears”, then another sticky that says “Failure Story”. As you practice (out loud) you’ll fill in the additional information around these key points and sure you’ll likely tell the chicken story a little different every time but it’s way better than being the memory robot that’s super stiff and has no personality.
3. Practice Out Loud. It is imperative that we practice our content, stories and key points out loud. How many times have you practiced for that presentation in your head, over and over, then you open your mouth at go time and it’s like someone else took over your body. As good as it may sound in our head, it never seems to come out with the same level of success until we’ve practiced saying it out loud, over and over again. Practice with your dog, your partner, in the mirror, walking through the park, driving in the car, get in the reps. I like to use Zoom or Marco Polo so I can record, review and refine. I know for some this is even worse than public speaking, having to watch yourself speaking, so if that’s not for you, at the very least practice out loud.
4. Pause…………….. Pausing creates suspense and impact and from a practical standpoint it allows us to find the words for the next thing we want to say, especially since we are not memorizing. It gives us time to remember our recall words and start visualizing our next bit of content. Also, we forget our audience doesn’t know the information we are delivering, they need a little time to digest it before we go on to the next thing or they are going to forget what you said and your bravery was all for naught. Use pauses to your advantage, it’s a win/win for you and your audience.
5. Know your audience is always rooting for you. They want you to WIN! I always carry this knowledge in the back of my mind when speaking. It has helped me through times on stage when I look out at my audience and see the resting listening faces and think to myself “they hate me!” What’s interesting is, typically when this happens, those tend to be the people who come up to me afterwards to thank me and they often say “It felt like you were speaking directly to me”. This happened to me recently. I was speaking to a Chamber of Commerce Association and there was a gentleman at one of the front tables. He had a solid resting listening face the entire keynote. I had to really focus to not let it throw me off my game. After the keynote he approached me with a list of items I was sure were all the things he hated about my keynote, but I was dead wrong. It was a list of organizations, along with their contact person, he was urging me to get a hold of as soon as possible as they needed to hear my message. Knowing that public speaking is one of the most feared activities, there is no doubt the majority of people in your audience are already giving you huge props for putting yourself out there, they will give you a lot of leeway and if you win, they win.
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
Start small and trick yourself into getting comfortable. Let me explain what I mean. At Toastmasters everyone has a role. Sure there are people doing their speeches but there is also a grammarian, a jokester, a timer, evaluators; small speaking roles with very low stakes. It’s brilliant, they’ve created super low risk speaking opportunities that don’t really feel like public speaking, but they are. The small speaking bits start morphing into bigger and bigger ones and before you know it, you are giving a 3 to 5-minute speech. I know Toastmasters isn’t for everyone, but you can still apply this methodology. Take on small informal speaking opportunities at work, at events or in social situations and your confidence will grow.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
When I moved from The Netherlands to Kansas as a kid, the thing that stood out to me, aside from the endless prairie and the oppressive humidity, was how strangers would greet you. You would receive a “How, Ya Doin?”, a “Mornin” or “Evenin” or eye contact and a nod. Even when driving down country roads you would get the hand on the steering wheel wave. It’s something I still do today and find joy in engaging in this cordial manner, oftentimes disrupting people I pass on the street. I always say “Good Morning” even when it is the afternoon or evening. It brings me joy to see people’s reaction. Unfortunately, I rarely receive greetings from others, in fact I rarely even get eye contact. I often imagine how inviting the world would be if people got back to greeting each other.
When you engage in the practice of greeting people, they feel seen, acknowledged and they become a person, not a stranger.
“Good Morning!”
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Absolutely, Simon Sinek! He is a brilliant thought leader whose conceptual model “The Golden Circle” has enabled me to help people understand how using stories to convey their WHY can be so impactful.
When we meet for lunch, I envision discussing his conceptual model along with sharing a multitude of stories. Simon, you name the time and place and I will gladly pick up the tab.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow me on the Articulated Intelligence LinkedIn Page, my Keith Bailey LinkedIn Page and on our Articulated Intelligence Blog.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Keith Bailey Of Articulated Intelligence On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
