Minna Taylor Of Energize Your Voice On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Never seek perfection. Perfection does not exist in the realm of human behavior and frankly it’s boring to watch. People want to experience aliveness, immediacy, and witness humanity in action. The fun is in the flaw. Be prepared, be professional, but do not seek perfection.
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 Minna Taylor.
Minna Taylor is the author of The Confident Body and the Founder of Energize Your Voice (WBE), a NYC based communication coaching and training firm. With an experiential approach, rooted in the principles of play and performance, she and her team support organizations, individuals, and entrepreneurs to explore their full potential in public speaking, storytelling, and leadership communication. Notable clients include UBER, Red Bull, Citi, and E&Y. Minna earned her BFA from NYU Tisch and went on to earn her MFA in Performance with a concentration in speech and vocal production. Beginning her career as an accent reduction specialist, Minna went on to transfer her theater training to developing an innovative approach for professional development.
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?
My pleasure! Let’s refer to this as my origin story, the conditions under which I was formed. I grew up in Appalachia Virginia on a farm. This was pre-internet, so the fields, forests, and mountains were our entertainment. I have two sisters, one is an identical twin, and we would play make believe for hours in the pastures amidst the cows. Growing up in such a small town in the Blueridge Mountains, people relied on community and knowing your neighbors. I was exposed, at a very early age, to the power of personal story and the impact of sharing that story with others. That is how we learn, that is how we build relationships, that is how we survive. This wisdom took on a whole new meaning when I began studying acting at NYU. Storytelling became a physical activity and an expression of my deepest need. Through my theater training, I came deeply in touch with my purpose and my impact on others.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
At NYU I took speech and voice as part of my training. I really clicked with the process of phonetic construction. I would walk around the streets of Greenwich Village working out the precision of how to eliminate sibilance when creating an ‘s’ sound, the nuanced shift of the tongue when moving from an ‘ee’ sound to an ‘i as in will’ sound. It was like math for the mouth: 1+1=2. Place your tongue here, get this sound, etc.
As soon as I graduated, I became a TA for speech with the Atlantic Theater Acting School NYU track. I continued to coach speech after graduate school, where I studied the same phonetic principles. I started contracting with a company coaching accent reduction for corporate clients.
It was there that I first witnessed the pervasive habit of humans disconnecting from their need to speak. They weren’t breathing. Their voices were not free to create the sounds. Their bodies were tight and unexpressive. They were conducting themselves in accordance to what they thought they needed to be rather than allowing themselves to embrace fully who they were.
After three years of this exposure, my calling became clear. I had to transition out of acting and pursue confidence and authentic communication full time in order to transform the way people understand what is possible for the way they interact with their lives.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
It’s the moment when I first discovered the power of play to impact human performance. I was asked by a friend of mine, who was working for a small advertising agency, if I would lead a workshop on presentation skills and public speaking. Now at this point in my work, I was really only doing accent reduction and a little presentation coaching when called for. I had not taught a group workshop before or even considered how the heck I would be able to pull it off, but I said yes first and figured it out later.
I came up with two guiding premises: I would treat this as a theater director to help the “actors” reach peak performance and I would impart public speaking skills such as confidence, vocal presence, and body language through the use of improv games. Well, the training was a huge success and served as the catalyst for the company I would one day build — Energize Your Voice where we playfully explore public speaking, storytelling, and authentic communication for leaders and teams.
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?
In retrospect it’s funny, but felt more consequential at the time. Such is the journey of many moments in life, I suppose. I agreed to do a presentation to a professional organization comprised exclusively of CEOs who had the requirement of grossing millions a year to qualify for membership. It was mostly older white men, no women present, except for me and the woman putting out refreshments. I was in my early 30s at the time. From the moment I started talking, I could tell they were not interested in taking this program seriously. The topic was how to create more empowered space for female leadership within their organizations. The funny mistake was in thinking that I could bring a topic for which I felt passionately, but was not an expert in at that time, to a group of men who were not willing to take me seriously, much less my idea for organizational change. The humor is in the hindsight. Ripe with social satire.
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 would be impossible for me to single out one individual. I am very deliberate about maintaining my community, both my close friendships and my family. They serve as confidants, champions, cheerleaders, raving fans, thought partners, disciplinarians, and safe spaces. I am a very autonomous person, but I have built a vibrant life through the support of my invaluable community of humans. They know who they are.
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?
Failure is the gift of new information.
Humans are inherently fallible.
Failure is inevitable. Do it anyway.
No one pays to see perfect.
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?
I see a world filled with humans who know there is more to the life they are living, but are uncertain how to uncover that illusive potential. The secret is simpler than we think — Play. Humans have an innate desire to play, but we resist this desire out of conditioned conformity, propriety, and fear. The world would be a better place if we allow ourselves to play fully and rediscover how to play well with others. I like to believe that the ability to look silly is a superpower
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?
My work is three-fold: my thought leadership, my corporate work, and my private practice. They all have exciting moments ahead.
- I am heading into a speaking tour for my book, The Confident Body, that is bringing me around the world.
- We are activating very meaningful workshops for our corporate clients, which means we are able to donate more trainings to our nonprofit partners as part of our B1G1 Social Impact Program.
- In my private practice I am working with innovators, visionaries, and change makers to help them bring their voices to a global stage.
I feel truly blessed and hold tremendous reverence for the position I have in this world. From here, I see a global vision for a movement toward play, kindness, creativity, and purpose.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Invent nothing. Deny nothing.” — David Mamet
This was a principle under which I was trained as an actor, but translates so beautifully into life. Life is not happening to us, it is happening with us and before us. So many of us, myself included, get trapped in worry, anxious reflection or anticipation, and it is not serving our presence and wellbeing. There is tremendous freedom in seeing what is and honoring the truth, free from speculation, attachment, or creative interpretation. It is what it is and what it is is just as it should be.
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.
- Public speaking is never about you. It is about your audience. Your primary job in public speaking is to demand the attention and energetic participation of your audience. Keep them engaged and hold them tight through your intention and desire to be heard. It does not matter if they like you, approve of you, or validate your worth. It is not you against them and some level of unspoken acceptance will make it all okay. Be there in service, not self-interest. It will transform your mindset and confidence when you step on stage.
- Never seek perfection. Perfection does not exist in the realm of human behavior and frankly it’s boring to watch. People want to experience aliveness, immediacy, and witness humanity in action. The fun is in the flaw. Be prepared, be professional, but do not seek perfection.
- Memorize the thoughts, not the words. Keep it consistent, but never scripted. We assume safety in having every word or moment planned out. But what happens is that if anything goes wrong — a word forgotten, an unexpected glitch in lighting, a tech mishap — we have undermined our ability to continue with purpose because we have not practiced with any space for the unplanned, surprising moments that delight both us and our audience. By memorizing the essential ideas or points rather than the exact words, one after another with no variation in their order, you leave yourself open to being intentional in your communication while remaining responsive to your audience and the moments as they unfold. It leads to a deeper level of freedom, even in the absence of perceived safety. Trust me on this one. It feels counter intuitive to not memorize every word, but I have seen it time and time again. People are so focused on each word, that they stay in their heads and disconnect from the heart, which is where all great speakers are connected to. Thoughts over words always.
- Practice playfully first. Polish last. The default mode of practice, and what has been promoted in traditional (and frankly antiquated) public speaking training, is to practice in front of a mirror like you were presenting in front of an audience. This should be the last stage of practice if at all! You must practice in playful ways, engaging the voice in dynamic expression and the body in large expansive gestures. Move around, sound ridiculous, go fast, go suuuuuuper slow, get big, or play a character. Lean into the silly. Then, move to a more polished practice. Why this is important is because when we meet the moment when called to rise to the occasion of public speaking, our adrenalin will kick in and our bodies will likely tense up. If we have practice only in polished form, we will shrink ourselves, get tight, and lose connection to our breath. If we practice playfully, in expansive and expressive ways, we build muscle memory around our content that lends itself to maintaining dynamic, authentic expression even in the face of fear.
- The moment before and the moment you begin are the most important moments in your talk. Breathe and land your focus outside of yourself. Do not rush to begin. You will run the risk of starting before you’re ready. This will lead you to spend the first few moments disconnected from your audience while you’re in your head trying to catch up to yourself. Giving yourself a moment to transition both your energy and the energy and attention of the audience into a space of readiness, will allow you to create a sense of relationship and allow for the energy to calibrate so everyone is focused and prepared to move forward with a shared intention.
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
Breathe. Lower your expectations for how you think you should be and give yourself permission to show up as you are. People place tremendous energy in questions like, where should I look and what do I do with my hands? If you are unwilling to show me your humanity, I don’t care what you do with your hands. The audience desperately wants to see you, flaws and all. Give them that gift. No one is rooting for you to fail. You are all in it together.
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?
Kindness as a global value.
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!
Krista Tippett, host of the On Being podcast. She has a remarkable capacity to engage in simple conversation over complex topics that inspire both curiosity and a sense of shared and intuitive wisdom.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
Instagram is always a safe bet. @minnataylor_eyv
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Minna Taylor Of Energize Your Voice 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.
