Peace Around Recall
I work with executives daily, coaching them on how to speak and connect with their listeners' minds. The approach is brain-based: how your mind is designed to talk and how your listener’s mind absorbs what you say.
After they have explored how to speak with connection off the cuff, we dive into the content they need to deliver. This is when their fear of “forgetting what they want to say” shows up.
I can tell you that we were all taught to memorize content in a style that only works for some people. Starting in elementary school, we were told to memorize our lines. We then developed coping mechanisms that attempted to assist us in remembering our lines. We repeated our lines mercilessly; we might have written them out, hoping the process would cause the lines to stick.
We created a stilted version of ourselves, partially present, with 1/4 of our minds seeing the page where our lines resided. We were then told that if we kept practicing, we would get better. Did better mean more natural? So, we put ourselves through an artificial process so that, eventually, we could be more natural? Why don’t we stay in the natural process of how our brains tell us what to say instead of the artificial process of line repetition?
Crucial elements are missing here. First, the whole focus was on ourselves. We weren’t taught to listen to our partner’s lines or think before responding, yet our brains do this all day.
When someone says something, you have a thought, and that makes you say something. You may also have a thought and choose NOT to say something. The key point is that you hear something and have a thought.
As a speaking coach, I am not interested in giving people tips and tricks. I am devoted to returning people to their system that knows how to do this. There truly is no need to feel anxiety and stress around remembering what you want to say. I say this, having helped many clients who identify with ADHD or other Neurodivergence. Each mind has its unique system to unlock and create alignment. The consistent feedback I receive is that clients feel much less stress when working this way. They deliver content that they have written, but the experience feels more connected and, dare I say it, natural.
Today, observe yourself listening and then speaking. What goes on “in the gap” between your lines? If you are in a conversation with a friend, look at them. They just gave a nod; good, give them another line. Do they laugh or look confused? Take this data in. What you are doing here is neurologically looping with your listener. Your mind can do many things - you can see your listener enjoying your story, you can also see the story you are telling in your head, and you can also track what to say next based on what you just said.
What often happens in keynotes is that the person speaking is talking to the room at large, glancing at their eyes, getting through their content, having many slides so they don’t forget what they want to say, hoping to be seen as a subject matter expert, and desiring to survive this talk so they can be done with it.
Some clients come to me without any fear at all. They love “public speaking” and “presentations.” Sometimes, that can be a result of performing rather than connecting. They could give a talk even without an audience because they don’t need the audience to give them anything. Clients have told me, “ I don’t get nervous because I don’t look at anyone.” “I was told to look over their heads so they don’t throw me off.” Is this what the world’s best communicators do? No. World-class speakers and comedians are brave enough to want to be in the room they are in, connecting with tonight's audience, not the one they wish they had or the one they had last night. What is happening at this moment? This willingness to stay is vulnerable and powerful.
Your brain is designed to prompt, stimulate, or generate the next sentence out of your mouth. When you create content that is meaningful and relevant to your listener’s minds, use sentences to deliver that content to your listener’s mind, and arrive at that conversation knowing what you want to say without fear that you will forget something, you will be perceived as confident, knowledgeable, and connected.
Observe yourself in action today. Note how listening to others and to yourself keeps you connected in communication.