My impressions — Becoming the Speaking Superstar

2 min readJun 6, 2022

I believe one of the signs of a great session is when you find yourself ruminating over what you have heard from the speaker.

Lean2LeadPune organized a live session with Nancy Katyal. The topic was “Becoming a Speaking Superstar”.

This was my experience and following are some of the key inspiring ideas -

The 2 key ideas that resonated most with me —

Don’t compare your day 6 with someone who is at day 600.
2. Image matters even when you are with yourself — consider how you behave with someone you want to impress vs when you are alone. The question is why do you behave as if your image does not matter to yourself ?

Focus on contribution instead of criticism. This will reduce your fear of audience.
Consider how the audience could think differently, could feel differently, and do differently after your speech.
Always consider what is in it for the audience, why should they listen to you ?
What is your call to action in the speech ? What will the audience take as something to implement ?
When you are persuading, people will change for their reasons not yours.
A story sparks curiosity and can be used to convey the truth. It is a much better medium than unadorned truth.

Everyone has something to contribute.
Do not underestimate the effect of your small contributions.
The greatest speakers all shine in their own light.
You will never get credit for something that nobody knows about and nobody can recommend what they don’t know.
Show your competence.

Image matters even when you are with yourself — consider how you behave with someone you want to impress vs when you are alone. The question is why do you behave as if your image does not matter to yourself ?
Use your hands and match them with what you speak.
When trying to gauge if the audience is engaged, look for a cluster of gestures not a single gesture or cue.

All in all — A very informative and motivating session

Originally published at https://vidyabhandary.github.io on June 6, 2022.