The horror movie starring YOU!

Hey Reader,

Hopefully, you’re coming off a three-day weekend!

(Columbus Day here in the States)

I’ve got news…

The “um” problem can wait

Your voice on video sounds like a stranger about to sell you a timeshare. And your face does stuff you never signed off on.

Nobody likes their own playback.

Not even people who talk for a living.

Here’s why it stings so bad…

You’re not just watching you. You’re comparing ‘you’ to someone you love watching. Your favorite talk show host. That comic you quote too much.

Your brain grades you against the best in the world, not against last Tuesday.

That’s a rigged contest. Stop entering it.

The only person you need to beat is the ‘you’ from last time.

A ‘little better’ is the whole goal.

So say you watch your first clip and think, “Man, I suck.”

Good!

Seriously. Now you know WHAT to work on. That’s half the job.

Maybe you spot three things.

You sway like a boat at the dock.

You talk like you’re in a library.

And you say “um” twice a paragraph.

Don’t fix all three.

That’s like learning to juggle on a unicycle. In French.

Pick one thing. Just one.

How do you choose? Ask two questions.

Which one’s the fastest fix?

Which one makes the biggest difference?

If you’re shy, “Volume” is probably your thing.

Record yourself talking at a level that feels WAY too loud.

Like you’re ordering a pizza at a rock concert. Then watch it back.

I’d bet money it sounds totally normal.

That’s the “fast” fix.

‘Filler words’ are the big one.

“Um” and “ahh” make you sound way less sure than you are.

The cure… is a “Pause”.

Your brain learns to notice when it’s hunting for a word.

Then, instead of tossing in an “um,” it just waits.

That silence feels like forever to you.

To the audience, it sounds like you’re thinking. (Because you are.)

At first it feels weird. But your brain will start to catch those little blanks. Then it’ll drop in a pause on its own.

That’s a deep habit, though.

“Um” has been living rent-free in your mouth since second grade.

It’s not moving out in a weekend. Give it weeks.

That’s fine. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be “comfortable”.

Some fixes take two sessions. Some take two months.

Stay on one till it sticks. Then grab the next one.

These are all just “habits”. Habits change.

Swapping soda for water is way easier than quitting smoking.

You don’t have to do both on the same Monday.

Go record one more video and get just one thing a ‘little better’ than last time.

P.S. Not sure which one thing is yours? Grab 15 free minutes with me.

I’ll listen and give you a tip you can use right away.

[Book your free call below]

Stellar Quotes

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.”

Mark Twain

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillard

Never fire a room full of disc jockeys and then leave them “On the Air” for a month!

One Radio station found that out the hard way. I was there.

Front row. Well, front control room.

Let me back up…

I took a job at a legendary station in Kansas City… KCMO.

That was farther East than I was used to.

And the music? “Country”. I barely knew any of it.

The building was huge.

Two Radio stations plus the local CBS TV station, all under one roof.

I was on the ‘country’ side.

My first words on the air were, “Hey, now I can say ‘Frickie’ on the Radio!”

(As in Janie Frickie. Look her up)

Long-time readers know that, my first week there, I judged the “Kansas City Barbecue Contest.”

The best grillers from around the world show up to fight for the title.

Best barbecue ever. If you’ve never had it, I’m sorry. Truly.

Some days got wild. I was in the newsroom when our traffic helicopter pilot came over the radio… “We’re going down.”

The guy at the news desk radioed back, “We still have four reports to do!”

Then the pilot again. “We’ve lost power! We’re putting it down now!”

They landed in a field. No one hurt. No damage.

But that news guy? A man with priorities. Wrong ones, but priorities.

And somewhere, a traffic jam went sadly unreported.

Celebrities came in all the time for the News side, two doors down.

One day baseball great Dan Quisenberry showed up with a ‘handler’.

He was a portly guy, sitting in the lobby, looking bored.

I had half an hour to kill, so we talked Radio. He’d done some too.

His name? Rush Limbaugh. (Way before he went national.)

Then the station got SOLD.

They told us we’d all be “fired”… In a MONTH.

Never leave grumpy DJ’s On the Air!

The new boss was from New York City.

He told the newspaper, “It’ll be weird going from a town that never sleeps, to a town full of sheep!”

So, we started playing “sheep sounds” behind the songs, during breaks, anywhere we could fit one in!

Nothing says heartbreak like a goat’s cousin going “bahh”, Reader!

My last few weeks, I did the Morning Show.

My final words on the air: “If they run you out of town, make it look like you’re leading the parade!”

You don’t always get to pick how things end. A pitch flops. A meeting tanks. We all want to mumble and sneak out the side door.

But you always get to ‘pick’ how you sound on the “way out”.

Next time a room goes quiet on you, walk out like the band’s right behind you.

Diversions

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