The Inclusive Speaker
Chapter One (freebie)

Freebie – The Inclusive Speaker – Chapter One

Chapter 1. The stuff of nightmares

“The first step to becoming a truly inclusive speaking professional is to acknowledge diversity. Every single person needs some differentiation in some way, at some point, for some things.”

I’m quickly running through the main points of my presentation one last time.

Strong opening statement. Check.

Inspiring story that leads into the main idea I plan to share. Check.

Cheeky perspective on the problem statement, and why it’s important we all pay attention. Check.

Main points I want to cover through the content. Check. Check. Check.

Peeking through the curtain, I can see a large, sunlit room full of people. A few hundred attendees at least. All eagerly waiting for me to walk on stage and do my thing. Which is exactly what I intend to do as soon as the emcee calls my name. My stomach is in knots. My heart is pounding. My palms are sweaty. There’s this subtle tingling in the back of my neck. I’m soaking in the amazing rush as I finally hear the emcee call my name.

I’ve got this, I keep chanting to myself. Like a mantra.

I quickly shake off any last signs of nervousness as I put on my game face. I confidently walk up. Don’t trip. Don’t trip. I grab the presentation clicker from the emcee. I give it a quick look and position myself in the center of the stage. The prompter is displaying my intro slide. I can see the countdown has begun. Good.

59 minutes and 58 seconds, 57 seconds, 56 seconds.

I take a second or two to fully connect with the moment. Make obligatory eye contact with people in the audience. Give the occasional smile here and there.

59 minutes and 55 seconds, 59 minutes, and 54 seconds.

A deep breath…here we go. The chatter stops as all eyes focus on me.

As I’m going through my talk, sharing stories and ideas, this could very well be the best speaking performance of my life. The audience is clearly engaged; people are smiling and nodding, following my every move. I see them frantically jotting down notes, hanging on to my every word, and laughing at my jokes.

I am killing it.

Suddenly, the room grows darker, as if a rain cloud had loomed over our heads.

I move on to the next slide. I notice a woman squinting in the front row. She slowly starts to fade in front of my very eyes until I can see right through her to the chair she’s sitting in. I pause for a second, confused. As I watch her become ghost-like, all that remains is a faint halo of her silhouette where she used to sit.

Wait a minute.

Since nobody else seems to notice or care, I keep going. I slice through data. Every idea dissected with surgical precision. Every point driven home with deadly accuracy. Click, I move to the next slide. Now’s the time to talk about strategies for audience inclusion. This pie chart will blow their minds.

As I point to the screen behind me, it happens again! To my left, another person, this time an older gentleman, starts fading away and becomes translucent. Just like that lady before him. Then that other man on my right! Then another woman in one of the middle rows. I’m not sure, but it could be that other people towards the back of the room faded also.

What the hell is going on?!

And yet again, nobody seems to notice or care. I soldier on, fuelled by the fact that everybody else seems fully engaged with my content. After all, the show must go on, right? People keep fading as I show a few more graphs, as I crack a joke, as I hash through complex concepts, as I use certain words, as I show a video.

By the time my prompter countdown has run out, about a third of the room has turned into ghost-like figures I can barely perceive. Done with the presentation, we go into Q&A, and the audience applauds enthusiastically.

And then, without any explanation, these ghosts begin reappearing, one by one, as they join the rest of the audience in applauding. Some make eye contact, politely smiling, as if offering their silent and unequivocal approval for what can only be a job well done. And while I should feel amazing about my performance, I somehow feel terrible. Like I’ve failed those who faded.

And that’s when I usually wake up, heart pounding, drenched in sweat.

Something you should know about me…

I’ve had variations of this dream over a dozen times in the past five years or so. It usually happens in the days leading to an important talk when I’m right in the middle of rehearsing, and my stress levels are at their peak.

Over time, I’ve made sense of these dreams, or why they keep coming back. The book you’re holding in your hands right now wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for them.

You see, I come from a digital inclusion background, which is a fancy way of saying that I work as a management consultant, coach, corporate trainer, and speaker in the fields of digital accessibility and inclusive communication.

As a digital accessibility management consultant and corporate trainer, I help individuals, teams, and organizations communicate more inclusively with their clients, prospects, and audience members who have disabilities or are at risk of being marginalized by our use of technology.

My focus is ensuring that anyone, regardless of any disability they may have, or any device they may use, can fully access information in the now ubiquitous digital space. This includes people who have visual or auditory limitations, people who deal with mobility or speech impairments, people who have vestibular disorders, or people with cognitive disabilities. Anyone who experiences challenges doing things the rest of us otherwise take for granted.

By extension, it also includes a slew of other people. In essence, anyone who doesn’t perfectly fit the mold of the “average audience member.” And believe me when I say this, those who don’t quite fit that mold are, by far, the largest minority out there.

As an inclusive speaking coach, speaker, and accessibility mentor, I help professionals who monetize the spoken word apply the core principles of digital inclusion to their work, so that their content and delivery reach the broadest range of people possible.

This means designing and delivering content in a way that implicitly includes everyone, regardless of their abilities. Abilities that are inevitably modulated by their personal limitations, their culture, their education, their age group, etc.

As someone with a disability myself (more on that later), and as someone who deeply understands how barriers can prevent people from fully immersing in content, I have made it my life’s mission to help professional communicators of all walks of life truly connect with their audience. And the best way I know how is by teaching inclusive design principles, and how they can be applied to the businesses of speaking professionals who make a living, monetizing the spoken word.

Hence these dreams. Hence this book.

Who is this book for?

If you make a living monetizing the spoken word as an expert who speaks in front of an audience, whether that audience is in-person or virtual, if you are a corporate trainer, a business coach, an emcee, or a facilitator, this book is for you. If you don’t quite consider yourself to be an expert in any of those areas yet but are working hard at becoming one, this book is also for you. Even more so maybe.

Simply put, if you are striving to get better at sending your message to reach as many people as possible, this book is for you. If you want to empower everyone in your audience to truly connect with you, your message, and your brand, this book is for you. If you care about inclusion, and you care about levelling the playing field for everyone in your audience, so you can become a communication force for good, then, guess what? This book is for you, too.

Though this book is clearly about public speaking first and foremost, it is also meant for anyone who makes a living communicating broadly to the public. In fact, if you are ever worried about leaving anyone behind or are concerned that you may not be getting as much reach as you should with your message, then you already know this book is for you as well.

If you don’t quite see yourself as a speaking professional, but do identify as an expert or a professional who makes a living communicating broadly to an audience, you might better recognize yourself in one of the following roles:

• Communication specialist. If you’re a spokesperson representing your organization and are typically tasked with developing and implementing communication strategies that include media outreach and strategic content creation, this book is for you.
• Marketing and public relations specialist. If you’re a professional representing your organization’s brand and are typically tasked with maintaining relationships with the outside world and coaching client representatives in the optimal way of communicating with the public, this book is for you.
• Human resources professional. If you’re responsible for recruiting, interviewing, and placing workers and are tasked with looking out for the well-being of employees and want every one of them to feel like a full member of the team or workplace, then this book is also for you.
• Entrepreneur. If you’re a business leader or an entrepreneur who needs to communicate a message, vision, vital data points, or anything else in conference rooms to your teams and colleagues and care to do this in a way where everyone fully feels included in the experience, this book is for you.
• Account executive and sales professional. If you operate in a sales or business development capacity, and regularly find yourself presenting to clients and prospects trying to close a sale and think it essential that none of the people you talk to feel dismissed, excluded, or belittled by the words you use and the way you present your ideas, then this book is definitely for you, too.

In the spirit of keeping things as simple as possible, moving forward, I will refer to all of you as “speaking professionals,” “experts who speak,” or sometimes, more broadly, as “communication professionals.”

Whether you’re an occasional public speaker, an aspiring keynote speaker, or an established speaking veteran, regardless of the channels that you use, you’ll find this book will unlock a wealth of ideas and techniques you can use to communicate in a truly inclusive way more successfully.

Whether you’re mostly focused on in-person, virtual, or hybrid experiences, you’ll find that this book will offer you dozens of actionable, innovative ideas to bring your communication game to the next level. Regardless of how much recognition you get doing the things you do, or how many people you attract, you’ll soon come to realize the challenges remain essentially the same.

Ultimately, the tie that binds us all together is that we are all people who communicate with other human beings for a living. People who work hard at harnessing the power of the spoken word, so that, through our messages, hearts can be reached and souls can be touched. So, we can create a change for what we feel is the better outcome.

Again, if any of the above feels like you, then you know who this book is for.

My promise to you

This book is about raising awareness for anyone who stands up in front of an audience to deliver a speech, training, or message, so the content that is delivered is inclusive of people with disabilities, seniors, or anyone likely to struggle with the spoken word, especially when it is supported by digital media.

This book is meant to help you, whether you’re a seasoned speaker who regularly walks up on stage to share a message, someone who’s still a little wet behind the ears, a trainer delivering in-person or virtual instructor-led training, or just someone who happens to give the occasional presentation in a business or casual setting.

This book brings value because inclusive speaking offers obvious returns on investment. Because true, meaningful inclusion is a wonderful way to differentiate yourself from other speakers. To be perceived as someone who cares enough about everyone in your audience to spend time thinking about these things. Inclusion goes a long way. This book will set you on the path towards becoming an inclusive speaker.

Through this book and the wealth of complementary content made available on its companion website, you get a better understanding of what the make-up of your audience is. We’ll explore what some of their challenges may be as they do their best to engage with you. And how you, as a communicator, hold the key to ensuring that none of your audience members are left behind.

Through a series of stories and examples supported by close to twenty years of data and research, this book will walk you through the most common mistakes we all tend to make when we address an audience. It will illustrate how these mistakes can exclude a significant portion of your audience. More importantly, it will teach you how to avoid making those mistakes in the first place, so you can start embodying the principles of inclusion.

Finally, through these stories and examples, you will discover ways to ensure that you fully engage with your entire audience, so you can communicate your message at a much larger scale. That is ultimately the promise I make to you, should you choose to walk down this path with me.

I spend most of my waking hours thinking about inclusion and accessibility challenges, and how they affect communication channels between humans. Inclusion is one of my most important core values. Unequivocal access to information is perhaps one of the key challenges that we will face as a society in the future. I can see a clear correlation between the two. Can you?

Considering these interests of mine, it comes as no surprise that I have been giving a lot of thought into ways to make sure that my own presentations and training sessions are as inclusive as possible. That led me to come up with a system that ensures optimal audience reach. This is what I’m going to share with you in this book.

That’s why this book matters. It matters because your message to the world matters. It matters because reaching out to more than just your average audience member matters to spread that message more broadly. It matters because every single member of your audience matters.

Jump to Chapter Two: Our “Come-to-Jesus” moment  ➤

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