Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #989: Public Speaking

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Part of my job involves talking in front of large crowds. In this podcast, I talk about what that's like and offer tips on how to do it well. ...

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about public speaking. So there's a lot of different aspects of my job, and I've talked about many of them. But I realize I've not yet talked about public speaking. So I want to talk a little bit about what I do, public speaking, my background, and I don't know, just get into that aspect of my job because it's something I haven't talked about yet. So, first, I guess let me start with my background.
Starting point is 00:00:33 A little, they'll tell you the story of public speaking and me. When I was a kid, I was very into theater. Growing up, I did a lot of plays. I also did some playwriting, but mostly I did a lot of performing as a kid. And so the idea of getting up on stage and getting in front of people, I was familiar with. Although, when you're acting, you're in character. You're not yourself. So you're playing somebody else.
Starting point is 00:01:04 Then, in college, I really sort of dove in deep. I did a bunch of things in college. First off, I started an improv troupe. An improv troupe, once again, you're not, well, let me say, you're you part of the time. There's a part of it, so for those that have never watched improv, I assume most of you have, you get up on stage you ask the audience for input and then you're making up something on the spot
Starting point is 00:01:30 based on the audience input and the reason the audience knows you're making it up is because they gave you the thing that you're working with so right off the bat it's spontaneous acting essentially and so I did improv for three of the four years of college.
Starting point is 00:01:48 I also did something called a writer's workshop, where we would write sort of sketch comedy, where we would write sketches, and then we would act in the sketches. So I also got to perform in that. And finally, the other big thing I did in college was I started doing stand-up. And stand-up comedy, stand-up comedy is interesting in that
Starting point is 00:02:11 you're much more you than you are when you're acting. I mean, your stand-up might be a persona, I guess, but it's more just you facing an audience. And I found stand-up, when I first started doing stand-up, to be the scariest thing. I did not find improv to be that scary, mostly because the audience is pretty forgiving,
Starting point is 00:02:31 because the audience, like, it's hard doing improv, so the audience is kind of impressed you're doing it. Where with something like stand-up, hey, you have your routine, and they paid money to get in, and make them laugh, and there's a lot more of, like,
Starting point is 00:02:43 they expect you to be on sort of thing. But anyway, I think what happened was throughout my formative years, I did a lot of standing up in front of crowds. Then I went to Los Angeles to try to get into TV writing. Then I went to Los Angeles to try to get into TV writing. And a big part of being a writer in Hollywood is what they call the pitch. And the pitch means that you have to go in front of a writer, or a team of writers usually, and then you are giving ideas you have, usually for the series, I mean, as a TV writer, I would pitch episodes of the series that I was trying to be in.
Starting point is 00:03:26 So you would go in the room and say, okay. And they would tell you how many story ideas they wanted. Usually it was anywhere from like five to ten. I would always do whatever the max was. I would always do the max. But there's a lot, once again, pitching, there's a lot of salesmanship in it, right? You are trying to sell them on the thing you want. Now, in addition to that, while in Los Angeles, I continue to do a little bit of stand-up.
Starting point is 00:03:51 I didn't do much theater, per se, but I did continue to do some stand-up. So anyway, I get to Wizards. And the thing about Wizards that is very interesting is there's a lot of freedom to kind of push in directions where you have some comfort. So a lot like I, for example, when I first started at Wizards, I started as a developer. That's what I was hired as. And there wasn't any expectation when I got hired that necessarily I would have a lot of face-to-face time with the audience. That wasn't something that was necessarily a given. face-to-face time with the audience.
Starting point is 00:04:24 That wasn't something that was necessarily a given. But knowing me and knowing sort of the things I enjoy, like what happened was before I got to Wizards, when I was a freelancer, I liked to go on what they called the Usenet back then, sort of the early days of the internet. And there would be, you know, rec.games.magic, whatever it was called.
Starting point is 00:04:49 And people would have questions and stuff about magic, and I had fun answering them. And so when I got to Wizards, I mean, when I was external to Wizards, it was more me, like, helping people with general magic questions, you know. People go, oh, I don't understand how this works. Because I was a judge at the time,
Starting point is 00:05:04 I understand the rules better than probably the average person. And also, I did the puzzle column at that point. So the way the puzzle column would work is I wouldn't put the answers in the issue. They would be in the next issue. But I would say to people, hey, if you have the answers, send them to me. I'll tell you whether you're right. So I definitely had some interaction with Magic Players online. write. So I definitely had some interaction with Magic Players online. And then when I got to Wizards, I just, I continued doing that and I did it a little bit more from a Wizard standpoint.
Starting point is 00:05:33 But once again, that was still, that's online, that's in writing. But what I found was that the, well, the writing online, I guess, begot me writing in the magazine. So I had been active in the Duelist for quite a while. So not only was I writing on the Youth Nest, I was writing in the Duelist. And I was definitely making a name for myself in that I was just showing up places where people who wanted to learn about magic could see. And so I definitely sort of came, you know, sort of a spokesperson. And like I said, it's a role I more chose to go into, more so than was thrust upon me. And that, what happened was,
Starting point is 00:06:14 when I got to Wizards, Wizards, there was a lot of travel opportunities. And I was sort of like, I was, you know, young and single and excited in my new job. And so I just said yes to every travel opportunity early on. I mean, I think the first summer I was at Wizards, which was 95. I'm sorry, the first summer was 96. I started in October of 95. I believe I was in the office for three weeks out of the summer. I just went everywhere.
Starting point is 00:06:47 There's a lot of conventions in the summer. You know, Gen Con and Origins. I went to, there weren't quite Grand Prix's yet. Or were Grand Prix's just starting? I think in summer of 96, the Grand Prix's were starting. So I went to some of the early Grand Prix's. I also went to some nationals. like I went to Korean nationals. I literally, if someone said, would you like to go somewhere? I would say yes. And so one of the things that happened was when I would go to these events, like there was some expectation that
Starting point is 00:07:18 I would interact with the public. And some of that was, you know, just talking with people or spell-slinging or whatever. But usually, I would, at some point, get up somewhere in front of a crowd and I would talk. And that was my earliest sort of exposure with it. Now, it's funny. Back in the day, before I came to Wizards, when I worked at the events, when I was judging and stuff, When I worked at the events, when I was judging and stuff, I used to run a game show. I did a whole podcast on my game show. Anyway, when we started going to places, I often would do game shows. That was the thing I would do a lot.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Or I would do Q&As. Okay, I work at Wizards. What do you want to know about Wizards? So I started doing a lot of sort of interactive things where I would talk to the public. And like I said, my background was performing, so I was always pretty comfortable. And the other thing was, one of the things that always made me nervous when I was doing stand-up is that there's expectations for making making me laugh in stand up. But when I was doing sort of me magic designer, it was just people go, oh, I want to hear what you have to say.
Starting point is 00:08:31 There wasn't, it was hard to go wrong. You just sort of told stories. And one of the things I found, so that part of what my goal today is not just to talk about my history of public speaking, but kind of get some tips on public speaking. So here's the first tip. The key to sort of making your audience happy in public speaking is making sure that you are delivering on what they've come to expect. What are they expecting you to talk about?
Starting point is 00:08:57 Now, with magic, it's kind of easy because when I get up in front of a magic crowd, we have a shared interest. They love magic. I love magic in front of a magic crowd, we have a shared interest. They love magic. I love magic. I work on magic. It's a lot easier to sort of say things they're interested in. But the other thing is, and this is another important thing about public speaking, is while I have gotten good at sort of talking off the top of my head, I mean, I did improv
Starting point is 00:09:22 and stuff, a lot of times you want to really think through when you're going to be up in front of somebody, you want to understand what you're going to talk about. So a very common thing when you're doing public speaking is you want visuals. And I'm a big, big believer in visuals. When I can and when I'm prepared, usually this has to do with when I know where I'm speaking and I have the ability to have some sort of graphical component. I believe that public speaking is very enhanced by visuals. So, for example, if anyone's ever seen me talk,
Starting point is 00:09:54 I like to do, I like to have slides, and I like to have a lot of slides if I can. In particular, especially for magic stuff, I like my slides to be as visual as I can. Even if, by the way, I'm making a point, I still want a visual component there. For example, if you guys have ever seen, I did a talk at the GDC, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in 2016. That's my talk, 20 Years, 20 Lessons. So I was trying to give a lot of lessons.
Starting point is 00:10:28 There's a lot of content I'm giving. But one of the things that I was always very conscious of is no matter what text I was putting on, whatever point I was making, I wanted to make sure that there was a visual that reinforced that point. And the best part is that the visual reinforces in a way that people can absorb.
Starting point is 00:10:47 Like, oh, I see what's going on there. So when you're trying to lay out visuals for public speaking, you really want the visuals to enhance what you're saying. And the more... So you don't want to be too busy. You don't want too many words. The problem with words when you're talking is people want to read the words. Now, some words are okay. And what I find is if what I'm saying are the
Starting point is 00:11:10 words, that works the best because them reading the words is interacting with what I'm saying. But one of the mistakes you can make in public speaking is that you put up a slide of words that aren't really what you're talking about that are tangential to what you're talking about, so the audience doesn't feel that they can listen to you and pick that up, so they feel obligated then to read it. Then instead of listening to you, they're reading what's going on. And that's in general why you don't want too many words. That you want to make sure that whatever you're putting up there,
Starting point is 00:11:41 you don't want to fight with attention from the audience. You don't want the audience to be like, well, I could be listening to you. Instead, I'm going to be going deep in what your slide says. Now, that said, I do think slides do a good job of reinforcing things
Starting point is 00:11:56 in a couple ways. One is, you can sort of give examples. Like visually, one of the things I'm a big believer in is metaphors. That when I'm sort of delivering a concept, I, one of the things I'm a big believer in is metaphors. That when I'm sort of delivering a concept, I want to make sure people understand it. And so there are a lot of tools to public speaking. Here's why metaphors to me are so
Starting point is 00:12:15 important. You want your audience to understand the point that you're making. You want your audience to have some comprehension of it. And in order for that to be true, they need to understand the point you're making. And sometimes you have a very simple point, they can understand it, but sometimes your point's a little more nuanced. And if your point is more nuanced,
Starting point is 00:12:41 then you're going to need some help for them to understand it. And the easiest way to do that is to take something they already know and tie it to that. Because if they already know and understand it, that's the best way to sort of grasp onto it. For example,
Starting point is 00:12:55 I have to often talk about exploratory design, vision design, set design, play design, how it works. Now, if you've listened to me talk about it at all, you know I have a metaphor, right? I have a metaphor, building a house. Whenever I know I have something that is a little more complicated, I want to find a way and means to connect so the audience gets the essence of what I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:13:18 And the easiest way to do that is through a thing that they understand already. And that's why I'm a big believer whenever I'm trying to get the point across, when I know it's something that's a little more complicated, I look and say, okay, what do they already understand that would help them get this point? And the core of that is understanding what it is you're trying to talk about. What is the essence of the thing you're saying? You know, when I talk about sort of the differences between the types of design, okay, well, the metaphor building a house is really nice because that shares the idea that you're making a product, that there's an end
Starting point is 00:13:56 product, and there's different skills that go into that making that end product. And so that really reinforces the metaphor because they have a shared goal. And it explains, oh, just like when building a house, there's different expertises needed and different stages to doing it, so too in building a magic set. And that makes it easier. So I like to have visuals that reinforce it. I like to have metaphors to help play it up. And I also like to have a little bit of humor. That one of the things I found
Starting point is 00:14:28 is that the audience can, like there's a rate by which an audience can absorb information. The more interested they are in the information the faster they can absorb. And I'm pretty lucky in the sense that hey, what I do are people's hobbies. It's something that they enjoy. So when I'm talking about it, they're excited to be there. You know, if I was going to talk about something a lot drier, it'd be trickier because you have to do more to support that. But one of the things that I always find whenever I give a talk is
Starting point is 00:14:56 I want to understand where and who and how I'm giving the talk to. A good example was I gave a talk a while back to Disney. And so what I did was all the points I was making, I used Disney references to reinforce it so that they'd get, oh, okay, because they knew they were at Disney. They understood Disney. That was their thing. And so if I could use metaphors of the people I'm talking to, it reinforces it and it helps do that. the people I'm talking to, it reinforces it and it helps do that. And so that's another big thing. I like to make sure that there's an overlap there.
Starting point is 00:15:36 And I like to make sure, the reason that humor is really important is that you want it to be entertaining. Not only do you want to be educational, and educational is important when you're public speaking, but you want the audience to enjoy the experience. Again, I have a huge leg up. I'm talking about something that they enjoy to begin with. So this is not a huge struggle when talking about magic. People who are listening normally enjoy magic. But like I said, I've also had the opportunity to talk to people who aren't just magic players.
Starting point is 00:16:02 I talked to Disney. I had a talk at Facebook. I've done a couple of corporate talks where I've. I talked at Disney. I had a talk at Facebook. I've done a couple corporate talks where I went and talked at different companies. And in that case, usually the reason I'm there is whoever put it together was a magic fan. But that doesn't mean that everybody I was talking to were magic fans.
Starting point is 00:16:17 So I couldn't, I mean, usually if I'm talking about something, I'm using magic as a means to explain something because that's what I do. But I want to make sure that I'm then connecting to who I'm talking to. When I talk to Facebook, I very much talked about social media. My whole talk was sort of about how we use social media to do my job because I've talked to people that did social media.
Starting point is 00:16:37 And humor, I find, is nice because it adds a little bit of levity. It definitely shakes things up. Oh, the other thing that's important is that you want to have shifts in tone. Meaning, if you're doing the same thing too much, that's how it gets monotonous, right? If you keep saying the same thing in the same order, if I'm just reading off lists of things, there's no pacing in what's going on. That, on some level, and this is true not just of public speaking, it's true of writing, I guess,
Starting point is 00:17:09 is whenever you are presenting something and you want to be entertaining, you need to think about, well, what makes something entertaining? Now, once again, I have a background in writing for entertainment, of writing TV. So there's a lot of tricks I've learned in how to educate an audience in an actual education, I mean, sorry, an actual entertainment medium. So you can apply some of those skills to public speaking. One of them is you want to have a lot of what I call small takeaways, personal takeaways. And what that means by that is you want to tell people something that they can have practical use of.
Starting point is 00:17:47 That whatever the audience is you're talking to, you want to give them some feedback and some tips that they then go, ooh, I can apply that right away. That there's immediate takeaway. And that's one of the things in public speaking that's the most powerful is you want the person listening, most powerful is you want the person listening, feeling like what it is you're talking about means something to them, matters to them. Now, part of that is making sure that you're using a subject matter that your audience is invested in and cares about. I'm talking to Disney, I'm making sure I use Disney references.
Starting point is 00:18:20 I'm talking to Facebook, I'm using social media references. You know, GDC, I was talking to game designers. So I was very much focusing on the aspects of game design. That whatever my target audience is, whatever who I'm speaking to, I want to make sure that I am giving them takeaways that mean something to them. And I am crafting a story. Whenever I give a talk, I want what is called a flow, right? You want to feel like the things you're doing go in an order that makes sense
Starting point is 00:18:50 and one thing leads to the next thing. For example, in my 20 years, 20 years, 20 lessons, my GDC talk, I knew I was giving 20 lessons. The whole point of the talk was here are things I've learned making a game giving 20 lessons. The whole point of the talk was,
Starting point is 00:19:07 here are things I've learned making a game for 20 years. But I still wanted a cohesion to that, right? It wasn't just 20 random things. Like, even when I got my 20 lessons, I carefully crafted them so that they built on one another. When I tell you lesson one, lesson two takes advantage. Like, lesson two is aware that lesson one exists. Lesson three is aware that lesson two exists. And so I'm crafting a story
Starting point is 00:19:29 so there's a larger cohesion to what's going on. For example, let me talk about I do a lot of talks at San Diego Comic-Con. And sometimes, by the way, when I talk about public speaking, I've been talking a lot about where I prepare something, right? Where I'm going to say something, I prepare a slideshow for it,
Starting point is 00:19:50 I have an order for it, it's a presentation. The other thing that can happen or does happen is Q&A, right? Where I'm not the one, I'm not planning it ahead of time. I'm getting up there and the audience is going to give me questions. That's another important part of public speaking is it's not always planned. It's not always something that you set out to do ahead of time. But when you do, like I said, the key to planning ahead of time is planning, is rehearsing. Like I said, the key to planning ahead of time is planning, is rehearsing. Whenever I'm going to give a speech, I run through it multiple times over multiple days. I usually will show it to other people and get feedback so that I can understand if people don't understand something.
Starting point is 00:20:43 My GDC talk, I actually gave it a bunch of times before I gave it at the event. And each time I gave it, I got feedback and I changed it. The bigger the talk, the more I'll present it ahead of time and the more I'll get feedback. Something like a San Diego Comic-Con, I will run it by somebody. But I have a general sense of what I'm doing there. So something like GDC was a bigger talk. And so that required a little bit more practice and input. But no matter what it is, I always practice. Even at GDC, I go through my slides. I want to understand what my story is, what I'm telling, and what the essence of what my talk is going to be. Now, let's talk about questions. So, there's a couple different ways to do Q&As.
Starting point is 00:21:20 Sometimes I'm on a panel where there's a bunch of people. Sometimes I'm by myself, like a lot of San Diego Comic-Cons, although some of the earlier San Diego Comic-Cons were a panel. The key to a question is understanding what it is the audience, like what is the core of the question? And that might sound silly. We'll just answer what the question is. But usually when you're answering a question,
Starting point is 00:21:42 you want to have an idea of what is the larger issue at hand. Now, because I am on my blog every day answering questions, I have a good sense of sort of where the online magic community is at, if that makes sense. So, you know, when I go up in front of an audience and they're asking questions, because I'm answering questions every day, I have a general sense of what are the topics people care about. Just because they'll ask me on my blog. So usually when I get up in front of an audience and I'm getting questions, I'm getting a lot of the same kind of questions I get on my blog. You know, there's a lot of overlap.
Starting point is 00:22:19 So when someone asks a question, you want to first understand what is it are they really asking. Sometimes what they're asking is really what they are asking. But sometimes there's a deeper meaning or message or a deeper context to what they're asking. So you want to understand what it is you're asking. And then you need to figure out. So the tricky part for me is not everything I can answer outright. For example, there are like magic players want to know things that they don't know.
Starting point is 00:22:49 And there's a lot of things. I have a lot of knowledge of upcoming products because I work two years ahead. But I'm not supposed to reveal information until a time when it's right. So one of the things that I've gotten very good at is learning sort of what do they want to know? What does the
Starting point is 00:23:05 audience already know about it? I need to keep up on what the audience knows, like what we've been public about. And then I need to figure out what I can say at what level. The closer, for example, we get to something, the more I'm like the meatier an answer I can give. If I'm at a place where we are giving away information, I'm at San Diego Comic-Con where we're specifically talking about something, I have a little more freedom to sort of give larger chunks of information. If we're farther out, I've learned how to give information that excites people but is scarce in the sense that I'm not giving too much away. And if it's really something I can't talk about,
Starting point is 00:23:45 I lean into sort of my enthusiasm for it. That even if I can't tell you anything about it exactly, I can talk about what I'm excited about. I can lean into something. Oh, and this is an important thing. I didn't get into this. Whether you're answering questions or you are sort of giving a speech or a presentation,
Starting point is 00:24:06 enthusiasm. Whether you're answering questions or you are sort of giving a speech or a presentation. Enthusiasm. The audience gauges their emotional response off your emotional response. That if you want the audience to be excited about what you're talking about, you need to be excited. So if I'm talking about a brand new magic set, if I'm not excited about it, why should they be excited about it? Now, luckily, I'm an excitable person and the way magic works is I make a magic set and then I don't touch it forever for over a year. So by the time I get to talk about it, I've been itching to talk about it for two, three years. So I'm dying to talk about it.
Starting point is 00:24:40 See, normally when I get to talk about something, I am excited to talk about it because I've been wanting to talk about it and I haven't been able to. But you definitely want that enthusiasm. You want to project. One of the things I learned back in my pitching days is when you are selling something, you want the audience invested in what you're selling. When I'm trying to get you excited for a brand new product, I want you invested. But once again, I want you invested in the right things. I want you invested in what's there. One of the big things about magic is, and this is something we've learned a lot over the years, is I want to make sure that I'm selling you what the product
Starting point is 00:25:20 is. I want to talk about it in such a way that when you get excited, the product will deliver on what I'm promising you. I want you to get excited about what's the cool thing about the product. I don't want to get you excited about something the product isn't. I don't want to get you excited about what the product isn't going to deliver. I want to get you excited
Starting point is 00:25:35 about what the product is going to deliver. So an important part of doing that, and that's through presentations or questions, is understanding what it is. Like, that's another important thing, especially when you're answering questions. What are the messages you want to get across? One of the things when you do media training,
Starting point is 00:25:50 which we have to do because of interviews and stuff, is one of the big things they say is you always want to go and interview knowing what the major points you want to get across are. You know, let's say, for example, someone's interviewing me about a new set. What are the key selling points of the set? What are the most exciting things about the set? I want to make sure that I talk about that.
Starting point is 00:26:07 And even if the questions aren't specifically about that, I want to steer the conversation. So that is similar in when you get questions from the audience is, it's not that you don't want to answer the questions, you do and you should. But sometimes you'll find opportunities to then go beyond the question to add other things that you think the audience would like to know. So for example, sometimes someone will ask me about a new product and the thing they're asking me about is not the thing I really can talk about or maybe even is not the thing that's the exciting thing about the product. So sometimes I can sort of address that
Starting point is 00:26:37 but then shift into something where it is the more exciting thing. Another thing we do sometimes is sometimes when we do questions and answers, we pre-prepare surprises that we're allowed to talk about. So it's like sometimes, for example, and we've done this at San Diego Comic-Con, back when it was a panel and not just me, where we'll have a card to preview, but we won't preview during the panel section. We'll wait until the question section. And then when someone asks the right question, we go, oh, I'm glad you asked that. And then we reveal it. And that's fun to do as well is have some stuff that you're sort of waiting for the opportunity to find it.
Starting point is 00:27:12 And like I said, in anything you're planning, whether it's a panel or it's questions, you want to also make sure that you have sort of key moments, right? You want what I call the takeaway story. And what I mean by that is if somebody went to your panel and then is telling other people about it, you want them to have a story to go, oh, I got to tell you this. There's something I got to tell you. And it could be a multiple thing. Sometimes you're just giving a really cool information and not just giving it, but giving it in a neat way where there's a fun reveal. Sometimes you're just having fun with the audience. Like one of the things I like about questions is that you want to have a good rapport with the audience. You want to have fun. You want to laugh. Like, you know, another important thing, I didn't really talk
Starting point is 00:28:00 about the power of sort of personal stories. That one of the things that's very compelling when you're public speaking or answering questions is when you can share a story with people, there's a very personalizing thing to sharing a story. It's very human to share a story. And when you're talking in particular, stories, not that stories can't be told in other medium, they can't obviously, but there's something super personal about talking that really conveys storytelling. And so I like to, whenever I'm doing a presentation, I like to work in fun stories.
Starting point is 00:28:31 When I'm answering questions, I like to work in fun stories. But one of the things I'm always conscious of is, like, for example, if I make a product, and a fun thing happened, I will keep that in my head and go, okay, here's some fun stories from the making of this product.
Starting point is 00:28:48 I will find a place to tell the story. Now, maybe I do a presentation where I planned it and I put it in. Maybe in question and answers, I find an opportunity for it to come up. Maybe it's an interview. I will find a place to tell that story because it's a fun story
Starting point is 00:29:00 that reinforces something about the set. You know, and so you want to, like a lot of good, both presentations and answering questions is the prep work involved. And I can't stress this enough that I'm not saying that you can't show up and just, you know, use your improv skills and be fun and have people enjoy it. But when you put the time and energy, when you think ahead, and like I said, it's not just presentations, even when you're doing questions and doing panels, you want to sort of think about what are things, like when I used to do improv, one of the things we would do is we would practice improv. Well,
Starting point is 00:29:44 why would you practice? No one's like, no one's going to see that, right? the things we would do is we would practice improv. Well, why would you practice? No one's going to see that, right? But the idea is, A, you want to get rapport with your fellow actors, and you want to sharpen your skills. But also, sometimes what happens is you just hit upon funny things and funny ideas, and you can sort of lock those away. And then when you're performing, sometimes you're like, oh, here's this really funny joke that I had found when we were just sort of practicing that I found a natural place to work in. That everything you sort of build up in your practice is something that in the final thing you can put into it. So when you're sort of preparing, a lot of things I like to do when I'm preparing for like a panel or something is I want to make sure that I'm well-versed in what the topic is
Starting point is 00:30:25 and what are the fun things. Like, for example, I never want to go to a panel without stories planned. Not necessarily that I'll tell all those stories. You know what I'm saying? Someone might ask a question, oh, that's a great story, I hadn't thought of that. And I tell another story just because the question led me to a different story. But what I want to do is sort of go prepared that if I don't, if someone doesn't ask me a question that inspires something else, that I have some stuff already there, that I prepared some stuff. And like I said,
Starting point is 00:30:55 the big thing about public speaking beyond sort of confidence, I mean, I'm almost to work. The one thing I didn't get into public speaking is repetition and practice in the sense that having confidence comes from doing it. The reason, for example, that I'm very good at public speaking, A, I practice, but B, I've done a lot of public speaking. You know, it is a skill. It is a skill you get better at. And it is, not just you get better at it, but you get more comfortable doing it. Like, it is very intimidating getting up in front of a lot of people
Starting point is 00:31:32 if you're not used to getting up in front of a lot of people. And there's stuff like Toastmasters. Like, if you're somebody who would like to get better at it, my recommendation is there are organizations, Toastmasters is kind of
Starting point is 00:31:45 the most famous one, where people can practice their presentation skills. Like I said, it is something with time and practice you will learn. There are a lot of individual things you can do. There are a lot of skills that come with public speaking that just come from learning them. How to read an audience. How to wait for for the laugh, how to, you know, like for example, even in answering questions, there's a real skill in sort of knowing what are they asking and how do you answer it and, you know, what's the right amount that the questions answered, but you're adding your own sort of element to it. You know, there's a lot of skills that come to that.
Starting point is 00:32:19 And those skills come from doing it. Those skills come from repetition. One of the reasons, like I said, one of the reasons I'm pretty good at public speaking was before I started at Wizards, I had done a lot of public speaking. And since then, I've done even more public speaking. But anyway, I hope today, like I said, today was more of a just talking about a skill
Starting point is 00:32:36 that I use in my job, but isn't, you know, isn't quite designing cards. So anyway, I hope this was valuable. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I like trying different things in my podcast. It's something a little bit different. Anyway, guys, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.

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