When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots.1
—Nikola Tesla
Often the reason why we pay attention to certain speakers, believe in their words, and follow their advice is simply because they speak with passion. Passion is contagious. And yes, we have seen passionate speakers in the tech arena. Even if you may feel that passion is an overused word, ignore that: passion is a great asset for rocking the tech stage.
If you don’t show passion for your idea, product, company, community, or cause, then you can’t expect others to follow your path. This chapter shows you that without passion, your message will never touch people and your idea will die.
Talks Come from a Source of Passion
“My motivation is that when I get very excited about something I want everyone to know about this thing. I guess it’s coming from a source, from a place of passion about something. It can be anything because I like many things. Then the way I do things better, when I’m writing a talk, I can be fastidiously repetitive, and I will repeat the thing, and I will write it down, I will draw it, I will work lots on the skeleton of the talk. I will try it without slides, I will try to just tell the story and I will time it and see if that’s going to fit. If it’s not going to fit, I’m going to start cutting things out and making sure that it still makes sense.”
As Penadés explains, finding a good new topic for a talk can be a long process and take a lot of time from a speaker. But the paths that start from a source of passion for something will lead to a talk that ignites fire in the audience.
Developers, Developers, Developers
In the year 2000 at a Microsoft conference in front of a huge audience of software developers, Steve Ballmer (at that time Microsoft CEO) vigorously shouted the word “Developers”2 14 times in an act that the industry remembers well still today. Let’s break up Ballmer’s gestures during that episode. First, you can see Ballmer walking onstage from left to right, then from right to left for a longer walk, and then back again from left to right, so he was in continuous movement while speaking. In the video footage his blue shirt is completely covered in sweat, showing exuberant passion with his voice, and both clapping and fist punching to show his energy. So, we can say that he converged his words, body, and soul. Ballmer’s example shows that if you put not only your words but your voice and your body into your presentation, you will energize your audience and they will remember you.
Besides “Developers, Developers, Developers,” there is a second well-remembered video3 of Ballmer in which after 30 seconds running, shouting, and jumping across the stage, he ends at the podium, stops for eight seconds, takes a good breath, and then shouts, “I have four words for you: I. Love. This. Company.”
Ballmer created his unique style as über energetic speaker. Some people criticized him and countless memes of him were made, but his audience was excited and motivated with him. He will not be easily forgotten, that’s for sure.
Passion for Devices
Fast forward a decade and a half. Today, Microsoft’s best presenter is Chief Product Officer Panos Panay. He has led the Surface devices portfolio since the early 2010s, and because of that he had the opportunity to be the visible face of Microsoft product launches. He has done a pretty great job. When he speaks, he can’t hide his passion for the products the team he leads builds, nor can he hide his passion for detail and design. One of the best presentation tools in his arsenal is showing demos, which he enjoys and often co-presents with guests. Panay is also an effective storyteller who often talks about his life and his personal interests, and he finds ways to bind the stories he tells with his work of creating consumer devices.
When I see Panay in his finest moments, the only speaker that comes to my mind is Steve Jobs, and I wonder if the similarity is pure coincidence. In Panay’s least brilliant moments, you can see him repeating expressions and words such as “incredible” and “critical” all the time. With passion, but too often. Regardless, Panay’s passion onstage can’t be ignored, and that is why many people admire him. They have made it evident in tweets:
@DamraBasil “My dream is to be passionate about what I’m doing just like how @panos_panay is.” Twitter, 28 September 2019, 3:34 a.m., twitter.com/DamraBasil/status/1177743236791750656
@SmashDawg “Thanks @panos_panay -- passionate people and really transformative products make it easy to tell a compelling story!” Twitter, 17 April 2019, 8:12 p.m., twitter.com/SmashDawg/status/1118562786756517888
@NPDSteveBaker “And @panos_panay is on stage. Truly one of the best presenters in tech and a passionate advocate for @surface products and value proposition.” Twitter, 2 October 2018, 11:13 p.m., twitter.com/NPDSteveBaker/status/1047218006613483521
@ztlaidlaw “Goal for 2018: Be as passionate about something as @panos_panay is about the @surface line and the people that bring it to life. This man’s tenacity and mission are infectious!” Twitter, 28 December 2017, 6:15 a.m., twitter.com/ztlaidlaw/status/946233128980533249
Passion for Astronomy
Until recent years, we had heard of black holes only as an abstract, blurry concept. Nobody had seen a picture of a black hole except in science fiction movies.4 But that changed in 2019, and the young computer scientist behind this breakthrough was Katie Bouman. Bouman had developed a passion for imaging since high school,5 and during that time she learned about the Event Horizon Telescope project, which is an international effort consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. She had a leading role in the research efforts to publish the first picture of a black hole in April 2019.
Prior to that achievement, Bouman spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet in November 2016 and delivered the talk “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole.”6 She talked about the scientific challenge of creating a picture of a black hole and explained the principles of the algorithm she developed for this purpose. Throughout the talk, you can see Bouman speaking with a fervent passion for astronomy, algorithms, and her work of research. She spoke in an energetic and fast tempo, constantly using her arms and hands to emphasize her words, using humor, and showing joyful facial expressions. She was always looking at the audience and she couldn’t hide her enthusiasm. Thank goodness she did not.
If you watch Bouman offstage in interviews and such, you will perceive the same passion as well.
Passion for Coaching Speakers in the Tech Arena
Emily Edgeley spent about over 10 years in cybersecurity roles in Melbourne, Australia, until she discovered a new calling and became a public speaking coach. After some bad experiences speaking in public, Edgeley decided to improve her skills. She watched many TED talks, got some coaching herself, and joined Toastmasters International. Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs.7 In her Toastmasters’ experience, she became very active in running meetings, mentoring people, and building educational programs. She soon realized that she was getting so much more out of doing these things in her free time—more than she was in her paid work.
In the infosec field, professionals often get accreditations that need to be kept up, and every year you have to get certain credits. Edgeley got to a point where her accreditations were about to expire and she realized that soon she was going to have to quickly go through the course material, read some books, and do some webinars so she could keep her accreditation. So she thought to herself, why am I rushing my accreditation? At that point her heart was just not in it anymore.
Still, at that point, she never thought that she could make a career out of public speaking. She started to run storytelling workshops and posted some relevant content online, and it organically grew. People just started to seek her out. At her workplace she started to run events, and they would then get her to coach all the speakers. She started to get sent overseas to do storytelling workshops with the company’s different campuses.
A pivotal point arrived in Edgeley’s career where her organization went through a large restructuring. Several employees, including her, received three options: they could either re-apply for their current job along with about 5,000 other people, they could take a redundancy, or they could apply for another job within the organization. During that very specific time, she was in China with her boss doing storytelling sessions over there, and two very important things happened. First, a woman contacted Edgeley on LinkedIn and asked, Can you coach me in storytelling? I’d like to pay you to be my coach. Edgeley confessed that at time she didn’t even know how to charge. That unexpected opportunity led to her first-ever paid coaching session. Second, when on a rooftop having drinks, Edgeley’s boss asked her what was her decision about this restructure, Edgeley responded, I don’t know, which was true at that moment. Her boss replied, “Why don’t you follow your passion?” Her first reaction was to be taken aback. When she got back to her hotel room that night, she pondered, believing that he would have asked her to stay if he truly believed she was good at her job. But then, Edgeley realized that her boss was actually just trying to give her a little bit of good advice about following her true passion.
Edgeley put in her resignation six months later. She started her new career in January 2019, without really knowing how she was going to make it work. She just knew that it was going to work because she loved helping people. Edgeley knows from her own experience how bad it feels when your fear of public speaking holds you back in many areas of your life and how liberating it can be when you come out the other side. She wanted to do her best to help other people to go through that journey.
Edgeley is now an established public speaking coach who works with individuals and conferences alike, such as Black Hat, BSides Melbourne, and the Australian Cyber Conference (AISA). She feels today that she has a nice mix of purposes: her passion for helping women in IT and security and her passion for helping people with public speaking. Edgeley wants to get more women on the speaking circuit.
No Voice, No Passion
Have you ever seen a passionate speaker who speaks with a weak voice? Hardly ever. The reason is that speaking is not merely an intellectual activity. Yes, you’ll spend a lot of time working with the ideas for your talk, looking for facts or the latest news items to back your points, writing and rewriting, creating slides and visualizations, finding the right photos, and more, but the ultimate product is you in front of the people. How you express the work you did will determine if you will be acclaimed or slammed.
When you’re on the stage, the intellectual work is mostly done, and now your main job is to speak. The voice that you produce when you speak will make a tremendous impact on how your message comes across. People will perceive you as friendly, nervous, authoritative, clumsy, bored, funny, smart, or healthy. In most conferences and meetups, you want to be perceived as confident and knowledgeable but also likeable.
- 1.
Speak loudly. The best version of the sound of your voice is produced when you speak loudly. At most events, a microphone will amplify your voice, but it is best to learn to speak loudly without relying on the mic. When you rehearse your talk, speak loudly so that you can accurately predict how you will sound to your audience.
- 2.
Stay hydrated. Especially during the 48 hours leading up to speaking, drink a lot of water. Plain still water is the best.
- 3.
Breathe from your nose. Do you know the main reason why so many speakers have completely dry mouths after just 10 minutes of speaking? It’s because speakers unconsciously breathe through their mouths. It’s as simple as that.8 Right now, you can try this: take a breath through your mouth. How does it feel? You might start coughing right away. Try breathing through your nose and you’ll feel more natural.
- 4.
Melody. One of the best ways to sound passionate and understood at the same time is to speak with melody. This means stressing the keywords in every phrase you say. You will not only be perceived as more lively, but you will also feel more enthused. Ultimately, people will understand you much better, especially if you have a noticeable accent or your speaking style is fast or monotone.
- 5.
Vocal exercises. As singers do, vocal exercises are the best way to warm up your voice before a talk, and they keep your voice in good shape—creating the sound you want others listen to.
Other mental exercises include asking yourself questions like: How would you like to be defined as professionally speaking ten years from now? How would you like to be remembered?
Also, study yourself when you are speaking about something you have passion for. Notice how you change when speaking about something you love. This is now your gold standard of speaking with passion.
A final piece of advice from Schoenwald is that any time you veer off that path or notice your passion levels dropping, stop, reflect, and find ways to further wire your passions into your presentation objectives.
How Much Passion Is Too Much?
If you recall Steve Ballmer’s Developers, Developers, Developers act, you might think that his passion could be too much. Do I need to jump and shout to be perceived passionate? Certainly not. You probably have other examples in mind of speakers who sound passionate, but who you can’t stand. It is not a good idea to imitate someone else’s passionate style.
Be inspired by passionate speakers, but look for your own style. If you put in some effort and practice, you will discover that you enjoy the new passionate version of you. And your audience will enjoy it even more.
Best Practices
Start by choosing speaking topics that you are passionate about. It’s going to be very hard to speak with passion on topics that you don’t care too much about. If you don’t have the choice of picking the topic because of your job, find a connection between the topic and something you care about more, such as your hobbies, family, or another professional interest.
Be ready to put in some extra energy onstage. Speaking onstage takes more energy than speaking in day-to-day environments such as chatting with colleagues in the breakroom. This is why you must remember to rest well the day before a presentation and stay hydrated.
Express yourself using your whole body. Speaking isn’t just an intellectual exercise. Remember: no voice, no passion.
Find your own passionate style. Watch passionate speakers to get ideas, but avoid imitating them. Keep trying new ways of expressing yourself with passion until you find your style.
Are there passionate speakers in the tech arena? Yes, there are many, even though I wish there were more. Now you can be the next one!
Key Takeaways
Speaking with passion is essential for convincing others of your idea.
Speak on topics you truly care about.
There are many passionate speakers in the tech arena that we can watch and get inspiration from.
Speaking is physical, not only intellectual. Once onstage, use your energy, your voice, and your whole body.