A “Whole” Approach to Public Speaking : An Interview with Carla Kimball
by Vicky Schubert

from Leverage Points Issue 102

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CARLA KIMBALL is a speaking presence coach whose approach reflects her experience as a dancer, yoga teacher, and tai chi practitioner. She believes that some of the learnings from these disciplines can help people overcome fear, project more confidence, and cultivate the type of leadership presence so essential in today’s world. She recently spoke with Leverage Points about what she refers to as “public speaking presence.”


We are hearing a lot about “presence” these days. In the book by that name, authors Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers identify presence as a concept borrowed from the natural world that suggests the whole is entirely present in any of its parts. Scharmer also talks about presence as the capacity to connect to the deepest source of self and will to allow the future to emerge from the whole rather than from a smaller part or from a special interest. For Carla Kimball in her work with public speakers, presence is about slowing down internally so as to enter into a shared space with one’s listeners.

In all of these cases, the idea of connecting to a larger whole—with the goal of inspiring transformational change—is paramount.

What Is Public Speaking Presence?
“I think of presence as being something that we embody,” Kimball explains. “And it comes from being truly present in the moment” Noting that the opposite of presence is absence, Carla observes that we are absent when we are distracted by our internal chatter and by whatever pulls our attention away from simply being here. She contends that presence in public speaking requires slowing down and becoming quiet inside, because when you are multi-tasking and your thoughts are racing in a kind of “adrenaline soup,” it’s impossible to effectively deliver your message.

Presence is also about establishing a relationship with your audience and creating a shared space that you enter into together. Effective speakers create an experience of presence by making a priority of connecting with everybody in the room.

Hillary Clinton embodied presence, Carla notes, during her recent speech at the Democratic National Convention. “You could see it in the way she carried herself,” she says, “even as she walked on stage there was this sense that she was fully occupying herself spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally. It was clear that she was connecting with people as individuals and she seemed to speak directly to the individuals she was looking at.”

Kimball works to help people minimize the feeling of being separate from their audience, because that separateness causes fear. Conversely, when they have a sense that they are in community with others, they no longer feel as though they’re standing out there by themselves with everybody shooting arrows at them. They’re much more a part of a whole.

To illustrate, Kimball offers the analogy of a goldfish pond contained by rocks all the way around the perimeter. Each individual rock is crucial, because if one of the rocks were to be removed, the water would flow out and the pond would no longer exist. But when we look at a pond, what draws our focus is the pond as a whole, not the individual rocks. “As a speaker,” she says, “I’m like one of those rocks, and the people in the audience are the other rocks. Together, we create a focus that’s not about any of us individually.”

Cultivating Presence When You Speak
Perhaps most fundamental among the strategies Carla calls the “Seven Crown Jewels of Public Speaking Presence” (see the complete list below), is drawn from Eastern philosophy: “Where you put your attention, that’s where your energy goes.” People terrified of speaking often find it difficult to think about anything other than how they’re going to mess up and how the people in the room will judge them. As a speaker focuses her attention on the mental chatter going on in her head, her energy goes there, and she creates more and more anxiety for herself and distance from her audience.

Kimball likes to help these anxious speakers distinguish between “self-consciousness” and “consciousness of self.” “When we are self-conscious, we are looking at ourselves as we think others might be looking at us with a judgmental eye,” she explains. “But if you can shift into more of an embodied consciousness of self, you can expand the focus of your awareness to include your connection to the other people in the room. Placing the emphasis on this connection and on being present with the people in the audience actually steadies you, it calms you down.”

Speakers using PowerPoint have to be especially careful not to create separation between themselves and their audience. “Sometimes,” Carla observes, “you’ll see people with their back to their listeners, having a relationship with their slide presentation instead of with their audience.” But when you put your attention on being present in your body and with your audience, that’s where your energy will go. The flow of energy and information going back and forth between you and your listeners will in turn create a shared space.

Focus on Service
In another strategy for cultivating presence, Carla suggests that speakers ask themselves, “How can I be of service to the people in this room?” Clinton, for example, as she crafted her high-stakes speech for the convention, was likely thinking more about how she could be of service to the country and to her party than about showing how brilliant she could be.

Kimball shares the story of Steve Ryman, a coach in Washington State, whose experience illustrates this principle of service. About three or four years ago, Steve had just graduated from a coaching program, when he traveled to Kufunda, Zimbabwe, on a learning journey with the Berkana Institute. The country was in desperate straits, with 1,200 percent inflation and 30 percent of the population infected with HIV/AIDS. Kufunda is a learning center and model village that helps communities develop self-reliance despite the enormous challenges prevailing in the country at large. Steve wanted to contribute something of value, so he had arranged to stay on for another two weeks after the learning journey ended to offer his assistance as a coach to the community.

During his two-week learning journey, Steve was confronted with the intractable nature of some of the issues facing this community, and he began to realize that he had no special knowledge, expertise, or understanding to offer. So, the morning after the others from the learning journey left, he woke up troubled by this question: “How can I be of any help to these people? I don’t know anything about this. There’s nothing I can do.” Feeling like a fraud, he walked to the top of a small hill. As he watched the sun rise, he resolved to offer to be of service in whatever way the villagers needed him.

When he came down the hill, he went into the kitchen and said, “What can I do? Sweep the floor? Peel potatoes?” The villagers put him to work and, instead of coaching, he stayed, doing whatever he could to be useful. Carla notes, “Steve realized that his purpose there wasn’t about being the expert, but about service. And, in the three years since that time, Steve has contributed greatly to Kufunda both through his work with them locally and by telling their story to others.”

When people are anxious about an important presentation, they can ask themselves, “Why are we meeting? What can I do to be of service here?” That’s a lot less intimidating than: “I’ve really got to show that I know my stuff.”

Tools for Creating Balance
Carla concedes that it’s not always comfortable to reframe the way you have been used to thinking about your public speaking challenges. She notes, “I just completed one of my 12-week courses, and as part of the course evaluation process, one man said to me, ‘You know, after the first two weeks, I almost didn’t come back because it was so weird. I felt like it was so touchy-feely that I wasn’t going to get what I needed. I’m glad I stayed. The course has made a big difference!’”

In Kimball’s group work, most of the first session is done in silence as participants work on developing three simultaneous levels of awareness: being present with themselves, being present with their audience, and being present with the content they’re talking about. “Even if these practices—such as meditation and brief eye-contact exercises—may seem alien to them and not what they expected in a public speaking course,” says Kimball, “I have to make it safe enough for them to trust it and keep going.” Over time, as they add exercises that help them with each of the “seven crown jewels,” people’s comfort levels go up.

Carla’s students also reinforce the disciplines they learn in class in their daily lives. For example, they might practice slowing down by focusing on their breathing when they’re talking on the phone, sitting at the dinner table with their family, standing in line at the grocery store, or walking down the street. She encourages people to practice in non-stressful situations, because that helps them to draw on these skills when the stress levels are turned up. “And what people discover,” she says, “is that these aren’t just public speaking tools, but tools that help them create more balance in every aspect of their personal and professional lives.”

The Seven Crown Jewels of Public Speaking Presence

1. Slow down.  Savor the moment....................... Breathe.


2. Become aware of your body: Feel your feet on the ground.


3. Remember: Where you put your attention, that’s where energy goes.


4. Think of it as a conversation, not a presentation.


5. Ask yourself: How can I be of service? Instead of: How can I be perfect and show my expertise?


6. Smile: Both to be kind to yourself and to be open to your audience.


7. Trust the power of silence!

Carla Kimball can be contacted at Riverways Enterprises.