How Great Coaches Speak #26
What Jay Bilas can teach you about being a better speaker
Hello, it’s been a while.
My last post was on September 8th. This is the longest stretch between posts since I started writing this blog in 2021.
In September, my husband and I opened two new gyms in our town — just the two of us with two kiddos at home and no formal childcare. To say it’s been beautifully chaotic would be an understatement.
I’ve missed posting on this blog and do hope to get back to a regular cadence, so thanks for sticking with me.
Let’s get to it…
The 26th coach in this series is Jay Bilas, current ESPN college basketball analyst and former Duke men’s basketball assistant coach (1990-1992).
Jay is an impressive human and a tremendous speaker.
The clip I’ve chosen for this post is 28 minutes long. You don’t have to watch the full speech, but if you have the time, you absolutely should.
Please watch at least 5 minutes of this clip before reading on:
When I started listening to Jay speak, I noticed I wanted to listen to him.
Whenever I want to listen to someone, I get curious about what they’re doing or saying to create that feeling.
This is the missing step for a lot of us.
We have examples of effective communication and public speaking all around us, but we don’t make an effort to notice what they’re doing or saying that makes them so effective and consider how we might apply similar strategies.
That’s the purpose of this series. I want to help you notice specific things about how others communicate and speak and then figure out how to apply similar strategies in your own life and work.
So, what is it that makes us want to listen to Jay speak?
First, let’s talk about what Jay is doing that makes us want to listen:
Throughout his message, he holds a steady posture and uses supportive gestures.
Notice that Jay isn’t moving around constantly. In fact, he stands in the same spot for most of his 28-minute talk.
His lack of lower body movement draws our attention because we perceive him as calm and collected, and we can focus entirely on his message.
This is different than what many of us do, which is constantly pacing the front of the room or stage, shifting our hips side to side, and/or rocking forward and back.
As I’ve written about many times before, purposeless movement is distracting. Pacing the front of the room or stage, shifting your hips back and forth, and rocking on your feet forward and back are (often) self-soothing strategies more than they are audience-engagement strategies.
If you don’t think you pace, shift, or rock while speaking, I urge you to record a video of yourself. You might be surprised by the amount of unconscious movement.
Back to Jay…
Even though we don’t see much movement in his lower body, I wouldn’t describe him as rigid or boring. That’s because we see him using a lot of expressive and supportive gestures.
Expressive and supportive gestures are a much more effective engagement tool than lower body movement.
Here are four things you should know about gesturing:
You should actively look for opportunities to “show” your message with your hands. When you’re not actively gesturing, your hands should be resting down.
When you gesture, you should pick your hands up so you draw your listeners’ attention up toward your face (where the words are coming up). Gesturing below your waist draws your listeners’ attention down.
When you gesture, you should take up space (so long as you don’t move into someone else’s personal space). Allow your hands to get outside of your body.
Try to avoid “placed” gesturing techniques — like steepling your hands (pictured below) — which come across as unnatural.
Something else Jay does that makes us want to listen to him is that he speaks at a rate we can easily follow.
In the seven or so years I’ve been teaching and coaching this stuff, I think I’ve told two people to increase their speech rate. Just two!
Most of us talk too fast. When I say “fast,” I’m usually referring to the amount of space between your individual points and not the actual speed of your words. “Fast talkers” usually string multiple thoughts and sentences together without breaking, or connect their thoughts and sentences together with filler words.
Jay incorporates short and long (silent) pauses between his thoughts and sentences. I urge you to replay a few minutes of the video and listen for these pauses.
I’ve written about the importance and impact of pausing while speaking ad nauseam. I will continue to do so because I believe it’s the most powerful thing you can do to improve your communication and speaking skills.
Think about it like this…
Pauses are where the listening happens. (read that again)
When you pause — even for a moment — you create space for your listeners to take in and connect with what you just said.
Not pausing or pausing infrequently is like turning the sink faucet on high and closing the drain. At some point, the water will overflow and be wasted. Incorporating deliberate pauses into your speaking is the equivalent of turning off the faucet for a moment and opening the drain so the water (your information) can move through.
As the one speaking, it’s your responsibility to manage the flow of your message. Say something, pause. Say something, pause. Say something, pause.
Pausing while you speak will be uncomfortable for you but pleasant for your listeners.
The final thing I noticed about how Jay speaks is his use of deliberate eye contact.
»» Scroll back up to the video and watch 1-2 minutes of Jay speaking. Only pay attention to his eyes. Notice how his eyes almost always focused on someone in his audience and not scanning around the room.
Making deliberate eye contact with the individuals in your audience has a few benefits:
Captures individual attention, which drives group engagement.
Creates feelings of connection and trust between you and your individual audience members.
Helps settle your nerves, as you’re more comfortable looking at and speaking to one person versus multiple people at once.
Subconsciously motivates your audience members to pay attention and make eye contact with you — even when you’re not looking directly at them — so they get “credit” for their attention when you inevitably look at them.
Next, let’s talk about what Jay says that makes us want to listen.
First, he made his stories and anecdotes relevant to his audience.
A pet peeve I have when listening to others speak is when they share their personal stories but don’t do the work to help us understand why we should care.
It feels like they’re saying, “Look how great I am!” versus “Here’s how my story can help you be great.”
Jay’s talk is almost entirely about himself, but for every personal story or anecdote he tells, he immediately transitions into a lesson for his listeners.
Your listeners don’t care how great you are. They see themselves in your story and want you to help them understand how to leverage your story to improve their life.
So, the next time you hear yourself telling a personal story or sharing a personal insight, follow it up with, “I’m sharing this with you because…” or “Here’s how you might use this…”
Another thing Jay does is share several quotable insights:
“Your decisions will reveal your priorities.”
“It’s the best non-family decision you’ve ever made.” (To play for Duke BB)
“If you guys do this right — and I think you will — this will positively affect the rest of your life.”
“I’ll tell you one thing about regret. Nobody who’s been through this process ever regrets giving everything they have.
“Your role is not who you are, and it’s not what you’re capable of. It’s what your team needs you to do to win.”
(Jay’s dad) “You can’t get to the top of that ladder in one step. But you can get to the bottom in one step.”
“You’re not going to win the national championship today; it’s not being played today. But you’re going to put yourself in a position to win it by what you do today.”
“You will not have special in your life like this very often. And so take advantage of it.”
These quotes are powerful because they capture the essence of Jay’s messages.
We tend to envy people who are “quotable,” thinking they have some special talent. They don’t.
They simply have a deep understanding of their message. They’ve sat with, reflected on, and discussed their thoughts and experiences long enough to understand what’s at the core.
When you can boil a big message down into a short statement, it proves to your audience how deeply you understand what you’re saying.
In Closing
Jay doesn’t have some special talent to be envious of.
He’s collected an array of life experiences and dedicated time and effort to understanding how those experiences can be leveraged to engage, teach, inspire, and motivate others to achieve something great for themselves.
What else did you learn from watching Jay speak? Share them with me in the comments 👇
If you enjoyed this post, please hit the ❤️ button and share it with someone who might enjoy it too.
Thanks for reading!
Jenny
This is so good. What would be better to do with my hands than steepling them. It feels nice to have one hand position that I can return to if I start feeling awkward and don’t know what to do with the hands.