Why Connecting Is Essential with Michelle Tillis Lederman.

Why Connection Outweighs Technique

Michelle Tillis Lederman has taught public speaking for years — hand placement, posture, vocal variety, all of it. And at the end of every session, she tells her students to forget all of that. Because what ultimately determines whether a presentation lands isn't technique. It's connection. Connection to your message. Connection to your audience. When those two things are in place, your talk becomes memorable. When they're missing, even a technically flawless delivery falls flat.

Michelle goes further: connecting to your message may actually matter more than connecting to your audience. An audience might love you as a person, find you funny and likable — but if you're not genuinely connected to what you're saying, the message won't land. Belief in your own message is the foundation everything else is built on.

Authenticity and Trust

Authenticity is the foundation of trust, and trust is what makes an audience willing to receive your message. When people sense that a speaker is performing rather than being real — that there's a mask on, or a role being played — they disengage. Authenticity and vulnerability, Michelle argues, aren't soft concepts. They're strategic. Without them, you can't build the trust that makes your message stick.

The Case Against Scripting

Michelle is firmly anti-script — not because preparation doesn't matter, but because scripts create rigidity. When you memorize a script, you get stuck chasing the exact word that comes next rather than feeling the room and playing with the message. The moment you forget a word, you spiral. The solution isn't to memorize more carefully; it's to know your content well enough that you don't need to memorize it at all.

That said, she identifies two moments where memorization is genuinely valuable: your opening and your closing. These are the high points of the audience's attention curve, and they deserve to be locked in — no more than two or three sentences each. The only other justification for scripting is when you're working with a quote or statistic you need to get exactly right.

How to Use Notes Effectively

Notes themselves aren't the problem — how speakers use them is. Holding notes in your hands invites fidgeting: crumpling, waving, folding. Michelle's preferred format is a single sheet of paper with an outline structure. Your scripted opening at the top in 14-point font or larger. A three-to-five-word transition phrase leading to each of your three main ideas. Under each idea, just a trigger word or two — a story title, a statistic reminder, a visual cue. Then your scripted closing.

Place the sheet on the lectern or on the floor at the edge of the stage — somewhere you can glance at without hovering over it. The key is always to bring your eyes back up and reconnect with someone in the audience before you continue speaking. And if you occasionally check your notes in full view of the audience, that's fine. It doesn't undermine your authority — it models that even experts stay organized.

Making Your Language More Inclusive

As speakers, we bring our own life experience to the stage — and our language reflects it. Michelle shares that she's been intentional about shifting to more inclusive language: saying "significant other" instead of "husband," "people who do their nails" instead of "women who do their nails." Small word choices, but they signal to a diverse audience that you see them — that you're aware your experience isn't universal.

Using names from different backgrounds, drawing on stories that represent varied life experiences, and choosing language that doesn't assume a default identity — all of these help audience members see themselves in your message. And when people see themselves in your message, they remember it.

Presenting in the Virtual World

Zoom has changed public speaking in mostly positive ways, Michelle argues. The platform has made people more aware of their own nonverbal communication and more self-conscious about the energy they project — or fail to project. Seeing yourself on screen while you speak is a kind of real-time coaching: you can observe when you're inadvertently shutting someone down with a facial expression, or when your energy is flagging.

Her practical advice for presenting virtually: leave a few inches above your head in frame, center yourself on screen, and pull back far enough that your hands are visible from the elbows up. Keep moving. Even small gestures create energy — and energy travels through voice. She demonstrates by putting her hands down mid-sentence: the difference is immediately audible. Movement isn't just visual. It's sonic.

Connecting With Your Audience

Michelle's most powerful tip for connecting with a live audience: arrive early and talk to people before you go on. Then, from the stage, reference specific names and moments from those pre-talk conversations. It's an advanced technique, but when done well, it transforms a room. People feel seen. They feel remembered. That feeling — what Michelle calls mood memory — is what your audience will carry home long after they've forgotten your bullet points.

The goal of every presentation, she says, is to be clear about the emotion you want to create — and to engineer your closing around that emotion. Whether you want people to feel inspired, empowered, reflective, or ready to act, that clarity should shape your final words. You can't have emotion without motion. So know the feeling you're aiming for, then give your audience a reason to move. I'll see you next time.