ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Three times, the event changed underneath me minutes before I spoke. A 15-minute talk became an hour for a completely different audience. A 40-minute keynote shrank to seven. And a text arrived that no speaker wants to read before logging on. Here's what I did each time, plus the storytelling structure I used to tell these stories to a room full of speakers.
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Last week I spoke at a speakers' training. Talking to speakers about speaking is its own kind of pressure (you can feel yourself being analyzed). So I told them three near-miss disasters from my own speaking life:
- the conference where my audience and my time both changed while I had one foot on the stage steps;
- the staff gala where a 40-minute keynote became 20, then 7, and 500 people ended up writing a book together;
- the virtual keynote I delivered minutes after learning someone close to me had died.
In this episode I walk through what actually saved each one: a modular talk built from images, a backup plan that fits in a bag, and a sixty-second state reset.
Then I pull back the curtain on how I told the stories. I used nested loops, a structure from hypnosis and storytelling that holds attention by leaving stories open and closing them in reverse order.
Underneath it all is a single lesson: Even though the lights are on you, the talk belongs to the audience and to the people who brought you there to serve them.
Timestamps (estimated)- 00:00 Speaking to speakers: "a different vibe"
- 01:00 Near-miss #1 begins: the agenda that didn't list me
- 02:30 One foot on the steps: "There's been a change."
- 03:45 Near-miss #2 begins: 40 minutes… then 20… then 7
- 05:00 Near-miss #3 begins: the text before a virtual keynote
- 06:00 Resolving #3: a smirk, Do Not Disturb, fully present
- 07:45 Resolving #2: index cards, Sharpies, and a seven-minute book
- 10:30 Resolving #1: "connect-tile dysfunction" and slides that bend
- 13:00 Why tell speakers these stories: service to the audience and the organizers
- 14:15 The reveal: nested loops (A → B → C → C → B → A)
- 16:00 The pull to finish what's unfinished
- 17:15 Keep the frame on them
- 18:30 Close
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The first change is information. When your time gets cut once, launch the backup plan prep right away, just in case.
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Build talks in sections you can move, skip, or expand. Image-based slides work as cues, so one image can stretch to five minutes or pass in five seconds.
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Carry a backup that needs nothing but paper. Index cards and Sharpies turned seven minutes into a book written by 500 people.
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State management is a skill you prepare in advance. Know your sixty-second reset before the day you need it.
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Organizers are carrying far more than your talk. Absorbing the chaos quietly is part of the service.
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Nested loops (open A, open B, open C, close C, close B, close A) hold attention because people are pulled to finish what's been interrupted. Close every loop you open.
- "It's about your service to the audience and your service to the ones that brought you there to serve the audience."
- "I always bring a backup plan with me."
- "Most of my slides are images anyway… they're more like cues. I can expand on a single image, or I can contract and save time."
- "Keep the frame on them, because that's who it's for."
- "Start story A, don't finish it. Start story B, don't finish it. Start story C, finish story C. Finish story B, finish story A."
- Book Dr. Tori to speak: https://drtori.com/speaker
- Apply for 1:1 influence coaching: https://www.drtori.com/coaching-application-1on1
- 101 Ways to Manage Your State: https://drtori.com/101
- Always Kiss Me Good Night: Instructions on Raising the Perfect Parent by 147 Kids Who Know, compiled by J.S. Salt (Harmony, 1997)
public speaking, keynote speaking, professional speaker, speaker tips, last-minute changes, state management, storytelling, nested loops, open loops, Zeigarnik effect, Ovsiankina effect, event planning, audience engagement, influence, Influence Every Day
