> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://joshua-johnson.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 4 Quick Tips For Speaking With Impact - URL: https://joshua-johnson.ghost.io/4-quick-tips-for-speaking-with-impact/ - Published: 2026-09-23T23:45:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-13T21:50:54.000Z - Description: Excerpts from an international youth mentoring webinar - Author: Joshua Johnson - Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1791927903932, #Import 2026-10-13 16:50 This week I’m sharing something a little different: an unexpected treat that came to me after my [**TED Talk**](https://youtu.be/ElYYD7Wx2WE?si=yKBhg26Z0yfhtxcw&ref=joshua-johnson.ghost.io). Standing on The Red Circle can get you all kinds of attention. In my case, that included from a group of young people in, of all places, Morocco! A young man there DM’d me on Instagram out of the blue. He’d seen my talk and wanted me to speak to his IG youth group, [**@MindSpeak.Debate**](https://www.instagram.com/mindspeak.debate/?ref=joshua-johnson.ghost.io). It was a new effort to help young people like him develop their public speaking skills, perhaps in hopes of one day speaking at a TEDx event. For me, it was an automatic “yes”. I love training young people who are eager to learn. The organizer, Yassir, arranged a Google Meet and posted the event on Instagram. I figured we’d have an hourlong conversation with a simple list of questions. Two and a half hours later, we were finally winding down. Amazing. Today’s world is laying a rocky foundation for our children. No one seems to know what kind of expectations they’ll face or opportunities they’ll seize. Still, many of them refuse to give up. They’re actively looking for support, insights and reassurance… and yes, many are eagerly listening to our counsel. I hope you have a chance to share your knowledge with a young person like the ones I met last week. It’ll do your heart good. Here are a few of the tips I shared with Yassir’s group, MindSpeak: perhaps they’ll be useful to you or a young person in your life. ### Handling Stage Fright (the #1 question I got) **KEY QUOTES:** “What I learned from being a news anchor is that by the time I get to the studio, the show’s done. All the videotape has been cut and arranged. All of the camera shots have been chosen. The people are in place, and the people I’m going to interview are waiting. All I have to do is go out there and say it. There’s really nothing else to do. My stress happens in my office, or in our newsroom, before the show.” “If you walk on stage *hoping* that it goes well, your brain and your body aren’t convinced that you’re safe, or that you’ve achieved it. You have to trick your body into believing you’ve already won, because your nervousness will lock up on you quickly if you’re not careful. Let your body believe that you have already done it. In the five minutes before, it’s finished. Just get ready for your standing ovation, because it’s coming.” ### The Power of Directness **KEY QUOTES:** “James Cagney once gave advice for acting that I think is great for any kind of speaking. He said, ‘Go in there, plant your feet, and tell the truth.’ That’s it. Sometimes just being able to look someone in the eye with no drama, flat out, and just say it is the most meaningful thing you can say. …Sometimes the best way to emphasize what you’re saying is with zero emphasis—to just say it like it’s a mathematical fact.” --- [Subscribe](#/portal/signup) --- ### Hold Them With Your Words, Not Your Volume **KEY QUOTES:** “Imagine that you’re at a house party. It’s a really interesting event with maybe 50 people, grouped in clusters of four, five, or six. In each one of those circles, someone is leading the conversation, and the other four or five people are listening. People will hang out for a while, and then they’ll go do something else. Then more people will wander over: *“Oh, what are they talking about?”* Or they hear a group laughing, and everyone looks up. It moves very organically. How do you keep them interested so they don’t move to other conversations at the party? That’s the job. It’s keeping a small group of people intimately invested in what you have to say, knowing that their minds are inclined to drift.” “If you only train a dog by yelling, it will only respond when you yell. But if you train a dog to respond to your normal speaking voice, then when you yell *“SIT!”* as it runs toward the street, it will stop dead—because it sounds different. If you can make what you have to say feel important without relying on stage drama, you preserve the power of contrast. You keep the option to be dramatic when the moment demands it, and intimate when it doesn’t. The idea itself—and the honest expression of it—is what’s going to hook them.” ### You Can’t Make Them Listen… And That’s Okay **KEY QUOTES:** “We have freedom of speech, not freedom of *reach*. You are not entitled to reach anyone. What you’re entitled to do is share what you have. And if people like it, if they don’t like it, if they make fun of you, if they have issues with you, if they critique you, or if they congratulate you—that’s out of your hands. You can’t control what other people do.” “Some people are going to hear something, they’re not going to like it, and then it’s going to provoke a thought a long time later. It’ll sit in the back of their mind. Something about it will hook for them, and then in a moment where they *do* need that idea, you will pop up—and they will come back to you. It happens all the time where people’s first reaction is not their last reaction. You plant the seed and you let it grow. If it grows, great; if it doesn’t, that’s fine. But the first responsibility is to simply decide: whatever people think, I’m going to put this out there and just see what happens.” ### Live Cohort Registration Limited *If you’d like to build more skills like these, be sure to sign up for my* [*six-part live course*](https://millionmods.com/?ref=joshua-johnson.ghost.io)*. “One Million Moderators” is for anyone who wants to build the practical skills needed to protect their most treasured relationships when divisive conflicts arise. Class begins October 15th — I hope to see you there. Click the image to sign up, or go to* [*MillionMods.com*](https://millionmods.com/?ref=joshua-johnson.ghost.io)*.* [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/7d/107d565c-65a1-4733-bbac-6025a86babed/content/images/2026/10/05afb54c-435c-4960-b7c0-4f04d8aebc95_1144x396.png)](https://millionmods.com/?ref=joshua-johnson.ghost.io)