Visibility Lessons from Professional Speaker Cait Donovan

Everybody listen to that one.

Write that one down.

It's hard, because when you are putting your ideas out in the world, you want people to understand...

Or maybe not you.

I'll speak in I sentences.

I want people to understand the depth with which I have studied and explored and researched and questioned these things.

I have come at it most likely from every angle that...

It is unlikely when I come to a conclusion that you are going to share something with me that I haven't come across yet, because I am a connector of ideas and things.

Mm-hmm.

So I've really...

When I really decide something, I've looked, trust me.

My insecurity pops out-And then keeps me holding on to ideas, because I'm afraid that if I put out the idea and give it space to breathe, people are going to interpret it how they interpret it, and they're gonna miss out on all the nuance that I found along the way.

Mm.

But you cannot gift people your nuance.

You, you can offer it, and people can either take it or not, but if there's a big idea in there that needs breathing, that needs room, that needs space, people are gonna do whatever they want with that big idea.

No matter how deeply you protect it, and no matter how strongly you fight for it, and no matter how clearly you describe it, and no matter how deeply you explain that it's not there to harm anything, somebody's gonna have a thought that says something about something that doesn't match up what you even said.

I have had people-

Mm

... after keynotes-

Mm-hmm

... come up to me and say, "Kate, when you said X, it really resonated." And I would look at them and be like, "That's wonderful." And then I'd kind of turn inward and be like, "But I didn't say that.

I never said that.

I've never said that.

I don't even know that sentence structure.

That's not something that would come out of my mouth."

Everybody listen to that one.

Write that one down.

It's hard, because when you are putting your ideas out in the world, you want people to understand...

Or maybe not you.

I'll speak in I sentences.

I want people to understand the depth with which I have studied and explored and researched and questioned these things.

I have come at it most likely from every angle that...

It is unlikely when I come to a conclusion that you are going to share something with me that I haven't come across yet, because I am a connector of ideas and things.

Mm-hmm.

So I've really...

When I really decide something, I've looked, trust me.

My insecurity pops out-And then keeps me holding on to ideas, because I'm afraid that if I put out the idea and give it space to breathe, people are going to interpret it how they interpret it, and they're gonna miss out on all the nuance that I found along the way.

Mm.

But you cannot gift people your nuance.

You, you can offer it, and people can either take it or not, but if there's a big idea in there that needs breathing, that needs room, that needs space, people are gonna do whatever they want with that big idea.

No matter how deeply you protect it, and no matter how strongly you fight for it, and no matter how clearly you describe it, and no matter how deeply you explain that it's not there to harm anything, somebody's gonna have a thought that says something about something that doesn't match up what you even said.

I have had people-

Mm

... after keynotes-

Mm-hmm

... come up to me and say, "Kate, when you said X, it really resonated." And I would look at them and be like, "That's wonderful." And then I'd kind of turn inward and be like, "But I didn't say that.

I never said that.

I've never said that.

I don't even know that sentence structure.

That's not something that would come out of my mouth."