Good morning Reader!

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the pressure to be palatable. Maybe I’m just a tiny bit feral from my weeks of solo travel, but I keep noticing how often people soften themselves to be accepted. I see it in speaking all the time. People back away from the challenging truth or rewrite content to be more digestible.

While we want our audiences to connect with us, we also need to be unapologetically authentic. People can smell insincerity a mile away, and it’s the quickest way to blow your credibility on stage.

So naturally, my brain wandered to the Patron Saint of Unapologetic Brilliance: Deborah Vance from Hacks. If Ted Lasso is a warm hug, Deborah is the martini tossed in your face—and you love it.

In this scene, Ava, a desperate out-of-work LA writer, shows up at Deborah’s house in Vegas for a job interview. She’s broke, flailing, and reluctantly agreeing to meet with a legendary comic who’s looking to revitalize her career. Their first meeting is a masterclass in what happens when two people walk into a room with absolutely zero interest in being liked.

No “pick me” energy. No smoothing. Just two humans being exactly who they are. That’s why Deborah is so compelling (even though she is wholly abusive).

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In under two minutes, we learn:

• she’s brilliant
• she’s observant
• she’s opinionated
• she’s petty
• she’s strategic
• she’s vulnerable under all that armor

But she never tells us any of this. She shows it by letting us see the edges most people hide.

This is the part keynote speakers and writers struggle with the most. So many talks get over-edited into oblivion. Every moment of real personality swapped out to “sound more professional.”

But Deborah reminds us:

Your audience doesn’t connect with your polish. They connect with the parts that make you unmistakably you.

You don’t have to confess your entire life or turn your talk into a therapy session. That’s not it. But you do have to let your humanity shine through. Let the audience glimpse the parts of you that are still a work in progress.

Here’s your question for the week:
​Where are you softening your edges? What’s one edge you could leave a little ragged?

Let yourself be a little less likable, and a lot more real. Your audience can handle it. I promise. And you’ll be all the more memorable for it.

Until next week,